stars

stars. they walk with you all along.
not the trees. nor the milestones.
the further they are. the better.
we trespass howling generators
working alone in the night.
for no reason. there are no lights i can see.
and yes. there are dead dragons i see
buried in the road. not to be feared.
they are refugees in the dark. it is their home.
like dogs in abandoned homes during harsh. winter months.
they are friends. close.
and we talk about shapeless non things,
before dispersing away. we are fragments
of nothingness. beautiful for no reason.
and ugly for none. we are like stars.

meanwhile

meanwhile
life went on as if
there was nothing missing.
the sound of sea i had
carefully captured
one solemn night
and preserved
in an air tight box
had gotten lost somehow.
i kept pretending
that the way i appeared now
was how i had always been.
meanwhile
the things i tried to stash
kept getting lost.
i refused to look for seepage
or accomplices to guard over me.
but i could never
remain unencumbered.

...
It all lasted less than a minute
but the rest of the world.


-Henrik Norbrandt

la mer

i am the sea
with mountains inside me.
i can't narrate stories
and all that i have seen
but i listen for hours
to all that they bring.
i am not new to this world
i am not strange
i will not die soon
and i do not live.
they come and speak to me
without having to listen to my soliloquy
and i live while i listen
and when they go i seem to die
i exist only when they want me to be
and all those mountains
i hold inside me

like a cat

like a cat
that tawdry, petite sunlight
kept peeping through
the only window
and as soon as i left.
it took over.
the entire room.
and flushed it through and through.
how i had kept it away
for so long.
and wasn't i relieved to have it back.

Wisława Szymborska

...
But I don't know and don't know and hold on to it 
like to a sustaining railing.


- Some like Poetry 
--
Possibilities


I prefer movies.

I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here
to many things I've also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.

- Wislawa Szymborska

like the sound
of a bunch of coins
let loose
in a pocket
otherwise useless
i can hear
emptiness
keep clinking
all by itself
inside