Flame
Moth plays
with the flame of the candle
his fingers touch
her fiery skin
game of entering
and exiting begins
body heat-trapping
The unsuspected visitors
as the enamoured moth
dances with the flame
And he feathery blows
onto her feminine lips
captivating moments
The light breeze enters
to erase the mark that his tongue
left onto her clit
excerpt
With the Group of Seven paintings as
a template, he taught himself to paint again, working only on southern
landscapes. He took several to the owner of The Golden Key Gallery who
placed one in the window and sold it within two days. More sold during
the next few months, but then the gallery owner sold his business and
Ken was once again without an outlet.
Still, he persisted and one day, while sketching the bent shapes of driftwood,
in the dunes near the airport, it occurred to him that he could make
a profit from the abundance of wood on the beach. He purchased a pickup
truck and two chain saws, cut up the wood, wrapped velvet ribbons
around the most attractive pieces, and attached a card with his telephone
number. He left the wood on the front steps of the city’s grand homes
and within days, the orders came in. While he delivered and stacked the
firewood, he told the homeowners his stories of the Arctic, and when
they asked about his paintings, he would display the canvases he carried
in the cab of his truck. The Arctic paintings didn’t sell but the southern
landscapes were a hit.
He taught himself to become a storyteller, rehearsing every anecdote
he had, practising his tone, volume, order of words and, most importantly,
his choice of words. Where was the power of the story?
His clients listened, but showed little interest, so he made a list of every
service club in the city. Would they like a guest speaker at their next
meeting? Yes, they would like to hear about the Arctic, and so, Ken did
the rounds. Each audience contained a handful of people who showed
mild interest – the rest were bored, and often antagonistic. Sometimes
he was heckled, and a red tide of anger would creep up from his chest to
flush his neck and cheeks. Once someone shouted that he, and the rest of
the people there, resented an immigrant telling Canadians how to live in
their country and run their lives.
“That is hardly what I am doing,” Ken retorted. “I intend no disrespect.
I am simply here bringing information from a faraway place.”
His words dropped like ragged bits of paper to lie discarded on the
floor. Perhaps his stories were so outside the experience of most Canadians
that they seemed like tall tales – unlikely and unbelievable. There had
to be a better way to tell people about the Arctic but what was it?
His father told him that he was involving himself in matters that were
none of his business. He was not a citizen of Canada and until he was,
he should keep his opinions to himself. He responded that he was only
doing what he had learned at his father’s knee, in Portugal. He reminded
his father that Ken Sr. had not been a citizen of Portugal and yet he had
become deeply involved in the affairs of that country and had worked
hard to help the people. The Inuit were human beings in great distress, he
said, and he was trying to help.
Excerpt
“Good morning,” Tanya chirped as Joel turned in his
sleeping bag. She was standing on the ground beside
the truck, her sleeping bag unused.
“Morning,” grumbled Joel.
“I took care of the chores already,” she said. “The horses are
fed and the stalls are cleaned. Are you ready for a cup of coffee?”
“Sure. Just give me a couple of minutes to get into my jeans,”
Joel replied. Tanya ducked around the corner of the truck and
Joel scrambled into his Wranglers.
Once Joel and Tanya had found their way to the canteen and
were sitting at a table sipping on their morning java, Joel couldn’t
help himself and had to ask, “So where did you end up last
night?” He hated himself for asking, like he was her father, but
like a run-away horse he just couldn’t hold himself back.
“We got back around eleven and I went by the trailer to let you
know that I was going to stay with the girls, they were good
enough to invite me to bunk down in their trailer. You were
already sound asleep and it didn’t make sense to wake you. I have
to tell you, it really wasn’t too hard of a decision—a hay mattress
in the back of a truck or a real mattress and running water,
including a shower, in a travel trailer. Sorry Joel, the girls won
that one hands down.”
“I guess it isn’t any of my business. I shouldn’t have even
asked. Sorry about that.”
Searching
Have you seen my nest
in barn’s upper beam
just behind the middle post
hid well from predators
youthful eyes wondering
in an abandoned building
this post an observatory
for owl and clever
wind that dances
grasses and her mind as
she hunts for her young chicks
begging on the beam for evening’s
meal as the surprise of
elements endures patient
meditation on a lower post
Each morning they take a count of us;
each evening we count the leftover plates
the leftover grief in our eyes
as the rain casts the dice with the policemen
night falls and the whistles start echoing.
Now we want to put our hands in our armpits
to look whether a star gleams in the sky,
to remember that face
against the opening of the door
but we can’t remember
we have no time to remember
we don’t have time but to stand tall
and die.
My beloved
I perhaps feel cold when it rains
I perhaps caress the crumbs of memory
in my pockets
my palms that once held you are still hot
but I can’t return.
How can I deny the piece of hardened bread that twenty of us
shared?
How can I deny my mother who expects from me
a cup of sage tea?
How can I deny our child who we promised a wedge
of the sky?
How can I deny Nikolas
who was singing while they aimed to execute him?
When I return we won’t have a lamp to light, we won’t
know where to place our dream.
We shall remain silent.
Excerpt
“Those people didn’t buy a car, did they Irv?”
“They said they’d be back tomorrow, Mr. Torgerson.”
“They won’t be back, Irv. They’ll go down the street to Pearson’s
and buy a Mercury, maybe even a Lincoln, because you didn’t
cinch that deal, Irv. You’ve got to cinch those deals, Irv.”
“I do my best.”
“Your best is going to have to get better, Irv. You call those people
tonight and you get ’em back in here tomorrow. You tell ’em
you’ll make a deal they’ll like, Irv. I want to see ’em sitting at that
table signing things.”
“They’re from up the river.”
“You find ’em. You get ’em in here again. You sell ’em a
Packard.”
“I’ll do my best, Mr. Torgerson.”
“I know you will, Irv.”
The salesman turned back into the show room. Torgerson’s
voice tracked him.
“Irv, I just know you will.”
Maybe it was because times were good, Torgerson thought, or
maybe it was because the mayor job brought him attention, but
Packard sales were up almost 20 percent over two years ago. A
third of the way through his first term, he was mapping out his
next campaign. Only I’ll really run, he thought. Last time was a
fluke, I know that. Ken Spear, he’s the one who could take it away,
but I don’t think he realizes it. Somebody will tell him. You can
count on that, because a lot of people would like me out. I piss off
too many of them. But, that’s what happens when you make waves
in a little town.
Torgerson looked up from his musing. Poodie James was passing
in front of the window. Torgerson moved through the show
room and out onto the sidewalk just as Poodie stopped his wagon
and reached into the used car lot for a Coke bottle standing in front
of a ’41 Ford Roadster. Torgerson charged over and stepped in
front of him.
“Get out of my lot,” he yelled. “Go on, get out of here. Go on.”
Il Pagliaccio
With his pink face, his tardy pants, his
perennially smiling lips, the pagliaccio*
runs to the stage drawing an imaginary
circle in front of kids who laugh
especially when he pulls a kerchief out
of his pocket, a green kerchief with no
end and after he pulls three meters of
endless fabric and focusing on the faces
of the children the pagliaccio gets ready
for his next act: he takes off his hat and
turning it upside down he puts his hand
in it and after three abracadabra he raises
a snow-white rabbit in the air to the yelling
and laughing kids as the pagliaccio,
as happy as ever with his performance,
disappears behind the big red curtain
not forgetting his duty to the man, he
once was, one who could reach the stars,
who could transcend the flesh and touch
the eternal, which, alas, he never did.
Excerpt
Chapter Eight
The ringing of the alarm clock awakened Tyne. She opened her eyes
to glare at the offending timepiece on the desk across the room. To
heck with it. She closed her eyes and snuggled again into her pillow.
Moe bounced from her bed and grabbed the clock to shut it off.
“Come on, sleepyhead. Get out of that sack. Don’t you know what
day this is?”
Tyne forced her eyes open. Moe, standing in the middle of the
room in her short nightshirt, stretched and yawned. “How can you
sleep this morning? We’ve been waiting three years for this day.” She
walked to the door to turn on the ceiling light.
Tyne blinked and pulled the sheet up to shield her eyes from the
sudden brightness. “What day … oh yeah, so it is. Our last day of
training.”
“You don’t sound very excited.” Moe grabbed her dressing gown
from the chair and shrugged into it.
“Believe it or not, I feel a little sad.”
“Oh come on, Moon River. What’s to be sad about? We’ll still be
at the Holy Cross if that’s what’s worrying you, and you’ll be doing
what you like best – helping to cut people up.”
Tyne got up, walked to the dresser and began to brush her hair.
“I didn’t tell Curly when I saw her yesterday that I’m going to be
working in surgery. I thought it would be like rubbing salt into the
wound.”
“That was good of you, but she’ll find out sooner or later. How’s
she doing, anyway?”
Tyne reached for her dressing gown. “Okay, I suppose.”
THE SEAGULLS FROM TRANSYLVANIA
This thorough country called nature
Lost breath of the heaven’s dragons
And from the wide waters of the sea deep from the very beginnings,
Even before the old Pannonian Sea
Added its extensions here,
Yes, this tenacious natural amphitheatre,
Full of thick forests,
Still silencing the Romans’ language,
This Transylvania is
Both the mountain shuddering with memory
And the fairy tale of the eyes suggesting the morning,
And especially the mild anxiety of some seagulls,
By their generations’ adage,
Becoming smaller and more grey
than their ancestors,
Living signs of the millennia,
Of the seas fatally squeezed into rivers,
In whose name there is a constant whisper:
The Someş, the Mureş, the Criş, the Criş, the Criş5 …
How could I not have recognized,
Even if I had not known what they were,
The thin quest of these Transylvanian seagulls
Gravely questioning the waves of my Criş River
And floating almost weightlessly,
As the poplar’s seeds fall;
Who can know if the absolute
Is not the forgotten song
Of the Transylvanian seagull?
5 Rivers from Transylvania
Tenth Canto
I discover eloquence in ash falling
like opened wishes of thirsty lips
and marking my share of urgency
I retract the curtain to reveal
an orchestra and chorus harmonies in
celestial reverb with the dynamism
of a faceless entity that dresses itself
in crimson riding greed on
some apocalyptic horse carrying
conversion coercion assimilation
proselytizing consequence of infidels
the necessity of martyrdom which started in
primeval depths of Miseria Dura
the end justifying any means with colorful
insignia of archons and beacons of
lords and crests flying high potent
cross banners unfolding speed to
deep grooves and flattening the firm virgin’s
breast the zealot’s façade
transforms into wrinkled face of the moon
over me standing on the steep-cut road
indifferent to his imminent demise
I witness a beheading and
everything shifts right
powered by a limited company acting as if
controlling infinite growth as if reaching no end
as the wise dandelion retains
bitterness for blood
virulence spread on faith’s
path unflinching curtain asks the same
question and the off-tune chorus
answers: I can do better
Manolis Aligizakis 