This newly installed cold

All the night walkers have been driven into their homes, so I discover I have the streets to myself. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t be out running tonight either had I not drunk that 35% fat cream. Yes, that was dinner. At the light of the fridge. Literally.

So to prevent myself from smashing my scale tomorrow morning because of seeing the extra two hundred grams too real to deny, I run. I run until nothing hurts except everything. And I feel pathetic and sad and what seemed not so long ago to be perfect is horrible now and I just hate my life.

I make a right turn and I almost bump into another runner. Another girl. The first one I’ve seen in this area except me in the past year, since I moved here. Makes me wonder what she had for dinner.

Reporting on the hookers: they are wearing long pants, platforms and thick, fluffy waist jackets and are so much less vocal than during summer nights. Two are smoking quietly, while a strong wind is blowing, forcing them to make sudden head turns to free their lips from the tyranny of their hair.

Not writing because everything has already been said

Then what if after the first autumn the season would have simply canceled itself? Because in no other year could it repeat the extraordinary display of color and the whole autumn paraphernalia.

And then after the first love story we would have simply stopped falling in love and writing poems and books and making movies about it. No one would ever have to repeat lines like “Do you have the time?”, “Do you want to go out tonight?” or “Will you have dinner with me?” or the ever so used “Hi. How are you?” No one would ever strive to come up with a more original first line like “Sorry, do you know which way the river flows?” And the cute couple in party clothes would not be kissing at the corner tonight. We would not develop gastritis, either.

And what about living? People have been living since forever and everything has already been lived. Yes, it has. Then, after the first human being, everything would have simply stopped. Because a human being has already lived, felt, experimented etc. And so I would not be writing things like “I want you to feel my breath in your hair” or “my mouth in the palm of your hand” and no one would say ” I’m a good cook, but remember I never eat meat”. Or “you are insane”.

Then Florence Foster Jenkins would not have existed. Or if she had, she would definitely not have sung. And what a waste that would have been.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ubiUIxbWE&w=560&h=315]

“People may say I can’t sing, but no one can ever say I didn’t sing.” (Florence Foster Jenkins)

i am waiting

a violin at the restaurant across the street

crickets

tiny frogs in the park

Porto

my lines flowing so smoothly on the asphalt in front of me

i do not want to erase them anymore

islands

cheesy songs come to mind

cheesy lines

cheesy is the new black

but I can finally breathe again

still, life’s testing my patience

no attempt to shut down the mind

i just run

the hookers are eating chocolate ice cream

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnb-5pss1UU&w=560&h=315]

That leaving feeling

The rattle of my keys in the back pocket, my foot soles hitting the asphalt, the sound of my breath, dogs barking behind tall fences, a woman screaming in a house, a gust of wind brushing against my bare arms, leaves cracking under my feet.

I check the dark stain on my chest. Not big enough yet. I cannot stop.

Sweat dripping from my hair onto my collar bones. Precious golden drops under the moonlight.

No id, no phone, no name. I am no one again. I can disappear.

The guards at the embassy of Jordan greet me again with their courteous smiles, taking short bows as they all turn towards me when I pass. Her majesty is out running again, in her colorful tights, all smeared in grace. I do not bother to answer this time, I do not even look, as if I were not even there, as if they were simply remembering me passing by them yesterday night and repeating the same gestures at the same time, out of habit.

People having drinks at the newly opened cafe, a guy sweeping on the ground floor of this office building, the hookers with their heavy makeup, the church with no candles burning for the dead, two guys wearing military clothes talk about percentages, the Greek tavern with its blue and white umbrellas, the pharmacy on the corner, a grey haired guy smoking in front of the hotel steps aside so I can pass, the prophet in the wheel chair loudly declaring war, a guy talking to himself, a girl laughing on the phone.

Am I revisiting all my past lives? Before what? Where am I heading?

I want to leave so badly I feel all my cells are screaming. And so I try to drown that leaving feeling, shake it off, sweat it out, exhaust myself to the point of numbness so I can just pass out in my bed tonight and not want anything anymore.

I get to the house and I surprise my body by suddenly making a right turn instead of the left, leaving the gate behind and cutting through the darkness of another street.

Famous for its high intensity of feeling, the Scorpio is the only zodiac sign known to be able to commit suicide through a self-induced heart attack while jogging.

“I was simply trying to shut down the system and rest for a while”, the resuscitated victim later stated.

An hour and a half later I am back home again.

I never forget to say thank you

I go jogging late tonight and, before leaving the hotel, I ask the receptionist, placing my room key on the reception desk, whether the party in the restaurant is gonna last long.

“Till morning”, she says, smiling while looking straight into my eyes.
“So… How do you suppose the other people in the hotel can sleep tonight?” I ask her, smiling back.
“Well… I am sorry… What floor are you on? Oh, the first… Yes… You see, I would change your room, but we are fully booked, I am sorry. It is not up to me…”

Then she adds something about some of the guests having to leave the country tomorrow and the party having been postponed from daytime to nighttime in the nick of time and other stuff I choose to ignore as I’m smiling and nodding.

I thank her and go out. And I am so tired and just want to go to bed but the least I can do is spend my time in a useful way if the noise is too loud to sleep. So I run. My legs hurt, my arms hurt and I yawn from time to time. But at least it’s quiet as I am moving further away from the hotel and I can listen to the crickets and the leaves rustling under my feet and I can see the full moon above, lighting up the sky like the sun at night up in the north.

I force myself to go all the way and, when I start running back, on the other side of the road, I stop from time to time to collect feathers from the ground, as I need them for the creative writing workshop I am teaching this week. So I end up running with this small bunch of black feathers closely tucked in my right hand. Listening to them whizzing as I am running, I make the decision to start working on my book in September and finish it before the end of the year. I have all it takes.

So I get back to the hotel, holding my small bunch of black feathers. The party is loud and quite a lot of people are dancing on the terrace or chatting in the parking lot. As I make my way to the entrance, three men standing in front of the main door, holding their drinks, sticking out their bellies and waving huge, imaginary dicks in my face, are quietly staring at my legs. I pretend not to notice and raise my chin, sticking out my chest as I walk past them and into the lobby. The receptionist hands me my key without a word. I say thank you and go upstairs.

pene

your favourite

yourfav

 

I wore amber today.
Did you know it’s our second summer apart?
I still find it difficult to write about.
so I make everything rhyme
and sound beautiful like a chime
the second night I dream I’m in your arms
the warmth, the safety, the comfort that charms
and still your best gift was letting me go
so now there’s nothing either of us should owe

“What shall I get you?”
Massimo, the Italian restaurant owner comes to take my order.
“I’ll start with summer, please. The second. With a touch of amber.”
“Coming right up!”
And I make an exception and stay for dessert,
Which means I get a whole hour to run.
I notice the dead leaves fallen at my feet as I’m running tonight –
Her Majesty’s most loyal subjects.
Meanwhile, my lines have lost their reason to rhyme.
I get back to my purple hotel room,
Take off my running clothes –
A snake shedding her skin –
Light my pink candle and an incense stick,
Befriend my new heart and
Sit down and write
While up there, quietly, the moon is filling up again.

 

PS Did I tell you I now go jogging every night? To think I used to believe it’s so boring…

The rattle of my keys in my back pocket

rattle-jogging

Nothing else on me
No phone, no water, no money
No shadows of lovers gone
A stabbing pain in my back
As I’m running through this melting heat
There seems to be so much noise down here
Two weeks up in the north have that effect
They make you whisper
Why trade the forest for the asphalt?
I have nothing to say
Everything to live
And love

PS Took the photo last week in Sweden, Stockholm area.

Running is no poetry

here running

Silence is only accompanied by the distant noise of the highway, but I imagine it’s a big waterfall as I’m running up the hill and then down again.

Thinking back on my day, I wonder… If we were to measure the freedom one has, what would we measure it by? How about by the frequency with which one laughs?

Not a soul except me, running along these narrow streets lined with well-attended houses. This space I feel outside is also breathing behind those doors, behind the lit windows and I suspect even inside those rib cages dressed up by perfectly shaped muscles.

Here running is no poetry. It is as natural as showering or brushing your teeth. Add to that an increased amount of dignity and grace. And light. Everywhere. Even hanging in trees.

 

 

 

Mad about you

braila

I touch my thighs
my belly
I see the lines of my body drawn on the asphalt
I feel them vibrating
I mold them like clay
If I press here, it gives in
eventually
stubornness is a thick line
ashes to ashes, dust to dust
an evening run after a day only on liquids
hunger is such a deceitful word
fear hides behind the “hun”
loneliness behind the “ger”
midnight yoga
as a late night snack

since
wars are always lost
I don’t fight my inner demons
I love them instead
I ask them their names
to thank them
and release them
I try to do the same with people
sometimes
demons find a shortcut to my compassion button
faster

anything must be possible
when it is made so

PS Took the picture in Hotel Traian, Brăila, 2009. Natacha Merritt style.

lady lazarus

ladylazarus

three hookers
suspended on their platforms
each wearing something red
complaining about low pay
waving sumptuous handheld fans
reminders
of long days between stone walls
in crinoline and lace

I still believe it takes such
can I call it generosity?
death by stoning
no exclamation mark as the words stop in mid throat
their
shall I call it availability?
a reminder
of long forgotten fears between two legs

I was dead
bearing the story of resignation
life took me by the hand
and invited me to dance
I said no
she insisted

PS I took the photo at a Rodin exhibition in Stockholm in January.