POEM FOR THE STELE OF OLYMPIA DESTROYED BY A TEMPEST excerpt In the depths of the sky the gleaming stars dimmed, the unshakable mountain stirred before me and vanished into the hungry mouth of the sea. I had believed the power of all fortune never could be strong enough to topple you, my beloved relic of a forgotten race. Deathless Leviathan, accept my lament. When I gaze on you I cry, and though you’ve long been our primeval cornerstone time has now unlocked you, and your vertebrae lie scattered on the soil, stepped on by dogs. Oh, the unimaginable rage and curse of god, the pitiless thunder that always comes down on you, the earthquakes and tempests that set themselves against our best achievements and with sudden power smash down the greatest of them, one upon the other.
Hero The last hero confesses pain and next door the general is metal dressed by agile hands his dazzling accomplishment lies flat on the church floor a band of light strapped to virtue knowledge led by protocol claims the right of silence of the tumbled brick or fascia of the cenotaph to the fallen tile claims anathema by brotherhood of generals and you hold onto your paper flag not sure if to wave or cry
“What’s wrong down there, Tom?” “Ach it’s yourself, Caitlin.” Tom turned to look at her and Nora with eyes scrunched up against the sun. “Oh they just fished a body out of the harbour.” Michael, Caitlin thought immediately, and her face paled with fright. “Who… who was it?” she asked in a faltering voice. “It was your Michael that pulled him out,” Tom declared, as if anxious to be the first to tell her. “Pulled who out?” Caitlin asked. “Carney’s youngest boy. Joe-Joe.” “Is he dead?” Nora asked fearfully. “I don’t know.” Tom spat tobacco on to the wharf. “Dr Starkey’s down there now.” “What happened?” Caitlin and Nora, looking down on the boat, could see Michael now. He was bent over in the middle of the group with his hands on his knees. “Well, I didn’t see it myself,” said Tom. “Seamus Slattery just a while ago came up from the boat saying there was nothing he could do, so he was going to the bar for a drink. As far as he could tell, it seems that young Joe-Joe was fishing over the side of Carney’s boat—your father’s boat—when he fell overboard into the water. Carney was in the galley doing woodwork and he didn’t hear the little fellow calling for help. It was God’s doing that sent Michael Carrick to the boat to ask Carney to do something for your father. He fished Joe-Joe out. I think he jumped in and lifted the boy into one of the rowing boats and then called Carney to bring a rope.” “Joe-Joe can’t swim then?” “Oh I dare say he can splash about a bit. But he’s only what? Four? Five? Six? Damned if I can keep track of the youngsters anymore.” Tom spat again. He pushed a gnarled, arthritic hand under his cap and scratched his white head. “I dare say he panicked.” On the boat Michael straightened up. He saw Caitlin and Nora and waved but he did not smile. One by one the other men unfolded like ferns and almost hid the slight figure of Dr Starkey. Caitlin saw only the round, bald patch on the back of the doctor’s head. Then someone lifted a bundle wrapped in blankets and carried it over his shoulder from the outer boat across the middle one to the inner boat by the wharf-side. Others reached out hands to help steady the man—Joe Carney himself—as he clambered over the sides of the boats…
I possessed neither the strength to stop the torment nor the courage to try. – I’m going for more wood. When I return Larry is flicking lighted matches at Lenore. Her cheeks are stained with tears. – Burn, witch! Larry exits for a pee. Lenore and I face each other across the campfire. I wonder what it would take to make the poor girl smile, so I use my roasting stick to scratch a happy face in the dirt. Lenore uses hers to erase the upturned mouth and replace it with a frown. – Fee-fi-fo-fum, we hear Larry carolling. Wisely, Lenore retires. Larry and I decide to sleep outside. We arrange our sleeping bags around the fire. – I’m going to move to the States one day, Larry says. – That would be neat. – I’m going to join the Marines. Special Forces, probably. – Wow! A log tumbles into the flames; a glowing ash disappears into the star-spangled Washington night. People disappear from our lives all the time. They move away, promise to write, don’t. They go wacko, drop dead, find God. You say something stupid and you’re ostracized for life. It doesn’t take much for us to abandon each other. When we were young my mother enrolled Burt and me in free swim lessons in Stanley Park. The bus ride took an hour each way; the lessons lasted 20 minutes. Hundreds of kids from East Van sat shivering on the seawall at Lumberman’s Arch waiting their turn to blow bubbles in the frigid surf. My brother always pissed in the water. Later Mom would buy us fish and chips. – I dreamed about Marilyn Monroe last night, Larry says. His hands are folded behind his head. – She’s something, that’s for sure. – She was bare naked, he said. Just standing there with a tube of coconut butter, begging, Do my thighs, Larry. The next day we saw Cindy and Corrine riding in a convertible with some older guys. They were racing along one of the back roads. Cindy was standing up in the front seat, arms outstretched,
For the first time since he’d been a kid, Ken had no deadlines or other people’s needs to accommodate. He could sit, smoke and enjoy the flavours of the sea air, the sound of the gulls, the calm mornings filled with a distant hum of passing cars filtering down from the Old Island Highway. The constant rhythm of waves on the pebble beach soothed him as he read late into the night. The mental kinks slowly started to release. The luxury of pursuing my thoughts in an academic fashion, waking when I chose and stopping when I liked was heaven. Initially I was spinning from Karen’s rejection and had to regiment my mind or the pain would have driven me crazy. The pain was still there, but now I was no longer hiding from my thoughts and I took pleasure in the way one thought could morph into something else incredibly interesting, but totally unrelated. We humans fancy that we have evolved this elevated thing called ‘reason’ when compared to ‘sense’—that is, coming from the senses, which has been developing over millions of years—reasoning is in the kindergarten stages. When we talk of premonitions, or gut feel, that also relates to our senses. We have survived from the beginning as single cell organisms to this time and place, no thanks to reason, but through our senses. When Ken Kirkby moved to Bowser at the end of 2001, he was seeking complete anonymity. His landlords, Ken and Jeanine Harris, were pleasant and helpful but respectful of his desire for privacy. If Kirkby appeared in the yard, they were quick to open a conversation, but other than that, they didn’t intrude. Over the months, the three became friends as well as neighbours and the Harris’s encouraged him as he established his programme to gain back his health. Ken Harris had retired from a high-pressure career in Vancouver. He was a physically active person, who kept an eye on the community and occupied his enquiring mind through study. He enjoyed engaging Kirkby in conversations, which bordered on debates, and ranged far and wide. As spring approached and the weather warmed, the two Kens would sit together in the morning sipping their coffee, and sharing Kirkby’s cigarettes (Harris claimed he had given up smoking) while discussing whatever surfaced …
Words Words said on moonlit nights just before we separated just words forgotten amid the flowers of ancient gardens words that appear in distracted hours on the crystal surface of memory as if they were said moments ago verbiage and the nails on the wall change color each time you repaint over them but should you grind them back to steel shade of blue-like pain when you drive them through the palms of the martyr red fleshy when you quench your thirst in blood?
… than it had been outside with the frigid wind whipping stinging snow into their faces. Her feet still felt wooden, though, and her fingers were stiff and beginning to hurt. She removed her mittens, then reached for Bobby’s hands and pulled his mittens off. If her fingers were freezing, what must his be like? He whimpered a little as she awkwardly tried to rub his icy fingers. As she pulled his mittens back on his hands, he slumped over at her feet. “Wanna sleep, Rachael, wanna sleep.” Ronnie stepped out of the darkness and picked the child up. “No, Bobby, you can’t sleep yet. You’ve gotta keep moving around. I know … let’s all play a game.” “What game?” Rachael said. “W … we can’t even see. How c …can we play a game?” Ronnie hesitated, murmuring to himself as if thinking hard. “I know, we can play pattycake. It’ll keep us close together, and keep our hands warm.” Rachael laughed. “Pattycake? That’s a baby’s game.” “Okay, Miss Smartypants, what do you suggest?” “Oh, all right. Let’s do it. Here Bobby, pattycake, pattycake, baker’s man ….” They pattycaked around the small circle until Bobby suddenly sat down on the board floor. Ronnie reached down for him, but Rachael said sharply, “No, let him be. I’m gonna sit down, too. I don’t wanna play anymore.” She flopped down beside her brother, and put her arms around him. “I just wanna to go to sleep, Ronnie. Please let us go to sleep.” For several seconds he remained quiet, then he said casually, “Okay, you can sleep – if you don’t mind bein’ woke up by that rat when it runs over your face.” Rachael screamed and bolted upright. “Where? W … where is it?” She peered around, her eyes trying desperately to penetrate the darkness. “See, over there,” Ronnie said, “can’t you see its eyes?” Rachael jumped to her feet, pulling a protesting Bobby with her. “No, no, where?”
Bodies extremely tired bent, cut in half souls deserted them, walk alone on the grass slowly, open books laid the bodies lied down, crunched distorted and they appear at the far end holding roses and with the dream and passion they go dust to dust the bodies become yet far in the horizon, like suns the souls go down dressed in sky or like simple smiles on lips
“High school days, right? Bunch of guys all pull up at the stop light, jump out of the car, run around, jump back in again in different seats.” Jennifer continued to shake her head. She felt as if it was frozen in the position. Lona stared as if she were seeing Hank for the first time. “We do the same…” finished Hank, as if the point was obvious. “The same what…?” Maria and Jennifer asked simultaneously. “Get off the boat, mill around, come back in again, confusing the count. Chinese fire drill. Make crowds of people milling around, so that no one can take roll call.” The ensuing silence was probably one of Jennifer’s lowest moments. So this was the adolescent prank on which two lives depended. Not only would it have to do the job, but she realized that she was grateful for any plan at all. MORNING JULY 20, 1974 Sergey Ivanovich, the machinist from Novizavod, had sat in the Kazan airport all morning. You never knew how long you might wait for a flight, or even if there was any point in waiting, he thought. And even after you were allowed on the plane, they might bump you so that your seat could go to some senior bureaucrat who had only just wheeled up in a sleek black car. He badly wanted to visit his sister in Moscow. That’s all. But they didn’t give much respect to people like him with their simple needs. In fact, he had already been told that the flight was fully booked, but he had not given up because, long ago, he had acquired those most valuable aids to survival in the modern Soviet Union: friends who did favours. This particular friend was part of the airport administration. That the friend had first listened to Sergey’s tale and then had produced an extensive shopping list for the Moscow stores was not unusual. Sergey had simply tucked the list away, along with the five other shopping lists from neighbours and family, and had promised to do his best. The friend had also slipped him some crumpled bills in a foreign currency, acquired from international visitors at Kazan Airport. This was fine, too. Sergey was not even sure what type of currency it was, but he had tucked it away in an inside pocket. If he could locate a buyer—a friendly tourist—to go to the deluxe Beriyozhka, the foreign currency store in Moscow, and purchase some of the rarer commodities, he would be a winner.
Manolis Aligizakis 