AJAX (Excerpt)
Even at the hour of lovemaking, at night, in bed, you
suddenly remember the cloths-pegs left in the yard that
will rot in the dampness. Foolish women you send us
away from your bed, the house, the world, away from
your practical, wise mind, used to cook recipes, bake
sweets, mix medical potions, away from life with
the little, holy, daily events, with the certain objects
that relax all the unreachable great.
No one has ever asked me where my eyes are fixated,
where my mind goes, to which horrors, injustices
I’ve seen, which hatred I’ve faced (being fearless)
or whether I have a toothache or headache, as if
I don’t have head nor teeth, but a stone or plain wind
for a head. Why are you looking at me like that? Close
the doors, shut the windows, seal the gate and that black
fly, here it is, it sharpens its nails on the horn of the bull.
https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/q9mkmy https://www.amazon.com/dp/B096TLBNFK
Canadian Prairie
Mustard fields dressed
in yellow garments
fenced by indifference
forsaken by hills
forgotten by war lords
and poppy growers
tractor reminiscing
days of duty when at
daybreak tilling soil
and pulling dust over hung shirts
over flower beds lonely
farmer drinking his hot
chocolate before sending
a young hound to fetch
his dusty sandals
https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/y26q9n https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKHW4B4S
(excerpt)
Words weren’t of much use this morning. All three knew this day was to develop much like all other days, except for Anton and his new job at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. Soon as he finished his breakfast and he said goodbye he jumped in his truck and drove away towards the other side of the river, just five minutes away.
The city was awakened to the prodding of the sun and to the light that needed to be enjoyed and felt on backs of people, on buds almost ready to bloom, on facades of stores and on the walls of houses arrayed along the few streets that make up Kamloops, the center of earth for the travellers, for the logging truck drivers, for the occasional tourists who pass by on their way to the coast, the city that you couldn’t call pretty, what could really be called pretty in Kamloops? Yet this small interior city was a marvellous natural beauty sitting in the middle of cross roads that connected north to south and east to west, a beautiful city with two big supermarkets, two big department stores; what one would never see in Kamloops was people swarming the sidewalks and roads, only, sometimes, one might meet a swarm of customers in one of the two supermarkets especially when they offered certain popular items on a good sale.
https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/m24q778 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763602
Disorientation
In the summer the trees won us Some people went down to the
sea
others climbed up the mountains During the day the thorns
shine golden
amid the marbles The young waiters with blond moustaches
who work for the two seashore restaurants wear red armbands
During the night the ambulance arrives very late
The crowd gathers around it as though to discover someone
they know among the injured The youngest wears
a snow white shirt and a gold buckle on his belt And as soon as
the stretchers by the lampposts disappear music recommences
https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/ke2e82 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763076
Excerpt XXXVII
VII
Big, dead, yellow, green, purple fishes fell on the floor
when we opened the blinds each morning. The casket
maker was down in the street along with the fool,
the limping man, the blind, the tradesman, the cop in civilian
cloths,
the hidden motorcycle, the school bus, the butcher’s daughter,
the baker, the female flower vendor, the lying fish market
vendor with the frozen fishes, the sunshine on one side of
the sidewalk —
they all tried to convince, some themselves,
a few others to convince others, while themselves didn’t
exist.
Why? Stergios asked, why this story and why the general
story?
There was no answer; I won’t stop asking: why?
Through the chimney, on top of the stairs, under it,
in the prison, from opposite the sundown, with the woman’s
panties held tightly under my arm,
with the half burnt wooden dolls laid on the tailor’s bench,
with the stuffed stork in the barbershop mirror,
with pussy hair carefully kept in a beautiful chocolate box.
https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/w454dzp https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CGX139M6
Manolis Aligizakis 