It is such a decent vice to have,
or at least an interesting one,
like a minor stroke or veisalgia,
and once you’ve got over it,
you don’t even need a physician
or a chemist—just a solicitor
and perhaps a poet.
Category: English poetry
My poetry written in English
At dawn
Unlike family evenings or passionate nights,
early mornings have rather poor patronage,
even if toned down with a cantrip of cuppa
spiked with a generous spoonful of saccharin
served by the saucy, pedantic wretch of ours
brazenly peeping through the open curtain.
I knew it was a fool’s play inventing words
that are not real, like ‘forever’ and ‘enough’,
but I never imagined you would actually burn
the dictionary—though I suppose that’s expected
when you consort with an arsonist—and leave
the kitchen table to grow somewhat too ample
for one measly setting at dawn.
The myth of sonnets
Perhaps the sum of my anticipations has always been destined
to end in a dethronement of reason, even though I was meant to be anything
but a human body—a mere bagful of petards, subject to daily routines
and mundane sustenance practices—only to be born
without the indiscriminate approval of life
that is required to live one’s own fussy eulogy to the fullest,
or at all. Is that why they taught me Shakespeare
rather than Schopenhauer?
A prudent parent
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.
A dripping machine
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
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.
A remark upon moods
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.
Free sake for now
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.
To have faith
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.
hidden pilcrow 