TWO PAINTINGS OF LOT AND HIS DAUGHTERS BY FRANS FLORIS THE ELDER(1519-1570) OR HIS PUPILS

 This was a common subject

from the Renaissance through the Baroque

and beyond: Lot and his daughters,

the latter getting him drunk

so that they can sleep with him,

believing that the rest of humanity died

as Sodom and Gomorrah perished,

and that they have to carry his offspring

to save it. So science fictional;

and in these paintings, this misguided

incest for the sake of believed greater

good becomes pornography,

nowhere as revealingly as

in these two paintings.

The girl, seemingly the younger sister,

whose breast Lot graps

looks directly at the viewer.

There is nothing of the lust of the

intoxicated old man in her eyes.

In other paintings of Lot and his daughters

the voyeur is not acknowledged, drawn

into the drunken sex scene.

They are allowed to enjoy their

religiously veiled pornography without

having to accept their role in it.

Here, the sullen gaze of the girl

forces the viewer to accept

their role as part of the painting

- that it's not for the continuation

of humankind that these two girls

are seducing Lot, it's for the

sake of titillating the audience

of the painting. They are degrading

themselves so that the voyeur

can enjoy his pornography,

sanctified by the biblical theme.

30.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

IF, THIS TOO, ENDS IN DEATH

How many deaths

on the conscience it takes

for the heart to give up?

How many deaths?

Or is it the conscience

which withered dies?

24.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

BEFORE OBLIVION'S GATE

  Even near the end,

when its whispers

susurrate

at the edge of

understanding,

we think

it's just the beginning.

24.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

28.01.2017

  You came back from the neighbour,

walked to the living room

where I had fallen asleep

watching Liverpool lose,

and you were happy of that result,

sprightly, everything normal,

and in ten hours

all would end.

24.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry 

IN THE WARMTH OF THE LATE EVENING OF MID-JANUARY

A black winter night,

with the sound

of falling

rain.

The crisp, cold

light of the late dawn

like a mirage

of the mind.

19.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry 

FEMININE CHARMS

 The coy statues of Venus,

trying and failing to hide their charms,

make a man forget that he is a mortal,

like Paris who chose fame,

and that she is a goddess

governing his fate.

19.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry 

THE ZADAR VENUS STATUE

  Like ravaged by some

serial killer of the modern imagination,

the torso of Venus emerges,

cut in half, the modest bosom

and the head lost

to the greedy, cruel

touch of the satyriatic time.

18.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry 

MEN THINK OF SEX TWICE IN AN HOUR, WOMEN ONCE A DAY

Morlocks and Eloi

men and women,

beasts and the real people

the former are feeding on.

18.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry 

MID-MORNING

Awash in orange-red light,

illusion of warmth,

the horizon of

landscape and time

at dawn.

18.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry 

IF YOU CAN'T BE THE HERO

 If you can't be the hero

of your own life,

better to be its bystander

rather than its villain.

17.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry 

IF ONLY I COULD HAVE REACHED THROUGH THE SCREEN TO TOUCH YOU

 To PRC 

Just seeing you show

your thighs to me

yesterday

has left such a deep

longing in me,

impaling me

with desire.

17.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry 

IN THE MULTIVERSE

Remember, in the multiverse

there are infinite number

of versions of you

who have it even worse...

17.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry 

OF REGRET

Regret is such a debased coin,

minted in endless supply,

yet - how bitter still

to fill hands with it!

17.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry 

PARTED

 What it matters that he

won't touch another one,

when he isn't touching

her, like he used to,

with cold fingers

running on hot skin,

aching? How

could he ever

feel the same

as in those moments,

buried so deep in

the loam of years,

and yet growing

tender and bitter

memories, ample like

the declines and swerves

of the flesh which

the yearning

hands remember?

07.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry 

OUR HUMAN LOT

In the end,

as in the beginning,

you are

nothing.

But then,

you are human.

06.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry 

MOTES OF DUST IN A MORTAL COSMOS

 If it's any consolation,

the existence of a giant star,

like the orange Aldebaran

or the red Betelgeuze,

is as pointless

as ours,

from dust and gas

to dust and gas

and singularity,

yet -

theirs is an existence

unburdened

by the knowledge

of it's worthlessness.

03.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

POST-COUP DEATH TOLL IN SUDAN REACHES 56

 Apparently

recognizing Israel

turns Darfur genocidaires

into respected statesmen,

and makes the killing of

unarmed demonstrators,

dying to defend democracy,

quite justified and the proper

thing to do.

After all,

in the greater Middle East

and the near regions,

there can be only

one democracy -

or so they say,

in the 'West'.

03.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

ON THE THIRD DAY OF THE YEAR

In the last gloom

of the day

in the mid-afternoon,

snow from clouds

to the frozen ground

of my mind.

03.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

HETA(1998-2009) AND MUSKA(2009-2018)

Paw-prints on the

lunar dust

of my mind.

03.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

ON THE SECOND DAY OF THE YEAR

  This future was much more

enticing when I was

reading of it in

cyberpunk dystopias.

02.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE YEAR

 So far now

from the blessed years

that were the home country

from which time

has exiled me.

01.01.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

ON THE LAST DAY OF THE YEAR

Unmoored, drifting

over another latitude, longitude

on this shrouded, shoreless

ocean of time, in which

we have been cast into

from the void of non-being

that awaits.

31.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

IN THE MAELSTROM

Here we have been

so often -

at every moment

in our lives,

as it happens,

the past

and the future

meeting, separating

in the forever

fleeting,

shattering,

enduring

Now.

30.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

PYRRHIC VICTORIES

 We have defeated

the Past on many

battlefields,

yet those were

hard-fought victories,

Pyrrhic ones;

we lost so much

to gain them.

And now,

we hear that a new enemy,

the Future,

is raising a mighty host.

30.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

FUTURE CONQUERS ALL

  Facing

the invincible Future,

conqueror of all,

we are all losers

marching to our

inevitable defeat.

30.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

THE SECOND PLAGUE YEAR, NEAR THE END

  The year ends under

a white shroud,

soon dead

like the millions

sacrificed to the gods

of greed and selfishness

in these accursed years,

when we have shown

how little we care

to embrace the chance

to be truly human

when it arises.

29.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

WHEN THEY SAID 'NO'

 A simmering anger grows

in the darkness external,

internal. An impotent

anger, one burning

without consuming;

no flaming pyre, just

a barely scalded

mind, one more failure

when the fabric of life

should be torn apart, set

ablaze and engulfed,

to be redeemed

in its purifying furnace.

09.05.-29.12.2021

#Poem #Poetry #Poems

A LIFE LIVED WELL THROUGH BOOKS

  Some of the greatest adventures

only involve crossing the Rubicon,

cutting a Gordian Knot

by turning the page,

and it's enough.

28.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

INSTEAD OF A GOOD LIFE

  Be happy if,

near the end,

you can say

that you have

lived a life

that has been

decent,

in all meanings

of the word.

28.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

WHEN ONE ONLY CROSSES THE RUBICON BY TURNING THE PAGE

Question

Why does my

'bucket list' 

consist solely

of books

to be read?

Observation

Because

you prefer

reading

about life

to living it.

28.12.2021

#Poem #Poetry #Poems

'WHITE'

 If you say you are

'White',

would you drink

milk

the colour

of your skin?

28.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

THE MEASURE OF OUR FAILURES

Graves are used

to count

our mistakes,

as are the number

of years between the dates

on the headstones.

28.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

IN THE DARKENING GLOOM

 Frozen leaves

being covered

by the falling

snow -

the sorrows of life.

28.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

WHEN THE NAMES HAVE BEEN LOST

Nameless, faceless,

the kings of the second kingdom

of Ebla,

like the multitudes of common people

labouring under them

on that thrice burned site.

So the mighty too

are devoured by the erasing time,

leaving mute stones,

the silence of forty centuries

from the last utterance of the words

that bound a life into a person.

27.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

ALL THESE DAYS

  And all these days,

in their multitude,

will be nothing

on that moment

when time merges

into death.

27.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

THE HUMAN CONDITION

  So easily

we give up,

with little thought,

what soon

will look

like the most

precious

in our

lives

- an absence

never to be

regained.

24.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

MEMORIES

 Like the footprints

frozen on the snow

two weeks ago.

You could think

they are on the

surface of the Moon,

where one walk

lasts a hundred thousand

years.

23.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

DEEP IN BYGONE YEARS

Shivering the short December day

races the fields of meagre snow,

forests of evergreen silence,

the abandoned houses

with frosted windows

into unremembered lives

buried deep in bygone years.

21.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

LIGHT FROM OTHER DAYS

On this winter morning

the crisp, cold light,

light from other days

past the pale sun,

pierces the veil

of the frozen now,

echoes mute visions

of moments carved in regret,

more lasting than

the snows of this

dying year.

21.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

THE ORBS OF REMORSE

The Sun red, bleeding,
and the crisp Moon fading, white,

in the brightening frosty sky of mourning;

speaking through the shivering medium

of the guilty conscience,

the lost dual gods of my existence,

buried under the paltry snow.

20.-21.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

THE EVENT HORIZON OF DEATH

So much have poets

written about Death,

their gaze fixed upon the end

that erases life,

instead of in its flourishing years,

that the things which pass

through its event horizon

often get little notice

from them

except the moment

they get fixed

on it.

21.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

THE CRANES OF IBYCUS

Is it the guilty conscience,

or the brazen bravado

of one lacking it,

which makes loose lips

the true avengers

of past foul deeds?

18.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

FATHER

 Another anniversary

when you should

have been here,

but are under the ground

in the cold earth,

under the ground

in the cold earth,

in days and years long past,

in moments carved in time

as alive as I'm now.

18.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

GLOBAL WARMING

In the gloom of the short December day,

the sound of raindrops falling

on the roof,

droplets running

on the window-panes

across the dimming day.

16.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

IF THIS IS THE END

Do not forgive

me,

just do

better

than I

did.

15.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

FEELING ILL

If this would be the end,

then there would be

only regret.

15.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

REMEMBER

 Remorse is only meaningful

if it results in action

that stops further causes

of remorse.

15.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

-22 CELSIUS

The door-frames

of the cellar door

frosted; cold

comes inside

like malice

creeps into

the human mind.

8.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

WESTERN CANON

  all those old dead poets

famous and dusty in plaster

writing to their old dead patrons

long dead and forgotten

except the words

of the grovelling poets

western civilization

in its finest

29.11.-05.02.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

ON THE STAGE OF LIFE

All the real stories are tragedies;

all others are fiction,

mirages of the human mind

in the desert of the real.

A philosopher said

something, of that nature -

it was fiction, naturally,

shimmering

in the parched vision of the lost.

29.-30.11.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

RUNNING UNTIL THE LAST MOMENT

  all these words

won't save us

from the

void

but

what else

do we have

to fight oblivion?

12.11.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

DANDELION WINE III

Bradbury's

magical summer of 1928,

yet already in the delicious

all-American apple

a worm stalks its prey,

the Lonely One

turning warm nights

into fear -

the killer soul of the nation

breaks through the boyhood idyll,

into dreams

pours napalm.

No new sneakers

will allow you ´

to outrun

the memory of the

dead baby in the crib.

12.11.-06.12.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

ALEXANDER THE GREAT ON THE INDUS

People start to die

on the day

when they have to

accept that it's time

to turn and

go back.

Until that day,

when they were

always pushing onwards,

they were immortal.

Now, death

has a hold on them,

a claw on the shoulder

tightening its grip.

As they turn back,

they know

they are starting the path

to that day

which to them

shall lack

a sunrise or a sunset.

Sometimes

they last until

Babylon,

sometimes,

like with the aged Seleucus

(still a young general

on this fateful day

when the great

adventure ends),

death catches

up with them

on the borders

of Macedon.

11.11.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

HORROR HAIKU V

 why doesn't the

blood on the wall

dry up?

11.11.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

ONCE THIS MEANT SOMETHING

Given up,

life hasn't ended.

Not sinking,

floating across

unchanging days,

with closed eyes

to keep the dead

from escaping

into the light.

09.12.2019-11.11.2021

HORROR HAIKU IV

in the bright moonlight

no shadow of yours

on blue snows

11.11.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

HORROR HAIKU III

 between the clouds

the ghost

of the moon

11.11.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

HORROR HAIKU II

 the sound

of a Pound

eating a frog

11.11.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry

HORROR HAIKU I

the sound

of a pond

eating a frog

11.11.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry