A SONG TO THE MOCHE

In gold the Lords of Sipan slept,

in silver the Lord of Ucupe.

The years made hills of their pyramids,

the years brought down their towns.

In gold the Lords of Sipan slept,

in silver the Lord of Ucupe.

Empires rose and fell,

and from afar came death and ruin.

In gold the Lords of Sipan slept,

in silver the Lord of Ucupe.

But in death and decay lay those

who sacrifice bound to the dreaming Lords.

31.12.2017-25.02.2022

THE LAST DAY OF THE YEAR

A bit of blue sky

thrown over the afternoon,

no Sun

(naturally, that would be too much);

a hasty end

to a year

that took so much -

took a an axe and chopped off

a chunk of my life with you.

Gone, so much and now

the blue behind

tattered clouds

a brief 'Happy End'

to a year

when my own death began.

31.12.2017

FATHER, TALKING TO YOU

The video is nine months old; you had been dead

for twelve days when it was loaded up. Thunder

in the background, rain falling

as the archaeologist explains

the rainwater collection system, the stucco

panels at El Mirador, abandoned

for two millennia. The thunder,

the rain has no effect on him. He is dead

as I read from the comments,

dead and with the kings and the artisans

and the workers who build the pyramid.

Dead, like you, dead these eleven months.

The thunder and the rain,

the snow and the gray ashen sky

don't trouble the dead. They live

in the past, walk the causeways in the

shadows of the red pyramids.

28.12.2017

THE WINTER DAY IS OVER

The brief winter day is over,

taken over by the mystery

we call the past;

darkness has come,

a flood over the land -

we lie in the ocean depths,

we sleep in the trenches

of the night.

27.12.2017

so quiet

day

not

seen a single

person

an empty

landscape

only

the graveyards

full

only

the graveyards

26.12.2017

THE PRESS

Nabi Saleh

whiny whiny whine

poor israeli occupation soldier

gets slapped

so terrible evil

whiny whiny whine

never mention

the 14-year-old

shot in head

moments earlier

just

whine whine whine

and praise

Guatemala and Honduras

26.12.2017

journalism is

prostitution

nine times

out of ten

one time

out of ten

the journalist

gets lectured

fired

or shot

depending

on the country

26.12.2017

THE FOURTH ESTATE

all the media

wants to give

to us

is propaganda

all the media

demands from

us

is to avoid

the 'wrong'

propaganda

journalism

as a megaphone

for the pimps

of journalists

- was it ever

more than

this?

26.12.2017

the dog is farting

beside me

and all

is good

26.12.2017

god

better not

exist

because I

will never

forgive

it

if it

does

26.12.2017

A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER

the youngest dog

is barking

at the neighbour's

snowman

and clearly

he's a very

crooked
one

almost falling

over

26.12.2017

the saudis

have been bombing

yemen again

great reformation

needs to be

built

with many

bombs

26.12.2017

what is there

to fear

when all

fears

have

come true?

a lot

I

have

found out...

26.12.2017

CHRISTMAS EVE

For now, everything is okay.

On this horrible year,

that is peace of mind to build

a little bit of hope on.

24.12.2017

AMBROSE BIERCE(1842-1914?)

Perhaps

you never went to Mexico,

perhaps you never faced

that firing squad;

perhaps

you went through the old

Civil War battlefields,

perhaps you went through death

same as the day's;

perhaps,

perhaps you just

disappeared, unknown

even to yourself -

perhaps the dusk,

perhaps the dawn mist

embraced you

faint light fading, rising -

faint light,

perhaps.

21.-22.12.2017 - 25.02.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

EACH DAY

Each day this desperate struggle

to reach the surface, to breach

that film between the deep and the air,

to fill the mind with a feel of life.

Each day this desperate struggle

to stay afloat, not to

sunk back beneath the surface,

to be bereft of life and air.

20.12.2017

THE GHOST OF THE PAST

To Brian Aldiss(1925-2017)

He is here;

I hear his

rasping breath,

how he struggles

to fill his punctured lungs.

I turn in my chair,

and amidst all that is unclear to my

old eyes

he stands there

in his bloodied, dirty uniform

with bloody bubbles of air on his lips.

His gaze

is the same as it was

on that day in 1944.

It asks

'Why?',

it pleads

'Help me.'

Like then

I turn around

and like I put away my

rifle with its bayonet

on that day in Burma

I put away my

pen and wait,

wait for the rasping breath

to end,

for the last gasp -

for the hand

that one day

shall touch my shoulder

and the voice

that will say

in language all understand:

'Come.'

23:54

The world sunk in darkness,

the world sunk in snow.

The house trembles

as the heavy trucks

plow the night

with fallen giants

on their backs.

A lamp flickers, dies.

The world sunk in snow,

the work sunk in darkness.

19.12.2017

SNOWFALL

Snow falls slowly,

it feels like it has snowed

for months. On one

day in the last month

a patch of blue sky,

a hint of the Sun behind clouds.

One day, and this

snow falling

through me.

18.12.2017

TO MY FATHER, LOST FOR 324 DAYS

Yesterday you would have been 70.

Today it's 138 years from the birth of your grandmother

you never saw; the maternal one -

you didn't see your paternal one either,

neither your paternal grandfather.

Your grandson will never see you,

your grandson 28 days old

on whose face I see you.

We have him, we have

your grand-daughter who asked,

when told of your death,

why couldn't your heart be replaced?

Why couldn't you be brought back,

made good and given back to us.

I ask the same

and I ask myself

why didn't I listen to what you said that night,

why did I sent to your bed

and to your death

with a magnesium pill and a glass of water

when I always, always

looked your symptoms online otherwise.

One day I have to tell your

grand-daughter and grandson of that night.

18.12.2017

TO MY FATHER ON WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN HIS 70TH BIRTHDAY

Snow on ground,

snow in heart,

snow on your grave.

We are all frozen.

17.12.2017

A POEM BY FRANZ WERFEL(1890-1945)

I am reading a declaration written by a now dead man

how he is alive; capturing a gone day

he shouts that he is alive, that he lives

for yet another day; words

on the screen of a computer, long

distanced from the moment he scribbled

down the words transported by time. A

dead man, a mind

gone like the light of that day. Just

the desperation remains

and reminds.

14.12.2017

THE PAST IS

The past is

still an open wound, bleeding

through this night

running through this night

as a stream

that connects the days and weeks

and months and years and decades

back to the spring gaping

sprouting the blood black

in the night's embrace

down

here to this night

that is always.

14.12.2017

FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON

For the first thirty minutes of my walk

through the dark December afternoon

I don't see a single person; only

when I step into the apothecary

do I enter the world of human beings

again. Such desolation; I

remember how it was,

when I was young -

and now, empty streets

and black windows, and I

still here, in this

quiet loneliness of a county.

13.12.2017

MESOWEB

Laying on my back in the small room

that I should be using as a wardrobe closet

I read about the different strategies of Piedras Negras

and Yaxchilan; how the latter build defenses

on its borders, and its enemy up-river did not.

All the 'least cost' routes open, Piedras Negras

- the vanquisher of Tonina - fell

to Yaxchilan and it's

last king; a Pyrrhic victory which

bought - what? Twenty years perhaps, thirty?

I don't recall; when did Yaxchilan fall? 830? 840?

Almost a life-time then, thirty years.

Almost a life-time, now. Six died of cold

in Chiapas; indigenous - of course. (This

I read from retweet by Ubique.) And

I, in my wardrobe, my back on

blue jeans bag full of

old magazines of geography and astronomy,

my feet as cold as the snow outside,

blood, essence of soul

in Mesoamerica, so slowly flowing

- and how fast waters at the rapids of Usumacinta,

the whirlpools at Piedras Negras.

13.12.2017

The Phoenix from the fire rising

leaves behind the ashes

of its past lives;

a rebirth in light, wings

beating, rising up to the stars.

10.12.2017

METAMORPHOSES

The water sloshing at
our feet yesterday

is today's ice we walk on carefully

with the same sorrows

with the same pain

with the same absences

never transformed

10.12.2017

DECEMBER IN BLACK INK

It's hard to breath

when you are sunk

in this winter ink

thrown over the days.

No surface to reach,

just more depths to sink,

down, down through 

these wretched holes

that pretend to be days,

and weeks and months

- building blocks of existence

all-nonexistence, zilch.

08.12.2017

DECEMBER AFTERNOON

It's already dark.

Let it be.

It can never be as dark outside,

under the clouds hidden in the black

than inside

the skin, flesh and bone

where the 'I' hides in.

No pale morning

of ash-gray clouds

will ever break it.

08.12.2017

DEATH

What happened to him?

The same that happens to everyone.

One day he was there.

Living, breathing, talking.

A weft in the canvas of the world.

A current in the stream of life.

The next day he was gone.

Erased.

There was no absence.

No unravelling of the canvas.

The stream ran like it had.

08.12.2017

AEGRIMONIA

Our grief
broods us
away

04.12.2017

THE NEW ATHEISTS

No atheists these,

but Christian Zionists

waiting

their death-bed conversion.

Their little world

shaken by two falling towers

they put their faith

in hate and Apartheid.

04.12.2017

D. H. LAWRENCE(1885-1930) VIII

...falling seeds of rain;

the seed of heaven

on my face 

D. H. Lawrence: Autumn rain

What kind of man images

raindrops

falling on his face

as semen?

The kind of man

rolling in the hay

with the 'wrong'

gender.

(Longing to

some heavenly realm

beyond this bowl

of blood.)

04.12.2017

THE JOB OF ALL ART

Sometimes the job of all art,

poetry included,

should be to

grab the people, 

the so-called society,

by the throat

and showing

them their deeds,

shout:

"Why you stupid fuck?

Why!"

04.12.2017

SNOW GLOBE

A crisp morning; snow

has fallen and ceased. Sky

the same never-broken cloudscape;

beyond, the long-rumoured

celestial realm of quintessence,

of perfection in blue. Here below

all is change, all is decay,

a river roaring from melting

snow and rain, coming, going

in this clockwork mechanism

we inhabit with dread and grief.

04.12.2017

Tri(e)ste

It has

come to a stop

this life

at the edge

of yet another

oceanic trench

of grief

waiting

for the long

dive to

the bottom

to begin

one time

our cracked

bathysphere

will

break

under the

pressure

of a life

lived

through

deaths too

many

a

moment

of existence

then

nothing

nothing

all our

sorrows

& pain

04.12.2017

D. H. LAWRENCE(1885-1930) VII

To some people

the Great War

was just

sun and hay

in Cornwall.

04.12.2017

A VISIT TO PARADISE FROM PURGATORY

So hard not to cry

at my old home

when a year ago

everything was fine

and now I am

just visiting

an empty house

where you died

and the dog

can't run well

anymore and hides

not wanting to leave

03.12.2017

READING LONGFELLOW'S POEM CHAUCER

You would never know

based on this

hagiography

that our

man

Geoffrey Chaucer

was a rapist.

His

victim's

name was

Cecily Chaumpagne.

03.12.2017

they walk towards the sea; there is no need for words

and on the beach they stand in silence

watching the gray waves the sea hurdles forth

on the gray rocks and the brown sand

the snowflakes descending entering the water

like the landscape in that moment their minds

forever connected to what had gone before

and the separate paths leading to the forlorn

town brooding in solitude on this winter day

dividing their lives and what was one

02.12.2017

IT SHOULD BE SINKING TO THE GROUND

Don't you think that the statue of

Philip Larkin at the railway

station in Hull looks a bit

too tall, too lean? Suspended

in the last moment before

it would leap into the air? A bit

too fleet-footed for a man

whose spirit descended, burrowed -

not soaring like a gull over

the ashen waves of the North Sea

and the cranes lamenting in the

harbour, but going deep

down in the soil like a mole,

throwing up to the surface its

discarded discoveries...

01.11.2017

FRUIT OF KNOWLEDGE

Everything in life that

comes in its wake will be a

disappointment, everything

afterwards will be an

attempt to escape the

knowledge we learned:

That we are mortal and

we must die.

01.12.2017

FIRST DAY OF DECEMBER

At ten in the morning, surfacing

from dreamless sleep to electric light

on the sofa in casual despair, I

go to make coffee and look out

of the kitchen window, at the white

snow and the black trees

and the dim red bricks and the gray clouds

and the mud on the ground

where snow finds its bleak apotheosis. I

turn on the radio, and

they are singing about Christmas

and advertising, offering that redemption

through gift giving without a cross

- such a strange revulsion it evokes,

this enforced cheerful happiness

in the voices repeating 'It is Christmas' -

while the landscape

etches itself to my mind with

all the devotion of an ear-worm

converted to sight.

01.12.2017

Death will erase

all our mistakes

with their victims.

01.12.2017

PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER'S(1525-1569) HUNTERS IN THE SNOW(1565)

They seem already tired, those hunters

in the snow, going downhill with

their dogs, the vast mountains looming

in the distance, the jagged future -

and who or what are we; a raven

looking down from a bough?

30.11.2017

THE SEA THAT IS, THE SEAS THAT SHALL COME

The land falls to the sea, ragged and gray,

and the sea in white and gray rage rises

endlessly to tear down the cliffs. It

has time, the sea,

yet the Sun shall rise over barren and dry

Earth, where ragged cliffs, shimmering

in heat, will fall down

to bottoms of oceans yet unborn

where wind raises sand in endless rage

against the eroding rock.

28.11.2017

MILD RAIN ON TUESDAY MORNING

A morning of faded colours,

a sky of unbroken grey clouds,

water and mud and melting snows;

a late November for our broken times.

World isn't ending in these sorrows

that so crudely carve our minds

with memories and pain as dual knives;

no, the world ended - these are the last rites.

28.11.2017

OF A CERTAIN TYPE OF PHILOSOPHER

A philosopher who claims the separation of
the spirit and the body,

and the supremacy of the mind over matter,

is like an unhappy child, who

watching his parents argue late at night,

comes up with a fantasy to comfort himself

that he is of not this family, that

he is adopted,

and that one day his true,

beautiful and harmonious family

will arrive to take him

to its bosom forever.

28.11.2017