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Savages and Beasts

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excerpt

on to Father Jerome and having a smirk on her face she left.
Mary, who couldn’t stay longer either since her working hours
had started, gave Anton another deep kiss and left; but just before
she walked out of his door she turned and whispered to him, I
love you which made Anton’s day.
During the breakfast the children ate without any incident
and soon after Anton having shared his coffee with Mary,
left to go and check on Dylan. Anton by nature and internally
always recognized and related to the misery of the world in such
a strange way that he believed it was inescapable, therefore something
one has to survive by standing up to it and fighting and that
way he felt he could discover where his sense of justice was laid.
This was his feeling this morning driving to the hospital and a
stressful sensation overconsumed his mind. Truly, this was his
feeling when he arrived at the hospital and went to Dylan’s room,
though he didn’t find him there. The nurse supervising that section
informed him that most unfortunately Mr. Kelly had passed.
“When? What happened?” Anton questioned.
“The doctor will see you soon,” the nurse replied.
Soon, the doctor who was looking after Dylan appeared
and took Anton on the side. An aneurism, he said, an aortic aneurism,
something building inside Mr. Kelly for some time caused
a sudden rupture of his aorta. Cigarettes contributed to it, so did
unhealthy food habits and unhealthy lifestyle, the doctor opined.
They did all they could. He bled profusely, nothing could be
done; he bled to death in just five minutes.
Anton was stunned. He couldn’t utter a word. Didn’t know
what he could say. What one says in such situations? He left the
hospital. He drove to the Residential School not even paying attention
to anything as if dazed, absorbed in his thoughts. He walked
to Dylan’s room, his room now, and sat behind the small desk.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763602

Jazz with Ella

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Elizabeth and the other a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep. The two laughing women that accompanied Slava looked on with interest.
“Let me give you something in return.” A dignified Slava reciprocated with two artistically decorated stamps from his album, which he had brought along for this purpose. Lona, who was seated at the next table, apparently took her cue from Jennifer because she also rummaged in her purse for a gift, pulled out an American nickel, and began explaining the significance of the buffalo to a group of enraptured young men.
By the time the party broke up, some two hours later, the students and visitors had warmed to each other. Jennifer had learned something about their lives: their brothers and sisters, their schools, their music and their anxiety that they would somehow discredit themselves in front of their superiors on the day’s visit—this last concern added in a whisper. She glanced around. But their commissar was still engrossed in conversation with Chopyk and both Ivan Nikolaevich and Natasha had disappeared—presumably leaving the group in good hands. What a relief, Jennifer thought. Finally, Nadezdha brayed her goodbyes to Chopyk, while Lona exchanged addresses with at least four of the panting youths.
Just before he left the dining room, Slava turned to Jennifer. “Stay with us, Zhennifer, please. You can have a good life here. Stay with us.” She was stunned by the request and could only smile and shake her head. Good god, were any of the others asked to stay?
As she walked the trio down to the wharf and waved them goodbye, she did not notice that Paul had also walked his new friend, Vera, to the bus and was now standing behind a copse of rowan trees on the footpath. And if she had not been so wrapped up in her own thoughts, she would have overheard Vera explain to Nadezhda that she would not take the bus back with the others, but instead walk to her father’s farm, only one kilometre down the road.
“On your way, then, Vera Fyodorovna,” the political commissar called out to her. “Get there before dark.”
“See you later, Nadezhda Ivanova,” she called out happily as she ran toward the rowan trees.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

Impulses

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Ignorance
If you regard your shadow
and forget all things separate
what are you without your twin
but fading negative that
gropes for its essence
for meaning
what if you faced your glassy idol
that does not exist alone
leaving zeal to the passionate
image hunting itself
dejected when you go
wanting your regard
bow to your phantom
his vital shape
knowing how crucial
his lucidity

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073565

George Seferis – Collected Poems

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Gymnopaidia
Geologically Santorini is composed of pumice stone and china clay and in her bay…islands appeared and vanished. Santorini became the center of a very ancient religion where the lyrical dances were performed with a strict and heavy rhythm and called: Gymnopaidia
•
TOURIST GUIDE
I
Santorini
Bend if you can to the dark sea forgetting
the flute’s sound on naked feet
that stepped on your sleep in the other, the sunken life.
Write if you can on your last ostracon
the day the name the place
and throw it in the sea so that is sinks.
We were naked on the pumice stone
watching the rising islands
watching the red islands sink
into their sleep into our sleep.
Here we were naked holding
the scale that tilted to the side
of injustice.
Heel of strength, shadow-less will, calculated love
plans ripening in the mid-day sun
path of fate with the new hand
patting on the shoulder
in the place that was scattered that can’t bear any longer
in the place that was once ours
the islands, the ash and the rust sink.
Altars destroyed
and friends forgotten
palm tree leaves in the mud.
Let your hands travel, if you can
here on this corner of time with the ship
that touched the horizon.
When the dice struck the flagstone
when the spear struck the armour
when the eye recognized the foreigner
and love dried up
in hollowed souls
when you look around you discern
harvested feet all over
dead arms everywhere
eyes darkened everywhere
when you can not choose any longer
even your own death that you wanted
hearing a cry
even the cry of a wolf
you’re right:
let your hands travel, if you can
let yourself free from the unfaithful time
and sink
whoever carries the heavy rocks sinks.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B096TTS37J

Antony Fostieris-Selected Poems

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The Horse
This horse grazes at the faraway plain
raises its neck and sometimes eats my hay.
I have never seen it, nor have I met it
it’s plain
I imagine it’s I
and my happiness,
its trot echoing aimlessly
in my rich loneliness.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763653

Orange

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Coffin
The coffin was lowered into
the dark abyss
sun regretted the arrival of dawn
the place should have stayed dark
especially today when the wind
stopped blowing, then it restarted,
alas, things needed
to carry on with life and
the boy caressed
the horse’s neck that
confirmed a future day
basking in sunshine
as though calling the future
before the future
casket lowered into the abyss
man inside it, rested and
the horse smiled

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763750

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume IV

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Apollo on Antigonu’s Medal
Of all his statues, indeed great works of art, the small
medal of Antigonus touched us the most — on it,
Apollo, sitting inside a trireme, seems to be concentrated,
at the same time absentminded and not as complacent —
perhaps because the tight space reveals his secret beauty
better and perhaps for this reason, naked, without his lyre,
in a familiar pose, it allows certain deeper encounter, even
certain flattery, perhaps, we too, naked like him, hide in
the foggy, confined circle of the medal — the beautiful
and distancing trireme helped to this a lot.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9X3VPN4

Chthonian Bodies

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Monology
Of sacred things and tidings
coming from spirits divine
I shall speak of festivities
Sun dance to beg for
our salvation from
the clutches of the white man
who came uninvited
to civilize us, oh, brothers
of the coyote and kin of the raven
their sacrilege such
substitute for our peace
fake brotherly love aiming
through their musket’s barrel
yes, children of the Mochicans
arise to the height of your souls
bury the white civilizers
in the graves they’ve dug for us

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763424

Water in the Wilderness

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excerpt

opened the door to the boys’ bedroom and crept across the floor to Bobby’s bed. Laying a hand on his shoulder, she whispered, “Bobby, get up.”
The boy came to, not with a start as she had feared, but slowly and calmly. Rachael couldn’t see his face well, but she could sense his smile as he yawned and stretched like a kitten.
“Bobby,” she said more urgently, “you have to get up. Hurry now.”
He stopped stretching, and peered at her in the dim light. “Why? I don’t want to get up.”
“Shh, be quiet. You have to get up ’cause we’re leaving.”
She sensed his bewilderment, and noted the beginning of a whine in his voice. “But it’s still night time; it’s still dark. Where we goin’, Rachael?”
She bent close to his ear, and whispered, “We’re going home – to find Daddy.”
Bobby needed no more coaxing. He reached out for his truck where it had been pushed aside during the night, then got out of bed and stood on wobbly legs.
Rachael groped in the darkness for his clothes, then gently but forcibly pushed him out the door into the hallway. In the kitchen she helped him dress, grabbed her doll and the bag of food, and ushered Bobby into the small utility room where she rummaged around until she found both of his high boots from amongst the pile on the floor. Finding her own boots, she pulled them on, then helped Bobby into his coat and shoved a woolen cap on his head. Next, she shrugged into her coat, stuffed the oranges into the pockets, and pulled a toque over her tousled hair.
She glanced around quickly. They were ready to go. Wait, they needed mittens. A few precious moments were spent sorting out two pairs from the mitten pile. Then she opened the door and pushed Bobby out ahead of her. The stinging cold hit Rachael in the face and she saw Bobby cringe and hunch his shoulders. She really should button his jacket up higher but she couldn’t take a chance on him making a sound until they had made it around the house and away from the bedroom windows. Lifting a finger to her lips when he looked up at …

https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676319X

The Unquiet Land

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excerpt

“And what would you have done,” she asked, “if you had gone to my room and found an empty bed?”
Michael paused. He smiled to himself and said, “No matter. I’d have slept in it anyway.”
“Even if I wasn’t there?”
“Why not?”
“You’re teasing, Michael Carrick. Wouldn’t you come to find me?”
“How would I know where to look? I would never have guessed you were up here all alone on this dark hillside.”
“I told Mother Ross. She was listening for you. She knows your tread on the stairs.”
“Weren’t you afraid?”
“Oh no. Mother Ross knows all about us now.”
“No; I mean, weren’t you afraid coming up here alone?”
“What is there to be afraid of, Michael? I was born on this farm. I grew up in these hills. I know them as I know my own body. I know every stone, every boulder, every thorn bush and clump of whin.”
Caitlin’s arm came out from under the rug, and she raked the ashes with the blackened stick. “The whin bushes are getting more flowers,” she said. “In a couple of months the whole hillside will be blazing with them. Did you smell them in the air when you came up the loaney?”
“No. There aren’t enough yet to give out a smell.”
Caitlin tapped the glowing end of the stick on the hearth-stone and watched the fluster of sparks disappear. “They don’t smell like flowers even when there’s a lot of them,” she said. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever noticed that.”
Michael sat with his chin on her shoulder, his cheek pressed against hers. “What do they smell like?”
“They smell like bodies,” Caitlin replied. “They smell like love-making.”
Michael let his hands run down along the line of Caitlin’s arms and then held her round the waist. The rug rumpled up, baring her feet and her knees. He kissed her neck and her ear.
She twisted her body below the rug and kissed him on the lips.
“What were the things you had on your mind tonight?” Michael asked nervously as Caitlin turned her face back to the fire.
Her eyes stared at the yellow flames. “Padraig. You. My father. The future.”
“And the past?”
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763203