I had to climb up on a stool, and shout at Gioffo, who looked busy and irritated to see me there at this time of the night and it took him a while to come around to where I was and he squinted down at me and he said, for the others, “’ey, the kid’s buyin!” Some of them thought it was funny but most of them didn’t even pay attention and he looked down at me like he couldn’t figure what the hell, and I said, in a high, squeaky voice, Pasquale wants four cans of Ballantine’s and I put the crinkled bill on the wet bartop. Gioffo scratched his beard. He looked confused.
“You sure, kid? Pasquale don’t like Ballantine’s. Look, I’ll give you a draft, you can bring back the pail tomorrow.”
It made perfect sense, but it set me off in a panic.
“No, no. Everybody’s there. He wants Ballantine’s. For the guys, ya know?”
Gioffo nodded. “O. K., boyo. Now I’m gonna put an opener in the bag, but take care you don’t drink one on the way.” And he winked at me, and I felt my stomach sink and a few of the men laughed half-heartedly and I took the paper bag and slipped down off the stool and scuffed out through the sawdust into the summer night.
The first thing I wished was that I had another Spud menthol. I tucked the bag under my arm and felt the cold cans through the brown paper numbing my skin.
Part of me knew that Pasquale had nothing to do with this. But suppose he did? I was making movies in my head when Joey came up to me. I hadn’t seen where he came from. He was friends with my older cousins, maybe he had been inside. Maybe he was having drinks with my nonno, how did I know? So what was all that winking and yelling about?
I was on the right track and would have understood eventually, but my fantasy of riding for Wells Fargo took over. I imagined that the loud talking was just bragging about my legendary skill as a rider over dangerous terrain. Or, to put it another way, Joey was letting everyone know that I was the best beer delivery boy on the block.
By the time I straightened this out, I was very near home. I pushed the front gate open and walked carefully toward the glowing windows.
I stood in the dark vestibule and the sweat on my face turned cold. Should I knock? Should I get the hell out of there and go to the park?
I opened the door and barged in like I always did. After a while they noticed me.
Day: 11/20/2025
Wheat Ears
Doubt
And in secrecy I celebrated my nuptials
as per tradition, a rooster always called
the dawn and I, the anointed,
was meant to mound the Kore
before the branches of trees
connected to form the cross
symbol of my catharsis eternal
toughened and invincible who I had become
years that I had spent in my mind’s purgatory
was it in my previous lifetime or in my dream?
And truly, I was meant for the sacrifice
and I searched for purity to the point
of relentlessness and I longed for
the beautiful to the point of regression
traumas of my youth turned out
to be a lifetime effort to my apotheosis
resulting in my wisdom
like the esoteric anchorite’s
Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume IV
Actaeon
The revenge of Artemis was harsh, Actaeon (although
unwillingly you saw her naked as she bathed in the stream
of Parthenius), to turn you into a deer, that your own dogs,
moved by her anger and not knowing it, ripped you
to pieces. Now as night falls, we hear their howling,
their horrific barking among the shadows of the leaves,
towards the waning moon — we can’t close our eyes;
we leave the bed, light the night candles, try to paint
your whole beauty on the walls, as Chiron did in his cave.
And if we succeed to paint you, the night turns serene; your
fifty dogs look at your image, sniff the air, and suddenly
quieten down. But the next night we have to start from
the beginning, because during the day, under the sunlight
and the voices from the Agora, your image fades away and
by the twilight your rosy and golden staff has vanished.
And again we hear the dogs and birds around you
in the closed house.
Hellenic Canadian Literature 