Impulses

poetry by Manolis

Excerpt

Relief
What a relief spring is over
and the soldiers with their rifles  
spouting sunlight through
their barrels left They came  
in the midst of April as if there wasn't
any other way for the spring 
to come but with soldiers holding
rifles What a relief frost is over 
and the chickadee dreams
on another nest of another chick 
or two just another reason for
the red jib to unfurl just another 
reason for the white chapel
to be repainted in whitewash
Remote
We looked in the remote chapels
and through the pine needles sieving sunlight 
explored the statue's smooth body
and the rained spider web 
we searched in the sigh of rose petals
in starbursts and worm-eaten pages  
penned by hallucinating prophets
we hunted in decapitated houses 
but we didn't find God anywhere
and we didn't discover him in the statue 
or touch him in spider webs
recluse talked of God being Dead 
and the people danced in the plaza
knowing the recluse's verdict
Hues
Why stand by your door
piercing the mountain  
as if trying to paint it green
on the retinas of your eyes 
and the light breeze how can
you paint blind by feel? 
To what end do you point
your hand at the ice caped 
peaks as if to let them know about
the ghosts never passing by  
anymore as if to tell them that
spring is coming soon  
when they exude green velvet
when they redress in light hues
"These poems move with contrasting moods, as eroticism is juxtaposed with isolation, and intimacy is wedged between dark humour and sheer outrage."
– Apryl Leaf

About the Author

Manolis was born in the small village Kolibari west of Chania on the Greek island of Crete in 1947. At a young age his family moved first to Thessaloniki and then to Athens where he was educated, achieving a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science at Panteion Supreme School of Athens. He served in the armed forces for two years, and emigrated to Vancouver in 1973, where he worked in several different jobs over the years.

He attended Simon Fraser University for a year, taking English Literature in a non-degree program. He has written three novels, a large number of collections of poetry, which are slowly appearing as published works, various articles and short stories in Greek as well as in English. After working as an iron worker, train labourer, taxi driver, and stock broker, he now lives in White Rock where he spends his time writing, gardening, and traveling.

Towards the end of 2006 he founded Libros Libertad, an unorthodox and independent publishing company in Surrey, BC, with the goal of publishing literary books.

More on Manolis Aligizakis

Praise

"Impulses conjures a mosaic of old world images, tiled with colours and dilemmas from the present. Manolis ransacks his classical Greek roots and the cosmopolitan now, to unearth some meaning for his modern existence. He wrestles with such timeless subjects as the value of human life, innocence and aging.
These poems move with contrasting moods, as eroticism is juxtaposed with isolation, and intimacy is wedged between dark humour and sheer outrage."

– Apryl Leaf

"Sometimes words are ghosts dancing with myth and memory. Greek-Canadian poet Manolis, demonstrates this in Impulses, his new collection of poems. His poetry springs from a congenital intimacy with a culture and its history. In essence, we are before a poetic glance that is also a revolving metaphor encircling feelings from a Mediterranean philosophy. Poets tend to be witnesses of paradoxes. In recreating them it's not a compromise between logic and rational; it's an absolute nouveau reality. With this new book, Manolis tells us that poetry is an affirmation of the soul, a witness for the dream. Fine poetry, there is."

– Eduardo Bettencourt Pinto