Earthquakes and Politeness
Here, in the land of milk and honey
The sun rises above metal ores
and sets behind oil fields
In the deluge of sunshine
we throw solar panels on the cracked
thirsty ground
We have wind
lots of it
At night, the red eyes of windmills flicker
as their open arms embrace the world
in this land of abundance.
People come here
to discover what it holds.
When we need something
we clip a nail from our land
and sell it, and the land gives and gives.
It’s magical, it never tires.
Now tell me
What do they have?
Nothing
Only their will of steel
their wiry determination
to make something of themselves
Land there isn’t friendly
doesn’t bear anything
Its people, they have
no floods of sunshine, no big-hearted
monsters
swinging their arms left and right to
give. All they have
are earthquakes and kindness
and their own
rapacious
ingenuity.
***
War
It’s here
Now that it’s here
Kiss me
I want to be
full of you
This whole idea of free love
I don’t accept
I want you
full of me
I’ve never said it before
because
time wasn’t exploding
Little explosions
Big
explosions
We thought we had the time.
All the
time in the world, but what do you know?
Time’s always in short supply
and now
now I can tell you
how I feel.
Rock me gently
till the sun sets
and maybe
just maybe
we’ll witness
the sun of tomorrow.
***
When the tide breaks
you’re going to be sad
You’re going to need
a sea of coffee
paper boats
quietly sway on the water‘s surface
everything’s so distilled
i hear a drop of water
stomp
cutting into my heartbeat
i just want to soak
and sleep
i knew wouldn’t be easy
but i wanted
it anyway so here we are
***
We had to burn everything to ashes
to start anew
On the ashes of the burnt forest
grew sprouts
of brand new life
The sun went red
like blood
We had to flee
“Now”
In those moments
In those moments
I think about you
Music
I hold onto the music
like onto a saving handrail.
It fills the silence.
Fills the too much space
In my thoughts.
When the music plays
my dreams are touchable; they
hang at the near end of the rainbow,
that on which I swing;
and I have
pigtails
like a little girl
and a short skirt
and legs up to the sky. And I’m
so free,
carefree,
my dreams fill me up, overflow;
there’s nothing in my way,
and the world is a big smile
of a fat cat in the morning.
When the music stops
—
***
You pray for me
It’s a big consolation
that I know that you pray for me.
I don’t have faith like most
my faith is
in the Universe and atoms, in the laws of nature,
in math
I have faith in a mathematical
mechanical dream
I dream of numbers. Mechanical insects
with their tentacles piercing the matrix
of equations
In that matrix we’re all submerged
in a stream of probabilities
branching out from its main arm
I sit here
under the tree of zeros and ones
waiting for you.
It’s a mistake, I know
I shouldn’t just sit here
but here I am
immersed in the matrix
It’s odd
I wonder where you are
I only spot you in the network sometimes.
So I know you exist.
I know that you pray for me
and it’s a big consolation for me
I don’t know how much longer
we’ll be here, but I’ll always know
that you prayed for me
and I’m grateful for that.
***
I want to jump on a trampoline like a child,
watch the ripples on the water’s surface.
Who says playfulness has no place
in discovering the world?
I saw serious bespectacled professors
who’d learned dusty volumes by heart
and feared a mere idea of imagination.
It was trifle and a threat to the set order of the flat, flat Earth.
Youngsters with imagination can prove very destructive to our academia by suggesting the Earth is, say, square. Or a bagel.
What else could it be other than
flat?
Luckily
we old set the order
and try not to die.
***
Words are torture
By their torturous way
I acquire knowledge of the world
But why
I don’t need
paper cuts
word cuts
I need to
feel
receive
have faith
have faith
with that
I immerse myself in the seas of unknown
guided by what can’t be
put down
in words.
***
So you say
it’s her fault
She raised me in a protective cocoon
she didn't teach me life
and now I'm paying for it
And I ask you
what’s your responsibility?
Was it all her fault?
What makes you a father?
Is it
putting the food on the table,
providing shelter?
Is there
anything else?
It was all her fault
you say
as you close the door to your room
I remember you
with big headphones on your head
You escaped into the magic of music
booming 808s
dancing frequencies that embrace
only to leap away from one another
Curled up on a vibrating bow
tense to be together again
Music your escape
I can’t blame you for that
And I still see you as you shut your door
not so see me for weeks.
***
She's brand new.
I look at her white arms
her brand new legs
her brand new face
She has everything
I didn't have
and was spared, will be spared so much
of what I had to go through
I should be happy
that we’re progressing
yet deep down
I feel—
Why not me?
Why couldn't I have been born
later
Later
later
in her shoes
