White Thoughts
Apollo’s temple at Delphi shivered, fallen
leaves that always reminded me
of the autumnal tree rustle, wishes became
soldiers coming back from the front lines
in coffins laid like spent bullets
gravestones made of marble, abundant
whiteness like my thoughts, palindromic
mind between the sea’s punishment
and death in a chapel where I met
people kneeling for thousands
of years, steel lined against steel
war after another war hunger at noon
and hunger during the night as long as
their coffers were always kept full
there I met their hatred for the first time
the deep savage illusion that incised with
red letters in the wall of revenge
words such as: kill, destroy, decapitate
and I was raised in a Christian home
having the luxury of Christian piety
Rejection
The blind man saw deeper I sat on the chair
They brought me some flowers I pulled off their petals A man
was locked up in the dark blacksmith’s shop
The beating of the sea on the rocks was heard from afar
And the bitch old woman threw our bread to the crows
7th of November/evening
We spent Sunday peacefully. The boys played soccer.
I drew an almond twig on a wooden cigarette case.
Uncle Drosos must like it, I thought.
Perhaps he’d like a bird with an open beak.
I like to think of what Uncle Drosos might like.
I’m joyous and I have a sense of it and
that doesn’t stop me from being joyous.
The good moon lights my space and I can write.
I have made a friend of the telegraph pole.
I hear bells from a flock of sheep
That graze in the field. The sheep are
my younger brothers. I imagine a new fairy tale
with bitter oleanders, sheep, and a wild girl
with her goldilocks moistened by the moon.
Why am I still talking? Am I afraid?
I have to go for the mess. Good night moon.
Good night bells. Panoussis is peaceful.
Excerpt
Ken wanted to know how one could have a political system that worked
when society, even on the smallest scale, was dysfunctional. He pointed
out that even in their own household they had servants, all of them women,
most of them young and illiterate, who were paid a pittance. In most
households the servants were treated like animals. In a country where this
was going on, how could there ever be a fair political system?
“Just between you and I, that is my interest,” Ken Sr. Said. “But, you
can’t go into the street with guns and mobs behind you – it just doesn’t
work. What we need to do is bring the wages of the people up so they will
have something to lose. People who have nothing to lose are the most
dangerous people on earth.”
He explained that it was because of this reasoning that he paid his staff
double the normal salary. “That,” he said, “Is actually a very political act
because the handful of families who wield power want to keep the populace
down so they can control them. Doing what I am doing is an overt
political act. “
His father said that he was walking a thin line but if he could get away
with what he was doing, he would win. Others would have to follow his
lead – they would have to match the salaries he was paying or all the best
brains in the country would go to work for him. Once he had the best
brains, he would be in a position to start other companies and continue
to expand his business interests to the detriment of others. But as his
companies grew and he employed more and more people fairly, his ideas
would also spread.
“But that’s a very slow way of doing things,” Ken said. “I want to change
things quickly.”
“There are no quick fixes,” his father said. “Anybody who tells you there
are is just selling you snake oil.”
Ken had complained to his father several times about the servants. He
explained that he couldn’t bear being served – that he felt uncomfortable
with it. “Why can’t we get up and serve ourselves?” he asked. “What’s
wrong with us making our own beds? What’s wrong with us cleaning the
house?”
“That’s the culture we’re in,” his father said. “We’re not in charge here.
This is not our country. We’re here as guests and there’s a limit to how
much we can disrupt this society.”
“It sounds a bit like an excuse.”
“Partially, it is. But anyone who wants to move things along too quickly
is going to destroy the very thing they’re trying to do.”
He added that he paid their servants the same way he paid his office
and factory workers – twice what anyone else paid. He admonished his
son once again to be careful with his conversation in earshot of the servants.
The Kirkbys were a prominent, well-known and powerful family,
Vision II
the dusk rolls up
projected on the wall
with phosphor sizzling phantoms
the night envelops
our heads a quiver in their eyes
the minute hands
the midnight shows
on the opal sky the moon
towards the hills it runs
where with black chess pieces
in their mouths rats climb
in a long succession
Photographs
Three men and two women, taking pictures
down at the quay with the sea as background
and the clouds, and a faraway, triangular island.
The sailboats pulled out onto the land, looking discoloured
from the winds and the rain. Behind the glass
of the summer restaurant, the motionless owner
wears a black unironed suit. Was he taking
pictures of them too, or x-rays?
Manolis Aligizakis 