Category: poetry

There are only two kinds of people in the world—there are women
and there are not. I am not. I know this could be seen as a somewhat
narrowed perception of reality, but what can I say? I am a simpleton
and I love women. I danced with one once, a while back, but maybe
a little too long for the first time. And we had an egg hunt every day
but Easter. At least at the beginning. But then the reality check came
and called it all off, including Easter. Now there is a new egg-hunter
who does the dance exactly right, or at least that is what I have left
to believe. That and the Easter bunny.

There are notes in my handwriting that fill the blank pages on the backs of volumes
crowding my bookshelves, each a trivial remnant of a stranger I believe I once knew.

Sometimes when I look at them, it comes to my mind: all this effort and no sign
of the passage of time. But I did notice an interesting shift in punctuation.

And as I scribble these words in a newly acquired hard cover, I wonder
if the future me will still be bothered by that puzzling discontinuity

in the use of exclamation marks.

Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them;

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

My birthmark is invisible, like all the books piled up in every corner
of my memory. I simply lack the sturdy biography, steeped in dramatic
paradoxes, that has served so many so well. And I guess there really is
no point in apologising for my occasional outbursts of mauvaise conduite.
After all, there is always room for one more Shakespeare’s little sister.

Imagine getting old together. One day, we looked after each other,
had red borscht with dumplings for dinner, and then a wee moment
on the sofa to settle our stomachs before the evening walk. Maybe
we swapped books or just shared a particularly compelling passage.
Perhaps there was a wedding invitation, but more likely a funeral.
A real genre scene. Imagine that. And there were times I thought
we could actually make it. If only we had never met.

I never realised that the extra pixels of high definition
could make such a big difference. Call me sentimental,
but I kind of liked the bleary picture of my shabby telly.
But one day, it finally died, and I had to buy a new one.
Only then did I start to notice details I was unaware of,
like that tear changing the meaning of what followed
the one time we recorded our bed at dusk.

And so we, earthlings, made our first attempt at playing
celestial billiards. I’m really glad that we decided to make
this effort to save ourselves from the fate of the dinosaurs.
After all, why would we leave it to blind chance and a rock
when we are pretty good at self-destruction?

Being an open book exposes you to marginalia scribblers,
and you never know what you will get: a gloss in Korean
or a casual critique; an early attempt at ornate drolleries;
or perhaps family jewels sketched with a teenage hand.
And if you think this will not happen to you, remember,
the cleanest books are the ones no one has ever touched.

We are strangers who happen to have children together. You’ve made it clear.
And I’m not objecting to that, as we never really got past the flatmates stage,
regardless of the official piece of jewellery, so why pretend to be friends now
that it’s all over? And while I still have problems naming colours sometimes,
I’ve learned not to worry too much about it. It’s not like solitude gives a hoot
if my shirt matches my trousers.

Lying dormant for years, my fountain pen has lost
its ability to inspire me to transcend all the rubicons
of corporeality. I used to believe that, once baptised
with iron gall ink, I would never experience original
sin stepping on my toes, but hardly being able to read
lips, I left that silent abbey to become yet another great
amateur of finely encased writing implements.