Another week went by in the usual office routines and house routines, but when Saturday night came around, Eteo experienced another first in his relationship with Ariana. He took her for dinner to La Pergola in Richmond, where they dined on prosciutto and other special salamis and antipasti, with the restaurant’s special bigoli pasta as the main course, a rare dish in Vancouver that only this restaurant offered. They also had an excellent bottle of Chianti, which perfectly complemented the pasta and grated parmigiana. Ariana was as familiar with pasta dishes as Eteo, but this bigoli was unique and she exclaimed in delight when she tasted it. “I’ve never tasted pasta this good, and we use pasta a lot in our cuisine,” she said with a big grin on her face. They were on the patio, birdsong all around them, and the food, the wine, and the ambience made them both jolly and content. Above them, in the heights of the firmament, a billion stars seemed to reflect their jolly mood, dancing their twinkling celestial dance in the midst of the great void. “I haven’t been here for a long time, but their food is still …
Shiny new ones from Germany and Japanese ones with colourful markings. He began to wonder if he had the wrong hotel. Just when he considered giving up, maybe returning tomorrow, he saw her coming. She was a long way off, walking, not from the direction of the Hotel Rossiya, but from the direction of Red Square. As she got closer, he could see that she was laughing and happy. His heart gave a little lurch and she approached him quickly, still smiling. Wonder of wonders, she was apologizing to him: “Sorry I’m late. We’re not staying at this hotel after all. We were taken to the Hotel Bucharest, way over there. I walked across a bridge…” “Da, da, da,” was all he could think of to say, nodding and smiling in return. This was superb! Recovering slightly from his daze, Sergey linked arms with her like a sweetheart and they walked around the block, while Sergey ran through his various shopping lists. She interrupted several times to tell him that she hadn’t seen such an item or there was a good supply of the other. Eventually he gave her all the foreign money, which turned out to be $45 American dollars, a few pounds sterling and some West German marks, and she disappeared into the store. “Ech, you dope,” Sergey muttered. “You could have offered her a drink or an ice cream from the stand…” Once more he waited, this time choosing a different street corner, next to the GUM department store. He could shop at GUM himself later. The way he calculated it, shopping for goods like vodka and brandy at the foreign currency store would save him money because everyone knew items for tourists were at least four times cheaper than in their Russian stores—that is if you could find them in the Russian stores. Also, it would give him lots of time to procure out of stock goods elsewhere. The difference would probably pay for his wanton taxi ride plus maybe an evening at the restaurant…with Lona. Guiltily, he realized that he had been in Moscow for three hours and hadn’t thought once of Nadya, his sister. He should telephone her; she had a phone installed recently and he had the new number. There was a pay phone across the way, but the receiver hung uselessly. Some one had placed a sign “Not Working” and it looked as if the sign had been there for months. There would be public telephone booths at the telegraph office in back of the hotel and they would be in good working order. He slipped over there to make his call.
Impact And since the new reality was upon us we truly accepted it: our God was dead. Buried him yesterday afternoon with no songs, no paeans, nor lamentations and we felt a lot lighter. Nothing was as ticklish as the mood of the somber day while fear, I’d say, was hidden deep in our hearts. Sorrow reigned in the black funeral home while beggars, outside, stretched their hands asking for what we couldn’t spare: decency of the new serpent who appeared without fangs, feverish magnolia bloomed its purple flowers over our nuptial bed and in an eyrie we filled our chalice with courage and shipped it to the four corners of the universe and promised never to be trapped again in the idiocy of a system. The Andean condor we declared heir of the flesh the wind and the rain we proclaimed our catharsis evoe, oh, free elements, evoe multiply and conquer the earth someone said and it was good
Humble Ode They have no voice: things that return to their sleep, their eyes bloodied by time insignificant shipwrecks in the bottom of color, rise now in a multitude of colors. However, I am dead since my birth, already dead, talking to you: monsters that frighten me with death I know you harmless house pets you willingly become crumbs in a myth you don’t have history, and you scold the agony of people and their spontaneous love. Cheap shadows, excrements of wild imagination what do you seek in a causeless world? Indifferent, homeless cowards what do we seek in the horrible deserts of our vision?
FIRST VERSES I like to read your letter over and cry and with my eyes lingering on every line to see you still warm, still remembering when we said we’d be forever one, remembering the days we ran with one another to where nightingales sang seductively the day that I remember when you said I feel an ache here in my heart before the cough arrived to stop your words
…that rumour either—in fact Caitlin thought she would more quickly believe the other—and she was annoyed that Caitlin might be about to ridicule religion as she had ridiculed Padraig. “No, it doesn’t make me laugh,” Caitlin said earnestly. “It happens to be true. I’m joining the Church.” Nora turned and looked in disbelief at Caitlin. Her face showed her astonishment, but as the truth of Caitlin’s words became apparent, Nora broke into a radiant smile, and her eyes lit up with a joy such as Caitlin had never seen before. “Oh Caitlin,” Nora cried, grasping Caitlin by the shoulders and staring into her eyes in rapture. “I can’t believe it has happened. I’ve so much longed and prayed for this day.” She leaned toward Caitlin and hugged her tightly as tears glimmered in her eyes. She straightened up, dropped her hands into the lap of her pink summer dress and asked, “When did you reach this momentous decision?” “It’s something that developed gradually and not without a lot of heart-searching,” Caitlin said. “I think it was Joe-Joe Carney’s illness that started it.” Nora looked serious again. “That incident with young Joe-Joe did Padraig a lot of good in the village. He needed that miracle badly. A lot of people were not at all happy about Padraig coming back among them as their priest and confessor. They remembered his background and they didn’t trust him.” Nora paused and glanced awkwardly at her hands. “You won’t be angry if I say something personal?” “No.” “These latest rumours of an affair between you and him are destroying all the goodwill Padraig earned from Joe-Joe’s recovery. People are saying unkind things about him again and gaining credence. You have to let it be known what’s happening, Caitlin. For Padraig’s sake.” “Another miracle for the Father,” Caitlin said with an edge of sarcasm. “Very well, Nora, you have my permission, as not just my twin sister, but as my closest friend in this village of spite and vindictiveness, to broadcast the truth. Caitlin MacLir has accepted the One True Faith.” “Does Daddy know?” “I haven’t actually told him in so many words,” Caitlin replied, while a guilty shadow flittered across her face. “But he knows.” “Or just suspects.” “No. I believe he knows what’s going on.”
Absence I shall keep your absence alive during the moments I search for something imaginary or real when, in vain, I try to locate your absence in the crevasse of my mind where it takes flesh and blood and begs me never to deny it
Encouraging Biztató My grayness melted into fresh death gleaming, churches on fire, the city smokes, my face is still of blood steaming, and the years have left me in the image stocks.
Who brought me the worldly corruption twist? the smell of death penetrated my wrist, – my days keep the fresh swearing, like a newborn keeps the stale air in. Sometimes the summer took advantage of me, winters came at me
its rainbows sat next to my doubts, you had to listen, there was a seal on my mouth, you see, this is how my evening tried to find the way out. I ran away although I was a coward
the landscape is silent, the dead rest in wilt, they left no mark on morals, although a wraith writhed in guilt. You’re closer to blood than a kiss of chastity
a man with a glassy face thought of a rhyme,
I ask for Samson’s strength for the reality, because this is how the immune system encouraged mine. Living a hermit life in the desert keeps me well, where the coastal cacti hug to survive, as the handsome heart got a spell, which the crystal cortex has kept alive.
He was afraid. He was afraid of hearing “no,” and that answer rupturing the wonderful relationship and the good thing that they have going. Yet, he felt that he needed more. More of Cindy. He couldn’t get this wonderful woman out of his mind. Anticipating some of the barriers, Joel already knew that getting Lila to school would be a problem. Living in town, the elementary school was only a short ten-minute walk from her home. Out here, the bus ride would take nearly an hour each way to get to the closest school at Fort Hope. And what about Cindy’s job at the auction mart? With Great Falls being hours away it just didn’t make sense for her to travel to work from the ranch. And what about the loneliness? Sure, there was a few other ranch families scattered through the hills, but there wasn’t anywhere near the kind of active social life here that one would have in the city. He only could think of the barriers, and for that reason, he decided not to jeopardize the relationship by asking her to join him on the ranch. But he also was afraid that if he didn’t step their relationship up to the next level that sooner or later some city guy would discover the leggy, attractive, and intelligent blonde. And then who knew what might happen. It was in this state of confusion that Joel lay there in his bed as Cindy dressed for the drive home at the end of the day. Slipping into his jeans once Cindy was ready to leave, he walked her out to her truck and stood there in his Wranglers, watching the taillights of her vehicle disappear into the hills heading back to Great Falls.
Manolis Aligizakis 