29.1.2012 • truth and you

truth and you

it doesn't matter what you felt
little miseries
small regrets
minute desires
insignificant griefs
and harmless melancholy
the big picture looms menacing above
a zeppelin of untold rules
a symbol of the rule of
some truth
which though you may admire
you honestly can't grasp
such intimidating craft
it substitutes for you
a distant but
transparent
you

29.1.2012 • the fraction of a nod

As a counter-reply to the rather gracious comment, whereof the malfunctioning javascript, disallowing my nod, enabled this somewhat longer and more creative reply. (Thank you.)

the fraction of a nod
dedicated most wholeheartedly to that sympathetic fellow

sometimes I can only manage the fraction of a nod
it’s not much, but hard as it may be try to fathom
my forehead’s forming wrinkles through that almost
spastically minute movement
are digging through the arachnid acres of folded time
into my hidden truths and lies
and stop so short of the expressive gesture of the head only
because the shovel has with muffled glintching
hit something soft
like when an eerily discreet scalpel touches with its frosty bite
a nerve
and all the world convulses with the pang of concentrated agony
such focused anguish is the decideful stopper of my affirm
so when I can only manage the mere beginning of a nod
you will excuse me (or perhaps
if you are such a sympathetic fellow
feel but a candlelight’s weight for me)

29.1.2012 • when I turn on the light

Out of nothing, in the dim electric light, came the words, as out of nothing, but do words (does anything) ever come out of nothing?

when I turn on the light

today when I turned on the light
everything seemed an ugly uncharacteristic desaturated hue
all colour remindfull of a dreary utopian past gone wrong
and the shapes and forms of every little piece of garbage
every untended niche
all too evidently brought out
today when I turned on the light
my dreams were a washed-out tone of grey
the colours latently forgotten
(no, not forgotten;
memory and hope are different functions
but both may equally
falter for a moment
during the course of so productive a Sunday)

28.1.2012 • bitter blind ecstasy (or, just your pretty face)

And the third poem inspired by Un coeur en hiver.

bitter blind ecstasy
or just your pretty face

no, no,
it's not just your pretty face

it's just those eyes
who tell a tale of woe
and such sweet restoration
as a thousand deaths' relief
would fain acquire had she the might
of those, it's just those perfect lips
the bud of lusty seasons which words cannot name
and which to spring are as she to the winter of the haunted moon,
and just the neck through which such fire flows as fuels the burning curse that is your tongue
to those who tasted it and will no more, devoured by the twisting passion of their memory,
it's just that back which like a sea of troubles and of strength can calm and rouse and give sweet rest and such violent spasms of frenzied pleasure
and just the soft and tender breast which mildly balms the fear and rage and passion and through calming turns them all in ecstasy to you,
that waist which in proportion and in shape and firm support founds and sustains your power and wrecks all resolve
or any resistant hopes, and that her selfsame other part the thighs that break rebellious strength
to sweet submission and contain the unutterable fire of sweet begetting, the limbs
which in perfection mix their grace and power and softness and induce
such substances as mixed themselves in blood will turn the mind
from any other thought
than you

not just your pretty face

28.1.2012 • tears these days

The second poem inspired, partly, by Un coeur en hiver.

tears these days

it's always tears these days
tears
hiding
waiting
for the opportune moment
for the dam to crack
the brittle and the damp
to meet in a discreet
sad ecstasy of soft decay
break down
and let them flow
and oh! good lad
what fancies have you clad
in weeds of madness weeds of sad
departure and arrival at a stranger port
than ever your imaginings could this distort
into, and oh!
oh how fragile
and horrible are
those lies where no abundance
but only pity lies
in weight
a ragged feather of plenty
and rough black gold of heaviness
dragging the bloody culprit
to the bottom
through countless mouthfuls
of mud

28.1.2012 • là-bas

The first of three poems inspired in some part by the movie Un coeur en hiver.

là-bas

so strange a pinch
like a shrill
metal string
plucked with a hardened fingertip
a muffled sob
run down the alley of the sea of torn desire
when you say you're fine
là-
bas

28.1.2012 • Walk to the Lake

Walk to the Lake

Today I took my old brown coat
and walked all the way to the lake,
faking prose into poetry all the while.

It was a good day, charming
weather though greystained and soaking wet:
it felt as though the rain was making its way through a familiar crowd,
big droplets among miniscule ones, all water
and no air to breathe, not really.
(I breathed in the water in lusty lungfuls.)
As the ground softened and sank into the crevices of my boots’ soles
I made my way over Little Hill (the name kids have
for the mound-before-the-lake, or at least which they had when
I was one of them) and into the pearly lakeshore.
All the pebbles there are round, completely spherical, as if
by some enchantment, and shine like huge ocean ornaments each of which could buy
the whole wide world (oh well).

I wrote no foot-notes nor end-notes to-day, but when I reached the lake
I felt I knew why, the droplets falling through the drops dropping
into the calm waters and disturbing the peace with quiet:
no footnote, no endnote especially
can ever explain why a drop makes its way
through the water and into the lake,
through the lake’s infinitely complex
minutely distorted mirror
and into its vast belly of a world,
or chooses to stay in the dryness of the moisty clouds
in such unsure security as those platonic heights can offer.
(The foot is basely rooted to the ground;
the end of ends can speak and of beginnings murmur,
but of these endless risings of the tide, and fallings,
it can never make excuse, nor explanation give.)

I thought of crying there, and then my fancy flew
to a tear’s shape in stasis–tear-shaped is meaningful only if tears are
seen as constant-flowing, always moving along the softness of the face or
through the harshness of the air, dry and moist ever at play; but if a tear were
still, made of gelid calm and hazy ice, only dimly translucent and obscured by Time,
then it would be the same shape as these pebbles here...

I didn’t cry. As I walked on, the river made a shushing sound as if to beckon
from afar and say:

“Though the Lake be there and I here far away,
yet I flow through it to your feet and feel them,
intimately, and when you lift them feel
the wayward canals winding under your boots,”

and I knew it could feel my toes also, the warmth of my socks slowly overtaken by by the vast, mild, welcoming cold. The water scaled my trousers with eager thirst, paralyzing for a moment every muscle in my knees and thighs and waist, climbing my vest and corduroy shirt all greed and anticipation, hungering for my tears–
then as if a far-off wolf’s-cry sent a chilly start through the lake’s spine,
the water slowed
and its white foam caressed my beard
softly,
with sweet merciless affection
and soaked it wet all in its meek surrender.
One would think the labyrinth of each ear and the tunnels of the nose would be
the biggest challenge,
navigating in the dark
such closed
and dry places, but
the cunning element invaded all in quick succession
and conquered them with stunning ease,
but my eyes!
As they faced the dull and misty vastness of the sky
whereon the lake’s countenance was in perfect mirror depicted
and her cruelty plain to see,
Again the foamy hands stopped
cold
froze
still
as if to wait
for a tear-shaped tear
breath held
in motu contrario
and scratchingly
screetchingly
crunching like
breaking glass
devoured the blushing of my cheeks
and broke the eyelids and eyelashes
into submission.

the white orbs
clear and veinless
in that terrible moment
offered good game
the shattering fluid searched them
sought their source
they gushed bright hot blood in response
burning the icy water off
but as a band of heroes fighting off a host
it cooled in weariness and froze to dissolution in fatigue
and gave way to the waters

the iris
scorched green and radiant
by the acts of bloodshot fear
played her due part
admirably
her magic powers all unleashed
her shield a maze of infinite space
woodland and plains
rolling grass and gnarling trees
a world’s width
of creatures secret and horrible
and the forces of unnature in their swift command
but the waters saw the trick
and gave painful birth to their imaginable infiniteness as well
filled all the greenworld to the skies and beyond
and overflowed the emerald spectral crown

yet
the pupil
the most tiny innumerable part
like the centre of a vicious vortex stood aloof
of conquering,
its microscopic rim
voracious
gulping down gallon after gallon after gallon
a dent in the space of time
the earth’s surface bent as if the plates
had made way
and the icy lake was sinking to its boiling doom
the horrid whirlpool gorging on water, fish, and twig alike–

and then the pebbles,
when their turn came,
came gently crushing on the frigid limbs,
gently crushing muscles, arteries, and bones in sweet concord, (like hot sensual tears begot of a hyperrealist’s temperatureless reasoning,) and all the organs, stomach, spleen, kidneys and liver, lungs, brain; but not my heart:

Therein they made friends and entered freely,
able (all senses lost to the fight)
to take the guise and pretense of real tears.

26.1.2012 • darkness

darkness

O how beautiful
how beautiful are the feet
of him who dwelleth in darkness
for he and he alone
is given knowledge of the multitude of the faces of the lord
behold he is made unto a virgin hart
and rushes among the waves of the bountiful rivers
and fresh plains

thus saith the lord

darkness has his canny way
to make things beautiful
while light displays
all the world’s ugliness
in hateful detail

I sink in hesitant freefall
freefalling through this tasteless odourless backthick honey
running through the void the silence echoing everywhere
my humours mingled like sour pumpkin soup
rotten pure
pure rot

darkness in her cold numb embrace
keeps me safe from good and ill
safe from you until you’re gone
and both our lives plod sadly on

(no, no
not sadly
sadly’s just
poetic license
better at any rate
than poetic
silence)

26.1.2012 • a friend said, said a friend

a friend said, said a friend

a friend said
O that I could lie me down
and die
a painless, choiceless death
and all the burdains of my life
would fly into eternity
and leave me all behind
how I would cherish that wide calm
(that vast eternity of silence
that concave convex lens
which light bends around
and avoids)
and be still
if I weren't so afraid
of pain or surrender
I might give it a second thought
(oh the savage width and breadth of
ceaseless senseless pointless
oh the whole wide world
at our feet and our heads
misquoting nameless friends to taste
their wandering scares
mildly disgusted
slightly angry
thoroughly disappointed
pathetically inclined
to do no thing
but stare at the advent
of the next sorrow)
said a friend

26.1.2012 • slothfull, allone

slothfull, allone

sloth
full
fingers
that will
shy away
from blemishing
these black-white keys
with meaning
what stays you?
slothfull
hands
that guard your affections
from time’s corrosive
from time’s smooth disease
who warns you
against truth?
slothfull arms
whose firm embrace
is barred against
the stormy winds
of Eden's paradise
whose sturdy cage
is locked empty
of containment
which element of fear
and lothing
holds you back
from sweet sin?

if it isn’t circumstance
my favourite mistress
who robs me of all opportunity
for one is the other
the other is the one
all one
I'm all but one
by choice of circumstance
by blunt razor-stroke
that shaves the skin with the beard
by blind
I am allone
tricked all my self in
to thinking
“circumstance”
and going
back
to
bed

25.1.2012 • Fantasie upon John Donneland II

Fantasie upon John Donneland II

sweet is another name for bittersoft; if you believe me,
stay and listen to a score more words of frets and necks with hands entwin’d and fingers touching,
a moment’s eternal circulation of your iris
while you wonder the seconds away, away, away
why stay, stay, a second more will break that chord
will break that cord that circumscribes your heart and hides me from you,
you would but blink once more, take a short, high breath
rise-and-fall, rise-and-fall soft murmurs of my sighs,
             I am no more, am no more
                          of the hopeful colours to your eyes

30.12.2011 • hipster girl

Because I dare dare not no more.

hipster girl

there's a little hipster girl
I met through a baroque
révérence to anarchists on a summer night
she wears jeans
but wears them well
(with a subtly enigmatic smile)
her hair changes hues as the seasons come and go

there's this little hipster girl
I met through friends that knew her not
she blushes every second phrase
but wears it well
(with a chequered shirt)
her hair half hides her eyes sometimes
almost conveniently

she's a weird mix, this hipster girl
unpredictably devious
the other day
she stole a packet of Karelias
with a smile I've made up in my mind
(I bet she hid her eyes with her blonde summer hair)
the other day
she took a thick black marker
and wrote BORING BORING BORING
all over my brand new diary
then flew away
in a normal airplane
wings and wheels and turbines and all
as if it were no big deal

this little hipster girl
she lives across the sea
and Shakespeare is so old
so predictably
unbearably poetic

her hair is brown now
like the barks of winter-trees
but still flows like the sea
between us

24.01.2012 • A singer’s complaint

A singer’s complaint

I wish I had a voice to sing my griefs
and griefs to sing
griefs that were singable
signable
but what petty purpose is inherent in this life
of easy negligence
forgotten diligence
words spread thin in a sea of words
every one making the others suffocate
for lack of limiting space
and for the excruciatingly quiet
desire
to fly

I say let those loves loved which you left behind
plot and play with plumes and plums out of their own exotic climes
let you for those loves loved in leisure realise their true place
let poetry be writ and prose expand
let roses wear their colours
and recorders forget their call
for alas
the only lovely play is hid behind the curtains of time
and I concealéd by the same

24.01.2012 • Fantasie upon John Donneland

Fantasie upon John Donneland

the night drags on mercilessly as any
day pitilessly asserts the omnipotence of Τime
breaks every sacred pact in the fleeting bastard’s name
not for cruelty but cool cold mercilessness as if
it were not so as if it
is not so that
my very bones feel the grinding of his teeth my very
heart is sick with self-inducéd grief
        for running from him
           like a coward
             and a thief

20.1.2012 • never ever did I

Variations on an old drinking game’s all-new variant.

never ever did I

never ever did I write a poem about you
when I saw you last
you were in your summer colours then
off to the far north
away from the recession kiln
and to the sweet care
of a cool summer breeze

never ever did I keep you in my mind
for days on end
in a ragged sleepless night
and in a calm autumn after-noon
a lollipop gone rogue
its stick lost
in a dance that should've lasted too long

never ever did I caress your face
lightly with my note-hard finger-tips
kiss your eyes into blushing
kiss your cheeks into burning
kiss your lips
in a little day-dream

15.1.2012 • elleipsis

elleipsis

ἔλλειψις, εως, ἡ, a leaving out, ellipse, in grammar;
an omission, or a want
a silence, lack
desire for something
long gone
or long to come
a void
devoid
of those
sighs which
if made full
it would invite
and which now
invite it
an ellipsis of sorrow
numbed by the lack of joy

~

I wrote a poem on declining wit
on footsteps in the empty house
at night, footsteps trailing
into the senseless silence
and unnerving quiet
of the ticking clock
(oh my poor dear old
grandfather-clock
who ticks dumb
agony into
your last
one-thousand
strokes
tick-tock
tic-
toc)
.
.
.

11.1.2012 • barren

barren

a silent day
speaks more words
than ten eloquent nights
that chatter all their hours away
in expressive soliloquies
and pregnant battles of wit and emotion

I walked in the wilderness
and through the valley of shadow
where the arid dust is the colour of ash
and the trees are white as death
no evidence remaining of their scorchéd leaves

I floated through the pale vale
of silent souls, of mouths sewn stale
and speechless in their awe and terror,
into the putrid petrifiéd earth
(the ground ground to dust a thousand times
clay'd in stagnant ponds of tears
fired in a steep-skyline kiln
far too hot and far too long
cracking now
licking the edge of the vicious circle)
and in there emergéd free
surrounded and contain'd
by rock and soil

One day I ran and ran and ran
and ran into the sea
and what games we played
the foam and I
the little summer waves
under the summer clouds

And then for ten
I spoke my soul out
to motion and to speed
and to desire and hope–


a barren day
says more than
a hundred fruitful nights

9.01.2012 • key-binding

key-binding

Now words for the first time
bound to keys
bound to circuit
bound to factories
production-lines
little little hands
working affectionately
with silicon and plastic things

Only fitting
that lines bound to my strife
and currency of my struggles
would be bound to the very believed-in
currency of the world
which is just the same

(and what better connexion
could be found
between the monies of the world
and gods of the forgot beyond,
than that by being servile
each to their believers' faiths
enslave them;
and that their inexistence
which should make them meek
exalts them beyond compare)

In such mundane a way
and so visceral

(The viscera are little insects
crawled up inside of us
black and brown and putrid red
just learning how to swim in curdling blood
they shark up our food
and rankily produce
our inspirations and affections:
such chemical, internal excrement
as would fill us up with worms
words warn wanton want
and thus relieve us of the foulness that we daily devour ceaseless
ly and inadvertently placing, this misthat in stead the placein

My bag is heavy-laden with overused tricks
and I employ them daily
but (you know?)
you have to accommodate the world
it's the only way it will ever
not stoop so low
as to accommodate you
only barely
take your meaning
home

9.1.2012 • That especial part

That especial part

I saw you yesterday
in a quiet busy street
you entered deviously into my iris
and kept company with its various intertwinéd hues

you're special in a special way
but not especially so
–that is a part for you to play
and for time, if time be given to that part–

not especially so, unless that part be played out:
I should remember that
when liberally making you out
in the stuff of dreams

7.1.2012 • When I grow old (or, ELQ)

When I grow old

or ELQ

When I grow old

I'll have a prairie-house

With a vast garden;

Flowers will blossom

All-year-round

Within it and without.

The garden's trees

will be as tall

as are the tallest tow’rs of yonder stately hall;

But in the rooms

and corridors

and through the ceilings and the walls

there will be trees also,

And they will twist and they will bend

and crouch and slither roundabout

until they reach without and breathe

freely

free of me

On my floors

will be sprawléd

bows-and-arrows

made of gut—

th' intest'nal force and cruelty thereof

sated

by their internal strife

at human violence

(like anything inanimate

one can in fantasy

discern the workings

of their oppresséd spirits

bound to reaction none

but only dumb complaint

and sorrow unobserv’d)—,

broken horse-hairs and

strangled wood—

so bent by craft

and dented by neglect

as to be violins no more

but to the eye of memory—,

a ruin of harpsichords,

pianos unstrung,

the very swaddling-nurses of my mind's mouth,

all thrown about in perfect disarray;

and I will sit therein

and weep no more

but only look with eyes as dry

as dusty old sepia'd photographs of the sea—

a film of little housedust-mites

obscuring the blackness of my pupils—

but only look, eyes dry

and mind cut off

as if a tulle had settled

streched inside the dome of my skull—

all textured, making rough sand-paper sounds:

ssshcrrshhhsss and hhhshhhhh—

but only look—eyes dried out

and mind cut off from them,

a vacant chessboard

monotonously chequered

floating on the table

beneath my gaze—

in complete stillness

at that thing behind the wall

behind the wardrobe that's in front of it

behind the window that's behind

behind the end of sight

between my brain and thinnest bone-plate of my skull

a sea-horse driéd in the sun

6.1.2012 • usque ad mortem 2.0

usque ad mortem 2.0

Terrible thing, a death in the family, especially when you can't feel it, gut frozen like fucking R134a were coursing through the veins, words mixed up in rhyme and verse and tumbling in utter imbecility. You wake up to the phone wringing the sleep out of your mother, pick up the handset in a state of lukewarm alert to the trailing "...passed away" of the doctor-friend, the doctor-friend with the so-assured tone and deep, vaguely confident voice.

Then in the car. Drive with moderate haste to the hospital. (There intrigue awaits, but that's another story to be told by another me.)

The cool dread of the empty room; nurses are folding sheets ever so casually, a few bags filled to bursting with personal effects (what dread imagination conjured up this phrase) surrounded by those unfortunate enough to be close enough to be fortunate enough to be able to feel and hurt suffer and cry out O God, O God!

But I am none of them. A terrible thing, death in the family; especially when you can’t feel it. You and I, we’ve waltzed through many a text and many a speech, you hiding behind I, I behind you; and who’s to say I shouldn’t couldn’t hide when everyone hides behind you? And what is hid if not myself in this horrid game…

I meet some relatives I’d seen before and forgot. Or you do. You’re glad, excited to have such a person in your blood, wish to see them again, it’s all warm family reunion and death certificates and transport of human remains drenched in blood but to be washed and cleaned and painted to their true likeness by a real pro, real jolly times. The worms are kept at bay, we have the fucking R134a to thank for that (or probably more advanced stuff, the larvae are so keen these days).

Real jolly times, a death in the family, terrible thing. Especially when you won’t feel it; that day you awake disturbed, your body is objecting your senselessness or your early rousement or to the expectancy of microbes lying in wait at the hospital. A slight annoyance in the stomach, like an undecided gambler, doesn’t know what to bet on whom, whether to bet after all, and in the fever and excitement makes to bet the wrong sum on the wrong half-dead horse, the stomach seems to ache with eagerness but pastry is not exactly consonant with death in the family, especially when you don’t feel it, and anyway the stomach is unsure whether it’s eagerness or sickness, and slowly it dissolves into a sea of maggots. You look around and there is only silence, listen for the maggots but they’re all there staring at you with that blank black stare that only maggots have in the morning, terrible thing, terrible, especially when you don’t feel it.

Back in the car. You drive home in a sort of generic moodlessness; it’s as if your brain were in an ice-box in the back seat, connected to you via those blurry vibrating subatomic strings. The illness that had been lying in wait since last night takes advantage of the hospital visit to justify itself: tiredness, a mild back-ache, general physical fatigue and something less than fever; grave symptoms, terrible thing, especially when you can feel them, but not death.

5.1.2012 • usque ad mortem

usque ad mortem

numb

upper jaw all

surgically

removed

calm

in a blurred sea of white sheets

too vast to contain me

cancerous no more

bloody no more

within

only without

capitalising on my demise

a great man

extravagant

lifeless

exuding verse

looking for the right curtains

to match

the floor

match the ceiling and the walls

of this three-digit-daily hospital room

with no New Year's cake

the right colour

curtains to hide

the bandages

and hide the plastic surgeon's handiwork

the right ones to show

the true meaning

of the protrusions and the cavities of my skull

concave, convex

shiny bony truth

I meld myself with death

in senseless torpor

no auspicious, no dropping eye

just quiet

but I made a deal with the great Deceiver

(myself) that I must write and write and write

until the tesseract implode into a cube

the cube become a shapeless drawing of myself

I must write and write

and write

4.1.2012 • departing from Brahms

I've always thought Champagne is the fiercest thing. You open it, it explodes into the world and forces you to drink it all at once, otherwise it goes stale and pale like a blood-sucked old man. Her eyes burn with a fire stronger than anything else on this earth. Yes, champagne is the fiercest thing.

Well, not really. But I started writing and I feel like I'm figuring out a way into that place where poetry comes from within me (I think somewhere behind the spleen). And like whenever I call its name (and say "behind-the-spleen!") it turns and beckons in a way that strips me of attachment to my former place and draws me to it inexorably, intolerably, until my words are sprawled all over. And the next day is the same. And the next. And the same.

•

departing from Brahms

Ah Brahms Brahms

who gave you the key to the dam

the cord that pulls the cork

asunder

afire

athunder

what good is it

to stretch the visceral

wide as the sun

to feint a cloudy sky

opening up rainbowlike

rainbowlike in the glory of its blue

Brahms Brahms

like all your kind

you dip your soul into the lillyblossom

and it starts to sing

far away

behind a dirty stainedglass window

curtains made of fire and iron reflected from a faroff place

how dare you

take the name of love

in vain

~ changement

how foolish

I bring the water to boiling

before the tea-leaves are well hid

in their transparent little bag

and throw everything together

make a mess of things

stumble, strain my tongue

on an imperfection of the sidewalk

and it hurts

like numb

and pretentious

an earnest turn-of-word

turned vagrant

gone astray

like cigarette decay

only more abrupt

stylish at first

but suddenly

I start coughing up the cool and trendy

my skin turns grey

my eyes fill up with mist all the way to the top

eyelids heavy with debris

from an unsolicited

welcome

and then Brahms, Brahms

is there for me, to console me

to exalt my brewery

such as it is

ignore its faults and welcome me

to his strange little house

an infinitely vast manor of a shack

full with marble staircases, old dusty

instruments of music

that will welcome all your passion

and torture it to its delight

and your dismay

daily I walk into the shack

isolating my desires from the world

watering them, feeding them

the imaginary stuff

that makes them grow and tower

terrifying

over the ghosts of the desired

for want of what I want

only makes the wanting more severe

the want more definite

the resolution hang in the air

carried past me

deep into the future

by a whimsical wind—

no, not whimsical:

a deliberate

kind of wind,

resolved and resolute,

intent on losing focus

losing contact

blowing it

all away

which he

would

chase

and

delight

in touching

~

and how

how

will I

turn a caress

into an open palm

an open palm into—

have you ever considered

how a walnut (surely

you have) is like

a brain, and also like a mind?

—into an open wall-nut

(the walls giving way softly to the touch

revealing that which, concealed,

but blushes at the mention of intent

then takes a shallow breath

and ravishes the air with hurried words,

always concealing, always deceiving

itself in its concealing

of itself),

make nuts-and-bolts give way

reason give way for no reason at all;

how if I know only the reason,

how if I know only reason,

how if I know reason,

how if I reason,

if I reason,

I reason

(and then the choice disguised

as the primordial question

or more than that,

but looking beyond the mere

livery of words

into the same

I see

that I and reason

are both the wrong answer

to two different questions)

?

3.1.2012 • forced conception

Tonight I decided I would finish reading my book, and I did. The only feat of personal discipline—fairly leisure-related, rather well temporally defined, entirely independent of others—that I can remember myself accomplishing. (Then again, I have a notoriously bad memory.)

After that I came to the computer. I wrote the obligatory obscure messages—most probably more obscure than is obligatory—to people of import, and got to writing. A poem. I decided to add something to my new blog so as to push myself into habit—which is in itself a rather nasty habit I've fallen into in the past years—and there it was, another poem. I had been writing once a half-year at most, and this was my third weekly poem.

Nevertheless, after a few moments of floating in the murky waters of my mind, I managed the first plunge, which turned into a smooth, violent dive. I may do this again, soon.

(When I close my eyes, engines and wails and all sorts of noise rage in my ears.)

•

forced conception

Every day I'll toss and turn and ache in vain over a blank sheet of glass

white glass

(the kind that shatters

at every significant thought)

and it will stare back at me plain

immaculate

unscathed

not a wrinkle in its perfect

distorted

face

and smile that empty smile

which like a simile will empty my mind

of all likeness

sever the lines of cognitive transience

that make stains of poetry on the pale linens of thought

or write

write

write

write

(my favourite

favourite

trick)

until my hands

are words

crawling on the page

my tongues are melodies

echoing through the

empty hallways full

full of people

a choir of want

that drinks up my desire

and spits out

inspiration

6.10.2011 • elusive

In the mornings the world is fresh and raw. I often awake into a day whose cares I had in my sleep forgot; I never remember my dreams, almost.

Looking back to October last, early modern English inversions tongue-in-cheek, to my first poem in a long time. The conditions under which it was written, um, elude me.

•

elusive

My capacity for poetry

e​‏‪‪ ​‏‪‪ l​‏‪‪ udes me.

The times we live in,

strewn in

forlorn values

and across the old

marble staircase of my dreams

of my dreams

such are the times we live in

commas lost in the threadbare livery of time

(and punctuation is the vehicle of articulate thought)

drowning in a spoonful

a spoonful

a spoon full of water

of water and salt

sucking it up like a sponge

like a sponge

I should write a song

The other day I mistook

an eye for an eye

(is punctuation the vehicle of articulate thought)

an eye for a mouth

I mean

oh the times we live in

I mistook my life

for the fancy of a god

long-lost in the twisting

staircase of my dreams

a flight of long stares

and inarticulate sighs

sucking it all up

like a sponge

I wanna write a song

but the words stick

to the sides of my throat

left right fore and aft

port and starboard

articulate little fuckers

with mouths for eyes

crying LOUDER LOUDER

in their mute voices

and I just want to cry

I wanna write a songs

24.12.2011 • In Contact (IC)

The first poem I post is almost the blog's namesake. Written after my second contact improvisation class & jam in Amsterdam this (academic) year:

•

In Contact (IC)

In Contact
I see the humours
moving fluidly within
the men
and women
dancing

Especially the sanguine
humour, the one
we still believe in, in
spite of all the Science

Blood blushing the cheeks
blood rushing the limbs
blood swinging
back and forth
back and forth
to the percussive
heartbeat of endorphins:
the endorphic humour
flows within the men
and the women
flows within me
despite all the rules that Science put down
like rabid dogs
despite all the people
put down like
dogs
even as we dance
and smile

and what did dogs do
to deserve such proverbial ill?

•

The alternate ending strophe to this poem, which I favoured over this one these past few weeks but seem to have changed my mind, was simply:

our soul is black as bile

short intro

Feeling like I'm a new person, and like it's therefore time for a new 'blog. The title a reference to my (often poorly) improvised contact with the world around me, and a less-than-obscure one to contact improvisation, of course.

I'm in a very productive mode & mood (and a vacation that allows that), so I'll start by posting recent and current writings (mainly poetry).

If all goes well, I'll keep posting (even if just old poems when I have no time) throughout my busy times this year.

Welcome back, my blogging self. Try harder this time.