In Turbulent Times

excerpt

Slow tears slid down Caitlin’s cheeks and she brushed them away with the back of her hand.
‘Who did she marry?’ Joe asked.
‘Liam Dooley,’ Michael answered.
‘Liam Dooley. But he’s … Oh my God.’
‘It took all of us by surprise too, Joe.’ Caitlin was in command of her voice again. ‘We knew she saw Liam every day at the school, of course. We knew she stayed late some afternoons. We also knew that she cooked him a meal now and then; and that they went to hear The Messiah together in Belfast last Christmas. But for the life of me, Joe, none of us ever suspected there was anything more than just friendship between them.’
‘Then six or seven weeks ago,’ said Michael, ‘home she comes and says they’re getting married.’
‘And it was all over and settled in a month or less. Banns read and all. Quickest bit of marrying I’ve ever seen.’
Joe heaved a sad sigh. ‘So she couldn’t wait,’ he said almost inaudibly, as if talking to himself.
‘Joe, please …’
‘There’s nothing to be said, Mrs Carrick. There’s nothing to be done. She’s married, isn’t she? And to Liam Dooley of all people. No wonder no one at home wanted to tell me.’
‘They’ve all got other things on their minds, Joe,’ Michael said.
‘Ay, that’s true enough.’ Joe sighed a sigh that he heaved up all the way from his feet.
‘Joe, go and see her,’ Caitlin said soothingly. ‘Go and talk to her. And please don’t be hard on her. Perhaps she can make you understand.’
‘Ay, go and talk to her, Joe,’ Michael urged, ‘if only to try and convince her that you bear her no ill-will. I don’t think she could stand it if you did.’
Joe turned and resting one hand on the mantelpiece stared into the fire.
‘Now more than ever, Joe,’ Michael went on, ‘you’ve got to act like a brave man. This will most likely be your hardest battle.’
‘It’s a battle with yourself, Joe,’ Caitlin said. ‘They’re always the hardest.’
A long, silent lull was broken only by the tick of the clock and by the unbecomingly merry chuckle of flames from the fire in the range.
‘Where is she?’ Joe asked at last.
‘In the schoolhouse,’ Caitlin answered. ‘And she’s on her own this evening. Liam’s away in Belfast. I suppose you heard that the Germans bombed Belfast again on Tuesday night.’

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562904

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763270

Small Change

excerpt

the janitor’s pail into Balestieri’s galoshes. And once, when she discovered
that Zaccardi had been drawing beautiful pencil sketches of birds instead
of recording her awkward homilies, she tore the page from his notebook,
ripped it into small pieces, and made him eat them in front of the class. I
knew I could outsmart her, she wasn’t that bright; but I had to make my
case completely irrefutable. Her capacity for humiliating retribution was
so fiendishly inventive I feared it might provoke my Sant’Arsenese temper,
and how could I prosper in life if it became known that I’d stabbed a pudgy
nun through the gut with a blackboard pointer?
After a few weeks of excruciating pretense I went to see Mother
Superior about my condition. She was very kind and sent me to the
school nurse, a nervous, myopic woman who kept looking over my head as
though she were waiting for a bus. When she asked me to read the chart,
I squinched up my eyes and tilted my head and pretended I couldn’t see
the third line while I memorized it so I could say it right off while partially
blinded by the first set of lenses she made me try on.
And so I was given a pair of spectacles, ugly things with wire frames
buried in transparent orange plastic. They made me dizzy, but after a while
I got so I could wear them most of the day without throwing up, though
the world they showed me looked like it was ten feet under water. I was
ecstatic. Phase one of my plan had gone off without a hitch, if you don’t
count the fact that the boys in the schoolyard at recess called me foureyes
and celebrated my new status by knocking my glasses off then tossing
them around while I pretended to be half blind, clawing the air wildly and
whining pitifully till my shameless pleading disgusted them and they gave
up.
Because I had practised at home, I read the Italian book now like
an angel, though I could only see blurred smudges on the page. Those silly
little paragraphs about Coniglio and Orso and other animals rolled off my
tongue. But I could honestly say I had some trouble reading the blackboard.
One day after school, I explained to Sister Miranda that I suffered from farsightedness,
and asked her again if I could have the empty seat beside Rita
McCrae. She looked at me with a shrewd expression and her small eyes
seemed to glitter. She said that since I was doomed to carry the outward
sign of my spiritual imperfection around on my nose for the rest of my
life, it would be uncharitable not to grant such a modest request, though
she warned me that I should expect no special privileges because of my …

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763157

Tasos Livaditis – Poems, Volume II

Long Listed for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Awards

https://griffinpoetryprize.com/press/2023-longlist-announcement/

Trains whistle
a loud roar from the four corners of the world
thousands of hands grab and chime the bells
men without limbs grab with their teeth and
pull the ropes
women grab their babies and raise them up
like banners
wind blows their hair
the wind unfolds their hair like a flag
we want to saw
we want to weave
we want to give birth
peace
peace
The wind rips the clouds open
and suddenly a waterfall of rain falls
on this ravaged multitude of people
we knead the dough though we don’t
have bread
we extract coal from the mine though
we are always cold
we are the destitute
who come to conquer the world
peace
peace
we the proletariat
The future, like a lightning bolt, plough
the capitals;
cities widen when pushed by the elbows
of the crowd
passing shadows fall roughly onto the buildings
like spades
this roar is the pulse of the highest fever
you could say the same future walks today

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763564

Fury of the Wind

excerpt

Arrival
On the hottest day of that oppressive summer of 1948 a stranger
arrived in Nimkus, Saskatchewan. At four o’clock on a Monday afternoon
the town appeared abandoned. Even the birds had gone into
hiding; not one crow hovered above the grain elevators to shatter the
stillness with its raucous cawing. And whatever dogs had roamed
the dusty thoroughfare earlier in the day had, along with their owners,
taken questionable shelter in their own backyards.
The only relief from the heat, both uptown and across the coulee,
was courtesy of a few ash trees spotted here and there between the
houses. Even the incessant prairie wind could not stir up a breath of
cool air.
Uptown, two older-model cars stood facing the derelict store fronts
that lined the one-sided main street. Not a soul wandered the narrow
aisles of Stratton’s General Store or disturbed the silence of
Bill McPhail’s drug store. Behind the stone and mortar walls of the
Royal Bank of Canada the teller dozed at her desk, while in a small
building next door, postmaster Ed Martin nodded in his chair
behind the wicket.
The only sounds of activity emanated from the far eastern end
of the street. There, in an unpainted shack that displayed the sign
Pong’s Laundry, the whir of a motor and the slap of washing machine
paddles kept up a steady rhythm.
Across the road, beside the railway tracks, the unloading platforms
of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and United Grain Growers
were deserted. Agent Will Andrews, sitting at his desk in the Canadian
Pacific Railway station, stared at them dispassionately through
a soot-smeared window. The fingers of one hand drummed an impatient
tattoo on the desk top as he awaited the arrival …

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073530