Double Certainly, it wasn’t I who jogged along the suburban houses last night dominance, security of four walls, and ambience with my unbuttoned shirt like forgotten piety with my heart surrounded by the auspices of the thick darkness it wasn’t I running like a dream forgetful of its origin I wasn’t, but my double who hid in his bag old picture of two stars swimming in a crystal pond twin faces, glancing at one mirror as you were coaching me to hide in your arms and release my tiredness and I held the little master key tightly ready to place in the hole and open the world like a blooming rose
sexual gratification of a bunch of perverts. If this happened to your family, wouldn’t you want someone to care? Wouldn’t you want someone to raise a stink? Wouldn’t you want someone to help? That’s all I’m trying to do. Apparently, to my surprise, it seems this painting was the two by four needed to apply to the side of your head to get you to pay attention. My job is to announce to you what has gone on and what continues to go on. I’m robbing you of your innocence. I’m not going to give you the chance to say, ‘If only I had known’. Now you know. What are you going to do about it?” The mood of the public changed. People began calling to agree with him. Battle lines were drawn and half – or perhaps even the magic fiftyone percent – agreed with him. Ken spent an hour or more each day, at the Columbus Centre, talking to people who lined up to see the painting and talk to the artist. Thousands of people came – far more than had attended his opening night. Ken finished each of his stories with a plea for help. He urged people not to simply believe his stories, but to investigate and make up their own minds. And if they discovered that what he said was true, let the government know how they felt. This was what democracy was about – and he was appalled at how lightly most people took the democracy they lived in. “No one that is born here really takes it seriously,” he told them. “Do you know how many rivers of blood were spilled to have what we have here? How can we pretend to be this thing that we say we are when you can’t bother to inform yourselves about what goes on in your own country? How can you be a nation without knowing what goes on in your own backyard?” Ken received a phone call from Wayne Morrison, the executive director of the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting and the stepson of Northrop Frye. Could they meet, he asked? Ken invited him to the studio. Wayne was a dapper and polished gentleman who expressed fascination with the furor caused by the flag painting. The CBC was about to suffer large financial cuts, which would seriously endanger its existence, he said, and he wanted Ken’s help. He wanted to reproduce the flag painting in full page magazine advertisements with Ken standing beside it holding a paintbrush with the quote, “I haven’t been this mad in twenty years.” Below that would be the story of the CBC cutbacks. Ken said yes, but he was not prepared to use the painting. He would create another similar one instead. When Diane asked why, he said, “I’m going to give it to Canada and I don’t want it reproduced. It’s going to go to the country pure.” “You’re going to give it away? Good lord, we don’t have enough money to do what we’re doing and you’re going to give paintings away! Why are you going to give something to the government? They already take too much!”
The Shall and the Should of Death This way, then, you retained many insignificant images in your eyes. Who will have time to get baptized in the Lake of memory? Eternity lasts so little yet, it’s possible that certain justice must exist somewhere that explains under which pretensions a man dies with so many shall and should which death whispers his whole life vanishes since, you know, only one second is enough for the change of course his wings can take and don’t listen to them, seconds are precious since the man who dies is penniless with the choked death rattle of a haunted man he needed minutes, thousands of seconds to buy what? Insignificant images, yet, how can he repay? What can he borrow now? How many images of his memory can he sell? Minutes give birth to a dynasty of aged images and the interest seems to be unbearable. Is there anyone, then, who can pay for it?
the shop poor Willy had replaced the pagan turmoil of Hrothgar’s Feast with the blissed-out cooing of George Harrison. Larry grimaced at the music, took a hit off the joint. As minutes passed he grew into an Easter Island statue, a pitted mask smitten with sinister benevolence, relishing cosmic absurdities . . . I wasn’t interested in more drugs. I was cultivating a new yearning—for comforting fetishes like Turkish rugs or French etchings, or at least quality post-war British stuff, the old Pye Black Box gramophones, Hornby Trains in the original blue boxes, I was fed up with bankrupt stock and garage-sale rejects. And I wanted something with class. Something safe, please. Nothing too radical. “It’s not weapons, is it, Larry?” He passed the joint and began prising open the tea chest with a bent fork. “Just weird shit. Specially for you.” The chest contained thick folio-sized notebooks, bulging box files, a crumpled set of plans or blueprints, and half a dozen books in uniform bindings, ex-lib, half-calf and purple clo, gilt lttr, top edge gilt, gilt device on sp, approx 200 pp, frnt brds sl warped and stained, torn frontis in Vol I, some neat inscr, otherwise v good, ideal for a proper bookseller with a catalogue, not my Surprise Book Bins. “They’ve been in storage for years . . .” Larry sniffed defensively. A yellowed newspaper cutting fell out. ‘Fears of Red Atom Bombs’. He told me he’d acquired this heap of forties memorabilia as payment for some dope. I asked him which clients usually paid in waste paper. Larry looked uneasy. He liked to keep the different strata of his life separate. “A photographer that my gorgeous creature did some work for. A young guy. But ugly, thank God. She says he snuffles while he’s setting up the poses. Like a great rat . . .” He sucked the joint and giggled. “He’s heavily into cuisine and wine. I guess he can’t perform vintage sex.” Despite the dope I was getting impatient. I might raise something on tomes with fancy bindings, but as for wartime diaries, old blueprints—I inquired as to where the stuff originated. “Some old attic, south of the river. Like Norwood, or Streatham Common. ForGod’s sake, Nick, I only went there once. One of those high old houses with stained glass in the porch window. A Victorian rose-window with cruciform panels . . .” He exhaled slowly,seemingly bemused by the sudden emergence of this elegant adjective. “I suppose there aren’t any pieces from the windows in that trunk?” I was seized with entrepreneurial glee at discovering yet another way of repackaging splinters of the past, little sunset glints of nostalgia for an already uneasy seventies. “Too late. His gaffer was tearing the place apart, converting it into a shop
Troubadour Troubadour tunes chords chime on the listening wall of loneliness clouds attend flimsily just enough to grasp a few notes the red ‘do’ or the shrouded ‘mi’ when the blue eyes of her highness shed brackish tears dubious fidelity as the amorphous grasps a shape a headless idol while crusader sharpens his command and sword another head served on a blasphemous altar son of man exiled leaves ravenous void
I Want You ‘Now’ Now, here, next to me! I don’t want you to come tomorrow. I don’t want you to tell me what time you’ll come. I want you to come in the night and ring the doorbell, suddenly, when I’m asleep. Without me knowing it! Unexpectedly! To come and ring the bell and as I would open the door half asleep and startled you’ll slip under my blankets and I would never wake up until morning and in your arms. I want to wake up and smell the fragrance of your cologne when you shave in the bathroom. You’ll kiss me as you leave and I shall go back to the unravelled bed sheets. I’ll hear the door close behind you I’ll smile as if I’m in a dream, while I would still be asleep. And when I get up hours later not to know whether it was a dream or reality that I dreamed or I truly experienced all this.
“That’s all, Dad. We’re not going out anywhere, I promise.” “Fine. Give Lyssa’s clothes back to her. Now sit down and let’s get started before everything gets cold. All right, Bobby, go ahead.” Once again they joined hands around the table and bowed their heads for Bobby’s shortened grace. ͣͣ With the twins settled in their beds – but not without complaining that it was still light outside – Tyne returned to the kitchen to pour two cups of freshly brewed coffee. She added fresh cream and carried them outside to where Morley sat on the porch swing. “Where’s Bobby?” Tyne asked as she handed him a mug and sat down beside him. “Doing a final round in the barn and taking Sparky for a run.” Tyne sighed. “Poor old Sparky. I don’t think he’ll be with us much longer, do you?” Morley took a sip of coffee and shook his head in the negative. “No, I’m afraid not. He’s lived longer than most big dogs live. But he’s not suffering, just losing energy and his zest for life.” Tyne placed her hand on Morley’s where it lay on his knee. “It will break Bobby’s heart when Sparky dies. They’ve been inseparable since the day I brought the kids home for what was supposed to be a temporary stay with us.” She laughed lightly with the memory. Morley took her hand in his big one and squeezed it. “Almost ten years ago. Can you believe it? I sometimes wonder how we did it all with everything that went wrong that first year.” Tyne smiled and turned her head to kiss him on his stubbled cheek. “You know how we did it. Only with prayer and God’s faithful guidance.” They sat quietly for a few minutes as the swing moved gently back and forth. The only sounds were the familiar bawl of a calf in the barn, and from the chicken house close by, the rising and falling murmur of
Cougar The Circle H Ranch Willow Springs, Montana It was noon the next day by the time Joel returned to the ranch from Cindy’s place. Fortunately, it was a Sunday and there were not any plans for work. Thanks to the foresight of his father, the pastures were configured so that they had their own natural springs that continued to run even in the driest years, so there was lots of good grass in the fields for his equine friends to feast on. After a lovely breakfast with Cindy, Joel had bid her goodbye, leaving Cindy to retrieve little Lila from her grandmother’s care. The day went by quickly, and other than a little clean up around the yard, including firing up the lawn mower, cutting the grass around the house, and watering the flowers, Joel spent most of the day reveling in the activities of the previous night—and what a night it had been! As he climbed into his own bed, he could still smell the fragrance of Cindy on his skin. He was thinking that he may never shower again, and then Joel pleasantly drifted off to sleep with memories of the previous night dancing in his mind. The scream could only be described as blood curdling. He had never heard anything like it before. He woke in an instant and was soon joined in the bedroom by Buddy, who was so terrified that he was shaking. There the scream was again. Joel didn’t know what it was, but he sure didn’t like it. As he climbed into his jeans and threw on his shirt, he didn’t have a clue of what he was about
Manolis Aligizakis 