Friday, September 27, 2024

Looking Through Your Eyes

I remember seeing it through your eyes,
my country,
as for the first time.

The tight colorless street
where I grew up
choking with people,
_____now covered with a dust
_____sinful as only humanity is.

I remember looking up
as you raised your head
at buildings that resembled
pockmarks on the face of God.
_____They now rest in pieces
_____on the streets
_____and the face of God
_____is nowhere to be seen.

I remember meeting my family
in you,
sprawling, loud and insuppressible,
spreading over the table like a headache
that shouldn’t be cured.
_____Now the table lies naked,
_____all the colors of the vegetables
_____turned black.
_____Even the flies recoil.

I remember climbing the shoulders of the mountain,
the plain spreading behind us,
patchy and still,
and the valley round the corner,
yawning wide,
like the mouth of heaven.
_____Now it doesn’t shed a tear for us.
_____It had been there when it all began,
_____when men fell from grace
_____and ate each other.

(Originally posted on July 28, 2006)

Friday, September 13, 2024

Let it burn

Let it all dim a bit 
Let the lights flicker and die 
Let the noise chatter itself soar 
Let this chaos wind itself into the ground 
It all shall be...
Let the words wrestle themselves into oblivion 
Let everything exhaust itself 
Like dogs 
Like street walkers 
Like this city 
The trash shall burn, and we shall choke
Someone cannot breath, this too shall pass 
Taste the char in the air, the remains of what was 
Looking back, what does he miss the most?
Or is he beyond? Beyond missing 
Beyond the yearning, beyond the din 
Is he now only a memory, like so many others 
Fading, receding, but haunting 
Every now and then, in the making of the self 
In the unmasking of life, in the crevices of the everyday 
In me, you live in me, whether I like it 
Or die in you, as I would..