Newspaper
He opened the newspaper
under the light of the kitchen
he seek to brighten the news
of last night’s muggings,
break ins, murders.
After he took a deep breath
knowing he contributed
in beautifying the world
of this ugly modern city
he put the coffee pot on
as if he had to go to war again
and needed his morning fix
Days Of April `43
Trumpets, trams, deep echoes, screeching brakes
chloroform his mind as you count
as you endure and then you vanish
in the numbness and the mercy of a surgeon
He walks carefully in the streets, so that he won’t slip
on melon rinds that the careless Arabs throw
or the refugee-politicos and the gang
laying in watch will he step on it? Will he not?
Like when you pluck a daisy he walks on
swinging a huge bunch of useless keys the dry light-blue remembers
faded advertisements of the Greek Coastal Navigation
windows locked shut over beloved faces
or the little clear water at the roots of a plane tree
He walks going to his work as
a thousand hungry dogs rip his pants
and strip him naked
He walks, staggering, pointed at by fingers
and a dense wind brings around
garbage, dung, stench, and curses
Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards
PUBLIC GARDEN
I insist that pride is always an injustice
to us and perhaps to others. The sour taste
is in the mouth — gums are oily
from cheap lard and burnt up onion,
suppers in dark neighbourhood restaurants, with
a foggy glass opposite you,
a glass eye that reflects and observes, when outside
the spring wind intensifies and you know
that the seeds of grapes and tomatoes are moistened
in the mouth of the woman. And if you try to light
a match her hair shines like a cascading fire that burns
her neck down to her shoulders; green caterpillars
appear in her underarms while the width of her lighted
belly creates a circular shadow on her legs.
Blood
Most people don’t understand
whether the sun rises
from behind the mountain or
is shot out of the pistol’s barrel
it always burns you.
For this so many of our dreams
remained unrealized
inexplicably happiness was laid
in the display window
of the department store and
loneliness was again eulogized
in churches, while as the years went by
him, the one with the severed arm,
kept on other people’s discolored
walls, truth always decorates
the cement, one word written
with fiery red letters:
blood, blood, blood.
Manolis Aligizakis 