Unacceptable He pulled away from our company little by little, as if he was somewhat sad as if somewhat strangely serene, as if he had discovered something great and incommunicable — a headless statue, a star, a truth the final and only truth — “which truth?” we asked him. He didn’t answer as if he knew we couldn’t even have wished to know. The first stone was cast by his friends. His opponents couldn’t be stopped. At the trial they asked him again and again. He said no word. Then the judge rang the bell loudly, yelled, turned angry, ordered silence, so that the silence of the accused couldn’t be heard. The guilty verdict was unanimous. One by one we turned and leaned our heads against the wall.
I have been cold in agony waiting for the lone cloud and its misty dress
Where are you running, little creek, the river rocks asked— I’m going to the great ancestor where you and I are not where in its wholeness I shall melt becoming a whiff of air pasted on an autumn day turning to a wish in the heart of a young lover gazing at the stars and longing for his mate who’s kept high among the gleaming eyes, the smiling youth answered— I’m going to the great Ocean
Bevan Longhorn dresses in casual clothes and goes down to the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel. It’s Sunday morning and the lobby is filled with people coming and going. Bevan has stayed here before, and this time, although he has only been here for one night, intends to make the best of it. He has arranged his departure for the evening with American Airlines and is to arrive in Washington sometime before midnight, giving him enough time to relax and get to his office Monday morning. On the other hand, if he feels tired the next morning he can always skip work for a day; the agency will survive without him. What presses on his mind today is making sure he can put his hands on what he needs to proceed with his plan of exit, as he calls it. These two young men better have thought of everything; he doesn’t have the time to pussyfoot. However, he has faith in the old man, whom he has always trusted to deliver what is necessary. He walks into the hotel restaurant and orders his breakfast. He opens the morning paper and reads the headlines; the same stuff again and again. His breakfast comes and he tries to enjoy it, despite the headlines and his thoughts. What happens if the two young men cannot get what he needs? A shiver travels down his spine like a thunderbolt as this thought sinks deep in his mind, and he squirms out of fear that all his mental preparation for this last mission might be in vain. He overhears two couples next to him talking about the Oscars scheduled for sometime in March. They seem to be very absorbed in what they are discussing; he hears one of the men supporting one actor over the others, and the other three people seem to agree, as Bevan doesn’t hear any objection to the first person’s remarks. His thoughts take him away again to his plan of action, and he glances at his watch; it is only 10:30 a.m. He’s so anxious about his plan that he cannot wait to meet Hakim at Earl’s and get answers. Ibrahim’s nephew had better have good news for him, or else. What can he do if they cannot get it? He finishes his breakfast, pays his check and goes for a walk around the hotel grounds with the manicured lawns and the pretty shrubs and flowers everywhere. He needs to clear his mind and the crisp morning air will help. He also needs to stretch his legs.
Behind our Eyes Behind our eyes, silent and crouched, we look at the world out there like through the skylight of a prison. Behind our eyes, we make secret plans we aim and fire as if behind embrasures and when evening comes like we do with windows we hastily pull the curtains and turn on the lights.
III The crop of September; rosy rinds hold up the house among the thousand deaths they hold it up while the untouchable moon passes over our dreams. In such concern I didn’t notice the small worm by the spring behind the eucalyptus; the small worm, the devil’s tool behind the mountain small insignificant it slid down from the cloud to the shrub and bit the leaf… we lost the crop, we the ignorant in the balcony, were foreseeing the crop of the house, oh Greece, the next morning I found you changed.
Disposition There, face to face with my cousin Antony who we buried yesterday no words spoken just wrinkled thoughts solitude describing meaning of comma, ultimate right of time and its inexorable past tense. Suddenly Antony seemed ready to get up from his coffin as if he wished to go and sit by the sidewalk. Where else could he go? Dead only follow the downward path and I finally understood that when dealing with the dead one, naked from the waist down, balances on a tightrope
…his training at the seminary, his acceptance by the Church. Obviously His Holiness did not know the full story of this dark man from the mountains of Drumard or wherever it was he came from in the first place. Obviously His Holiness did not know from whom this same man received his education: from pagans and harlots. To have sent back to them this man from the shadow side of time and place, to have ordained him as their own new priest, the old ones regarded as an insult and an outrage. Padraig knew when he returned to the village that few of his flock had accepted him with any willingness and far less with trust. But he had proved himself in only a short time. Now all was lost. Their old suspicions had returned. They remembered. They talked. They retold stories. Some no doubt had seen him shudder or shake or stiffen or stumble and fall. They knew that Satan had come back for him. They knew that his celebration of the Mass was a sacrilege. They were affronted. Their gaze burned like hell-fire. Even the young spurned him; they spat at his passing in the street. When he stood at the altar, holding aloft the Host in celebration of the Eucharist, Padraig could feel their conspiratorial sneaking-forward down the hushed nave of the church, their long knives drawn, their white teeth gleaming like the fangs of wolves, their wild hearts pounding with the urgent wish to kill him. Padraig no longer had his arm in a sling, but the cuts and bruises on his face had not yet completely healed, though the earlier discoloration was fading. He strode across the stone floor of the sacristy and stopped at the door, his hand outstretched but unwilling to lift the wrought-iron latch. His head ached. Satan thumped the insides of his temples, punched the backs of his eyes, drummed loudly in the whorled cavities of his ears. Padraig opened the heavy, dark door, and his arm jerked with pain. He looked out into the church. In less than two hours he must face the hostile crowd that would come to the wedding of Caitlin MacLir and Michael Carrick. The church was empty yet, except for two young altar boys who were talking earnestly in the front pew. “Stephen,” Padraig called, steadying himself against the door post. “Stephen, come here a minute.” His voice boomed like explosions in his head. One of the altar boys, one of Joe Carney’s sons, came forward, unsurely as the young Samuel. “Yes, Father?” “Stephen, do you have your bicycle outside?” “I do, Father.” The surprise that showed in Stephen’s eyes was a response either to the unexpected question or to the look of black-eyed distraction in the drawn face of the priest.
We touch each other politely we laugh, get emotional the fugitive and his pursuer the torturer and the tortured the husband, the lover just two hours in the dark serene, unknown to each other yet friends.
My Verses Verses are mine, my blood, friends they speak words and they become pieces of my heart that I give away like tears from my eyes which I gift you. They reach you like saddened smiles since I narrate my life with them I dress them with the sun of day to keep them like belts when I’m dead. My verses oversee sky and earth yet they question what is still missing and they’re bored, withering like sons who met their mother-sorrow. The laughter of the smoothest tune the passion of the flute I gift you for them I’ve become the ruler who has lost the love of his people. There they flow and they fade never to stop yet slowly they cry out: turn your glance elsewhere, oh mortal bring your ship, oh forgetfulness, that they’ll sail on it.
Photosynthesis They know their process to transform sunrays into food leaves and other secrets they uphold holy: to shelter the abandoned call of the crow in distress to offer rest to the migratory bird, wings of the nightingale left alone amid green leaves and folded branches. It was a time when the sun Danced before their eyes, it was a swell time before men with the gun barrels appeared in the land. It was a time of spirited wisdom floating on branches of trees and snowy mountain slopes filled with joy
Manolis Aligizakis 