 Paul Ilechko has always lived by a river, although he sometimes dreams of forests and mountains. He currently lives in Lambertville, NJ with his girlfriend and a cat. Paul has had poetry accepted/published recently by Oberon Magazine, Dash Literary Journal, Stickman Review, MockingHeart Review and Saint Katherine Review, among others. Nostalgia If I could walk across the water, I would walk across the water to you. Imagine a swimming pool, ancient and mildewed. Perhaps in a courtyard in Italy, a relic from Roman times, a place where nobles once bathed. I see you, squatting down, photographing the scummy surface of the greenish water. If I close my eyes I’m crossing over, floating above the aqueous crust. This is what I imagine those times when I lie on the sofa, eyes tightly squeezed, attempting to levitate. Indoors, in the nearby chapel, there’s a religious ceremony being performed. It has a sense of intense gravity that is hard for me to comprehend. You are on the ground again, clicking away, capturing the brilliant reds of the robes, the flickering of the torches, the abrupt angles of the shadows thrown by the rampant crucifix. The Madonna silently observes. I try so hard to leave my body behind. It’s a desire for lightness. An urge that is eating me from the inside. There’s an island in the lake, but it’s not the same island, it’s not the same lake. In the streets of the town there are jugglers. Their balls and clubs in constant flight, barely touched by the magic of their fingertips, crossing and swooping in arrogant patterns. A curly headed genius tosses three lit candles into the air, catching them all. I have nostalgia for a time that never existed. I need, so badly, to play the starring role in the film of my own life. Two Tongues I had two tongues in my mouth and neither one was mine. I had two hands in my pocket, but nothing was stolen. When the rains finally came the snakes refused to hide anymore. We had to pour out buckets of ammonia to chase them away. I had two feet for one shoe, but I was still able to walk. I had two hammers, but only one nail. After the flood, the town refused to sing. The church bells no longer played. The river changed direction and flowed away from the sea. I had two fathers. I had two mothers. I had two towns, but only one of them had rain. My town sank beneath the waves. My other town crumbled into dust. I don’t care anymore that I will never go home again. If I have a home, I carry it on my back. I will take my hammer, one of my hammers, and I will build a new home. It will be fragile, but it will be mine. I only have the one nail, so I can’t afford to waste it. It has to hold a lot of pieces together. I think maybe you can help me with this construction project. Are you up for it? Eidolon The eidolon marches up the stairs, along twisting corridors, through empty bedrooms. Refusing, in principle, to take the easy path through walls. Refusing, in principle, to be the jester. To be the foolish ghost. And yet… The eidolon hides behind his mirror, replacing his morning image with that of itself; growing more hair as he shaves it off. Dripping blood, as he stares in horror at his almost severed ear. And then, silently, healing with prudent amnesia. Inconsistency, for the eidolon, was the very model of consistency itself. To be consistent, to be repeatable, would be in opposition to its own nature. In opposition to the being of eidolon qua eidolon. Against the very constituent essence of itself. Covered with a great white sheet like a childhood myth of ghost, seeding the air with the unforeseen scent of orange and cinnamon, trickling like melting snow across a bleak and frenzied winter, the eidolon displays the quiddity of eidolon. Thus, finally proving the existence of the love that it carries in its own empty, rattling chest for that man, that irresponsible man, that capricious, irredeemable doppelgänger. Dishonesty The November sun, a frail and acid light, shines yellow-gray from out the somber cumulous pelt that lines the sky. Beneath the gloom they stand together, side by side at head of pier, and lie to each other. It’s easier to be dishonest if you don’t look in the other’s eyes. So thus: shoulder to shoulder, each one staring damp-eyed into the pummeling wind. He shivers in his too-thin coat as she corrals her flapping hair. Each feigns disinterest as they listen to the cacophony that surrounds them. For bass, the steady rumbling of the pounding sea, falling and crashing on steady interval. Above, the keening wind, surging and ebbing constantly. And then, from far backstage, the strange metallic sounds of the amusement arcade, sounding like nothing more than a cavalcade of cardinals, screeching all together their wild electronic chirps in loud and angry warning. The boy plays on, with slap of flippers and ching of machine, his score advancing as he breaks the spirit of the game. Filled with elation he departs, and, looking ahead to pier’s end, sees there, perched on a rail, two crows. Revenge of the Samurai I had two elm trees in my garden;
tall and graceful, a Siberian variety with pale green leaves that shimmered in the summer light. They stood there, lithe and limber, casting mottled shade. Till beetles came, a clustering mass of iridescence, blackish-green and ravenous, eating every single leaf, then, pendulous like grapes in bunches, slowly drying, turning into coarse and fragile husks. The corpses lost their shine, they fell to earth, disintegrating on the hard clay ground. Soon leaves returned, as pure as lime, it seemed that all was well. A winter passes, then, as spring arrives, a new disaster strikes. Eggs had been laid by the polished hordes, buried underground where they might still survive a winter, eating roots of tender grass; and now the lawn is brown and scurvy, the withered corpses claiming their success.
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