TO MY WIFE My dear wife, I don’t have to say how much I’ve always loved you. If sometimes we contend and row in turbulence and turmoil living, it’s because I like upheaval and long for rougher seas. Love without some bitterness lacks sweetness, gives no joy, so keep your stern composure, leave me my troubled mind, and know that now and then too calm a sea brings vertigo. Dear wife, though I don’t tell you, you know how much I love you, your laughter but your anger too, and if another woman turn my eye, know that my heart and, yes, my ugliness belong to you for ever and some more.
Capricious Eyes bright as capricious sun doting on children time dodgy when you try to stop the clock feelings pass like clouds while you paint your masterwork tears hot as unplanned lock of lips learning its pain there are dreams in spectrum of poetic virtues penned dare your way onto another mountain ledge coddle another day’s sigh death is a pale horse but you canter forward with glaring light
“Bobby won’t give you a minute’s anxiety,” Emily said, “and neither will Katie. I don’t think I can be so confident about that little monkey, Susie.” “Strangely enough, Mom, it’s not Susie I’d be worried about, it’s Katie. She’s sweet and gentle but I also think she may be easily led. We just pray she’s led in the right ways.” Millie put her needles and unfinished sock on the coffee table in front of her. “As far as you and Morley are concerned, she will be.” She started to rise but sat back quickly with a hand grasping her abdomen. Tyne sat upright, ready to go to her aunt’s aid. “Are you all right, Auntie?” Millie’s face had paled, but she relaxed and forced a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Yes, I think so. Just a stitch in my side. I’m fine.” She reached for the coffee table, but Tyne gently touched her hand. “Sit for a minute until you feel better. I’ll wash up the tea things.” She collected their cups and plates and carried them to the kitchen. As she ran water into the enamel sink, Tyne said a silent prayer for her aunt. And suddenly she realized there had been something different about Aunt Millie recently. She didn’t have her usual spark, and it was obvious she had been losing weight. Tyne dried the dishes and hung the tea towel over the bar on the oven door, all the while berating herself for being unaware of changes in her aunt. Had her nursing skills deteriorated so much that she didn’t notice something so basic about one of her own family? Where had her attention been? Was she so absorbed in the children’s needs that she hadn’t looked beyond them to the senior people in her life? Maybe it was time she returned to work to brush up on the things that used to be second nature to her. One thing she knew – from now on she would spend more time with Aunt Millie than she had in recent months. And Rachael would have to step up and help with the twins. And maybe, just maybe, that would also solve the problem of the amount of time she spent with Lyssa.
As crafty as logos is so it hides the secret of survival. It hides between its lines who wounded your heart who dirtied your stars; logos will become a false witness that you’ll regain the reflection of love. It organizes your defence and your exoneration since you sacrificed the secret of immortality for a momentary meeting in heavens, and it makes you forget your daily diet with an imaginative verse of a poem: ephemeral, raw. You announce with chosen antithesis: I’m content with momentary poetry. Leaving behind the loss you search for new techniques to hymn eyes and other eyes for as long as yours remain open, you say: I still have work to do.
Aquarius With the star of deluge pinned on its lapel and having put aside the bag of rambling it unearthed the viscera of desert half in the wind half in the light. Suddenly water drops shone on the weight of its tiredness and filled the sun with passengers
Season Pages from a lost revolution that, in its margins, we also wrote our lives. Oh, great incomprehensible season when suddenly one understands the other.
Flock The sun shines over the long peninsula when the shepherd gets up to lead his flock to the sunlit mountain slope, his dog, a loyal worker runs after all the half-asleep sheep, especially the ones that stray away from the rest and which he guides back to the flock and to the watering well where the old shepherd, using a bucket, pulls water and pours into the watering wood canal where he guides his sheep to take their fair share while birds around sing their morning arias and the old man feels he too can sing one of the local four liners thanking the ineffable for granting him another healthy day; tears flow down his cheeks when he thinks that one day he too will be done in the arms of joyous Thanatos, time will surely come when the old shepherd will be obsolete since sheep and other animals are raised in stables these days sheep fed with chemicals enough to make sure they grow fast to make sure they are slaughtered to make sure tonnes of meat is produced for the meat-eating consumers who live in the big cities and in every corner of the globe.
Exclusion Calm sea with imperceptible schisms; intentional light that colours the low clouds. So you won’t remember, you won’t forget. The present, he says; which present? Deaf messengers came during the night, they sat on the stone stairs, took out their kerchiefs, lay them on their knees, then they folded them again. They left. One of them had a deep scar from his temple to his chin. He stood, pointed towards the sea and tied the rope on his waist. Then we put the oil lamps on the ground and noticed our shadow, hairy, boneless, gigantic, as it climbed up the white wall.
Joyous Break We were all full of joy that morning oh God, how full of joy. First, the stones, the leaves and the flowers shone then the sun a huge sun full of thorns yet so high up in the sky. A nymph gathered all our cares and hung them from the trees a forest of Judas trees. Young cupids and satyrs played and sang there and you could see rosy limbs among the black laurels flesh of little children. We were full of joy all morning long the abyss was a closed well where the tender hoof of a young faun pounded you remember its laughter: how full of joy we were! Then clouds, rain and the moist soil you stopped laughing as you laid down in the hut and opened your large eyes gazing the Archangel practicing with a fiery sword. ‘Inexplicable’ you said ‘inexplicable’ ‘I don’t understand people no matter how much they play with colors they all remain black.’
Tyne did not know what to say. If Morley were here, he would know how to respond to Ruby’s outrageous suggestion. She lowered her head and mouthed a silent prayer. “Oh God, help me say the right things. Give me wisdom, Lord, because I’m scared. I’m scared for Morley because I don’t know what’s happened to him. And I’m scared for these children you have seen fit to bring into our lives. But God, I’m not ready for all this; too much has happened too fast. Please keep Morley safe and send him to me.” She looked up to find Ruby staring at her. Tyne shook her head. “I can’t give you an answer, Ruby. You know I’ll have to talk to Morley about it.” Ruby nodded. “Yeah, sure I know. But I also know I can’t take him back, Tyne. I’m just dreaming when I say he has to come home.” She burst into tears. Tyne jumped to her feet. Crossing to the sofa, she sat down beside the distraught woman and put her arms around her. “Hush, it will be all right, I promise. We’ll work something out.” In a few minutes Ruby dried her tears and stood up. “I have to see Ronald again before it’s time for my bus. I have to go home tonight.” At the door she turned with a half smile. “Thanks for listening.” Tyne watched her leave, her thoughts in turmoil. Another promise … she had just made another promise that she didn’t know if she could keep. Her life was spinning out of control. She and Morley had been married for less than half a year when their world was rocked by that first promise she had made the night Lydia Conrad had come to the nurses’ station in Emblem Hospital. As a result of that brief encounter with her patient, she and Morley had known the joy of loving two small children; they had known panic when those children went missing; and they had known the heartache of losing their own unborn child. And now, Morley was missing after going on a mission of mercy to find the children’s father and bring him to them. What more do you want of us, God? Tyne cried in her heart. What more do you want us to do?
Manolis Aligizakis 