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The Chickasaw Plum is pleased to have the opportunity to publish three poems by Tryfon Tolides. These are available in his anthology An Almost Pure Empty Walking. Tryfon Tolides was born in Korifi Voiou, Greece. A resident of Farmington, Connecticut, he earned his BFA at the University of Maine. His MFA was completed at Syracuse University. He is the winner of a Reynolds Scholarship Foley Poetry Prize, 2004.

Almond Tree

I miss smashing the green-covered shells,
peeling the bitter skin, putting the slippery seed
on my tongue.

I miss the outhouse. I miss the wind blowing
through the hole in the floor.

I miss the small door to the fallen balcony
and the swallows' nests and their tunnels
stuck to the stone.

I miss the smell of fried eggs, potatoes, and cheese.

I miss the wood-paneled radio with the voices
from Tirane and Skopje.

I miss the dogs at midnight and the church gates
and the steep forest behind the cemetery.

I miss the bundles of tree limbs, the crackling fires,
the crazy bright fields of tan and clover.

I miss going down hills on wood sleds
made from old chairs, greased with pig lard.

I miss the barbed wire fence around the orchard
and climbing the cherry trees and watching ants
on the bark and flicking them off my fingers.

I miss the spring water. I miss the plug to the tap
to the spring water, the cloth and wood.

I miss the walk to the spring. I miss the black sky.
I miss the ghosts in the holy air.

Immigrant

My mother called this morning, kept trailing away,
or off, with complaints about her failure
to make it, alone in the house, the night being
long, no one to talk to, blaming, in part, America,
hating the mess we've found, or made this year.
"What is America?" she said. "A hole in the water.
What have we gained but poison and illness?"
Her whole message, a cry, though still she asked
what I would eat for lunch. Back in bed,
I listened awhile to the furnace. Then, dressed,
passed the same books and papers spread on the floor,
and out, to the snow, the crows in the park.

I Will Sleep

What will you do in the village alone in the house
with your mother gone in autumn with winter coming?
I will sleep with the terrifying and brave blackness at night
of the village and of the house. I will sweep the yard
of plum leaves and pear leaves, with the short broom,
my back bent. Sweep, clean, tidy up, my arm repeating
a motion until I am woven with my dead into a clear
and living braid. Then I will sit in one of the chairs
by the white table and wait on the wind, the birds,
the ancient scent of the house, joyous and crying.

Like many in the Master of Fine Art in Creative Writing program at Antioch University, Los Angeles, writer Peter Bergquist brings a broad perspective and a wealth of experience to the program. A native of Los Angeles, he lived and worked in a variety of locations through the years. He worked for many years in the film industry, primarily in production. This included on-location work at Chimney Rock, N.C. a dramatic natural free-standing spire of granite in Western North Carolina. Peter is married with two daughters and is currently teaching English in the Los Angeles Unified School District. He earned his BA in English at Princeton.

THE PEAK

Above the top of Chimney Rock,

where paired ravens soar

and dive the curving cliffs for sport,

water moves in many guises, ever down.

Its dark skin slips, spreads

across gray granite faces.

Like old glass it sheets

from pool to deepening pool,

finally falling narrow, white,

to feed the palette of the trees below:

lobed scarlet oak,

nankeen beech and tawny hickory,

the ocher-ambers of the ash

and blackgum’s umber-amaranth.

But best of all, the maple leaves,

from primrose to persimmon

to translucent orange glow,

each year dying brighter than the rest.

Terrance Huiskens –see Terrance’s short story for biographical data.

Tepid Days

Those memorable days on that porch

were tepid and the wind was dull.

Mom hovering over the grill, stabbing

at the red meat making it a little more

tender. Dad parked on a lawn chair, clinching

a sweating long-neck, tapping his feet on the

wood to a song he loved when he was a teen.

I would sniff at the air, loving my mothers'

cooking, and laughing at dads' earnest attempts

to dance. It was fun. And I will forever have

those memories floating in the back of my mind,

spawned when I sat, a kid, on the front porch

listening to their stories, starry-eyed and open

minded. Tepid days.

The Chickasaw Plum - Volume III - Number 7 - July 2006

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