“Alte Liebe”

Old Love, you’re still there

in the wee hours, in front,

of the shabby pub.

–

I remember you:

your shiny skin, your black eyes,

slow moves in music.

–

One always has to go,

as far their feet can bring them.

Sometimes there comes here.

Dead Relatives

Once you were unique,

now, in the mirror, her eyes.

Slow transformation.

–

The feet you walk on

are his, the back pain, your own.

Family photos.

–

Theirs some memories.

But when your lips speak, it’s you,

made of them, still here.

For those who can’t see the sky

The day got so short

behind closed doors we hear a tune,

someone learns singing.

 

Even in the dark

there is the feeling of space

for those with voices.

 

A train roars so far

away; no one can reach it.

The night feasts on dreams,

 

hours and tomorrows.

Apologists of waiting,

are insomniacs.

Decade after Decade

 

I hadn’t realised till I heard it too repeatedly from different people that the decade changes this year too. I guess being an Earthling who has already entered a new century, even worse, a new millennium, back in 2000, I have been offered proof enough that nothing spectacular will probably happen from that minute before 12 to that minute after. The changes that really have an impact on all of us are of course more subliminal, though much more significant at the same time, also much older too, they have started centuries ago with lots of steam, coal and capital.

And yet specific dates like that do something to people. For I would lie if I said that turning 30, 40 or 50, the later this very same year we’re now already leaving behind, didn’t do something to me.

Time is an issue in everybody’s life. The issue is mostly the lack of it. Absolutely conscious of the fact that anyone of us who hasn’t been given a deadline by a doctor yet, should be grateful, I still must complain of how time declines with age. Not just the time ahead of one, but the “daily“, insignificant to others, everyday time, the personal time. The hours. The hours of a day.

There are positive aspects too. Something does increase with age. I hope you can hear the small cliché alarm here, for as your grandma told you about age: One does know more. It is of course impossible to say if what a certain person knows about the world is what the world needs to know, but one, if lucky and introspective enough, knows a bit more about oneself.

For instance I know I’m a mixture between a very simple farmer girl and, grandma, again, would love that expression, a “woman of letters”. This is as enriching but also as dividing as the fact that I’m constantly moving between cultures and languages.

I’m also very sensitive to the fact that most men are so used to patronising women that the freedom and kind of respect I and many others seek won’t happen in my lifetime. Don’t think of yourselves dear male readers, think of the big majorities in many parts of this world, or think of the plumber talking to a housewife somewhere in your country, or the top-manager talking to his secretary, or even the professor to a young beautiful student. Men find it difficult to respect women. Respecting women means for many candid men just being polite and cordial to them. And of course for many others still means not a bloody thing.

The most profound experience for me as a human being so far has been parenthood. It’s testing one’s greatnesses and inner devils everyday. It trully means sacrifice and everyday self-restriction. Of course there is a chance that when children become adults everything will get easier and their lives will run fine and thus the work you’ve done will be rewarded with gratitude and obvious results. But the reward is much more immediate, though not obvious, and already there. For this kind of love you grow a prophet everyday, if lucky, if strong enough. You go to the desert every morning and come back to the well at night. Circle after circle your heart gets stronger.

Last but not least: Our body. Our body will, as a friend put it in his wonderful essay about his battle with his own once female body, finally betray us at some point, but it won’t ever go down silently. Our body doesn’t care about others. It exists on its own terms. It won’t care about motherhood or marriage or age, won’t care about your female or male strangles, won’t care about distances or time. The body won’t care because its mind is the sensual touch. Your body will always seek the tasty food, the good light, the warm water, the other skin, this earth itself. For most of us it is the only mythical relationship we’ll have, and the one we must constantly manage with all its dramatic ups and downs. We’re animal and human, we live in reality and in our physically real at the same time. We’re centaurs, we are minotaurs, we are wanderers between Olympus and Hades. Decade after decade.

Christmas Eve 2019

Unexpected clear

night, like a wish with closed eyes

to be fulfilled soon.

 

Those stars like letters

from my selves in past winters,

reminders of light.

Moons and Stars Apart

How the night deletes

forms and time and distances

by just falling deep.

 

All those who have said

what the day ghosts have ordered

silenced now, dressed black.

 

Stars and moons apart.

 

A second layer. Gold.

Those skies are heavy mirrors

of our secret thoughts.

 

One secretly smokes,

while the other walks on glass.

Fragile diaries.

 

Stars and moons apart.

 

We fall in silence,

bodies implode in darkness

that blue hearts can’t stand.

 

All not forgotten

on the top skin, on the breast,

pressing for retreat.

 

Moons and stars apart.

 

How invisible

we are. In the winter fog,

last year’s candlelight.

 

The sun reigns elsewhere.

Warm skins, bare feet, all small sins

that don’t leave shadows.

 

Stars and moons apart.

 

Behind the eyelids

there is a private darkness

where fears and hopes dwell.

 

These moments before

we open our eyes to light

and enter the world.

 

Stars and moons apart.

Midsummer

The longest day is just gone

drawing behind the horizon,

took my long hair and my song,

stroked the fields and kissed the hills,

found a half-opened door

on the other side of the world.