If only I had been heartless
and thus never born,
perhaps the photographer would never have taken pictures
of the funeral procession my parents’ wedding was.
I always wondered where those grim faces came from
until one day one of the photos fell out of the album,
and I saw the date written on the back—a quick calculation explained everything.
After all, casarse de penalty, as the Spanish call it, is no cause for celebration,
and that’s about all I know
about love.
Instant love costs little—a cinema ticket
or, better even, a subscription to a streaming service;
and then you can watch her, for as long as you live,
in the farewell to the circus, wondering
whether time was a healer or a disease,
with her desire for love, expressed in a foreign language,
yet as familiar as the sight of a brush against her bare shoulder,
something you also once did, long ago, to someone
you can barely even remember.
Being a poet pays nothing—that’s probably why I also write prudent stories
in TypeScript and Java—and I wrote my very first stanza out of love anyway,
but she just laughed at me—the girl, I mean, not love, as love has no feelings
and will leave you at the first wink of a passing globetrotter so you can learn
some legal jargon and that no one fancies a homebody in this brave new world
of dating algorithms. But I guess I could always become a magician—it worked
for Mrs. Münchgstettner—if it weren’t for my stage fright and the conviction
that nothing the world had to offer I couldn’t find in the free verse and ragtime
reclined on my sofa.
Let life insist on being lived—not out of solidarity, of course, but as a reminder of the youth
you once held dear, like any other souvenir that has temporarily come into your possession,
except, perhaps, for acne or all the juvenile plumage you resented for so long back then
and now quietly pretend it was actually inconsequential—in fact, it never really happened,
you tell yourself—which, even though it’s an acquired habit, has become second nature to you,
just like the fear that one day you will wake up in the middle of the night and simply forget
to be afraid.
Have you ever tried one of those painting by numbers kits?
I wonder how it would work for writing, poetry in particular,
but also whether it would be possible to write music that way
or if there’s more to composing than meets the eye—the way
living goes beyond being simply alive.
Full of words with an expiration date,
like ‘forever,’ for example, and untimely goodbyes,
the undelivered mail, piling up on the top of the radiator casing in the hallway,
reminds me every time I pass by that I’ve always dreamed
of a slice of blueberry pie with ice cream,
and yet with my face exposed to the late winter sun
and a square of dark chocolate melting on my tongue,
all I can think about is the death of Seneca as told by Tacitus—a cold reminder
that life, at best, is nothing more than an occasional act
of unrequited kindness.
Perhaps history is impatient and likes the old-fashioned way,
so it would never walk you further than from yours to its own
prematurely announced end, only to, with a slightly ironic smile,
mark its face on the necrology—written by an aspiring visionary
over a lot of coffee and cigarettes—with a casually scribbled
moustache and bowler hat, and yet I can imagine Charlie Chaplin
working feverishly at a click farm.
Time flies when you’re having fun, or so they say,
but to be honest, I can’t really call my life fun-filled,
yet five decades have flown by in the blink of an eye
without me even noticing, and now I’m staring
at a white-bearded face looking back from the mirror
and wondering what was the point in laughing
at that kid who thought fifty years was a long time
when I probably have twenty or thirty more to go
and can’t even imagine making it through a week
of family Christmas gatherings.
I don’t do Christmas gifts—or Christmas itself, for that matter—but if I did,
an Etta James record and a box of soft tissues would be plenty, I guess,
so I’m not a high-maintenance man, yet neither a good girl nor a bad one
writes my name on the tag attached to the wrapper with the Santa motif,
and not even because my solitary life has grown on me after a few years,
or my last date thought I’m a bore and didn’t hesitate to say it to my face,
but because it’s easier to cry to ‘At Last’ than muster up trust once again.
hidden pilcrow 