Obstacles
As you get to know me I raise another wall.
It’s not that I don’t want you to find out who I am
it’s not that I want to drive you off.
We only have to understand clearly
how many obstacles we can go over
so that we’ll meet again.
We have to find out how far our endurance can last;
Then, don’t forget that perhaps I don’t
put up the obstacles in front of us, but they exist
on me and inside of me like black scars
that change my shape and my color:
the obstacle of myself against myself.
stowaway in a Dream
I appeared there, I sprouted
though no one ever saw me
I felt impatient
though I had nothing
to long for.
Darkness had dried up
inside me
and I had nothing to use
to nurture my dream
that used darkness
to illuminate the light
of life.
only a neutral color
covered the stone of
my heart.
And behold, it came
aer so long
with no imaginary joys
or excessive sorrow
the dream came
and it held only one purse:
my purse.
I had forgotten of it
I had looked for it
but without the sovereign
master of my present,
my panic,
yet with the serenity of a fairy tale.
I hadn’t paid any ticket
but the dream
graced me quite graciously
with a short voyage
in a liberated country.
Liberated from the forceful
oversights of reality.
After the War
The houses remained empty
windows firmly shut
always longing for a hand’s quiver
inside, a widow always lamented
her dead husband or
a mother for her son and
we made toys out of wire
left by the enemies
threads meant for ideal nooses
and we laughed
we always laughed like
the innocent evening breeze
that galloped over the shore
for our unknown future
lurking ahead that
with optimism we anticipated
a better world to mould
fear couldn’t enter our hearts
the fields remained not sown
the company that sold seed
underwrote the villagers’ lives
along with the quality of coffins
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Puzzle
Which luck and who’s the God
who tirelessly
during the nine months
in the uterus struggled
with such devotion
to complete the puzzle,
molecule by molecule,
of the three trillion
cells
when suddenly
you pop out
from the blood
crying
so, the void won’t
pull you back in.
For Maria
…My beloved
I love you more than I can say in words
I could die with you if you could ever die
yet my beloved
I couldn’t have loved you
anymore than the way I have.
We used to close the door behind us and
we’re still cold; we used to shut the windows and
we’re colder than before
and as I turned to look into your eyes
I saw the eyes of the neighbour whose four sons
were killed
and as I stretched my arm to find your hand
it was as if I stole bread from the hands of the hungry.
Theodicity
Down on Priam’s feet
Achilles cries
the old king also cries
dressed with Hector’s death.
At the Olympus
the immortals feast on topaz tables
with music and tambourines
teasing each other day and night.
But when dawn comes it will bring the new star
death. Both Troy
and Phthia will sink and
who cares for the undefeated castle.
Beta
…I baptized my life in the holy
loneliness of memory
that kept me
on the margins of logic
what’s the difference, you said,
from one step to another
when Hades, experienced,
exclusive and beyond the flesh,
holds a sickle in one hand and
a smiling ladybug on the other
and I said,
my only concern is the noise
of the heliotrope
during the sundown and
I baptized my life
in the holy shallowness
of the ephemeral and
in the depths of strange ideals
bloodied by the essence of man
thud of a shield on the daily axe
that balanced the echo of a bird’s
chirp with the resistance
of the tree branch that stirred too
I, the mortal, held up my destiny
in my two moistened palms
excerpt
“She’d better not be Alan’s girlfriend,” said a raunchy male voice,
“because she’s Ben Fielding’s broad.” The speaker began to laugh
again but his mirth was cut short by an arm that reached out and
thrust him roughly aside.
“Here, what do you think you’re doing?” the speaker demanded,
glaring down at the short man with the furrowed forehead elbowing
his way, none too gently, through the crowd.
“Mind your tongue, Gus, and your own business,” Will snarled
through clenched teeth, “and everybody get the blazes out of my
way, or I’ll call the Constable over.”
The gawkers quieted and moved aside, their mouths agape. Some
of them raised their eyebrows and looked at each other as if to say,
What’s eating the station agent?
Will felt both relief and alarm when he saw Sarah – relief because
she was sitting up and did not appear to be badly hurt, but alarm
because of her obvious distress. All concerns about the Agricultural
Association’s involvement were forgotten, Sarah’s welfare uppermost
in his mind.
On reaching her side he took her hand. “I don’t think there’s a
doctor here, Sarah, but I’ll get you to the Bradshaw hospital right
away.” He thrust his clip board at Charlie Draper. “Here, Charlie,
find Arnold Johnson will you, and tell him he’ll have to take
over. And tell him he’d better damn well do something about these
bleachers or I’ll know the reason why not.”
Alan put a hand on Will’s arm. “No need for you to leave, Will,
I’ll take Sarah in Dave’s car.”
Will hesitated while he considered Alan’s offer. “Well, all right
then,” he said at last. “But you’d better go and find Penny and take
her with you.”
Sarah looked up at Will with eyes full of gratitude. Not only had
he ensured there would be no cause for gossip, but he was getting
her out of this crowd who seemed to be enjoying the spectacle of
Ben Fielding’s wife’s misfortune more than they were enjoying the
ball game.
“Just wait ’til Ben gets her home,” said a woman in the stands,
“he’ll kill her.”
“More likely he’ll kill Will Andrews for not seeing to the bleachers
afore they got in this condition,” a man answered her.
excerpt
“And it will come to two sides,” Dr Starkey agreed. “As I was saying, Lloyd George’s Liberals will pass a Bill for the Protestant North and another for the Catholic South. He doesn’t have much choice now.”
“De Valera’s Sinn Fein party in Dublin won’t accept it,” Joe Carney asserted. “They won the last election by a large majority.”
“But maybe they’ll settle for half a loaf rather than no bread,” said Sweeney.
“Never,” cried Flynn Casey. He was a broad-shouldered, muscular young man, with a tousle of uncombed, curly, red hair, and the tanned face and hands of one who worked out of doors. “We want the whole loaf. We’ll fight to the death to preserve Irish unity. We’re not going to let the North fall into the hands of a weedy little bastard like Edward Carson.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Flynn Casey,” Jim Patterson challenged. He was a caustic young cynic who worked with his father as a barber in the village. Of medium height and build, with wispy, thinning dark hair, he was about the same age as Flynn Casey but as fanatically committed to Unionism as the other to Republicanism. “Edward Carson is no weedy little bastard. He’s a great leader. He has united everyone who’s opposed to Home Rule and Sinn Fein and he’s going to lead them to victory.”
“Victory over who?” Flynn Casey asked contemptuously.
“Victory over the Nationalists. Victory over all you romantic riders of the Celtic Twilight.”
“And victory over England?” Flynn glanced around to see how his parry had been appreciated. “For it seems to me,” he went on, observing that some of his audience was impressed, “that the great Sir Edward Carson is prepared to fight even the British for the worthless privilege of remaining British.”
“Should it come to civil disorder,” Dr Starkey began, “the British government will be powerless to cope with it. The officers in the British army have already made it clear that they would choose dismissal rather than obey an order to put down Protestant resistance in Ulster.”
“So we’ll win our fight for freedom from Irish Catholic domination by not having to fight it,” Jim Patterson said awkwardly. “England will back down. Dr Starkey is right. Separate treaties for the North and the South. England won’t throw us like scraps to the mangy dogs that slobber round the table legs of Dublin and Rome. We’re determined.”
VI
Images unfold as in the nebula’s memory.
The book bemoans the primordial
sin named virtue in the ecclesia
ancient murder eulogized in the
earthen altars and itemized and barcoded
like a wet dream, a blackened breeze
or a soiled carnation decorating
the primeval sin repeatedly graced
and sanctified by the greedy ghetto.
Yet four Golden Gates to Heaven
still stand firm while dividing
into castes, races, and creeds,
still enforces control in misusing
assets and generating misery and dread.
The Golden Gates to Heaven
meant to be like beacons for the
darkest nights of the
troglodyte’s dreamscapes. The Golden
Gates to Heaven guiding in all
pompousness, as always, leading in
shallow grandiosity and banality
to a fast-approaching oblivion
a path that they cannot escape.
Manolis Aligizakis 