However, the lift operator isn’t surprised; he had seen the same cloud, though a little darker and deep red in colour, in the mirror of the elevator, when tiredness and sleep overtake him, pressing the floor buttons, taking familiar faces of the high-rise offices or their clients, con-artists, crafty, imaginative or simple-minded villagers, lawyers with briefcases, tailors, book sellers, cigarette sellers, unfortunate people who have slowly lost their last virtue of loneliness, their last dignity of silence, ready to kneel, to beg, to lie, to flatter, for a little more bread, for half a cigarette, for a quarter of a kiss, for a thousandth of glory — always unready for the whole of Eros, for the whole death, for the whole sacrifice and glory. And the café man is always there with his tray full of empty or full cups and glasses always minding his tray, not seeing the faces and the lift operator observing nothing, though seen everything responsible for the ascent or descent responsible for every stop responsible for the floor numbers even the office numbers along the hallways where the internal telephones are located…
important areas of support for the regime, along with the rest of the surrounding region called “The Sunni Triangle”. Many inhabitants were Sunni and were employees and supporters of Saddam’s government. During the same era, Falluza became an industrial center with many large factories. About half the houses were destroyed in the war, and most of them have still not been rebuilt. Indeed, this city still looks like a war zone. A lot of the houses are only half-standing. Others are leaning against one another as if supporting one other, yet people sit around in the coffee bars drinking their special tea or coffee, and one can see they take life in stride. It seems they know this is the way things work out when you stand up and try to claim who you are, against people who think they know who you are and insist on telling you so. So, the inhabitants of this forsaken place sit stoically, with a perseverance that defies even the strongest of wills, knowing deep in their hearts that what goes around comes around. They know deep in their hearts that what you throw out there in the balance of the cosmos comes back and hits you on the head at another time or place without exceptions. People sit with all the anguish of the world on their shoulders, a world that has gone wrong, a world that defies their right to be alive, to be with their flesh and blood, with their wants and dreams and expectations of life. They sit and don’t care that their homes have been destroyed, since they know they will rebuild sooner or later. They will deploy all their efforts again to rebuild what human madness has destroyed. Rassan goes around and asks for Talal’s family and is told they need to go a few blocks down the road and turn to the right to find Talal’s grandparents.’ house. Two minutes later they are outside what they expect is the house. Rassan gets out and yells from the top of the yard door to the inside of the yard; a young man about fifteen comes to see who is calling. Talal gets out of the car and sees his younger brother, Abdul Aziz, coming through the gate to the road. “Abdul, my little brother,” Talal approaches him with open arms. Abdul looks at him and realizes this man is his brother. “Talal, what a surprise this is!” he says, and his eyes fill with tears. Talal is crying as well and among the sobs asks, “Where’s everybody? Where are Aesha and our grandfather?” “Grandfather is at the coffee bar for a while; our grandmother died four months ago. Aesha is here; come in, come inside.” He urges all of them to come in and leads the way. Emily and Talal walk together through the gate and Rassan follows; they find Aesha working in the kitchen. She is so surprised to see Talal after being away for seven years that she hugs and kisses him, throws herself in his arms sobbing with joy. Talal introduces Emily.
‘Right, Joe. And even with the tractors and the rest, Michael and Danny Boylan are still finding it difficult to cope. They’re working long, hard hours every day.’ ‘They could bring in a couple of land girls,’ Joe suggested teasingly. ‘They’re not that desperate,’ Caitlin retorted. ‘A lot of farmers don’t want city girls in the fields. I don’t know of any around these parts.’ Then Caitlin leaned forward in her chair with a serious look on her face. ‘Joe, I’m glad you’re here and Michael isn’t. I want to talk to you about something important.’ ‘What would that be?’ ‘Nora. She’s not happy, is she?’ Joe felt uneasy. ‘Oh she seems content enough.’ ‘Joe, you’re not being honest with me,’ Caitlin interrupted. ‘You and I both know she should never have married Liam Dooley. Oh he’s been a good husband. I’m not complaining on that score. He worships her. He’ll do anything for her. Maybe he does be out a lot, but he’s a teacher and he’s involved in a lot of out-of-school activities. Local history societies, the WEA, and all that. But he’s not the man for Nora. He’s twenty-two years older than she is. He’s set in his ways, and they’re not Nora’s ways. He’s stuffy and fussy and a creature of habit. Nora needs someone who’ll … who’ll open doors and windows and let her fly. If you see what I mean.’ ‘I do, Mrs Carrick.’ Caitlin got up to pour tea into two cups on the kitchen table and added milk and sugar. ‘I’ll be glad when the war’s over and rationing ends,’ she said. ‘Will you have a scone, Joe? Or a slice of treacle bread and butter? Home-made country butter.’ ‘No thanks, Mrs Carrick.’ Joe accepted the proffered cup of tea. ‘Joe, why did Nora marry Liam Dooley?’ Caitlin asked unexpectedly. Joe was taken by surprise. ‘I suppose she discovered that she loved him. They were working together at …’ ‘Blethers, Joe. I want an honest answer. And I know she would have told you. You above all people.’ Joe, put on the spot, tried drinking tea to cover his discomfiture. ‘Haven’t you asked Nora herself? You’re her mother.’ ‘But not a good mother,’ Caitlin declared with commendable honesty. ‘She’d be more likely to confide in Michael than in me, but she hasn’t. Not in this case. Nora and I have never been all that close. Not as close as a mother and an only daughter ought to be. We get on badly, she and I.
What Can I Say to You What can I say to you, oh autumn, when you rise from the lights of the city up to the clouds? Hymns, symbols, poetry all familiar frosty flowers of the mind flow onto your hair. A giant, you appear like an emperor’s spectrum on the road of bitterness and recollection; with your golden greatcoat’s fringe you scatter leaves and faces of stars upon the soil you, the angel of decay, master of death the shadow which in a few imaginary steps occasionally you slowly flap your wings to write question-marks on the horizon. I yearn, oh shivering autumn, for the hours for this forest’s trees, the lonely bust and as the branches fall onto the soil at autumn I’ve come to let myself into your holy ardor
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
eleven The Black Myth and the White of generations and races became history Hysteria became Myth half of them forgot their origin the rest of their destination
21st of November Another Sunday. Headache. Too many cigarettes. Smoke. The windows don’t open. I don’t have but a week of rain and shells of cracked almonds. The faint light through the window; six pieces of ice. The wick of the lamp, I don’t know, looks like inverted silence. I count the squares of the blanket. All day long I think that a basket of bread is nothing but a basket of bread. I contemplate on this though I can’t believe it because, why the buttons of our shirts get loose and when the nights walk out in the roads, how do we find the nails of the stars in the holes of the washrooms every morning?
III Shadows of the living dead calligraphically dangling from the turrets of the castle tortured aspirations hanging from the insignia of palaces groans hymned by untamed heroes in the sunless dungeons into which the brave becomes braver and the weak become weaker. Choir and its antiphony, two opposing rivulets yet both trickling to the same river merge into the most accepting ocean. Kneel and forever fear me, the day’s command laments kneel and forever fear me, the greediest ghetto decrees kneel and forever fear me, the ancient symbol commands kneel and forever fear me, decrees the greediest headmaster with his golden tiara and the gleaming chasuble.
Perverted Passion Someday I’ll remember something so nice; it’ll be autumn in that narrow side street with the glass shops, where father sold dream books after he went bankrupt — since then I never got out of the dream, although I was cold; at least I could fall back onto my perverted passion: melancholy or crowding. Because, let’s be honest, I never loved anybody and this tender glance of mine was just for personal use like the immortality of the poets.
VII From the badly stuccoed walls of twilight the oil, the kitchens of the poor houses, the orphanage, the groomed village boys of the stars, life never stops coming like heavy rain of flags and wheat. Our glance, a fish with excellent memory swims in the tight veins of the sky. You love the marble, the clay, the old freedom of the trees, all the elements and their combinations all the geometry of the stars — you love not to love but to carry your love further. You love life. You love motion, a blind insect, an animal from the other side of time that has lost you, you love all the dirt path we’ve passed together. You love man. You love sadness, a spring that widens the contour of lips, two gnarled, forgotten hands, you know and love man so that you will gather drop by drop seed after seed stone after stone an act after an act his true self scattered amid the pollen and rivers lost amid the furniture and movie theaters. They run, they run with a few sobs in their embrace to get satiated by the leftovers of the wind to fool the cold with their rags of truth — no I’ll never be able to see the fluid metal of his enclosed hands in every man again a life overworked by life. We must march on.
Manolis Aligizakis 