Category: poetry

i wear my past as if it were my heritage.
a little tight, worn here and there, tailored
to the old fashion, allows me to recognise
my reflection in the pupils of one’s eyes,
even if it is only a glance of indifference.
and if i feel too comfortable with that gaze,
i ask for directions to some random place
and continue my peregrinations aimlessly.
i wear my past as if it were my future,
indefinitely.

do you remember that scene from tootsie
where michael approaches julie at the party
with a pick-up line she previously told him
she would like to hear, as she was unaware
of his female disguise? i think i know what
he felt then. i just saw a meme somewhere
with a picture of a stunningly beautiful lass
with a text that says she will never talk to me
if i refer to her beauty and attractiveness,
but i certainly have a chance if i tell her
about my poetry. it is puzzling, because
whenever i try exactly that, she runs away
faster that one could spell the simple word
eirōneía.

[…] reason by itself alone kills, and it is imagination that gives life.

Miguel de Unamuno, The Tragic Sense Of Life

will wuhan find its thucydides or lima its camus?
or perhaps a new boccaccio was born somewhere
in kolkata or mumbai? because for now, the wind
brings only the mouthpiece of statistics, followed
by finger pillory.

the old adage says that a picture
is worth a thousand words,
and it is hard to argue with that
when looking at odessa steps.
yet i can not escape the power
of words, even if it is just a rhyme
that starts with the familiar
remember, remember, recalled
when in the silence of my study
i hear the distant sounds
of bonfire night.

i swapped my fountain pen for a pencil
because it never really lets you down,
regardless of all the imperfections
of the weather, and allows you to write
on napkins and book margins without
ruining them. if only it could improve
my word power.

the concept of small talk is something
that has always bewildered me. intuition
tells me that it is the inability to face
the silence that pushes some to all these
futile exchanges that are meant to resemble
conversation. but although the motivation
behind this baffling behaviour remains
a mystery that i would very much like
to solve someday, for now i remain courteously
indifferent. only, i wonder why do people
avoid me?

i once said i love you and i actually meant it,
but i guess in the end, it is not what you say,
it is what the expectations are. you can curse,
to give an example, in your soul, but in public,
strict hygiene is obligatory, both in language
and in deeds. that is probably why one day
i realised that you can only appear as a flaw
in a mirror image.

i try to remember my name, matityahu,
a gift from yahweh, whose existence
i do not believe, just to be clear.
but let us assume, for the sake of argument,
that there is a god, whatever his name is,
and that my rotting matter was given by him.
then, despite all the unsuccessful accounts
of existence, there is still this inexplicable
need to find out if the unwanted gift
is worth the wrapping paper.

i choose to remember only the details,
like the french crystal pendalogues
of the chandelier in your father’s study
or the squeaky planks of your bedroom
floor, and the still perceptible smell
of tobacco smoke in the loft, a memory
of the days when it was timidly occupied
by our first attempts at adulthood.