Jazz with Ella

excerpt

Paul switched off the cabin light, tucked his bag neatly into the corner and turned to her. “I know that,” he said quietly. “That’s why I’ve decided to stay here.”
★
David skipped his shower in favour of following up on the sunrise swimmer. He pounded quickly down the stairs and was in time to see Jennifer disappearing into Paul’s cabin. Paul? A spy? For sure, the trail of puddles up the corridor ended at Paul’s door. Unabashedly, David leaned toward the door and listened. He could hear the murmur of voices—once or twice growing louder. “I have to try and talk you out of this,” Jennifer was saying.
Note to self, David thought. No need for bugs hidden in the intercom. The commies can hear us through the cabin doors. Finally he decided that eavesdropping was stupid, knocked on the door and walked in. As he entered, Jennifer appeared dumbstruck. Paul looked as if he had just made an embarrassing noise.
Slowly she turned to David. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, I saw…a man swimming to the boat.” David glanced at the wet garments hanging over Paul’s sink.
“David, Lona, me—is there anyone who doesn’t know about this?” asked Jennifer.
“Well, you can bet Chopyk won’t notice a thing,” Paul answered. They all laughed, even David, though he wasn’t sure why.
“Please tell me I can talk you out of this,” Jennifer went on. “It’s a hasty decision.”
“But the right one.” Paul appeared to be listening but continued to pack a knapsack.
“No. It’s hasty. You don’t know what she’s like really….”
“She’s a dream!”
“And what will you live on?”
“She’ll get transferred back to her father’s farm—to help him. It shouldn’t be too difficult to arrange. We’ll live there.” Paul rolled a sweater into his pack and glanced up at Jennifer with a shy smile. David fidgeted from one foot to the other. They seemed to have forgotten his presence.
Jennifer groaned. “Are you crazy?”

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Blood, Feathers and Holy Men

excerpt

monks in his Novitiate year, of St. Brennain, the Irish monk who had sailed with his
companions to the “Land of Promise of the Saints.” He then called all the Brothers,
Keallach and Ailan, Lorcan and Rordan, and the two elderly hermits, Berach and
Brógán, to gather and share stories.
“My dear Brothers, have we not just seen what our blessed Brother, Saint Brennain,
saw and wrote about? It was four hundred years before our time when he and
his companions sailed as we have sailed, across this bottomless ocean to the edge of
the world.”
Brother Rordan nodded. “Yes. We visited the island of sheep, though ours were
not as big as those Saint Brennain saw.”
“We saw the island floating in the sky and came close to the land with the smell
of rotten eggs, where giants threw red hot boulders at us and set the sail aflame,”
Brother Ailan piped in.
Brother Keallach was as excited as Father Finten who was not accustomed to losing
control of the conversation. “I remember the stories well. We also sailed through
crystal columns that tried to take us captive. Before our own animals jumped into
the sea, we saw those two marvellous woolly ewes as big as cattle, standing atop the
ice palace in the frigid sea.”
“And do not forget the sea monsters that spewed great streams of water into Brennain’s
boat; we have seen them, too.”
“Yes we have, Brother Rordan. We have indeed.” Though Finten hated to be interrupted,
he was happy to see his own enthusiasm spreading. “And now, dear Brothers,
we are about to see the most wonderful sight of all. Here before us, is the Land of
Promise of the Saints. Now we will see the fields of flowers and every tree laden with
fruit.”
“And precious stones beneath our feet.”
Finten nodded. “Precious stones, ah, yes.”
At nightfall, beneath a full moon, the monks sang their evening prayer in peace.
The Norsemen sat in wonder listening to the melodic tones of the seven as they sang
Mary’s prayer of joy, the Magnificat.
“My soul doth magnify the Lord.”
“And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.”
Shortly before dawn, Finten and the Brothers were awakened to the shouts of
men and shrieking gulls. The knarr had drifted close to a high cliff. Waves dashed
violently against rocks below. The night watch must have fallen asleep.
“Get up. Get up. We are going aground.” Captain Hjálmar grabbed a long pole to
guide the ship away from the rocks toward a strip of sandy beach beyond the rocks.
“Come on men. Grab the oars. Push men, push.”
The roar of wood against rock echoed from the hull as the dying ship slowly
groaned sideways, tossing men and sheep into the foaming water.

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763106

Yannis Ritsos – Poems, Volume III

11th of November
Night fell and I don’t have anything to say;
when I can’t find the words I find quietness.
I think of a turtle that contracts its legs and head;
it must feel very secure in there. I stop thinking.
Tonight we had a twilight from those we find
between two seasons, when the children grow
with no wings in their dreams and rabbits don’t
chit-chat
and they don’t know who loves them and who
they love
and the quietness of the turtle inside has
no meaning yet.
Then, we must go to sleep. Turn off the lamps.

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Opera Bufa

Eighteenth Canto
Having tried the logic and having
given up on its use I direct His attention
to a job half done and arguing for
the benefit of the bedridden I ask
the enlightening evening to fill the
empty bed where a virgin sobs to
the bored hour looking down on her
manger of light defining one point
at the tip of thesis and antithesis
thread of life unending concept
trail of blood trickles to a zenith still
as if from subterranean nuance
divine comedy of amateur playwright
who in amusement abandons his productions hides
a splendorous secret in a pulsing aura of the Kore
before her breasts fall open
to the eccentric touch of wind
and women’s stockings form
a stratagem on the clothesline similar to
when you know deep inside
the taste of a kiss that frees
stars turning girls to crystals
over festive gowns and funereal shades
like two pleats of the same
heart erect in the midst
of a tempest sweeping a sickle
I struggle to discern meaning
in solemn icons and tormented bodies
as I push my firmness deep in the cave
and like a young plow wedge
my sperm between soil and eternity
just enough as though to give day or night
its fertile deserved hour in futility’s
agony when final moments scrawled
on a sick man’s chart ask
‘what now?’ and the white-gowned doctor
answers: I can do better

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