Dark Story
You’re far away and I hear you singing
a stuttering song
of the ones you love
bloody songs with abscesses and tumors.
Birds poke on your face
snakes lurk in your eyes
I’ll come to drink your sickly kisses
convince you with heinous games.
I know of a train destined for nowhere,
a bus that will take you away, I know
the music that blows up mountains,
I know the red fish that will devour you.
Daily Use
Of course all these were somehow vague perhaps even inexplicable
for the ones who raise their glass emphatically over the table without
seeing who holds it until slowly the everyday use makes us mortal;
thus I always tried to look elsewhere when the doorbell rang and when
everything was quietened: where is the host? Why is he hiding?
I leaned on the table that I wouldn’t fall; then bowing my head
I opened the door and followed my path.
And at night, dinner time, in horror, I listened to them narrating
their stories that in a way silenced the dark remote outside — there
where we had lived.
Ink
He added a little ink to the machine,
the words, oh God, how difficult
to form, letter by letter put on
a line, the consonants on their
appropriate places to underscore
where the voice rises and where they
bow their heads, when his eyes don’t
help well, as they did back then when
he started as an apprentice typist, he
hopes to avoid the painful mistakes
of misspelling words which, using a
lens he starts his daily battle against
errors and what’s the value of an accent
in front of a word and that perispomeni*
heroes that fell when the language was
simplified and the old typist turns
from his machine and stooping over
his soup bowl he can only see ink
in his broth, the ink he just added to
the insatiable printing machine
*_______
accent in the shape of a flat line over a vowel
excerpt
Liam Dooley was thirty-eight, going on thirty-nine. His fair, wavy hair was receding alarmingly at the temples. He believed a baldness was spreading at the back of his head also, like a threadbare elbow in an old jacket, but he could not see for sure in the mirror and he would have been embarrassed to ask. There was no one he could have asked in any case without feeling foolish. His parents were dead; his sister, after her twenty-first birthday, had moved to Belfast to marry the father of her daughter; and Liam lived alone in two rooms, a kitchen and a living-bedroom that the Church had built onto the back of the new school as accommodation for the teacher, but which could be converted to additional classrooms when the growing number of pupils made the extension necessary. Liam’s baldness and his forties were both approaching rapidly. Both inexorable. He could always have lied about his age to strangers who did not know him but he could not pass himself off as twenty-eight or twenty-nine when his hairline was almost as far back as his ears and threatening to meet up with the circle of skin he felt was spreading at his crown. He had to face facts. Liam Dooley’s youth was irretrievably lost. Lost, not squandered. Liam was no profligate. He was no philanderer. His intimacy with women extended only to walking one or two of them home from church. Once he went as far as holding Molly Noonan’s hand as they strolled home from a choir practice but he could not bring himself to embrace her, nor to give her a kiss as he left her at her door. He wanted to. He wanted to very much. But he was timorous and hesitant. Fearful of rejection, he held back. Molly did not ask him in for tea. Nor did she ever walk home with him again. Sean O’Sullivan, a tenor with large, yellowing teeth, escorted her home after that. Then Molly got pregnant, and she and Sean ran away to Belfast and were never seen again.
Liam often thought of Molly Noonan, of the pert looks she flicked his way, of the teasing scent from her red hair as he stood behind her in the choir, of the smiles she gave him when he entered Lizzie Martin’s shop where she worked. He remembered the late spring evening when they had last walked home together. They had paused where Killeenagh Burn trips down
excerpt
He spoke at service club meetings. He lectured at
the college. He played golf as he always had, seldom and badly. It
was a way of socializing; he detested the game.
Sam restrained himself from meddling in the affairs of Winter
and Franklin; he promised his partner and his wife that he would
keep hands off the firm. Despite his efforts to stay busy, the boredom
of retirement began to overtake him. Pete Torgerson’s predecessor
as mayor asked Sam to fill the unexpired term of a full-time
municipal court judge who died. The term had less than a year to
run. When Sam told her about it, Liza was reluctant and then, the
more she thought about it, relieved. Sam accepted the judgeship.
On the bench and in chambers, he discovered in himself gravity
and patience, qualities that during his years of arguing before
judges he never imagined he had. He enjoyed the work. Before the
term ended, he announced himself a candidate for a superior court
seat. The bar association endorsed him. He won easily and was
nearing the end of his second term.
There was nothing official about it, but Sam Winter had
become a sort of guardian to Poodie. In 1934 when the bank foreclosed
on the Thorps, Jeremy Stone asked him to come up with a
legal guarantee that no one would throw Poodie off the property.
On Sam’s advice, the bank gave Poodie a life estate in the cabin.
That’s where he was now, reading, no doubt, Sam thought. The
little man came to the door in his shorts and sandals, grinning,
holding Breasted’s History of Egypt, a book the judge had always
meant to get around to.
“Listen, Poodie” Sam began.
Poodie’s grin expanded. He cupped his hand behind his ear and
cocked his head, eyes intent on Sam’s face.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Sorry, Poodie. I mean, we have to discuss
something. It’s about the mayor.”
The grin diminished. Poodie spoke a couple of sentences. Sam
hunched his shoulders and spread his hands.
“Better get your pad and pencil,” he said.
Poodie invited the judge inside.
Zeus
when Zeus promised my return
again to face the loathly
teeth of the abyss daring
at the elliptical hour
of a hot June day as the cicadas’
cantos wake up the high noon
with sweet lullabies
olive tree leaves sieve
sunlight and the loaf
allotted to me
was kneed without yeast
swirls of anger and pictures of people
familiar and bearded old beasts
of my kin who
softly sprang up
from the earth’s bottom
to release me
from the commitment
of eternal return
sails of caiques plastered on the horizon
ambience and nostalgia when
I felt my primeval fear
reignited
nothing but a warning for
my true passing through
the narrow Symplegades
Alexandrian Kings
The Alexandrians gathered
to see Cleopatra’s children,
Caesarion and his little brothers
Alexander and Ptolemy, who they
took for the first time to the Gymnasium
to proclaim them kings,
in front of the brilliant array of the soldiers.
They proclaimed Alexander king
of Armenia, Media, and of Parthia.
Ptolemy—they proclaimed king
of Cilicia, Syria, and Phoenicia.
Caesarion was standing more to the front,
dressed in a rose colored silk,
on his breast a bouquet of hyacinths,
his belt with a double row of sapphires and amethysts,
his shoes tied with white ribbons
embroidered with dawn pink pearls.
Him they proclaimed higher than the younger ones,
they called him King of Kings.
The Alexandrians knew perfectly well
that these were just theatrical words.
But the day was warm and poetic,
the sky was a vast light blue,
the Alexandrian Gymnasium a
triumphant artistic achievement,
the splendor of the courtiers superb,
Caesarion all grace and beauty
(son of Cleopatra, blood of the Lagidae);
and so the Alexandrians ran to the feast,
and they got enthusiastic and they cheered,
in Greek, and in Egyptian, and some in Hebrew,
captivated by the nice show—
knowing very well what all this meant,
what empty words these kingships were.
Heatwave
Th
e news announcer mentioned
the heatwave that came from Sahara
over the seas
to reach our island which
thrown on the blue sea
resembled a natural marvel
when seen from above
and I lean over your body
eternal fleshy sensation
when a drop of sweat falls
on your sculptured beauty
exactly on your right breast
that unexpectedly reacted
with a shiver that released
its orgasm and its lust
as I said
yours, my bright little star
and you said
always yours, my beloved husband
The Hand
For Andreas Embirikos
beautiful net
that the girl weaved
the girl-master
as she
stood by the window in Nafplion
beautiful net
hospitable
like benevolent god
strong
like the white piano keys
of joy
beautiful net
she painted
with the colour of her eyes
and scented
with the aroma of her long hair
the girl that stood
by the window of Nafplion
beautiful net
beautiful girl
a beautiful window that shone
in the Nafplion night
a beautiful window that cried out
a beautiful girl who lighted
beautiful among the colours
of Nafplion
a beautiful net
around
my neck
was
girl
with your beautiful hair
as you comped it
by the window
in the light
beautiful night
in your glance
was the girl
we loved
crazy in love
naked, naked
crazy in love
in the net
of Nafplion
excerpt
in the far corner of the bed. Her breath spent, Rachael grew still, and Lyssa released her wrists. Without a word she turned away, walked quietly around the bed and, falling to the floor, gathered the doll into her arms. There she sat and rocked back and forth until both cousins quieted and lay still.
Her grief too deep for tears, Rachael lay down on the cold floor. And with the mutilated doll clasped tightly against her chest, she silently made her plans.
“It’s been a good Christmas, sweetie,” Tyne said as she snuggled against Morley on their way home from his parents’ farm. “Our first one as an old married couple. Imagine that.”
Morley chuckled and took his right hand off the steering wheel to put his arm around her shoulders. “Who’s old? Do you feel old?”
Tyne smiled in the darkness. “Not with you around, husband.”
For several minutes they drove in silence, a deep peace enveloping Tyne as she relived the highlights of the day. Her first Christmas off duty for several years was in itself cause enough for rejoicing. But the best part had been her dad’s hospitality towards Morley. She had first noticed his change in attitude when the family had gathered at the farm for dinner in the fall, and she silently thanked God for bringing it about. Jeff Milligan had sat with Morley and Jeremy in the living room on Maple Avenue today, and willingly joined in the conversation.
In the kitchen, she had been helping her mother and Aunt Millie clean up the remains of breakfast and begin preparations for dinner. She smiled now, remembering how her aunt, dishtowel in hand, had stood by the door to the living room and listened for a few moments to the amiable conversation between the three men. Returning to the counter, Millie had picked up a plate and said to her sister-in-law, “I don’t know what you’re putting in my brother’s tea, Emily, but whatever it is, please keep on doing it.”
Tyne’s mother had stifled a laugh, and said in her usual reserved way, “Now, now, Millie ….”
Manolis Aligizakis 