Still Waters

excerpt

“Daddy? How is he?”
“Oh, Tyne, I don’t know. It’s a terrible thing, terrible. What are we
going to do?”
Tyne took a deep breath. “The first thing we’re going to do, Mom,”
she said evenly, “is pull ourselves together. It isn’t going to do Dad
any good to see us break down. May I go in to see him now?” There
didn’t seem to be any point in asking her mother more questions
about his condition, better that she see for herself.
Her dad was lying half on his side with pillows propped at his
back. His eyes were closed. An intravenous had been started in his
left arm. A small amount of mucous ran out of the corner of his
mouth onto the pillow. Tyne approached the bed quietly, leaned over
the side rail, and touched his right hand where it lay on top of the
covers. It felt cold and lifeless. A lump lodged itself in her throat.
“Dad.” She touched his face and he opened his eyes. Recognizing
her, he attempted to smile, but the right side of his face did not respond.
The result was a contortion of his features that sent her heart
plummeting.
“I’m here, Dad. I came as soon as Aunt Millie called. You’re going
to be all right. We’re all praying for you.”
He moved his lips but she had to listen closely to understand the words.
She thought he said, “I know you are, little girl, thanks for coming.”
Little girl. She closed her eyes tightly and two tears escaped and ran
down her cheeks. Oh Lord, please give Daddy strength and courage to
overcome this. From out of her memory the words of the Twenty-
Third psalm emerged. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil, For Thou art with me, Thy rod and
thy staff they comfort me. “Please comfort my dad,” she prayed. When
she opened her eyes and saw his crooked smile, she knew she had
spoken aloud. 
Cam located her an hour after she arrived at her father’s bedside.
The day nurse, about to go off duty at three o’clock, came to tell Tyne
there was a long distance call for her. “You may take it at the nurses’
station,” she said pleasantly.
Tyne hurried to the desk. Her mother and Aunt Millie, sitting by
the bedside, suggested that Jeremy, worried and alone, was probably…

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763068

Swamped

excerpt

…the flies circling around them, like the gusts of the wind that sometimes
turn even more violent and abrupt. Sudden and abrupt like the
attacks of one team against the other until the end of the match is
whistled and Spitha, the local team, has beaten the team from Argyroupolis
two to one.
In that summer of 1958, when they move from Peristeri to Hagios
Fanourios, another Athens suburb, their father one day brings
home a heavy book called Erotokritos. He hands it to Eteocles, who
is now eleven years old and suggests that he read that big book. Eteocles
knows Erotokritos as a song people sing at christenings and weddings
and some other celebrations, but he has never known that it is
also this long, long poem.
After opening and reading a page, Eteocles knows that he will
enjoy it very much and also that he would like to have a copy of that
book for himself, though he doubts he ever will since they are so
poor, and getting the money to buy a copy, if not impossible, will certainly
be very difficult.
Then a thought comes into his eleven year old mind: why not
copy the book page by page and line by line, all 378 pages of it? He
doesn’t say anything to anyone, but he goes to the peripteron, the local
kiosk, and buys a red and a blue Bic pen and begins transcribing the
book that he imagines one day will be his own.
He uses the red pen to write the first letter of the first word of
every line and regular blue for the rest of each line. He even designs
headers for each chapter, exactly like the printed book, though the
designs of course are those of an eleven year old boy, a boy who has
never taken art lessons in any school, a boy who lets only his imagination
guide his pens, both the blue and the red.
When Nicolas finds out what Eteocles is doing, he only smiles
and says “good.” Nicolas has now finished all six grades of elementary
school and has started his apprenticeship at a small, family-run furniture
factory. Since he no longer has much time for playing their
usual football games, he doesn’t mind his brother getting involved in
such a time-consuming project and he leaves his little brother to transcribe
the Erotokritos and just rests when he comes back from work
every day. He is usually very tired anyway.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562976

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WP3LMPX

Neo-Hellene Poets, an Anthology of Modern Greek Poetry

KALOGIANNOS
Excerpt
Dedicated to my beloved son John Valaoritis
Don’t ask me whence I come or where I’m going
I have no home except
the blackberry’s wild and thorny branches
where the wind and rain beat me, the poor bird that I am,
but my home’s the ravine and joy is my life
as I fly and perch and stretch my long and carefree wings.
When I thirst a little, the sky-dew quenches me,
and I can eat my fill with a tiny ant.
I wake at dawn and dress myself with
the sun’s first rays; I put on the gold-stitched
royal chlamydia and commence my song.
When a proud eagle flies to the clouds
and threatens the world, I see and laugh at it.
I neither hate its fortune nor fear its soulless talons.
It won’t come down to feast on me,
such creatures find the world too small against its glory.
People call it emperor and put the crown upon its head.
They fashion it double-headed, and they paint
its image holding in one hand the golden sphere
and on the other a drawn sword…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562959

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763513

Impulses

Vultures
Such indifference of stars
dry eyed when the knife
opens your flesh and like
a greenhorn soldier
you stand your ground wait for the
the shoe to drop through
the echo of a deeper wound
piercing its path
through your persistence as
vultures hover
grasping jagged cliffs
gazing on the depth of thirst
below cloudless horizon suffering
under pressure of the gleaming day

https://draft2digital.com/book/3744513#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073565