Came in too early
Children
Run atween the empty tables
Hide away the mountain
And place it on a father’s hat.
Whose father?
Everyone’s a father.
I only need strong wind to feel awake,
Strong cold wind,
An empty paper,
And a piece of pen.
Came in too early
Children
Run atween the empty tables
Hide away the mountain
And place it on a father’s hat.
Whose father?
Everyone’s a father.
I only need strong wind to feel awake,
Strong cold wind,
An empty paper,
And a piece of pen.
I love the sound of falling shoes
they’re softly dancing, paint with time
and stream above the don’ts and does
above the rhythm, screw the rhyme.
I think I was 5 when I realized that I had a slightly major defect in vision. You see, normal people, when they look at a rainbow, they see the magic of language break apart into a slippery slope of indistinguishable contradictions, as for me, colors are like words in a dictionary, messed up and different: I cannot understand why red and pink are more similar than red and blue. And because of that I grew up knowing that the way I see the world is very different.
When I was 16, my brother, who was 18 at the time, walked with me all the 25 km from the top of the mountain where we lived, to the closest town, where I was supposed to find a job. It was my first time out into the world, so my brother poured on me, as we walked, all the conventional wisdom. โThere are four gods in the worldโ, he said, โand every day, only one of them is true. We could not find him, unless he wanted us toโ. My brother went on ranting: โscience is what we know, philosophy is what we donโt, and magic is how we turn one into another. But magic is hard work. And of all spells, the most difficult is a curse. You see, a curse is a spell so long that it can fill a hundred volumes, and takes decades to utter. Unless you take every word of the spell and split it between people in a large crowd, then, you can destroy a life in a matter of minutes.โ
As my brother went on … โto avoid a spell you have toโ โฆ all I could think was – what a bunch of nonsense! So I let him talk by himself, and wondered at the large stone buildings raising up downhill, and the metal cars moving in perfect line with the edge of the town.
We went to the city market, and there I saw people walking hurried north-east-south-west, supposedly searching amongst the 4 gods to find the right one. The moment we entered the market – my brother confident, and me, with eyes scattered – the crowd suddenly stopped from their running. They could tell that I was different, and that if I haven’t been cursed yet, I had to be cursed. As if they’ve been expecting me all along, they all came in a circle around me, chanting. In a matter of minutes, the spell was uttered. By the time we arrived home, I could see only 10 meters around me. Beyond that, the world was filled with a thick foam of darkness. I tried to move through the night cloud but it was filled with scary thoughts and filthy smells.
That day, I told my brother – โI will shake off this darkness!โ but he yelled with despair โIt canโt be done. No one has ever undone a curse like that. I told you to look straight. I told you not to show any fear. They saw you were weak and now โฆ youโre lost to the world!โ
โNo, I have a plan. I will shake off the darkness, I will go into the darkness every day and I will write a story about it. Day after day until I will shake it off completely and finish my book.โ.
โYouโre crazy!โ he said, and then went away. Every day he would come to my 10 meters circle of light, and bring flowers and sweets and magazines. And every day I grew more bitter because I could find none of those things in my darkness. And when I asked him to stop coming he brought me books and news of his new job. And when I asked him to stop coming he brought me a TV and talked about his friends and parties. And then I got really angry because he wouldnโt stop and I pushed him against the stone.
There was blood. I looked up at the sky and for some reason, none of the four gods was watching. I couldnโt stay home anymoreโฆ But Iโve never before spent more than a day in the darkness!
I donโt remember the first month. It was mostly fear. Finally, I started writing again in my book stories of what I saw. You see, my darkness was not like the darkness of a blind person. It had corners. It had texture. In between the thick fog there were bubbles of fresh air. It was like watching the moon appear and disappear between the clouds except my moon moved like a balloon spitting out air. Now Iโd see in front of me an autumn leaf pop out and then disappear, and later on a mustache suspended in a jiff in the empty air, or a pair of high heels rushing. Or a dog cuddling at my feet, who would go out in the river to swim, and then come back to shake the water off my feet. We walked together for days: the dog was homeless , so was I. One day, as we were walking around, I realized that I could see the grass, I could see the roots of trees, I could see the legs of people, and small children playing. But every time when the dog went away I was surrounded again by darkness. And when the dog would come back, I could see everything up, but only up to my waist – I could see the world through the eyes of the dog. As we walked together, one day I saw a woman who was beating her hands gently against a row of white little boxes that were sitting on the top of a sort of big black board. A most beautiful sound came out of it, and the music touched the ceilings of the building, reached to the sky, caressed the faces of people, and through the eyes of the music I could see everywhere. When the music stopped, the darkness would envelop me again. So I did what everyone of you would do: I went to places where music was everywhere.
45 years passed from that time. Iโm sure none of you will believe me. No one ever believes me when I tell them about my age. Most people give me 25 years, unless Iโm sad. Then only they can see my true age. The truth is, Iโm 70 now. And if it werenโt for something that happened 2 weeks ago, I wouldnโt have dared to tell this story.
I went back to the mountain I grew up in, to the church where the preacher was telling the same old story โThere are four gods in the world and every day, only one of them is true… โ. At the end of the service, the preacher came to me, an energetic man of 72, who talked with lots of joy and enthusiasm. His wife, who was sitting next to him, couldnโt take her eyes off him. I could tell they were still in love. And he told me about his kids and grandkids and grandgrandkids and how the two of them have metโฆ But there was something strangely familiar about him. And then he told me how when he was 18, his younger brother fled far away home, with only a notebook in his hand. I felt a jolt in my heart, and wanted to run, he was my brother! โThis is not possible – I killed you!โ I said. His eyes became large, he hugged me and said – โnone of the 4 gods was watching us that day – when the gods donโt see something, it doesnโt happen!” “I have something for you”, I said. And from my bag I drew out a book. โYou remember the day I was cursed? I told you I will shake off the darkness, and write a book about it, and you said I was crazy. This is the book!โ. He opened it up. He read story after story, his eyes gaping. After a long time, he stopped and asked me โwhat is this?โ, pointing to a squibble drawn at the end of every story, a word that looked like a rainbow where all the colors were messed up and different . โDo you remember what you told me?โ I said. โThere are four gods in the world and every day, only one of them is true, we could not find him, unless he wanted us toโ. That squibble, that is the name of the true god, I found her. Her name is โhopeโ.
an alien ghost, the shade of apples,
fresh smoke of mint, burned, spoiled by pale sweat,
crawls twisting on the fractal aether.
time blurs, repeated ends, disturbs the vapid vapor,
behind your curls on air’s weight,
your shadow never left.
lyrics written for the lied with the same title by Vlad R. Baciu https://vladrazvanbaciu.com
I rediscovered this poem while researching an emotion for a writing project. Each line absorbed the rhythm of the surroundings. In between stanzas words were said, people moved… And in the conscious comedy of confronting a fear, I saw a glimpse of Henley’s “unconquerable soul”.
Categorically waiting too much
Like a numnut dumb watermelon
Near the comma of my dot
A subterfuge for the structure to carry on.
Minus dot dash dash
Morse code unending compassion for the anticipation to be had
I am so sloow
Not undecided
But hesitating afraid.
Unafraid.
Checklist.
The ground has never failed to hurt me when I was falling
Failing
Trembling
Of unease.
Inside the spontaneous gargle beneath the handwriting
Underlined a carryover.
It is frankly never no more
Curved lining.
Cloud categorization system.
Cumulus all the layers.
I wrote my wish list for last year on a plane back to Amsterdam (Jan 1st 2020):
I want to move weightless
Even when the whole world strains my back
To fill the space between words
With boundless time.
I want to rise mountains,
With a whisper;
To learn to wait
Not counting timeโฆ
Just one stretched moment.
I want to feel everything without being touched
To live between many perspectives and none.
I want to want nothing,
For a day or two,
And thenโฆ
I want to want everything again.
They say that goals should be specific and measurable , but I’ve always been the stubborn type, who likes to walk against the horizon. I don’t know how to move weightless. Yet. But I’ve learned how to cook
. I cannot rise mountains with a whisper, but I bought so many plants that my room has its own weather system
.
Sadness is the kissing gate, the backdoor to the garden,
where scrambled tears sewn to the ground,
trembling, chained with strength to a spiraling string,
grow arching, dancing silhouettes.
Today…
I tried
A
G
O
Y
For the first time,
I sp lit
a pair of twins,
conjoined as they were
by the roots,
And saw a brownie
Turn into a tree.
(Baked 40 minutes)
Nowhere did it say that
trees grow darker
at twilight.
So I threw โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ the crust โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ โ away.
I only feel the white wall
and the sleep
the not yet universe
where galaxies, lost children
are playing hide and seek
till end of time.
What was there before the spark of creation,
before the spoken word?
A thunderstorm ?
Inspiration comes as inspiration goes…
as with dreams, I remember mostly the bad ideas.
It felt
like an inside out depression,
where all the light trapped in a black hole
was flooding out
for the first time in eons.
They say that joy is
to never want anything to change,
Yet we
we are blessed to never call
behind
home
again.
Home
is the map:
a book where all the empty
space
is shouting,
the author has changed their name,
and the title?
Who could digest an eternity
that has just begun?