Category: poetry

I always have a book
on my bedside table.
The same book,
read over and over again,
or just lying there
as a tacit reminder
that there is more to life
than life. And some say,
“One book is all you need,”
although I am pretty sure
they mean a completely
different volume.
After all, I do not live
in a roadside motel.

As eleven degrees Celsius attracts awakened flies
and anti-vaccine rallies, the crowded promenade,
filled with the barking of dogs and the cries of gulls
hunting for a piece of burger torn from the hand
of an inattentive passer-by, lines up at the food stalls.
The surfers in neoprene suits try to catch the weak
waves of the North Sea. And one can hear small talk
and laughter all around. Even the street violinist
is playing more cheerfully than usual, trying to make
some extra money on top of his zero-hours contract
as a music teacher. And everything would be fine
with this genre scene if not for one small detail:
it is really hard to believe it is the penultimate day
of December.

All night long, all day, the doors of Hades stand open.
But to retrace the path, to come up to the sweet air of heaven,
That is labour indeed.

Virgil, Aeneid

So you finally made it
through the winter’s allegro non molto.

Now, lying on the shore of the Channel
like a great-eyed bireme that you sailed,
which looks as alien to them as the letters you used
to write your name on the unfamiliar sands,
you dream of holding your beloved Creusa.

Only, she lies among the ruins of Troy.

Instead, the Sibyl in navy blue,
surgical gloves, and a face mask,
with a firm gesture, guides you
through the gate of abandoned hope
to the detention estate.

Helen, left her most noble husband
and went sailing off to Troy with no thought at all
for her child or dear parents

Sappho, Fragment 16

A little girl watched an armada of biremes
hurtling to the north-east with the Lacedaemonian army
and their proud king, her father.

He did not tell her why. He just left. But she heard
it had something to do with someone called Paris,
and as she looked questioningly at a beautiful woman
standing next to her, she stroked her cheek
and, sighing thoughtfully, replied,
“You see, men need their legends
to excuse their wars.”

The winners write history textbooks, the others cover plain fields.
There is nothing revealing about it. One could say, a simple fact of life.
And it worked out just fine for millennia. At least for the winners.
But then something went wrong. First, someone discovered that history
had ended, although soon after, history decided to have a go anyway.
Then someone else, amplified by the echo chamber, weaponized failure.
And suddenly, we discovered that no one really pays attention to writers,
because all that matters is the echo.

i should have just stayed invisible.
with a body that hurts in so many ways,
my voice finally leaked all over the bed
in a futile attempt to pass beyond that
favourite perhaps and indeed of mine.
i even tried to remember why i stopped
wearing ties, only to realise that i had
no idea why i wore them in the first place.
and then, while walking in the heavy rain,
i suddenly dropped an umbrella at the cry
of è rimpianto, è rimpianto, è dolor!

i was a teen when i first heard the colonel mention them,
the heelots, that they had got a stranglehold on me,
and filled with dread, i added, before i was even born.
but then the wall fell, and finally seeing life in technicolour
made his words sound like another old man’s grumble.
so i moved on. and only now, over three decades later,
when i ran into his diatribe by chance, did i decide to pay
attention once more. the thing is, i no longer feel at ease
with technicoloured landscape.

if the dumbest of creatures are always the happiest,
then my miserable disposition inevitably leads
to the conclusion that i must be particularly bright,
although i am afraid the latter would not hold up
under scrutiny for long. and even if affirming
the consequent may seem somewhat enticing at first,
it will quickly lead to undesirable consequences,
such as the increase in the number of my heirs
born to my female readers.

there is something appalling about the idea of a secular bible,
as if we were that poor relative from the provinces, skilfully
imitating metropolitan customs yet somehow not quite right.
and still, i wanted to know, so i fabricated that unassuming
disposition of mine, but as i was looking for the right words,
i forgot what it was for, like the other day, when i ate a pear,
delicious and seedless.