Category: Uncategorized

Blood, Feathers and Holy Men

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excerpt

The captain merely laughed. Finten continued, “I should have known your words
were false. I will not submit to be collared like a dog. I am a priest of God.”
“Yes, you sound like one.” The Norse leader stepped into the pen and came face
to face with the fiery Finten. “I am Hjálmar, Captain Hjálmar.” Taller by far and
stripped to the waist, he lunged at Father Finten, pinning the scruffy priest to the
deck. The captain grinned at his victim and spoke almost in a whisper. “You are
about to have your first bath and trim, my hairy friend, and I am delighted to be your
bather. Washing priests is my specialty.”
The Norse crew gathered to watch the sport. They shouted encouragement to
their captain like rowdy boys at a schoolyard fight. Finten struggled, kicked and
punched. Momentarily, he gained his freedom, but was tackled and held down by
the Norse captain once more.
“Never will you force such an unholy and unchristian rite on me. Bathing is immoral
and evil and unnatural,” Finten howled. He thrashed at his opponent, but was
no match for the powerful wrestler.
Captain Hjálmar stripped him of his cassock and sat sideways on his heaving
chest. He was forceful but almost gentle at the same time, addressing his remarks to
Finten in a calm, steady voice. “No different than any other man I have known. You
do have all your parts I see. I had been told that priests of Rome were snipped of
their manly marvels to keep them from a woman’s bed.”
“I’ll snip you of your manly marvels, you boastful pagan beast,” Finten yelled.
He struggled to cover his privates but two Norse crewmen held his arms to the deck
while another two grabbed his feet. Finten squirmed wildly from side to side while
Hjálmar snapped the cord of twine that held a copper Celtic cross around the priest’s
neck. The captain flung the metal object in an arc to the white-capped waves. “By
Aegir, ruler of the seas, no thrall of mine will spread his fleas and stench of sweat and
piss and shit upon my ship.” Then, he tossed the priest’s garment to his lieutenant,
“Here, Bjorn, boil this nest of fleas for rags while I rid this Roman monk of sanctimonious
stink. Phew.” Dipping into the sudsy bucket of salt water, Hjálmar lathered
a sheepskin cloth with a block of bright yellow soap and proceeded to scrub Finten’s
heaving torso, still talking to him in the same steady tone.
“Ah, you should be bathed by a woman. Then you would no longer wish to be
so full of vermin. We men of the Danelaw, bathe, comb our hair, and change our
woollen garments on every Laugerdag, which you call Saturday. We scrub no matter
the season, even when we are absent months on end from wives and sweethearts.”
The Norseman looked around to his crew who were enjoying such sport on a chilly
morning at sea. “Ah, yes. Our wives and sweethearts – may they never meet.”
“I will not submit to pagan practices,” the struggling monk bellowed.
“You, my friend, were created by the god Ríg to be a servant to all. And so you will
be, and work among my other thralls. Only those in mourning need not wash. It is
said that Odinn, king of the gods, left his hair unwashed as a sign of mourning for
the death of his son, Baldr. You are neither a god nor in mourning.”
“Of course I’m in mourning. I’m in mourning for dead friends and lost liberty.”
Father Finten’s quick reply did nothing to change his situation. Alternating between
the sheepskin cloth and a brush of pig bristles, Hjálmar scrubbed the struggling
monk from head to toe.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763106

Impulses

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Timer
Lamp on the side table
timer switches at the perfect
hour every dusk
the room shadows
each night the lamp glows
you bask in
the grand house all its sturdy
windows and when you think
escape automation clicks
like clock works
the sting of your guilt
déjà vu and you prod
eternity or
where your grace leads you

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

Twelve Narratives of the Gypsy

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And gypsies came who built
their lives like their houses
86
founded on horse carriages
rolling along and pulled by cows that
have something of the elephants
and of the travelling ships and
as they groan and echo passing
over rough paths and streets
when suddenly houses stop
with the panting gypsies close
behind they resemble as
something holy and great
like Epitaphios or the Holy Arc.
Here are the Turkish gypsies
who sleep in tents, the pure
race. They always travel in
plains and in deserts the ones
with their invincible souls
their straight and erect bodies
and the wildness of their souls
shines in their lighted eyes
the soft and the powerful as
if made of steel and sting;
they’re joyous in the snow
and in the rain, in the sunshine
they celebrate the best festival
on bare earth as Hades finds
the man naked and chokes him
to death in the ripped tent whipped
by the wind that charges and
wilts men as if they’re flowers.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3LP7NW6

Tasos Livaditis – Poems, Volume II

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Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards

https://griffinpoetryprize.com/press/2023-longlist-announcement/

An old woman crosses herself: Lord of all Powers;
of the Western Powers of course
A street sweeper shivers in the cold
his teeth rattle
playing a subterranean angry song
hey, bosses
who yelled?
No one
it blows
Workers in the produce market, laborers using
chainsaws, workers unloading fertilizers,
longshoremen, laundress, quarry workers
the crowd of workers carrying the flour sacks,
eighty kilos each,
old women cleaning the public washrooms
with their eyes swollen and red from the ammonia
the wind howls in side streets, squares
train stations, electric wires, bells,
the upcoming years howl
Two workers talk in a low tone voice
you can’t hear what they say
you only see their lips moving like hands
ready to strike
A shining car stops
two bald-headed men and a woman with a big ass
disembark
the nation demands sacrifices
the banks spread over the wide sidewalks
like prehistoric beasts that digest their prey

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763564

Orange

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Neutral
Neutral colour of the page
before the words
inviolable void
uncommitted absence
plan for a dream
unrealized
before your hand
takes the pencil and
draws emptiness
on the whitewash page
like the immaculate skin
of a conflagrated woman
you touch
painting of a mountain peak
adorned by snow
and you say,
before I write a single word
the poem sings eloquently

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

The Unquiet Land

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excerpt

“But aren’t you trying to change souls with your sermons? Aren’t you trying to make them more acceptable to your God?” Finn leaned forward on the table, his massive hands cupped around his glass of wine. “The soul cannot be so untouchable.”
“With the word of God one can indeed reach into the soul,” Padraig consented. “But no instrument devised by man has the same power.”
“Ah, we have a conflict here,” said Finn. “Sweeney, fill up my glass and top up your own. Any of you others care to join us, help yourselves to whatever you want. That stage is getting set again. See why I prefer to act than to watch?”
“You don’t act, Finn,” Sweeney observed; “you direct.”
He poured the wine for Finn. The last drops from the decanter he shook into his own glass. His sunset face was blazing crimson, with purple only in the shadows. He replaced the empty decanter in the centre of the table and turned up the wick of the low-burning lamp. Shadows flickered on the walls, on the dark sideboard and the cabinets, on the tall clock and the pale porcelain of the Victory.
“So, Padraig,” Finn went on, “you think the word is mightier than the surgeon’s knife.”
“The Word that was in the beginning, yes; the Word of God that was made flesh as Jesus Christ.”
“What do you say to that, young Clifford?” Finn asked. “Does the Word of God tell us more of man and nature, life and death, than your brain and blade will ever reveal?”
“You’re confusing two separate realms, Finn,” Clifford argued in a precise, dry voice. “The brain is a material thing. We probe into it, repair it, understand it, with the aid of material instruments. The soul is immaterial. We change it, if we change it at all, with immaterial instruments: with words, thoughts, ideas, emotions, that reach it through the mind.”
“Body and mind; matter and spirit; material, immaterial.” Finn repeated the words reflectively. “That sounds reasonable enough. Conflict resolved.” He sipped some wine, then looked at Clifford. “You say that the soul is reached through the mind. So you separate mind and soul?”
Clifford looked around the table self-consciously. Michael was asleep with his head fallen forward on his chest. Seamus and Sweeney stared at their wine and looked as though they wished they too were asleep. Only Padraig, facing Finn across the length of the dish-and-bottle-laden table, stayed alert, leaning back in his chair with his left hand dangling and his right hand holding a half-emptied glass of wine.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763203

The Circle

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excerpt

“Yes, indeed. It’s terrible, Bevan, yet what do you think could be the cause of
all this?”
The Admiral doesn’t get the chance to answer right away, because the server
brings their plates. When she walks away, Bevan tells Ibrahim that maybe
Matthew’s death had a lot to do with his work. So much time away from home,
away from his wife, from his daughter. “Who knows, perhaps our line of work is
not meant for family people? Most don’t have the ability to cope with the
pressure. They begin to show signs of stress and despair even from their early
days on the job.”
“Yes, perhaps some people don’t have the ability to cope with the pressure,
deadlines, and demands of the system. Then maybe the problem is not the
people. Have you ever thought of that?”
“Yes, my old friend, I have thought of that many times.”
They remain quiet for a while. Ibrahim raises his wine glass and toasts the
Admiral.
“This is to your good health, my old friend.”
“And to yours, Ibrahim. May Allah bless you with many pleasant and healthy
days…Have a good trip back home. Don’t forget I’m here and you may call me
anytime.”
Ibrahim has tears in his eyes, and looking deep into his friend’s eyes, says the
only thing he cares for is his beloved son who lives here. He asks the Admiral to
make sure nobody harms him or puts any impediment in his path.
“As long as I am alive, you can count on that, my dear friend.”
Then Ibrahim leads their conversation back to Matthew’s suicide. In his
view, the problem hasn’t been the pressure; perhaps it isn’t even the people. It’s
the agency and what the operatives are called on to do for the agency. It’s also
what the other side does with the intelligence turned over to them.
“You mean ‘The Circle’?” the Admiral asks.
“Of course it is, my dear friend. Look inside yourself there where the answer
lies. See how you feel about the results of your work. The other guys you work with
are humans, too. The time comes when they crack, because of the guilt, because of
all the anxiety, because of all the killings and destruction they help create. They see
it in the daily news, they hear about it everywhere they go, they know what goes on
when they see the dead or the maimed soldiers coming back home. Don’t think
you are the only one who feels the misery of what you help create all over the
world, my good friend. Perhaps this man collapsed under the same pressure of
guilt and disappointment for all the years of killings and murders.”
“Yes, perhaps that’s where the root of the problem is. That means we need to
do something about it and bring about change.”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186524

Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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excerpt

trying to meet you for years,” he said. Gruber carved decoys, many of
which had made their way into Ken’s extensive collection. “Our paths
have crossed many times,” he said. “But somehow we’ve never met. Now,
unfortunately, we have to meet under circumstances that aren’t the best. I
work for a credit company, and I have to cancel and pick up your gas card.
I’m awfully sorry to do this.”
“That’s fine,” Ken said. “You’re just doing your job. Come over now.”
They talked, while consuming an entire bottle of Scotch, and became
friends for life. Ron and his wife lived in a big house near Jericho Beach,
that had separate living quarters on the ground floor. When Ken told him
he had just lost his house, Ron suggested he move into their ground floor
suite, and a few days later, Ken loaded his possessions into his truck and
drove to Jericho Beach.
Revenue Canada sent a letter demanding a large sum of money in back
taxes on his real estate investments. Because he had never taken the money,
but only reinvested it, it had never been taxed. Ken put the letter on his
bureau. Another letter arrived and then another, until he had accumulated
seventeen progressively threatening tax notices. The final one informed
him he was being sued. Ken took the notices to his accountant who was as
puzzled as Ken. Each one demanded a different sum of money.
When they went to court, the lawyer for Revenue Canada made his
statement. The judge turned to Ken. “Guilty or not guilty?”
“Not guilty,” Ken said. “Impossibly and completely not guilty.”
“How so?”
“Your honour, if I may be allowed to approach the bench and present
you with the situation in writing. But, before I do that, may I ask you a
question in order to help clarify the situation?”
“What if one were walking down the street,” he asked, “and came across
a car lot, and spotted a car he fancied, and wanted to buy it, and the salesman
didn’t know how much it cost? And what if he went to his sales manager
and the manager, also, didn’t know how much it cost? And what if
he went to the owner of the car lot and the owner didn’t know how much
the car cost – would one be able to conclude a satisfactory transaction?”
“Clearly not,” the judge said.
“This would appear to be the same situation,” Ken said, handing the
demand letters to the judge. “There are seventeen different notices here,
which are completely confusing. There is no way, even according to the
accountants I am acquainted with, to make head or tail of it. Every single
one has a different figure on it: that makes no sense at all.”
The judge studied the demands, his frown deepening.
“As far as I’m concerned, I don’t owe the money,” Ken said.
“I think you’re absolutely correct,” the judge said. “This is disgraceful.”
And he threw the case out of court.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073573

George Seferis – Collected Poems

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XXI
We who started out on this pilgrimage
looked at the broken statues
we lost ourselves and said life is not so easily lost
that death has unfathomable ways
and his own special justice;
that when we died standing on our feet
like brothers inside the stone
united in toughness and weakness
the ancient dead have escaped the circle and have
been reborn
and smile in a peculiar silence.

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

Medusa

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Libeccio
The anemograph caught fire
confused wondering
which direction to adopt
Southeastern explosion or
southwestern heatwave
that gallops over the dunes of Africa
and steady charges
to come and engulf your body
to explain its mysticism
languorous upward pressure
promiscuous desire lingering
over the jasmine petals and
on your lascivious curves
while the midnight cock
knowing the magic of lust
under the moon’s direction
calls his first lover and
lost in the fire of your body,
you moan and beg the north wind
to come and rescue you

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763769