ESCAPE TO THE FUTURE

Words are ladders

to make your escape

from the past,

but all ladders

have an end,

all ladders

rust or rot.

31.01.2018

THE DEATH OF ENKIDU

Of course

it had to be you,

Enkidu;

not the half-god

who would

die, then.

You who

would have

the maggot

fall from

a nostril.

You, the

wild-man

civilized.

You, whose

wife and child

were killed

to accompany you,

because it's terrible

to enter the realm of the dead

alone, to become

a shadow of flesh,

blood and mind.

Of course

it had to be you,

Enkidu,

you and your

wife and son.

Not Gilgamesh,

the half-god,

not then.

29.01.2018

A YEAR, MY FATHER

A year,

a year has gone

my father,

gone;

a year has gone,

a year,

my father,

lost;

my father,

my father,

gone and lost,

in death.

29.01.2018

MY CHERISHED ONES

I have given

Death what I loved most

on this sullen Earth;

my cherished ones

I have lost,

and gained none;

even the dreamless

sleep has not been my lot.

28.01.2018

THE SLEEPERS OF MARS

Reading young John Wyndham from 1931-1938,

going and voting a candidate set to loose

(like we all, citizens) the election,

coming back to watch FA Cup football,

making coffee, warming a pizza,

Manchester City leads Cardiff 2-0,

outside the land sunk in black ink,

trees garbed in white,

the landscape mourning;

soon it will be a year

from your death, father,

just five hours left. They

never asked for identity card

when we voted together; now

they asked, those strangers,

after 22 years. You would

cheer for Manchester City, the Sky Blues,

they are going to win

the Premiership title again; remember

how I ran to shout you back

after they scored, and scored,

and came back and won

after you thought they had lost

and you had went outside, father?

28.01.2018

TO HETA IV

A dog barks in the distance,

but its not my Heta;

a dog howls in the distance,

but its not my Heta;

two dogs walk ahead of me,

leash of each in my hand;

my sister's dogs, sweet dogs,

but they are not my Heta.

My Heta sleeps a dreamless

sleep at our home, 

my Heta sleeps in peace

the sleep of death.

28.01.2018

ALAS, ILION

Troy has fallen, and in its flames

unborn Carthage burns;

on his back Aeneas carries

an empire of blood and slavery,

the fate of nations,

praetorians selling a throne

to the highest bidder. Troy

has fallen, and the clouds of

smoke darken

the coming millennia, put

Remus to his brother's sword.

Spilled blood flows

from future's guts.

27.01.2018

TO THE LIVING, TO THE GUILTY

We are dead.
You, who

let us die

are alive.

You breathe,

you feel

the air

in your lungs.

You feel

the breeze

on your face.

You feel

the earth

under your feet.

We, the dead,

feel the earth

heavy atop

our unmoving

breasts, our

lungs empty

but worms.

Never again

breeze on our faces,

never again

air in our lungs,

never again

the soil under our feet.

Never again

life.

26.01.2018

The past

and today

have something

in common:

Both

are too

much

to bear.

25.01.2018

GONE IS THE WEAVER, SILENT IS THE BARD

To Ursula K. Le Guin(1929-2018)

Gone is the weaver, but the

tapestry still stands before our eyes.

The voice of the bard is silent,

but the words still echo in our ears.

The last page of the last book is open,

but we have time to go back

to the beginning; our

evening is not yet here. It's

afternoon, the shadows

are only growing, slowly.

We have time

before the last light of the evening

gives way to the starry night,

before the sleep comes,

heavy and deep and

without an end.

25.01.2018

TO HETA III

A blue morning,

a cold morning (finally),

a morning of mourning,

light like your touch

undemanding, certain

and now gone,

gone under the blue

snows the light caresses.

23.01.2018

Give the world

your silence,

emptiness.

Your

footprints leading

away.

22.01.2018

THE TICKET OUT

Remember: If you feel

that life is wasted on you,

then you are not worthy

of death either.

Earn your demise.

21.01.2018

NOW COUNTED AMONG THE OLD

You are now counted among the old

by the old themselves, accepted

in their ranks. A peer

in the last stage of life; the

things the young have you

lack - it's not the age, its

things driving them forward to

waiting (or vanishing) possibilities.

They are in the grip

of constant transformation. You,

you are a finished product,

of crude built yet finished; there

will be no change,

just existence. You are complete

and cursed for being so. You

are now counted among

the old by the old. You are

one of them, accepted, and you

take your place and the role

that comes with it. You

start talking, always reminiscensing

when not talking about the

future of the young; there

is no future to you but this.

21.01.2018

AFTER HETA

The words have lost all

meaning except that

to fill the silence, fill

the empty spaces that tell

(in silent scream, in anger)

with greater force than

any spoken words, than

any written words of

what happened and what

will be now, how

it will be now, until

the end, until the

that of the ends

which is mine. How

many ends already,

how many more

before that end,

before that end?

(How many

more absences

in the fabric of existence

before that end?)

20.01.2018

TO HETA II

There is nothing

to say, nothing

to do. Everything

has ended; frozen

the mound on your grave,

the heavy earth

atop your sleep.

The candle that failed

to withstand the wind,

light failing

in the gathering dark.

Yet these words come,

sorrow and pain and guilt,

like snowflakes

tumbling in the dark

on your grave,

white in black night.

19.01.2018

AUTUMN OF PHRYGIAN GORDION

Their long robes shimmering

golden in the Anatolian sun,

the Phrygian nobles

with each step taken

on Gordion's streets

approach the

Cimmerian hordes,

waiting in time.

Under the mound,

in his chamber of timber

the king Midas

sleeps past the fall.

19.01.2018

SOME PEOPLE

To some people, every misfortune

that happens to others

around them is just a lesson

to themselves:

'I learned from my father's

battle with Alzheimer';

'My mother's passing made

me a stronger person.'

Every case of dementia,

every terminal illness,

every accident,

every funeral

is to them just one step

in their own personal story

of a Hero's Journey,

one more touch to make them

what they are meant to be;

they are the central character,

it's all about them,

the lives of others.

18.01.2018

THE END

It's the end.

But the end,

the end

is not a moment

but a process.

When

will it

end?

18.01.2018

A SEAGULL ON THE SHORE IN THE BESIEGED GAZA STRIP

Only those with wings are free -

the birds which can soar

in the air

 to escape the siege

now as long

as that of Troy.

No human can achieve the same,

they can only gaze

and envy the freedom

of the birds,

the freedom of the wings

above

the chains put on people.

14.01.-18.01.2018

TO HETA

It's snowing

on this gray,

silent morning.

Snow-flakes

falling,

tumbling.

Your grave

will be

white,

a shroud

of tears

frozen.

18,01.2017

WITH EACH DEATH

To our Heta(02.12.2009-14.01.2018)

With each death

around us,

the world

ends.

14.01.2018

THE GODDESS AND THE BEASTMAN

A man is a burly beast,

rough in his love for flesh;

a woman, more distant

from the animal they once were

loves what the man could be.

More than man a woman

can love with her mind,

and forgive the rought beast

his primal lust and fear

that drives him to possess.

Thus the beast in his

lust for her flesh

captures her; not with

what he is, but what he,

in another life, could be.

11.01.2018

ONE OF THESE WINTER NIGHTS

One of these winter nights

that feel cold only because

so often these wet winters are so warm;

no -25, -30 Celsius anymore. So

minus ten is cold,

and I walk without hat or gloves

or the scarves I have misplaced,

savouring it. Soon,

this too will be a memory

of 'a real winter' to the young,

as the world warms

to humanity's folly.

11.01.2018

EARLY CLASSIC STATUE OF POSEIDON

The Artemision Bronze, recovered in 1928 from middle 2nd century BCE shipwreck.

A bronze Poseidon, blinded

by the two millennia on the seabed,

still poised to throw his long-lost

trident at us, mortals,

ever the target of wrath of the gods.

Lord of the sea claimed

by the sea, and

then given back to another kind blue,

the world of air

where no longer his brother Zeus

rules with envy and

his thunderbolts ready. Still,

the blind god stands

magnificent, facing

the stares of mortals

as he faced the long centuries

in his watery realm.

10.01.-11.01.2018

REMEMBER NOW

Remember now, remember now

what memories your life has left you

as one day, when you

are cold and your heart beats no longer

no one will remember

those moments like you now

remember them. Remember,

remember now.

10.01.2018

EURIPIDES WAS WRONG

Iphigeneia shall bleed

as a sacrifice to raise

the wind to doom Ilion

and its pillagers alike;

no deer shall take her place.

The dagger will find her

bosom, tear at her beating

heart. The cry that rises

above the roar of the fire

shall escape from her lips,

the smell of burning flesh the men

in the ships driven to Asia's

shore will remember shall

be hers. There are

no happy endings, there

are not even happy

prologues to a great slaughter.

10.01.2018

THE LIFE AS A GREEK TRAGEDY

Life may play itself

like a Greek tragedy -

but remember, oh mortal

that in the end

there shall be no

Deus ex machina.

10.01.2018

DANDELION WINE I

READING DANDELION WINE(1957) BY RAY BRADBURY(1920-2012)

Truly the best childhoods

are not those truly lived,

but those read about;

childhoods of the mind,

of imagination mixed with nostalgia

towards what never was

but should have been -

a childhood not as a wound

but as a magical quest of discovery,

whose fruits would carry through

the long, bitter years of adulthood

like summer wine in the cellar

of memory, bringing back hope,

allowing us to go on

until the last faltering step.

10.01.2018-12.11.2021

THOSE WHO NOW IN DUST LIE

All those dead poets, long-gone

and rotten, turned to dust and ash -

how foolish they were

facing eternity with mere words,

love this and love that, all those

lies about death fair and longed-for and

sleep-like; how blind and foolish

and misguided they were,

those long obliterated, whose

thoughts are lies on paper,

whose flesh is gone and whose

gravestones mark the passing of moths.

10.01.2018

IDLIB

Only in Syria, the human rights advocate

writes on Twitter,

do they bomb hospitals.

Only in Syria,

only in Yemen,

only in Afghanistan,

only in Iraq,

only in Gaza.

10.01.2018

FOLLOW THE WORDS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL

Sometimes, it's just better

to listen to the Apostle Paul

and fuck

until you can fuck

no more. Fuck

the need to fuck

out of you. Only

saints should wrestle

with the flesh

in epic contests of the mind.

You, lowly sinner, just

fuck until you can

fuck no more.

10.01.2018

ODE TO YOU, HUMAN BEING

We are not separate entities

that are born,

live and die.

We are chains in the lineages of

women, men, species and genes;

we are the flesh and the mind

of humanity, we

are born of the Earth

and we are the Earth itself,

we are not marooned

in the universe; we are

the universe, sentient,

reflecting upon itself,

finding itself. We

are the spark and the flame,

atomic fire and eternal cold.

In us all that has ever been

gazes on to all that shall come.

10.01.2018

IMMORTALITY IN THE ANDES

At the high peaks

in thin-air under space

so close, with

the vast realms of humanity

spreading to distant seas;

here, frozen, sleep

the children messengers to

gods. Drugged, beaten

to death, young faces

in bloodless immortality

through centuries linger

so close to heaven.

10.01.2018

WHEN THAT OTHER PART AWAKENED

The Death of Young Bara(1794) by Jacques-Louis David(1748-1825)

His pale limbs,

his face and curls like

those of a girl,

his small limp penis -

I still remember

that long-lost day

when myself younger in age of the boy

the painting represented,

with deep yearning

I wanted to turn back two centuries

and embrace his naked form,

feel his hands on mine.

Oh, I had dreamed

of soft female flesh

for two years; but this, this!

It was so fragile and new.

10.01.-11.01.2018

THE GIFT OF AFRODITE

In my dream

I saw the most perfect pair

of huge brown breasts

in my hands like the

most tender clay,

and when awakened,

joy still rang

through my mind and loin.

Such are the gifts

received from the foam-born

goddess driven on Cyprus' shore.

10.01.2018

TODAY

When I fell asleep, white storm

was passing outside,

snowflakes adrift in the air.

When I woke, all was calm

and quiet and cold outside,

in darkness nothing moved.

We walked in solitude

past dark houses sagging

amid black trees.

10.01.2018

PRE-COLUMBIAN AMAZON

Thirty percent were slaves

before the Portuguese and Spanish came;

after the Spanish and Portuguese had come

a hundred percent were slaves

were they ruled,

of those who still lived.

10.01.2018

WHEN IN RELATIONSHIP

Your woman wants to curl

beside you on a sofa under a blanket,

your fingers to wander

absently in her hair.

Lights down,

a candle on the table,

something on the TV

as an excuse to be close.

When you realize

this, that it's all she wants

on that moment, that it's

the best you can give to her

- then congratulations, my friend,

you have grown, you have learned to be a man

measured by more than

just the thing in your pants.

10.01.2018

A CANDLE IN THE DARK

A candle in the dark

is just a candle in the dark -

except on a grave on a winter night

it's a sign of lasting love.

10.01.2018

OF LOVE

When in love, we create

the greatest works of art

with our mind alone

from frail and fractured

mortal flesh and thought.

On the pedestal we raise

the perfection, that

which carries a faint

resemblance at best

to the one we may find.

Such is love, it evokes

an artist in every soul,

in every woman or man

intelligent and wise

it awakes a blind fool.

10.01.2018

THINKING WITH THE BRAIN AGAIN

The problem with lust

is that lust has its own rules

that fade to dust

when the flesh has had its

full; too late, we must

see clear and pay prices

we sought and regret.

10.01.2018

THE UNMENTIONED

When you read the Norse sagas of Iceland,

of the warriors in their madness

roving the world and

pillaging, killing -

spreading their name with blade and blood

until they are themselves killed

with guile or betrayal; houses

engulfing parties with fire

and rivers and seas families

with their waves, They

go unmentioned except

here and there, slain

or witness to a killing. Unworthy

of much more, the

seventy or eighty percent or so

who were slaves.

10.01.2018

A LOVE SONG IN REVERSE

I long

for your pale golden hair,

like the leaves

of autumn falling;

for your

flesh,

abundant

like summer harvest,

soft and warm

like a grass

of late spring;

your voice

flowing

like the fast

streams of

early spring.

Your touch,

thawing

me.

10.01.2018

MIDAS, THEMISTOCLES AND THE REST

They drank bull's blood,

so the ancients tell us, to die.

'But we drink bull's blood

to be more virile,

and we don't die!'

the moderns interject.

The chemists, bless them,

give us an arsenic compound

from antiquity, red

like bull's blood

and deadly. The kings

of old died

like victims in

country mansions of

Agatha Christie.

10.01.2018