I had an unexpected visitor this morning. My next-door neighbour—
a magpie who had built a nest in the tree outside my living room window—
perched on the windowsill and watched me for a moment but soon returned
to its humble dwelling. I guess Vrikshasana wasn’t all that captivating,
and I looked completely harmless in the early spring sunlight—
a scarecrow behind the double glazing.
As a lowland creature of wrinkles and grey hair,
who reads the—handily predigested—Übermensch preacher
while doing daily workouts on the exercise bike
in the comfort of my spacious living room
rather than jotting down thoughts while hiking the Fex Valley,
I wonder if I have earned the right to complain.
After all, I never asked for this ordeal,
although compared to many, you might say
my life is little more than a hassle. The thing is,
even a drop of water can be unbearable—
ask de Marsiliis.
A happy life is the one I never had,
but saying so may suggest I’m unfortunate
or ungrateful, either assuming no control
over fate or implying being endowed
with something of value in the first place,
as if a homo perditus were destined
for something other than a stint with a parasite
with angelic—if superficial—features.
Should you pity yourself as your confidence withers
and the bookshelves seem intimidating, there is no consolation
other than the words of an old grammarian
about the different inclinations of the human mind.
After all, you are but a victim of the economy
of language.
I wonder if the magpies building a nest in the tree outside my window
would care about Lenin’s invention,
or if the seagulls crying on the roof of the church across the street
would be fond of hashtagging their vaginas,
because if I were a woman,
I would probably feel offended today;
but since I’m not, I’d rather wait a few days
for free sake and a glorious view of youbutsu.
Perhaps one day we’ll finally find peace
beyond our genitals.
Sometimes you have to have faith in yourself,
even when the mirror screams ‘old and ugly’
and your desire for sex—meaningless or otherwise—
no longer goes beyond the topic of an article in a rag
casually opened while waiting at the hairdresser’s,
or so they say, and there may be some truth to it—
atheists decorate Christmas trees too, after all—
but it’s hard to shake the hand that just castrated you.
As insatiable as it is accidental,
who’d have thought life would be anything
but a mere inconvenience?
After all, when it comes to life, all we have to do
is sustain it until we produce offspring,
and then we are free
to perish.
I’ve heard that if you look like a duck
and you quack like a duck,
then you are a duck, even if the rest of the flock
sees you as an odd—let alone a dead—one,
and yet, the eccentrics and the hopeless aside,
few things feel as unwelcoming as the world
of yellow rubber.
Some flowers bloom only at night,
so they don’t have to manufacture fine days,
and while sunlight might embellish their lives,
they know that better is the enemy
of good.
hidden pilcrow 