words

lurk

into my worlds.

an attack

in disguise,

an instant of insecurity.

the moment of the attack

is the moment

of letting go.

jump in this cloudy

happiness,

make it shine.

disfigured members

crowd my

memories

is there resistance

in clouds?

resistance

transforms into heat.

speed

melts into fire.

space

collapses into

worldly particles.

words

transformed into

elements

lost in translation,

of a non language

into a lost tongue.

Looking for a sound

 

my sound.

 

Looking for my tongue.

 

Looking for my song.

 

T’is in this small chamber of yours

that generation upon generation children were born

and now that old age has come

this small chamber of yours will bear no more

children and no more sorrows.

 

Blankets and blankets over that lonely bed of yours,

rugs under rugs and more rugs, some torn.

Your childhood fantasies hide somewhere in this home.

Tonight you sit and ponder over the chores of your many tomorrows.

 

T’is with caution that you cross these doors.

Ever since you began to mourn

Your mother, your father, your sister and your home

T’was then that these doors began to feel too narrow.

12/01/2014

watercolour by yzagor

Can it be that a column never falls

and a heart never ceases to beat for another?

That a bubble of air never bursts

and a smile never begins to depart?

 

Gone I am from the days I have known

and from those who once gave me food.

A life of one’s own too real to be good.

 

A little everyday

everyday a little

of you and of me on a page, in a cloud

in the rubble of my neighbourhood

in the rules for us to follow or to break

in the music of your dreams

and the infinite silence of your thoughts.

 

I never knew of a life so sad

nor of such pain gathered in the body of a child.

I never knew of so much violence hidden in so deep a love

of a mother, of a lover

nor of such loyalty as in a dog’s gesture

of such absence in a empty bed

or of such comfort in the light touch of a cat.

watercolour by yzagor

silence is what you leave behind

what you say when you lie

what I hear when you speak

 

the image is dark

the frame cold and humid.

 

remembering doesn’t hurt,

it breaks me

hoping doesn’t uplift

it isolates me

living doesn’t fit

it kills me

 

it was when you spoke that all lit up and the day began.

Dictionary entry (The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 1993 edition) n. Late 16^th century, from latin idem= same, probably after entitas = entity, but perhaps associated with identidem = repeatedly. Thus ident– was established as the combining form of idem. Compare IDENTIC, IDENTIFY.

1. the quality or condition of being identical in every detail; absolute sameness; an instance or example of this. Also the fact of being identified with. (Late 16th)
2. The condition of fact of a person or a thing being that specified unique person or thing, especially as a continuous unchanging property throughout existence; the characteristics determining this;  individuality, personality. (Mid 17th)
3. Math. a. An equation which holds for all values of its variables (Mid 19^th). b. An element of a set which, if combined with another by a (specified) binary operation, leaves the second element unchanged. (L19th). c. A transformation which gives rise to the same elements as those to which it is applied (Early 20^th).
4. In full old identity. A person long resident or well known in a place. NZ & Australia Mid 19^th

Today’s understanding of the noun identity adheres to the second definition given by the dictionary. But before it became so it meant something quite different: “absolute sameness”, and truth be said, wouldn’t a word, like a person, carry its history within its present? The dna of a word we could call it. So identity has something to do with being the same as someone else – could we interpret this in such a way as to associate it with the desire of belonging to a group, small or big, to which I want to identify with so as not to stick out or appear different? It could mean: socially, that we all do the same things at a reasonably similar time of our lives – school, university for those who can, marriage, children, baptism and so on; politically: we try things out here and there but end up in an established party or party line; psychologically: we do all we can not to stand out too much, only enough so as to receive praise for our achievements; culturally: we behave, we think, we talk in a way that is acceptable and accepted… otherwise we are: eccentric, weird, mad… or simply different. And this difference does not lie simply in the colour of our eyes, our hair or even our skin, which of course has further and deeper connotations in our society – let us not forget colonialism, racism… all those –isms. It is a difference caged much deeper, a difference in the essence (of things)… and which inevitably puts those who are different outside the norms.

tbc

I lived my life walking through it.

Memories are vague and mostly out of focus.

Clear memories only come in the shape of dreams,

by now forgotten.