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rabbit’s heart

rabbit heart

scared
sacred
so close.

i would make the case
that my rabbit heart
is sacred

but i know a lost case
when i see one.
success and failure,
what are the odds
for one or the other.
sometimes you just know.

my rabbit heart
is scared,

a fool’s heart,
no more.

but at least
it admits
to being a fool,
scared of the shadow on the wall,
scared of the whisper in the dark,
like don quichotte
it is yet willing to fight
against windmills.

because not to defend
what is sacred
against the shadows
of your own imagination
would be erraneous.

among those shadows,
camouflaged as doubt,
lies a shadow
cast by someone
who considers
rabbit heart
a good dinner.

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a walk without you

a walk without you

unless looking into a mirror
one only sees the world ahead
void of the self
that otherwise
seems inescapable.

in a world before
silver mirrors
and gleaming, reflecting
surfaces
one would only catch
one’s own image ever
as a fluid ghost
on the surface
of a still water.

maybe the self
was more fluid then, too,
less defined by the
expectations that came
with the knowledge of one’s
appearance.

once you asked me
what i thought the world
would be like
after you were gone
and i told you
to just look ahead.

today i took the same walk
and i can confirm
what i said back then.
the world is still
the same
void of you
as it was with you.

only someone walking
behind us would have had
a different view
of our world,
a view that would have
included us.

but through my eyes
the world ahead
the curve in the road
the tree that bends over the path
the fence with peeling
– or fresh –
paint depending on the
time of year
still does not include us,
never has
and never will.

i am glad
that the small path
we used to walk
does not depend
on our presence
to be lovely.

only the fluid images
of you and me passing by
the quiet pond
used to acknowledge human ghosts.

but those did not take up much space
and one barely notices your absence
as only one of us
passes by.

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a questionable moral choice

a questionable moral coice

My pale, transparent reflection
in the window pane confirmed another aspect
that I had omitted
when thinking about the ever morphing,
transitional aspect of every physical space.

I was a transitional being as well.
Everything had to change.
Only yesterday I had been a child,
and it had seemed
that I would be a child forever.

Growing up had always seemed to me
to be some kind of failing,
a questionable moral choice.

now it was apparent that I, too,
would eventually have to grow up.

My mirror image clearly
was not that of a child
anymore.
My other self was hovering
between the trees
lining the residential street
and the book shelves reflected
in the window.

It seemed like I was sitting
in a fabulous natural library,
looking from there
into the confined space of the reality
of my room
like at a framed painting
that didn’t concern me much.

It looked like a peaceful place,
that library,
like a place right out of someone’s mind.

Like a place where one would forget
time and space
and never feel hungry or tired or aggravated.

My stomach grumbled as I thought about that place.
Being of real flesh and blood I was hungry.

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betrayal

betrayal

the death of his unborn son,
for the stonemason
it felt like a betrayal.

death was to be
a professional matter,
something to take place
in the realm of his customers,
who commissioned him
with carving memorial stones
for their dead,
not something to occur
in his own private life.

does not every profession
come with a privilege?
was it unreasonable
to expect a reprieve from death
as long as he carved memorials,
folded hands, lamenting angels?

he felt he had been let down
though by whom
he could not have said.

an atheist
in the service of the church,
loosing his unborn son
felt like a disciplinary measure
for his godlessness.

he had a system of inner convictions
unacknowledged rituals,
replacing religion.
he held on to the sacred
in the profane
he did not believe in a creator,
an organizer, a final judge,
and yet
he knew to have fallen from grace.

and no place to handle his complaint.

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Ez 9:4-6 KJV

IMG_5724

eliminating comforting words
seems an appropriate strategy
to counter the hours
relentlessly expanding
the fabric of the mind
between midnight and dawn.

left behind are words with letters
like ceramic blades
well suited to cut
sharp silhouettes into the darkness.
tau, Ez 9:4-6, KJV, they read,
but no comprehension follows.

Slay utterly old and young,
both maids, and little children,
and women
but come not near any man
upon whom is the mark.
let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity.

old testament, yet one eternal god,
this is the fabric of the mind, a thin membrane.

clearly, another cut is needed
to calculate the rate of emission
of radiant energy, radiant flux,
electromagnetic radiation
emitted by charged particles
while traveling through space.

light is
beyond that dark membrane
of the mind’s fabric,
serving as a selective barrier
between origin and time.

compared with the luminosity
seeping through those merciless cuts
i am
but an ordinary lie.

 

and so,

forsaking conventional wisdom,

i cut out letters of sober inquiry

with ceramic precision,

exchanging the comfort of an ordinary lie

for the shimmering beauty

of inconsequential pain.

 

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transitional typeface

transitional typeface

dancing trees
the wind’s in a capricious mood today
writing in fluid script
with sharpened branches,
ink black against the grey sky

the message reads itself

letters legible
against the light of a sky
illuminating the thin calligraphy
of the wind
like an algorithm
flickering on a computer screen

the program writes itself

and the i observing
how letters are spun
out of branches
sharp like pencil tips

feels thin
elongated

a simple serife
tailing from the edge
of a letter.
i, a transitional typeface,
spelling the rational spirit
of enlightenment.

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Newton to Heisenberg

Newton to Heisenberg

What would you have me
Embroider on my dress
Or my coat?
And would it quell that sense of outrage
That haunts you?

What confession would you
Have me deliver
Or sign?
And would it satisfy your desire
To prove yourself?

(and to whom)

Which ideas would you have me
recant
Or change?
Would it give you a sense of safety
If I stated that
What should not be possible
Will not take place?

(as all children ask in the dark)

Too late, my friend.
The words have been said.
The deed’s done.
A door has been opened.
And there is a rip in the fabric
Of your three dimensions
Admitting a fourth
And a fifth

And so on.

I would gladly give you a hand
To help you find your way
From Newton to Heisenberg
But you see
I already slipped through
That rip
And I just don’t feel
Like coming back.

You’ll be fine.

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genius

Bild

tarnished brass bracelets jingle on your wrists,

over your shoulder you carry

the same scratched leather satchel

full of papers and books.

worn sandals on naked feet.

even now,

i recognize you in an instant.

 

it’s winter.

you keep well in the background.

between shelves M-Z in biographies

you are not at risk.

 

you have had your share of abuse

and are weary of it,

though not afraid.

 

the red letters of a franchise bar

reflect in the deep black tar

of a recently paved parking lot.

another new strip mall.

the evening is patiently enduring

the loneliness of a friday night.

 

people climb out of sport utility vehicles

half the size of their houses, i assume,

and file into the barnes & noble

for a grande non fat latte

and some magazines or bestseller titles

to while away the hours.

 

and you, in the background,

leafing through

a mussorgski biography.

how in the world this got there

you can’t imagine,

then Frank Zappa,

but that’s not why you came.

 

finally, your head clears.

you carefully deposit yourself

in an armchair.

still, no one pays attention.

the anxiety subsides.

the numbers start dancing.

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common delight

common delight

in the beginning they had been one
undivided
one delight, one breath, one presence

looking at each other they had found
the same spark of life
that was flickering in their own mind
light the other’s eye

reaching for each other there had been
no more division between both of their fingers, touching,
than between their own two hands

but the small gods divided them
for the price of a name
and grammar

I shall henceforth be called I
and you shall be called you
and there shall be common delight
one breath, one presence, one light
no more

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The stone mason

The stone mason

He had seen them in the far off distance of the long street that moved towards the shop. Something in their movement had caught his attention. Two tall men moving oddly synchronically, not just the spacing and timing of the steps but all of their body movements seemed synchronized to exact, mechanical elegance. Both were dressed in black suits but wore no shirts. It was this odd detail that convinced him that they were coming to see him. Two men in black suits without shirts. Their faces were of a faint grey with sharp contours, very similar to each other like fraternal twins, their hair of the same shimmering raven black, held back with a tight ponytail. The suits accentuated their movements in the subtle way only an expensive fabric would and that could be mistaken for the confidence of its owner.
Both had light, almost dancing steps, yet one of them was clad in heavy, dusty work boots, the other in leather strap sandals. Upon entering his small front yard they parted ways and, abandoning their synchronical steps, started inspecting the sculptured that populated the yard, each on his own. He knew then that they had not come to commission a funerary stone. One of them bent over the mirror of the black granite and gravely studied his own reflection. Turned sideways and slightly stooped over, his shoulder blades protruded sharply under the fine fabric of his suit. His partner was reading the inscription on Linus Lindvall, as if he had been asked to pay special attention to it and was just now recording his impressions in his unfailing mind. The stonemason felt cold. He noticed that the sky had changed from a gay cerulean blue to a diffuse silver grey glare. He squinted his eyes.