Tag: poem

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.

As worn out as a shellac record
and just as brittle, I’ve got my mug shot
stamped in a book of wraiths.
If only I could sound my full voice,
even once, as if the spear-tip horn
of the majestic Victor V lent me
the alluring oddity of the tone,
I might regret nothing.

I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine, I promise. It’s just that I can no longer remember
what it’s like to gently brush my fingers over that brief moment of silence
in anticipation, which, like any attempt to hold on to a long bygone present,
fades eventually. So I guess I finally have to adjust to all the possible futures,
each with its own way of making me feel like a fool, because only a fool
could possibly avoid the time leaking all over the bed.

What on earth were you thinking? That you could live your life
without subtitles, as if you stood at the fireplace, bereaved but free,
burning cocktail sticks and never-opened letters, and all you needed
were writing utensils, a typewriter perhaps, and to be comme il faut,
an etymological dictionary.

I guess it’s good to hang onto something tangible, like seedless grapes
in a disposable clamshell container, for example. In the end, it’s always
been all about convenience, hasn’t it? But you are not listening, darling,
busy with preparations for a picnic to which I would be habitually late
if ever again invited.

You don’t have to say anything. Anything at all. Just slip out of your shoes.
The water is still warm. You know, I tried to remember the last time we had
a bath together. Perhaps you might recall it, although does it really matter?
Sometimes I wonder if there is anything more to protect beyond that lost
memory we once claimed as our own.