The Illness of Kleitos Kleitos, a likeable young man, about twenty-three years old with excellent upbringing, with rare Greek knowledge is very sick. The fever found him that has decimated Alexandria this year. The fever found him when he was morally exhausted by sorrow because his lover, a young actor, had stopped loving him or wanting him. He is very sick, and his parents tremble. And an old servant who raised him also trembles for the life of Kleitos. In her terrible worry, she recalls an idol, an idol she worshipped when she was young, before she became a servant in this house, in the house of distinguished Christians and became a Christian. She secretly takes some pancakes, wine and honey. She places them in front of the idol. Whatever part of the prayer she remembers, she chants; ends and middles. The fool does not understand that the Devil won’t care whether or not a Christian heals.
Doubt The young man you expected won’t come tonight. What would you had told him? Why? Let futility vanish sever the unfortunate sprout. Don’t let the endless cunning desire fool your heart a secret sadness flows over this spring evening. Yet you don’t listen to advice enchantment has strong hold on you he’ll never come tonight and tomorrow will turn even more painful. Absence will shine light into his darkened eyes; with reserved ardor a secret grief will kiss his awkward hands that I shall see spread timid in victory sweet as if they can caressing waves to pull me like a pebble into the depth
Campfire Urgent for you to breath enjoy past feats this morning trickling river bed sings with fragmented frames: choice to act or not is twister sucking flat and sharp shapes standing or reclined hypotenuse of route and goal or river bridged by fallen tree horizontal stanza crossed by vertical song momentum swirling plans as campfire smoke ascends to the sky
Toward the End The night guard said he didn’t know. Cars were lined along the shore with their headlights on. The river, lit in some places, flowed fast. The soldier was holding the woman by her hair; the woman was naked. The frogs sang in the night perforated by yellow dots. One by one, we hid behind the trees. We had our watches and waited for our end while we kept a piece of cotton between our teeth. Then, the handsome trumpeter appeared high up in the lit window of the tower next to the escapee with the big flag. Then, nothing was left but a general, iconic friendship, the wiping of the knife on the coat, the planting of the lemon tree in the garden.
Balance Capture of a blue piece from the vastness of the sky to compliment the miracle of a man, or a woman, your task and the word failure doesn’t exist. This balance between the ethereal images, and the grossness of the flesh becomes the link which embarks from the top of your spirit to the tip of your brush, and is displayed on your adoring canvas. The link which ties the depths of your soul to the zenith of your marvels this equilibrium, and your Cretan sun always there, gifting with his rays passion in movement the song of the nightingales endlessness of your glance to the far side of the galaxy. Here the ephemeral becomes infinite. Here the end becomes a starting point. Here the gross turns into abstract. Here the stop point becomes perpetual. Here the ever small becomes Gigantic. Here man becomes Titan. Here your passion becomes medium. Here your flesh turns into spirit. Here your spirit melts into the Godly.
New House He wanted, he said, to build a house far away from the city hustle and the bustle of modern life, a house to uphold stature, forbearance, patience of the contractor, the last house he’d built before his time came when he’d move to his permanent residence, but this house, he wanted it to be airy and sunny, comfortable, and kind like its owner and after he finished building it he called his pals, walked the grounds, inspected all the details outside and inside the house too when the owner revealed he only regretted that he never thought to include in the plans a cistern into which he’d collect the rainwater for his flowers which he didn’t like to leave thirsty when the time came for his last farewell and you said, he too followed the steps of incidentals who come and pass and leave nothing behind while they hope for a reward in the lustrous luxury of the afterlife
When the two arrived at the airport in the taxi, later than expected and breathless, Hank rushed up to Jennifer with the words that made her blood freeze. “Jen, Chopyk knows and he’s furious.” Hank noted the look of horror and the way Volodya grabbed her hand. “How did he find out?” She didn’t have to ask again; she could see the answer in Hank’s eyes. “What was I supposed to do? He cornered me. He thought I’d done something to Paul.” “But I told him that Paul was going with me to Tula.” Her exasperation was turning into a bubble of fear that she could physically feel in her gut. “Well, geez, you could have told me that…I didn’t know what to answer so I told him the truth—that Paul was staying in the Soviet Union.” He backed away from Jennifer’s anger. “He was going to find out today anyway. How were you going to hide his disappearance on the plane?” “The same way we did before! It worked—remember, you idiot?” Her voice rose above a shout but then she realized they were still standing in the airport doorway, and she forced herself to stop. But Hank continued, talking over her. “Listen, I think you should talk to him right now, get on the offensive because I didn’t tell him everything and I can’t figure out how much he knows.” This rapid fire exchange in English left Volodya behind, but he was picking it up quickly. “Let’s go meet your Professor Chopyk,” he said to Jennifer. “We tell him everything and get his blessing.”
And along the many lands a precious beloved place takes the soul of man through his eyes and his hands as wholesome and as bloomed is this little tree only in this land it blooms better than in any other place as the wax is made of honey in the honeycomb and as great people live behind narrow fences so long as the masters make laws governed by logic to control the people’s wings and tie down their feet so long as in flowerless ravines and on rocks with no verdure in the orchards and in the faraway skies love is fed by hatred and by anger and by war and the Paradise is guarded by the sword or by the fire
VII You bloomed under the sun that will go down someday and I sustain myself under the sun that hasn’t risen yet. Darkness is taking the space between us. The sea still gesticulates in your chest time has been trapped in your lips twilight perches between your legs the wind fades away and rewrites your dress. Your negative mould petrified on our sandy space.
I, too, was part of the jungle. Our lovemaking grew into a world of dreams. Apacuana had the power to take me to a hitherto unknown God, beyond the Church, into an expanse of uncharted feelings as miraculous as any star-filled sky. Her body became a refuge, a place for revival, like an inexhaustible spring of healing waters. It was a gate past which I discovered a world where loneliness was banished. I was shocked to discover she was part of me, as much as Bartolomé was, perhaps more. When we lay in one another’s arms, I forgot to think before I spoke. I told her things that would have never have left my lips before I knew her. It astonished me that we could learn compassion from our own tenderness. This was not a lesson in a book, or a lecture from a priest, and it was certainly not everyone’s duty to learn it, but pleasure was natural to her, and she taught me that my tongue could talk to her in ways I had never imagined possible. And it was these conversations of pure touch, with our expanding vocabulary of caresses, that I yearned for, that I craved, as much as the need to satisfy my own desire. And so I came to value frankness as a form of kindness. She loved me for who I was, not for what I represented. The truth was simple with her. She began to trust me with her thoughts. She talked to me, and she told me how she feared for her future, for the future of her people, and especially for Matyba and Padumay. Apacuana was wise beyond her years, perhaps wise beyond her sex. Or were all women wiser than men and men were trained by other men not to see? That morning, at the base of that tree, as we lay staring at the sky, I suddenly asked myself what, in God’s name, was I doing with her? She must have read my mind, for she turned to me. “If my bleeding stops,” she said, “will you stay?”
Five days of hard drinking had passed since the killings, and I saw drunken people sleeping in the most unlikely places. I left the hut for bare necessities only, but Apacuana came to see me several times…
Manolis Aligizakis 