Everyone wants a part of you. Just a part.
Better to be alone. Apart.
Learn to live with this truth. Learn to divide
yourself into wanted doles. Learn to hide
your joy, your love. But mostly your grief.
When overcome by confession - make it brief.
Better yet - confess to an empty wall.
Because - remember - nobody wants it all.
 
 
 
 
 

MY FAMILY OR SOMETHING TRUTHFUL

I imagine us fleeting upward
       Like a Holy Trinity -
United in pity.
Three bodies and souls
Intertwined in fear
Not to dissappoint -
       Each dropping a tear.

If there was ever mysticism,
I found it there -
In my mother’s embrace -
        Truthful and bare.
And if it ever rained grey and blue,
I recalled my father -
        Wild and true.

But then again,
         You can’t describe the rain...
         You can’t pinpoint the pain...
         Torturing your brain...
 
 

INEVITABLE*

               To V.G.
 

Preparation.
It was all a preparation for this.
For you.
Every crease
of the damaged past
- like a hue -
transmutes its melancholy
onto you,
gathers itself,
stumbles, swerves
over the bare nerves,
and delves
into you.
 

Nothing else is.
Nothing else was.
The rest -
ravings of a madman
before the quiet of the cross,
the helplessness of duty
before lust,
like helplessness of things whole
before their dust,
despair of the expected
before precise,
you see, the grief of round-sobs
before the angle-cries.
The rest -
the buzzing of the fly to find its lot,
and missing the destined spot
of bliss,
ignorance of “could’ve been”
before the “is”.
 

My dear...
Because of you
I no longer fear
the solitary madness of details.
And if all else fails,
if it all shall sweat its dew,
If I’ll be asked to pay the due
for my living-out
of nothing but you -
I shall caress the nails that
nailed me to you,
and no longer mourn
the loss that brought
me to you.
My tear
shall hit against the horizon -
flat against my head,
and all my dead
shall bow
before you.
 

You,
whose each remembrance
makes me shiver,
if you must leave -
no need to grieve.
For we shall meet again
on the banks of another river
where “leave him!”, “leave her!”
is unheard,
amidst the lost, abandoned,
Mongol horde,
where “save me Lord!”
ends every phrase,
and every face
is a sin-away from the Word.
 

We shall meet
amidst the bitterness and salt,
amidst the births, un-births
which lay the fault
upon the impotence of life
that cannot run, obscure, elope
out of its fate - and once again,
I’ll see you at the start of end,
at the end of rope,
not as the final hope,
but more -
as the all-piercing blue,
- a step away -
abyss,
and lips unlock only to form
a ripped-up kiss,
ignoring the need for space, for breath,
and seeing death.
 
 
 
 
 
 

ON LOVE

I have no homeland. Thank you.
Nor do I have a language. - Pity!
The words I write are dead -
like a buried city.
Symmetrical and even -
to hurt the chaos.
These qualities, I fear,
will come in handy 
only in the Chronos.
In which we will prevail -
confused and absent.
And nowhere will be seen
the vulgar crescent.

There - I’ll become a word
which bears no shame or purpose.
That which precedes a thought -
like flesh precedes its carcass.
Upon the neutral canvass -
the neutral colors.

There - I will be the essence minus art.
A nonexistent target without a dart.
An ever-present danger plus lack of fear.
An eye without a pupil and no tear.

A Jesus without Magdalene.
An actor without a scene.
A floating tree without the roots.
And frozen feet without boots.
A blinking star without the sky.
An infant who doesn’t know to cry.
A hooligan without a gun.
A miracle that cannot stun.
A dried out sea devoid of blue.
But worst of all -
Devoid of you.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

RECOILING

I will endure. While I can.
I will endure.
I will endure this lack -
I’ll grow inured
to being without you.
I’ll forget the word “with”.
In return - fate will splash me
with a loud hiss.

And the foam of the wave
will be all that remains
from this gesture of love,
that we both so craved.

There’s a point to be crossed.
From which - there is no return.
We have crossed it.
Now, let’s ignore the urn,

where love’s ashes lie - bored.
Dedicated to “must”.
Made into a whore
with primordial lust

who shouts: It’s over
with moist, naked limbs!
When push comes to shove,
they choose ethereal nymphs

of their lived-out past.
To find - it’s not there!
Just the longing for pain
that dissects into layers

and leaves but a core.
Throbbing. Blue.
Turns hands into monsters.
Probing. Cruel.”

I love you.
That’s plain.
Nothing else left to loose.
But let’s not make this necessity
a chance for a noose,
which ethereal nymphs
sport around their head.
And claim their gain -
just by being dead.

Forgive me.
I’m angry.
I’m less angry than lost.
If there’s price to be paid,
let’s forget the cost!
Give it all to the Muses
of duty, obedience, rest...
Be an angel - be something that isn’t...
And may you be blessed
by the Almighty. He is -
just like you - unaware.
From the time immemorial,
he could never dare
to live moment to moment -
between justice and love.
So, he invented torment.
Taught us to grovel
for a helping of bliss -
to be repaid by guilt.
Hence, every kiss,
in the end, is killed
by whimpering duty,
by a nymph’s quiet threat
that embroiders our conscience
with a lowly thread.

We’ve transformed into ruins -
Half-corpses inside a ditch.
And if love is whore -
Then this life is bitch!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

FOR MY FATHER
 (Or: Attempt At Suicide)

If there’s anything
 I like to compare myself -
 It is you:
 Like the sky -
 which likes to compare itself
 To blue.
 And if it fails -
 it’s usually because of oncoming rain
 While I -
     because of unspoken pain.
 If there’s anything stopping me - 
  It is you:
 Like the color red is erased by blue
 Like a choking hand -
  which prohibits breath.
 Like the memory of you -
 Which forbids my death.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

FOR MY MOTHER
 
Made up of other’s -
Never her own losses,
She bears it with the dignity of horses
doomed to carry someone else’s weight.

Resigned and peaceful -
Almost Stoic,
At times, she wonders whether it’s heroic
to feed on guilt and care.
Mostly because she cannot bear 
herself. Because she cannot find
the way to shed her skin, to change her fear,
or alter the direction of her tear...
Which year after year trods
One path of vanity and chaos
and getting closer to the Chronos
pulsates and throbs.

I’ve never seen anyone so absent:
Behind the weariest haze - a crescent.
Doesn’t know to move, save for a shiver
And dreads its own reflection in the river...

Is it disinterest or fear of the sin 
That urges you to stretch your palm - where others lean
their necessary lies - much too familiar pattern
And leave you just the thoughts of love - but gone-out lantern...

Serene nobility is an abandoned virtue.
It caused more blood than straight-up torture -
Much more honest is to live with Calypso’s guilt
Than weave and trap in Peneloppa’s quilt...

And much more kinder is, at times, to take than give.
Or over non-existence grab to live
in all vulgarity - until the verb stomps out the noun,
until the dirt drips from the thorny crown,
until the fragile pride prostrates in loud moans,
until the palm picks up and casts the stones,
until all words describe your pain and lessen
into the sighs upon the ailing crescent...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

LOVE SONG

                                                    To V.G.

Forgive the vulgarity, but I can see
us living quietly by the sea.
Listening to what the water says.
Never remembering the verb “has”.

I see a house - simple and clean.
Windows transparent - without a screen.
Palms - stretched out - not to beg or borrow.
Face held in palms - but not to form sorrow.

I see the doors - open wide.
Like the thighs of a lustful bride.
A lazy star hangs overhead.
Without a purpose - like wet bread.

I see us together - devoid of goal,
of its hysteria. We’ve witnessed it all
unwind and return to the very same place.
Hence - no shame for the commonplace.

For, what is love? - A return to cliche
where simple forms replace the sham
of artful design meant to confuse
a beginner who scrambles for purpose and use.

A road much traveled to and fro
likens a traveler to a crow,
who - grown weary of impressing other birds
folds its wings and leaves their hordes.

And that’s to be taken as time’s own pulse.
Rather than misfortune or fate’s curse.
That’s to be taken with measured breath.
With opened eyes - acceptance of death.

What does it see - an opened eye? -
The ease with which a mouth says “I”
to whatever lies beneath wet grass
as an image of what will become of us.
 
 
 
 
 

HABIT OF LOVE
 

That this barren place 
should serve as a reminder of us
causes neither sadness nor disbelief.
On daily walks here, I attempt to retrieve
hope from where, it seems, there is none left --
and still manage to get by with a crumb.
Because the heart tires of the monotonous drum
of indifference, it commits a theft.
It tires of being orphaned, bereft.
Of always subtracting itself -- growing coarse.
And it abandons justice -- and looses loss.
 

It lays whole, reveling in the warmth of another --
silent, without words -- for it has none.
Until the other decides to stun
it with the truth that it is not needed 
as much as it thought it was.
That, once again, it must gather itself. 
Prepare for loss.
For the sake of survival -- pretend
that all is well or crash.
But no longer able to scrape
another minus across its flesh --
the heart --
like a field mouse retreating into the rye --
learns to comply
with its allotted fate.
 

This way, fish that has swum 
across the monotony of all the waters
and witnessed the drudgery of survival
opts for slaughter --
by fooling the fishermen 
and devouring its bait.