It takes a while to finish all the morning routines
before opening the curtains, which inevitably marks
the beginning of a new day, but once you accept
that waking up hurts, you can always find some solace
in the opening 4’33”, and then all you have to do
is pass through the bedroom door for another barefoot
pilgrimage to the shoe rack full of pairs of Louis Vuitton,
as genuine as Vermeer’s The Supper at Emmaus,
your favourite.
Practicality aside, there is a certain beauty to the old imperial coinage.
All those sovereigns and crowns and their halves, guineas, shillings,
and farthings—not to mention bobs, coppers, or tanners—are pure poetry
marked with the royal physiognomy. And while I appreciate the ease
of counting money after decimalisation, I still have a feeling something was lost
in the process—even more so once a quid became nothing but a virtual row
of zeros and ones spent with one careless swipe of a piece of plastic.
Waking up to Tom Traubert’s Blues
was never meant to be anything more
than a provisional unction
plastered over my troubled little I,
but with each hoarse waltz with Matilda,
my fingers became addicted
to the gentle brushing of the piano keys.
When I played it for you that morning,
you compared it to a glass of Chardonnay;
for me, it has always been more
like the rich savour of sun-dried tomatoes
bathed in sunflower oil,
but when you laughed in amusement at this,
the turntable stopped mid-word,
or perhaps it was us no longer present,
already honing the past.
Once you span a lifetime of pity
with a pile of cardboard,
all that is left is one last goodbye,
despite knowing it’s just an empty gesture.
For a while, you try to keep up appearances,
but eventually you have to face the fact
that your dignified strategic retreat has fallen
on your tail between your legs.
I like Monday blues, pure peppermint tea,
and the smooth touch of piano keys.
I make flatbread using my own recipe,
find washing dishes by hand calming,
and respect the spiders living in my bathroom.
I buy books in second-hand bookshops
for the dedications and random notes
left inside by previous owners.
If there is a film that particularly appeals to me,
I watch it over and over again,
even several times a day if time allows.
I also never treat music as background noise,
and if I feel like listening to something,
I make sure to pay it full attention.
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night
or can’t fall asleep at all, and if that happens,
I get up to write a verse or two.
In principle, I could say that I quite like myself
and my life if it weren’t for the thorns
of everything I hate. It turns out that the door
to someone’s soul is in the shadows.
Entangled in paradoxes of substance, you seek a principle
against which there is no convention, while all I ever wanted
was a quiet midday nap, tired of your persistent attempts
at convincing me that if I descended from the magic mountain
to the flatlands, I would see that, for instance, the only difference
between criminals and law-abiding citizens lies in the definition
of an act of crime, because if one sunny morning, let’s say, speech
became an offence, few of the latter would manage to maintain
their status. But I honestly don’t know what you expected
since the justice system was never really about justice
but about maintaining social order—the winner’s justice
was always the loser’s injustice.
I’m the future stranger you used to love
(remember the declaration? I do).
I’d like to say it’s liberating,
but I still struggle with the time
between closing and opening the curtains.
For a while, I thought I should see
if I was still capable of being surprised,
but now that I’m older, I’m not sure
if I even have the guts to find someone
(it sounds so simple in blue ink on papier vélin)
and forget about you.
Sometimes I wonder, Why do we cling so tightly to so-called manhood, however defined? Why not, for once, listen to Dr. Dreyfuss advice to be a mensch, a good person, a human being? Because before anything else, we are all humans, regardless of gender (or lack thereof). Just respect others and yourself, reach out to your neighbour, like in that simple slogan of the John Doe Club from Capra’s classic, and rediscover the open-minded boy you once were. I know it sounds a bit naive, but isn’t it worth exposing yourself to ridicule if it turns out that it will change your and others lives for the better?
What does it mean to be a man? I really don’t know, to be perfectly honest. All the significant social functions defining my existence, like citizen, employee, or parent (I deliberately avoid the word father), have nothing to do with my gender and could just as easily be fulfilled if I were a woman. Even biologically, my role in maintaining the species is rather minor and purely accidental. Once I donate my semen, I might as well cease to exist if the mother obtains stable means of subsistence independent of my providing. One might say that I’m the role model for the children, but honestly, what are the roles that I’m supposed to teach them that specifically require my gender? And aren’t lesbian couples as good at parenting as straight ones, despite the lack of that extra accessory in their underwear that some men are so fond of? In the past, it was all simple—muscle power and ruthlessness—and once men consolidated their position, all they had to do was make sure that women had no chance to rise above their assigned roles, as perfectly captured in the slogan used under the German Empire: Kinder, Küche, Kirche, although the 3Ks mentality wasn’t something specifically German. Thus, men’s entire position and identity were based on oppression. This couldn’t last forever, despite continuous—in some places deadly—backlash all over the world, and when this whole structure started to fall apart, we discovered that the king was naked—the whole manhood thing was nothing but a hollow eggshell. The answers to this vary: bloody violence, right-wing extremism, Incel, depression, alcoholism, suicide, and so on—all destructive, all wrong. I’m sure there are also positive initiatives, but they are unnoticeable in the shadow of the above. I, myself, like many others, I’m sure, somehow managed to avoid the worst, but I’m still confused, insecure, and trying unsuccessfully to find my way through all this to define who I am as a man. The first step is to tell myself there is nothing wrong with being lost and vulnerable. Boys don’t cry no longer applies. We’ll see where this takes me.
hidden pilcrow 