Something appropriate for the festive season ahead: Poetry Issues #8:

 

A Viewing

That house was shivery –

a perfect scenery for Ibsen’s ghosts

yet unfit for a life denying symbolism.

I opened the closet and feared

that the walls would fold upon me.

The knobs yielded shaken by their own

drive to be taken away by a stranger.

Even the light that washed the living room

felt artificial – planted on a painted sky.

Across the street the century-old red bricks

reflected like props fixed on rough beams

resisting being blown off by some eastern

wind accelerating from the northern sea.

 

 

 

The Reindeer Season

 

Wrap your gifts with caution and don’t forget

the love. Contrary to what’s expected

after a certain age, you may indulge

for once in the high art of not giving

a damn about all that time has taught you.

Try to embrace the world’s firm delusions

as in insistence it keeps on turning,

hoping and buying, elaborately

hiding how all that keeps us human dies.

Let’s cannibalize on that. For here comes

the deluge of the new, and you have to

contain and fabricate the birth and light

– warm and wistful interruptions to the

circle of the coldest, darkest season.

 

Crisis

Thus we name the end

when it’s as slow as tango.

The deep snake pit when

we are halfway down the slide.

The fast, shallow breath

of our shredded, fatigued lungs.

The long agony

setting on unsettled sleep.

 

 

 

Demented

 

“It deteriorated rapidly.”

“What did?” She asked and

suspended her pointer mid-air

as if checking the wind.

In this awkward drawing room

that orange vase felt familiar

as a tip-of-the-tongue word.

“His health of course,” said

the visiting niece, sensing that

something was off. “Oh, that,” she

smiled and her gaze followed

the curved loops of the passing birds.

 

The Victory of Existentialism

The sly ancient mind

first in linguistic novelty

ripped essence out of

the hull of existence

frantic at the knowledge

of its own impending death.

But even millennia after

the invention of religion

and its comforting visions

a dying man still holds onto

an increasingly difficult life

like a toddler that despairs

over giving up its diapers.

 

 

[Find other issues and read more about the project here.]