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And what do they want? What do they want from me? Revenge, revenge they yell. Let them take their own revenge, on their own, since their revenge keeps them alive. I don’t want to listen to her anymore. I can’t put up with it. No one has the right to control my eyes, mouth, hands, these legs that step on the ground. Give me your hand. Let us go. Long, absolute, summer nights that belong to us; nights mixed with stars, sweaty armpits, broken glasses — an insect buzzes softly in the ear of quietness; warmed up lizards in front of the legs of youngish statues, slugs on garden benches or inside the closed ironworks shop sauntering on the huge anvil, leaving on the metal white lines made of saliva and sperm. Let us leave the land of Mycenae; this soil smells of copper rust and black blood. Attica is lighter; isn’t? At this time I feel, this exact hour, is the hour of my final resignation. I don’t want to be their subject of discussion, their clerk, their instrument, nor their leader.
Sound of Words My words are made of wood; I paint them black and carefully hang them from the ceiling. The daily wind comes in through the window and stirs them clumsily. Night reigns in and out of the room I only hear their lazy rustle as they stir. Sometimes they bump into each other creating strange sounds: a bell in a town on fire, the death rattle of the sick man whose larynx is eaten by time, the talons of a bird playing a violin, explosion in a factory where four dead men and sixty injured, pistol that begs, laughter that cries.
“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…
…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.
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…
Mayanaam
vequinox
Manolis 