Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat?
Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard
Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?
from the distance of the kind words you wrote,
let us meet once at our favourite spot, nestled
on the corner of waverly place and west tenth,
so, pretending to look at the books on display,
we could smile at our reflections in the glass,
two perfect strangers to the outside world,
for now.
Helen, left her most noble husband
Sappho, Fragment 16
and went sailing off to Troy with no thought at all
for her child or dear parents
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.”
I can not doubt that I am.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness
when i look at my naked body in the mirror,
all i see is a history written in the surgical scars.
so i am that longing corpse, not quite old yet,
but not as lively as it used to be, still continuing
the daily cycle of absorption and excretion
but increasingly failing in one way or another,
although annoying rather than threatening so far.
every now and then it reminds me of the meaning
of the word lust, although more and more often
all i think about is holding someone’s hand while
walking on the beach or cuddling on the sofa
during a film. exchange a smile above anything else.
when i look at my naked body in the mirror,
all i see is a history foretold in the navel scar.
i think i am falling for you,
although i have a feeling
that what really attracts me
is the idea of you made up
of pictures, words, and your
voice. how foolish of me.
it took me twenty years
to understand that the one
i had previously fallen
in love with did not exist
and was always just a figment
of my imagination.
but the pain is real.
and that is probably why
i am playing it safe this time,
hidden behind an insurmountable
distance barrier, where i can dream
about fire without fear
of getting burned again.
only i am freezing.
Is truth something that is lived or that is comprehended?
Miguel de Unamuno, The Tragic Sense of Life
when i mistook you for someone from my distant past,
it was just an innocent mistake, a bit amusing actually.
and even looking at the world through your eyes, i only
paused for a moment sometimes. then i heard your voice
and began to imagine what it would be like to hear it
at seventh avenue station whispering to me the intricacies
of the language of windows or the charm of femme fatale.
if only crossing the pond was as simple as buying
a plane ticket.
But, O the heavy change, now thou art gone,
John Milton, Lycidas
Now thou art gone, and never must return!
no need, my boy, to shed a tear
when, lost in the crowded urban
thicket, you enter a blind alley.
you can always step back and try
a different path. and so i did, over
and over, telling myself that it was
what he would have taught me.
to tell the truth, he never really talked
to me. all he could do was give orders
and enforce them. so it was not easy
for me to talk to him either. we lived
like strangers under one roof, me with
my nose in books, him going on fishing
trips and drinking himself to death.
so, who was that boy now standing
in front of a wall at the end of a new
dead end? i can not remember. i just know
that it took me many years to get here
and there is no way back, but i am
too tired to climb the wall, so i lie down
on the cobblestones and fall asleep.
if i dream of your old fishing rod,
i may forget everything else, father.
i met her by chance at the hellenic
lectures. enchanted, i watched her
taking notes with her swan fountain
pen, occasionally brushing back a lock
of hair that escaped from her silver
sparrow barrette and fell over her eye.
after a while, she noticed my longing
glances and she smiled back.
now, after all these years together,
i have to finally accept that while being
as beautiful as the marble she is made of,
she is just as cold.
Arise, ye more than dead!
John Dryden, Song for Saint Cecilia’s Day, 1687
it is my sunday with the kids.
we are going to the science centre.
i think they will like it and maybe
even start talking to me.
i was so angry back then,
so resentful. now, i have to live
with the consequences
and learn how to forgive
and ask for forgiveness.
we all have to.
first, nineteen men killed two thousand
nine hundred and seventy-seven people.
then the “war on terror” began, which has
so far cost the lives of over three million
people, as a direct result of war violence
or as collateral damage.
it has been raining since the morning,
so i decided to stay in bed longer and read
the old spaniard’s the tragic sense of life.
later, i had a bowl of porridge for breakfast
and the usual dose of vitamins. i realised
what day it was only when i decided to sign
the papers, finally ending the twenty years
of my marriage. what a coincidence.
first, nineteen men killed two thousand
nine hundred and seventy-seven people.
the rest are just the statistics of deaths
and a catchphrase.
hidden pilcrow 