Sin
Brazen thief
that leads my mind
to an erotic voyage and
your nipple
ready to jump
over your bra and
standing with no skirt
before the mirror
you accentuate your eyes
upright virgin thought
my paradisiacal inferno
that I long to sing
with such fervour
Excerpt
An east wind howled and moaned in turns around the corners of the house, and sent slivers of sleet crashing against the window in Moe’s guest room. Tyne, lying in one of the single beds, came to consciousness with a start. For a moment she could not distinguish between the eerie noises and her dream. But when she opened her eyes, she could see by the faint light coming through the dripping panes that the sounds which had roused her were the reality. It looked to be almost night; she must have slept for hours.
Throwing the covers aside, she sat up and looked at the bedside clock. Surprised to see that it was only a little before noon, she lay back again and closed her eyes. The welcome aroma of coffee suggested that Moe was still here, probably ready with a meal whenever Tyne woke up. She should have known that her friend, who had even requested a leave-of-absence to be with her, wouldn’t leave her alone in the house. She really should get up; there was no point in lying in bed when sleep, as it had for three days until this morning, eluded her.
But Aunt Millie was on hospital duty, and would be upset if Tyne hurried back. They had finally convinced her – ganged up on her, really – to go back to the Halls’ house where she could sleep much more comfortably in bed than in a chair in a visitor’s waiting room at the Holy Cross.
Excerpt
There is no such thing as old hat when it comes to this. It’s like it all happens
for the first time each time. It grew more and more intense. We lay
there on the ground and I don’t know how long we lay there. The shafts of
light rippled up in an arc all around us, and they came to a centre point
directly above us and that point was a black hole. All the rest was light, and
the colours were showering down – purple, gold, green, blue, red. The words
don’t work. It was as if we were laying on the floor of a cathedral the size of
the universe. The earth was no longer an issue – we weren’t even part of the
planet. I can see how religions began. It was stuff like this – it undoes one.
All the rational explanations we have for this are nonsense. They just don’t
work. You have to find a bigger answer. This is too big, too beautiful, and too
mysterious.
Something holy descended on their souls. Ken felt as though they had
had a direct experience of God and the magic of that night clung to them
during those ten days in the Thelon.
The Thelon was like no other place on earth. When the glaciers had
retreated they had left behind a vast amount of chirt, a very dense stone
that had formed into eskers or low humpbacked hills from forty to a
hundred and fifty feet high. The stone was so dense the permafrost could
not penetrate it and as a result the vegetation that grew there, born from
seeds carried by migrating birds, was that of a more southern landscape.
But because of the severe winters and punishing winds, it was a landscape
in miniature. Trees that might grow to a hundred feet in the south grew to
only a couple of feet here, but they were flawlessly formed. At the base of
each esker was a perfectly round small lake, so thick with Arctic grayling
you could almost reach your hand into the water and pull one out.
When they got back Ken promised himself that this time he wouldn’t
leave on another trip until he had finished the painting. He locked himself
in his studio and from October 1990 to May 1991. He emerged only
long enough to eat and sleep.
The epic project neared completion. Elaine suggested a decorous and
dignified gathering to commemorate the event. Ken and the word “decorous”
were obviously never meant to meet. He insisted on a “last brushstroke”
party that would be more extravagant than his “first brushstroke”
event ten years earlier. Decorum in his studio? A studio that had a sign at
the entrance identifying it as “The Zoo?” Karen had even presented him
with a road sign he had admired in Yellowknife: Ragged Ass Road and
Lois Lane.
Ken had actually tried to steal the sign more than once, but each time
he had attempted it, someone had gotten to it before him and taken off
with it. He guessed that the City of Yellowknife works department likely
had a full time employee doing nothing but erecting a new road sign at…
Unacceptable
He pulled away from our company little by little, as if he was
somewhat sad
as if somewhat strangely serene, as if he had discovered
something great and incommunicable — a headless statue,
a star, a truth
the final and only truth — “which truth?” we asked him. He
didn’t answer as if he knew we couldn’t even have wished
to know.
The first stone
was cast by his friends. His opponents couldn’t be stopped.
At the trial they asked him again and again. He said no word.
Then the judge rang the bell loudly, yelled, turned angry,
ordered silence, so that the silence of the accused couldn’t
be heard.
The guilty verdict was unanimous.
One by one we turned and leaned our heads against the wall.
Runoff
I have been cold
in agony waiting
for the lone cloud
and its misty dress
Where are you running, little creek,
the river rocks asked—
I’m going to the great ancestor
where you and I are not
where in its wholeness I shall melt
becoming a whiff of air
pasted on an autumn day
turning to a wish in the heart
of a young lover gazing at
the stars and longing for
his mate who’s kept high
among the gleaming eyes,
the smiling youth answered—
I’m going to the great Ocean
Excerpt
Bevan Longhorn dresses in casual clothes and goes down to the lobby of the
Sheraton Hotel. It’s Sunday morning and the lobby is filled with people coming
and going. Bevan has stayed here before, and this time, although he has only
been here for one night, intends to make the best of it. He has arranged his
departure for the evening with American Airlines and is to arrive in Washington
sometime before midnight, giving him enough time to relax and get to his office
Monday morning. On the other hand, if he feels tired the next morning he can
always skip work for a day; the agency will survive without him.
What presses on his mind today is making sure he can put his hands on what he
needs to proceed with his plan of exit, as he calls it. These two young men better have
thought of everything; he doesn’t have the time to pussyfoot. However, he has faith
in the old man, whom he has always trusted to deliver what is necessary.
He walks into the hotel restaurant and orders his breakfast. He opens the
morning paper and reads the headlines; the same stuff again and again. His breakfast
comes and he tries to enjoy it, despite the headlines and his thoughts. What happens
if the two young men cannot get what he needs? A shiver travels down his spine like
a thunderbolt as this thought sinks deep in his mind, and he squirms out of fear that
all his mental preparation for this last mission might be in vain.
He overhears two couples next to him talking about the Oscars scheduled
for sometime in March. They seem to be very absorbed in what they are
discussing; he hears one of the men supporting one actor over the others, and
the other three people seem to agree, as Bevan doesn’t hear any objection to the
first person’s remarks.
His thoughts take him away again to his plan of action, and he glances at his
watch; it is only 10:30 a.m. He’s so anxious about his plan that he cannot wait to
meet Hakim at Earl’s and get answers. Ibrahim’s nephew had better have good
news for him, or else. What can he do if they cannot get it?
He finishes his breakfast, pays his check and goes for a walk around the hotel
grounds with the manicured lawns and the pretty shrubs and flowers
everywhere. He needs to clear his mind and the crisp morning air will help. He
also needs to stretch his legs.
Behind our Eyes
Behind our eyes,
silent and crouched,
we look at the world out there
like through the skylight of a prison.
Behind our eyes,
we make secret plans
we aim and fire as if
behind embrasures
and when evening comes
like we do with windows
we hastily pull the curtains
and turn on the lights.
III
The crop of September;
rosy rinds hold up the house
among the thousand deaths
they hold it up
while the untouchable moon
passes over our dreams.
In such concern I didn’t notice
the small worm
by the spring behind the eucalyptus;
the small worm, the devil’s tool
behind the mountain
small insignificant it slid
down from the cloud to the shrub
and bit the leaf…
we lost the crop, we the ignorant
in the balcony, were foreseeing
the crop of the house,
oh Greece, the next morning
I found you changed.
Disposition
There, face to face
with my cousin Antony
who we buried yesterday
no words spoken
just wrinkled thoughts
solitude describing meaning
of comma, ultimate right of time
and its inexorable past tense.
Suddenly Antony seemed
ready to get up from his
coffin as if he wished
to go and sit by the sidewalk.
Where else could he go?
Dead only follow
the downward path and I
finally understood that
when dealing with the dead
one, naked from the waist
down, balances on a tightrope
Excerpt
…his training at the seminary, his acceptance by the Church. Obviously His Holiness did not know the full story of this dark man from the mountains of Drumard or wherever it was he came from in the first place. Obviously His Holiness did not know from whom this same man received his education: from pagans and harlots. To have sent back to them this man from the shadow side of time and place, to have ordained him as their own new priest, the old ones regarded as an insult and an outrage. Padraig knew when he returned to the village that few of his flock had accepted him with any willingness and far less with trust. But he had proved himself in only a short time. Now all was lost. Their old suspicions had returned. They remembered. They talked. They retold stories. Some no doubt had seen him shudder or shake or stiffen or stumble and fall. They knew that Satan had come back for him. They knew that his celebration of the Mass was a sacrilege. They were affronted. Their gaze burned like hell-fire. Even the young spurned him; they spat at his passing in the street. When he stood at the altar, holding aloft the Host in celebration of the Eucharist, Padraig could feel their conspiratorial sneaking-forward down the hushed nave of the church, their long knives drawn, their white teeth gleaming like the fangs of wolves, their wild hearts pounding with the urgent wish to kill him.
Padraig no longer had his arm in a sling, but the cuts and bruises on his face had not yet completely healed, though the earlier discoloration was fading. He strode across the stone floor of the sacristy and stopped at the door, his hand outstretched but unwilling to lift the wrought-iron latch. His head ached. Satan thumped the insides of his temples, punched the backs of his eyes, drummed loudly in the whorled cavities of his ears. Padraig opened the heavy, dark door, and his arm jerked with pain. He looked out into the church. In less than two hours he must face the hostile crowd that would come to the wedding of Caitlin MacLir and Michael Carrick. The church was empty yet, except for two young altar boys who were talking earnestly in the front pew.
“Stephen,” Padraig called, steadying himself against the door post. “Stephen, come here a minute.” His voice boomed like explosions in his head.
One of the altar boys, one of Joe Carney’s sons, came forward, unsurely as the young Samuel. “Yes, Father?”
“Stephen, do you have your bicycle outside?”
“I do, Father.” The surprise that showed in Stephen’s eyes was a response either to the unexpected question or to the look of black-eyed distraction in the drawn face of the priest.
Manolis Aligizakis 