Limits
Momentary hesitation, shyness
star hides behind the cloud
now you see me, now you don’t
hide and seek, smile, uncertainty
shining star reappeared
to light my eyes
waning time conspires
with the clock that stops
momentary greatness
that will last forever
in the eyes of my soul
and the wind stops blowing
to admire, like I do,
your ethereal exaggeration
on the other side of the planet
body that defines the limits of my joy
Excerpt
Could she be cheating on him? Matthew has been married for a long time; he’s a
fifty-five-year-old established bureaucrat. Why suddenly does he have all this
anxiety about his wife being unfaithful?
He turns on his other side and crawls under the sheets. He changes the TV
channel and slowly his eyes grow tired. He feels all the emptiness in his stomach
and in his heart. Then his worrisome mind slows down and he falls asleep.
“What did Dad have to say, Mom?” Jennifer asks.
“Nothing important, honey, the same old story.”
“Is he coming home on the weekend? I heard you telling him Hakim has
gone to New York. Did he say anything about that?”
“No honey, nothing. He says he’ll be home on the weekend.”
Jennifer goes upstairs to her room and Emily pours herself a drink.
Wednesday morning in New York and the sky is clear. A tired city awakens from
a last night of excitement and partying. New York is a city that never sleeps, like
Las Vegas. New York has the reputation as being the best entertainment city in
North America, although the big corporations running the Las Vegas casinos
like to think their city is the best in that department.
Hakim is up. He gazes at the view of the waterway. Far to his right he can see
the boats as well as cars in the streets. He has been up for a while when Ibrahim
comes into his room, prepared for the day.
“Good morning, my uncle.”
“Good morning, my dear son.”
Ibrahim calls Rassan to order their breakfast. While they wait Ibrahim calls
his lawyer, William Polson.
He speaks to the receptionist, “Good morning, this is Ibrahim Mahdi. I amin
New York and I would like to talk to William.”
It takes a few moments before a person answers.
“Good morning, Ibrahim, how are you? Welcome to New York. Where are
you staying?”
“Good morning, William. I am at the Manhattan Sheraton as always. I want
you to get Bill Wanton and Regis Hudson and come over for an hour, some time
after eleven. I need you all for an hour or so. Get Regis and Bill to bring along the
necessary forms for new accounts. You also need to prepare a power of attorney
and bring it along.”
“That sounds good, Ibrahim; I’ll put everything together. I’ll confirm our
timing within half an hour.”
Excerpt
The days and nights blended one into another, and long
periods of quiet contemplation were interspersed with intense bouts of
hunting. Ken learned to breathe differently. Taking in great gulps of the
frigid air would have burned his lungs, so he inhaled slowly and measurably
through his nostrils, calculating each breath.
One day another group of people arrived at their camp with several
dog teams. Among them was a boy in his early teens. He too had recently
come from a residential school and was sullen and spoke to no one.
The group brought word that the caribou had not come their way and
they were here to join Ken’s group and hopefully share in what they had.
Ken’s group agreed to travel together and to share their abundance. They
planned to move further east, to where they hoped to find enough seals
and walrus to provide meat for the long winter.
One day before setting out, the troubled youth was particularly disrespectful
to one of the elders and was quietly chastised. He walked away
from the camp and had gone only a short distance before several people
went in search of him. No one could survive long in this cold. The wind
began to howl picking up ice crystals and blowing them across the land
and the searchers hurried back to the tents. Within minutes the world
was white; taking even one step outside the tent was certain death.
They waited in silence and Ken found himself feeling both disconcerted
and exhilarated by their patience and lack of anxiety. He was unsettled
because he had lost all sense of reference and elated because each moment
was perfect. He was alive in the now and nothing else mattered. The
long hours of silence gave Ken only one point of focus – himself. He was
meeting himself for the first time and the self he was meeting was neither
good nor evil – he just was – and Ken embraced that self with his mind
and heart, quietly blessing every event that had led him on this journey
to this place.
The white storm lasted for several days and when it ended, the people
left their tents to resume the search. There was no sign of the dogs,
just small mounds of snow scattered around the tents. When the people
nudged the mounds, the dogs emerged from their igloos, shaking the
snow off and wagging their tails furiously. They untethered several of
them to assist in the search, and their acute sense of smell led them to
another mound of snow under which they found the frozen boy.
There was no crying or wailing. They wrapped him in caribou hide
and with great effort moved rocks, that the wind had swept bare, to form
an oval. Gently, they placed the boy in the oval, placing some of his possessions
with him. Then they walked away. They had eaten animals all
their lives; in death, they completed the circle and returned their bodies
to the beasts.
Defenders
They defended our freedom
The general said,
don’t you ever forget it
image siphoned down
into the psyche of the populace
making each citizen believe
In the justice of war
Details about profits and dividends
paid to shareholders
War Machine companies
defence contractors
flourishing in people’s death
never mentioned
they defended our freedom
The general said
Each sane man turned
into an insane, bloodthirsty animal
Kindness
We’ll return dressed in different clothes, having different
eyes and grey hair. We’ll look at the serene harbour,
the ropes, the masts, the shepherds’ star. We’ll talk as if
to console someone who is far away, someone who is
foreign to us as we see the fish wriggling in the net.
We’ll talk about the rosy reflections of the fish. With our hands
we’ll mimic its movements, nice movements, as we’ll talk
hastily, then silently, we’ll avoid looking at the broken oar
pushed in the sand, among the bones of Homeric horses
and the warped shoes of women.
Excerpt
Fresh tears filled her downcast eyes and rolled over her cheeks as
she blinked.
“How did you come to be here, Pepa?”
“I was one of five daughters. The last one,” she said softly.
I glanced at her husband, who had stirred in his sleep and
mumbled noisily before resuming his snoring. I knew exactly what
she meant. A daughter could mean the opportunity for a good
alliance or a financial burden on her father. In a household of five
daughters, the father would be happy to find anyone to take them.
Without a dowry, a girl would likely never be able to marry, or to be
choosy about it. Pepa told me her husband had agreed to marry her
without a dowry, despite her knowing how to read.
Gregorio awakened at the sound of her voice. He was listening. I
couldn’t help that. In her town, she said, everyone thought her
strange because she could read. It had been a relief to accompany her
husband in his quest for fortune in the Indies.Her mother had tried to
convince him to leave her in a convent, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
Gregorio kept watching her, sympathetically. He might have
consoled her himself had her husband not awakened at that instant.
Gregorio narrowed his eyes and shot him a loathsome look from
head to toe. “I’ll have something brought for you, señora,” Gregorio
said. “You’ll need your strength.”
“Gregorio is right, you should eat,” I said.
This unexpected attention seemed to perk her spirits. “I can read
something to you all, if you like,” she said, eyes lowered.
“Of course,” I said, breaking the silence. “What do you have
there?”
“It’s the Lazarillo de Tormes,” she said, taking a small book out
from under the folds of her skirt. The corners of her mouth trembled
as she tried to smile. She must have been protecting that book like an
amulet.
“This is a story about a rascal who is a blind man’s guide. Do you
know it? Here, listen: Fainting and dying of hunger, I staggered along the
street, and while passing by the Barley Square I found an old praying
woman with more tooth than a wild boar . . .”
Raindrops
It was daybreak when we turned
our eyes toward the dark
spot of the horizon
our fate stood, windless
inexplicable, inaccessible
shamelessly challenging us
though only the man with
the severed arm, sighted and
turned back to the house
where he sat on his chair
such calmness on his face
as if he had solved
all the problems of the world
while we kept our hands
extended so the heavy drops
of the first autumn rain
would fall onto our palms
Long-listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards
Faces furrowed by time and sickness
faces cracked by hunger and the work related accidents
faces swollen, dirty, hairy,
faces stretched by the pliers of an unnatural smile
big faces like mothers’ breasts
tough faces like anvils.
A woman uncovers her breast to feed a yellow baby
the wind mixes the clouds
clouds mix with the flags
death, wearing a general’s mask, inspects the world
women cry as they wash their black cloths
people cry in the front steps of houses, at the corners,
in the fields
they cry in the trenches, hospitals, outside
the unemployment offices
tears, tears
our eyes will survive beyond our death
in order to cry
it blows
The wind mixes the voices, years, electric cables,
the teeth of the tobacco factory worker with the bayonets
it can’t tell apart the minister from the black dog
it mixes the breast of the nursing woman with
the dome of the neighborhood church
it blows
The window panes of the big cities are foggy, dirtied
by our bad breaths
as we bury our dead with their mouths opened
they’re hungry
The Ides of March
Beware of grandeur, oh soul.
And if you can not overcome your ambitions,
pursue them with hesitant precaution.
And the more you go forward, the more
inquiring and careful you must be.
And when you reach your zenith, as a Caesar at last;
when you take on the role of such a famous man,
then most of all be careful when you go out on the street,
like any famous master with your entourage,
if by chance some Artemidoros approaches
out of the crowd, bringing you a letter,
and says in a hurry “Read this at once,
these are serious matters that concern you,”
don’t fail to stop; don’t fail to postpone
every speech or task; don’t fail to turn away
the various people who greet you and bow to you
(you can see them later); let even the Senate wait,
for you must consider at once
the serious writings of Artemidoros.
Idol
Between your eyes
the idol in the mirror
stares at you
words float
as if above a boiling pot
in shapes of dreams
brimming steam
adds your love
for the outcast
your emotional battle
between blackness
and nabobism
that breaks your heart
fingers feel the cold glass
balancing your heart’s jest
with the meaning of the unfathomable
Manolis Aligizakis 