Poetry while still not jogging (yet?)

It’s been a long winter

The hookers have come out of hybernation and are now in full hunting season to make up for lost body weight

A traveller is making plans to settle down

To and fro

To and fro

Conquering fear and learning to grow

Life changing at a speed of 1000 km /second

Dizziness and queasiness befriending uneasiness

Freedom recalculated, renegotiated, regurgitated

Definitions reinvented

Breath shortened and deepened not effortlessly

Happiness exists

I swear I held it in my hands one night and put it in my bedside cabinet drawer for keepsake

It’s pink

Ever since

It keeps coming back to me every five seconds or so

 

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)

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.

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.

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.

A drop of cold water falls on my right shoulder

It lingers a bit and then slides like melting ice cream
Before the night quickly licks it off my skin

The moon is half full
Armies of crickets are singing their anthem
Bracing themselves for another long night

I run past these tables outside a restaurant
“At the seaside I never go swimming, actually”
A girl’s voice says in English
And I remember her holding me
The sea
As I tasted her salt from my lips
I could never surrender to anyone like that
Not risky enough
My life at stake, all bravery awakens

What is it about this body that’s so important?
I see its shadow in front of me on the asphalt
What is it about it that’s so repulsive,
So desirable, so fragile, so strong
And yet so utterly honest
To the point of betrayal?

This dark stain on my chest
I touch it and it’s wet
How can one sweat just on the left?
Right where it hurts
Wait
I measure the concentration of salt
With the tip of my tongue
I think I’d better light some of that incense tonight

An eternal season of honeysuckle and crickets

A rotting carcass
Roses behind wrought iron fences
My parted lips as I breathe through my open mouth
Become numb and cold
Curiously cold
As the middle of my upper lip starts pulsating
Perhaps it rembers being sucked into a kiss
I then sink into my rib cage
A birdcage for my heart
My lungs two beehives keeping her warm
Will she ever break free?
I remember many, many years ago
A foot (I later had to love)
Stepped on it so hard
My ribs broke like a bundle of dry twigs
Under a thin layer of leaves on a forest path
There came a brief moment of stillness
Before something slipped out
Hovered above for a while
And flew off
Was it me?