…this song somehow produces sadness to the person who reads it and to the one who hears it though we never hid it from anyone: if the most beautiful songs are naturally the saddest songs written for the moons exception of the rule, write it down, are the songs written close to a cataract and others sung on a sinking ship while the siren with the dishevelled hair accompanies it and others sang by a Kore with a harp under the plucked statue of an old goddess and flooded by the moons close the blinds and listen to the passerby the steps you hear is the rising moon think of the sea and go to sleep think of lust and wake up undo her hair and flood it with moons…
couldn’t discuss a pending case and that there’s no pending case to discuss. Typical Williams. It might even be true. Later, the chief went down to the train wreck and talked with the Great Northern inspector. That doesn’t mean there’s a connection.” Winifred searched her memory of Angie Karn’s call. “I told you that George Pearson’s name came up the other day.” “I gave him a call,” Sonny said. “After it became obvious that I knew about his meeting with the mayor, he told me that he agreed to appear at the hearing. When I asked him what he knew about Poodie James, he said that Poodie taught his daughter to swim and is fond of him. Cute. I pressed him about whether Torgerson is taking direct action against Poodie. I don’t think he knows.” “We have run a story—only an announcement, really—about the fact that the council will call a hearing, “ Winifred said. “It’s probably time to have someone do a backgrounder on hobos in the valley. The problem, of course, is that if we do, it gives credibility to Torgerson’s strange little crusade.” “Nonetheless,” Sonny said, “he’s pursuing it, the council is involved, the story is alive. It’s news, Mother.” “Oh, I know it. What an irritating man this Torgerson is. Keep me up to date.” Chief Darwin Spanger walked slowly between rows of trees in his father’s orchard, pausing now and then to examine a cluster of apples, clear a ditch, adjust a prop. At the orchard’s edge he came into the last of the day’s sunlight pouring through the notch in the saddle shaped rock formation at the top of the western ridge that cradled the valley. Chill air sliding down the slopes met the warmth rising off the orchard, and the leaves whispered their evening song. The sun bathed Darwin’s face. He closed his eyes. His mind began to clear itself of Torgerson, Poodie James, the train wreck, the long, long day. When he looked up, he saw three figures making their way along the shale fall below the rock, moving in and out of light and shadow. Dan, the yellow Lab, took a seat beside him, ears alert to the hikers’ laughter trickling down the foothill. Darwin scratched the old dog behind the ears, thinking of…
T-Shirt Wonder do people die of love? And if “yes” do they go to hell where the devils look like you? I wish I could die this very moment. Now! Just to meet you; to hear your voice whisper my punishment in my ear. In fact my life is a hell without you…as it was when we were together. And since I’ve died of love, then to hell, my love, as long as you will be there too. I wear your t-shirt. The one you left behind when you gathered your cloths because it was unwashed. And when it was cleaned you weren’t here anymore. It’s left behind, with so other, older t-shirts that keep me company at night, they wrap and warm up my body. It was difficult for me to explain to the girl who ironed them that they were mine, although bigger size and she shouldn’t put them away in your drawer. These t-shirts are my property. Each of them is sewed together with a piece of my soul. They the “lessons” I have paid for the life I have lived up to now. When we used to sleep, you were my clot. I needed wear nothing else. Now, I wear the t-shirts, I wrap myself in my comforter and sleep in my bed diagonally.
She gripped the covers and stared at the curtains moving in the breeze from the open window. The wailing, howling cry continued without letup – Margaret’s laughter from her dream. But this eerie sound was not laughter, and it was interspersed by occasional yelps like those of a dog in anguish. Recognition dawned suddenly. “Coyotes,” Sarah said aloud. The sound of her own voice calmed her. She lay back against the pillows and pulled the sheet up to her chin. When the howling stopped she whispered derisively into the sudden silence, “Sarah Roberts, coward.” O Sarah next awakened to the tantalizing aroma of bacon and coffee. When she opened her eyes she could see light streaming in through a gap in the curtains. She lay still, wondering how to face Ben with the news that she wouldn’t marry him. Breaking her promise was aberrant to her. And she certainly had promised to marry him. Otherwise, why was she here alone with him in this house, on this barren prairie a thousand miles from anything familiar? Finally, hunger pangs overcame the pangs of anxiety. She got up and quickly dressed in slacks and a light blouse. She felt annoyed with herself that she hadn’t thought to bring water into the room the night before so that she could, at the very least, have splashed her face and washed her hands. In the house in Tillsonburg she used to rise early enough to bathe before her mother awoke and required attention. When she stepped into the kitchen she saw Ben standing at the stove. Grease sizzled in a frying pan into which he was breaking eggs. He looked up briefly when she said, “Good morning, Ben,” and nodded his head in response. She dipped water from the stove reservoir into a basin and carried it to a wash stand in the corner of the room. “Want some bacon and eggs?” Sarah half turned. “Yes, please, I would. I’m very hungry this morning.” “No wonder,” he muttered, “after the amount you ate last night.” She glanced at him quickly, childishly grateful that he had noticed even this much about her. But, as she dried her face …
He’s gone, the one you, oh Romiosini had on the throne higher than all palaces the king of kings higher than all kings the Tower raised on top of Euphrates is tumbled the crown of Romiosini and the reverent moon glow. The Square Tower with its eight corners is tumbled Tower with embrasures Tower full of windows that was aimed at Babylon that was gazing at Syria Tower with snow that couldn’t melt by the faraway light. Tauris, Antitauris and Libanese bowed in front of it and the Caliphs of Baghdad and Tarcea with its castles…
VI The gullible soft memory of the clock like the sweetness of the Kore’s puberty and the blue breeze’s soft caressing recreate dreams of times bygone with their crossroads immersed in light when suddenly the calmness of the dream turns into the apocalyptic enormity of a wave engulfing singing stars or the nebula’s untouched vulva. Before the gullible clock dances on the contour of a flower petal the monk crafts an ache and the slender palm trees sway until the anger of the elements emerges catapulting fireballs of scorch out of the fiery pit. Anger of the elements unravels its destruction, hurling the burning curse from the depths of the earth to the top of the sky, to the crocuses, snow breath or the osprey’s clasping talons and to this hymn’s consonance.
Simple Words Evening is almost the same as all others: tediousness, the faint light, lost paths and suddenly someone says to you, “I’m poor”, as though giving you a great promise.
Passage Those things he shyly imagined as a student are open, revealed to him now. And he goes around, he stays up all night and is led astray. And as it is (for our art) right, his new, hot blood is enjoyed by lust. His body is won over by devious, erotic drunkenness; his young limbs give in to it. Thus, a simple young man becomes the subject of our attention, and for a moment, he passes through the High World of Poetry the sensitive young man with his fresh, hot blood.
I have my life that I want to live. Not revenge — what another death could erase from the previous death, when in fact it’s a violent death? What can it add to life? Time has passed, I don’t hate anymore; have I forgotten? I don’t know. Indeed I feel certain sympathy for the murderess: she has passed over great crevices, wisdom has dilated her eyes and she can see in darkness, she can see the imperishable, the unachievable, the irreversible. She sees me. I too want to see father’s murder under the soothing generality of death, to forget of him in the wholeness of death that awaits us too. This night has taught me the innocence of all the usurpers. We’re all usurpers of something — of the people, the throne, of Eros or even of death. My sister the usurper of my only life and I of yours.
Path to the Obvious A piece of chalk slowly writes something on the blackboard from dusk to the next dawn the same sentence; unfortunately twenty years in school and still uneducated, who can read the world book syllable by syllable image after image aromatic sounds lighted inscriptions in the contour of darkness dark inscriptions on the placenta of light fate has provided us with bad teachers with compasses, rulers, protractors and oh men of Athens, you know the path to the obvious is spread by the eyeglasses of logic. You know what happens to the uneducated, shoeless man.
Manolis Aligizakis 