today i remembered

that i like the grey, in versailles

that i like our distance, at home

that i like life, in its disarray

that i like music, for its essence

today i remembered that we spoke for an hour yesterday, and again we laughed.

return

blindness returns and the poetry is past in this vast horizon lost.

the magician calls once more for the total eclipse of the being.

i am lost to it all.

lost and impatiently lost.

exactitude and precision are far from veracity.

i wish that i was capable, and i surrender incapacitated.

i return to being lost and fragmented

i return to not existing

i return to my insignificance

yesterday controlled and tortured me

i know the strength that you deny

i know the power of you

pray!

the night

i walked into the night,

i was alone.

i stayed up the night

i walked the empty streets

i felt the cold

i whispered to the wind

i said, no

i confessed to the wind

i said, no

i screamed to the wind

i said, no

i was alone

i imagined you

you were a dream

you were a passion

you were a compulsion

you existed in my mind

you existed in my desire

you existed in my dream

i stayed up all night

there is a time

a time to drivel

a time to surrender

a time to abandon

and then there is no time at all

there is a time

i feel myself more dead than dead

i feel myself more alive than alive

i exist

maybe

the doll and the clown

i remember the years back then when in a castle built by some demented baron we shared a room. what was then the expression that you used? we talked for the whole evening. in the morning all had the wrong idea, and it was january. nobody knew what happened in that room, much less the two of us.

i wish that i could now remember the words that you used then. i just remember your offer to share a toothbrush and i remember curling under my feather bed next to you listening to your stories. you invented a lot of those didn't you? they were good stories and i have forgotten them all. that there were no actual facts or veracity somehow never bothered me. you gave me all the intimacy that i could then afford. i remember your voice, and that was all that mattered then, your voice. i listened.

i do not understand this world. i certainly did not understand the world then, and on occasions you opened up a few windows of understanding. i remember once talking with your father and how very understanding and supportive he was. it has been many many years and we have lost touch. your adventure was clearly very different from mine from the beginning, we just happen to have been born on the same day and for a few years i had fallen in love with your coffee machine. i also fell in love with the image of you then. with you, i could not have dealt you. you, not the doll, but the real flesh and bone you, would have overwhelmed me. i loved you as a little girl loves a precious doll. you were my precious doll then, and i suspect that you will remain my precious doll who on occasions opened a window of understanding into my confusion.

it would be good to talk to you one of these days, but there is no need. not long ago i read a letter that you sent me after that night in the castle, and i can only imagine that you wrote it all with sincerity. i also remember when i first read that letter that i then knew that i had not let you into any part of my world and that my sentiments were opaque and foreign to you. the clown's mask had not dropped, this clown's mask rarely drops.

it was not until yesterday that i realized that in finding you again, another circle in my life has closed. just a few weeks ago i watched a film based on the book that you gave me as a going away gift. i remember that book well, and i remember that i loved the story. perhaps, one of these days we will bump into each other at the opera. when a clown drops its mask, sometimes it finds itself at the opera.

magic

the other day you called and you began thanking me. thanks and more thanks, you laughed, you were busy, you had no time, you called. i will always blindly take in the thanks and laugh with you. then i asked you what was it that you were thanking me for, and then we really laughed. to loose one's mind is a good thing, and those are the moments when we loose our minds, when we laugh there is no mind!

just the other night and exhausted i argued with another. he is right and i am right, and we argued! for all he knows, you exist only in my imagination, and there is nothing concrete or real about you. i understood his concern, and then i realised how slanted this storyteller is: a trickster, a magician. one omission, one fact untold, a gesture unseen and the story turns from the serenity of existence to drama.

how could the magician have forgotten?

waiting

she sat across the table. it was one of these brass tray tables that you can bargain for at any souk in north africa, or without a comment or gratitude pickup at the local imported goods store. they had never sat there; he had lived there for over forty years. he had been waiting for her unexplained and uncorrected. many years ago she had began to read his stories and the words crawled under her skin and aroused every single meme of her conscience. it was a taste that once encountered, it would be hard to forget. instead time passed and that taste intensified.

now, he was there across her, his stories had not changed, charm he had none. his stories had lived him and each utterance of their fragments seemed like a magic spell. she knew that magic, that magic had been in her possession, but that was a magic without potion and it rendered her spellbound and afraid of the next breath. arousal, catharsis. each new breath unlike the previous one. time disintegrated in their conversation.

what was that thing that they called love? she asked herself. there in front of her sat a man. there was a time when dreams had possessed her, now she waited for the proof of those dreams. she blinked, the proof stood there bare and naked, asexual and brazen.

from "Manuel's Child" (draft)

knowledge

she sat across the table. it was that very same café where six years prior he had told her that it was up to her. for once, she did not hesitate, not then, and not now. she knew then that their life together had taken away her solitude and taxed it with loneliness. she knew she had been wrong while doing the right thing. she was not in for the sacrifice, if she believed in anything, it certainly was not sacrifice. she decided that farewell was appropriate.

now he was there across her, his stories had not changed, neither had his charm. he still told the same old stories, and what then seemed like a plea for another chance, just echoed boredom on all the walls of her own internal manifolds. she had heard it all before, nothing ever changed. each new circumstance was just like the previous one. he stayed put in his laments. she wondered what it was that had changed, and if anything at all under this sun ever changes. had she changed so much?

what is this thing that they call love? she asked herself. there in front of her sat a man. there had been a time when she had dreamed of africa and entrepreneurship, of a beach house and a community built around a place to work and live. the architect had planned the site.

from "Manuel's Child" (draft)

nights and days...

then there are taboos...

nights.

days.

taboos.

then there are the interstitials of god.

right now is all there is:

no god

no interstitial

no taboo

no day

no night

all, nothing.

maybe.

rarity

no, it is not a rarity that i sign life in blood!

constancy is the rarity, every thing else changes!

i see you differently these days, and it is not that the rare specimen of your being has changed, it is my seeing that has changed. not that i look at things and you any differently, just my perception has changed, evolved and been re-filtered through wonders of what i can possibly only call unknowledge.

so, it is not every day that Immanuel appears in my life and that i take him for a spin. he bores me!

you, it is different. but given a chance, even you would bore me... would you?

see, i just do not have a mind for this now. i do not have a mind for you now. i have no mind and no feelings and have wondered if it is because they are married or because they have divorced.

last week i sat with her around a cup of tea. she had a belly ache, i was frustrated and bored at the same time. i was impatient. she is strong, and we are the two ethereal beings of vulnerability and imperfection and our wrath may differ in expression, it is much too similar in its effect. our wrath destroys.

will i sign my next story in blood?

will you read it?

that smile was all that i needed.

laughter

it is a grey day, we complained!

it is good to laugh together.

it is that simple.

between the lines there is a whole world without words. was it that we spoke of the fear of intimate contact, or was it that we spoke of ecstasy?

mercurial

sometimes my words are dark and deep. you read or listen and you are on the edge of fear wondering when will it be that i fall off the edge of my insanity's abyss. sometimes you cry and hold out your hand, not that i may console you, but to touch me. i look and do not care. i look and feel. i look and witness. i look and refuse to see.

phenomena

i feel misunderstood and deceived.

you set me on a pedestal of expectation, and then walked away without a word. i looked around and grew wings to fly away from it all. my expectations got mashed into yours, and at the end there was a great primordial confusion of just not knowing anything at all. are you that attached to just the phenomenal?

not that i care to know the answer, not that i care for much at all. come to think of it, if thought is that which is happening, i never care, i just feel and know and abandon myself to non existence.

fear

on any day, on any night, you are mine. you have always been mine. i embrace you like the fool that i made myself to be. you are so mine that you can not even imagine it!

last week it was one malignant brain tumour and i wondered what would be like if it had been mine. this week another calamity strikes next door, and once more i remain untouched. it goes from blunt to sharp, and which ever way you present yourself, i do embrace you. you make me feel close to the other side, you make me want to follow her in her own embrace.

the blind, sees
the deaf, listens
the fool, conquers

fight and surrender!

the truth... ah the truth!
she is a chimera, he is a whore

pray!

when you are mine, where do you hide?

the hate and the rest

i hate it that you ask me to make decisions that you think i can make better than you. i can not decide better than you.

why me? why now? on what kind of film do i find myself in now? who wrote this screenplay? whose story is this?

i remember when a wise old man asked me if i was getting anything out of the tales he had to tell. i looked at him in surprise for i was convinced that he had something sweet to teach me. i was deaf, not blind. you and him share a name, gender and not much else as you both have encountered me at very different stages of this comedy of my life. his teaching was indeed very sweet, overwhelmingly sweet it was. that very question of his encapsulated what i needed. then i could not quite fathom what was going on. how could i have possibly been so rich and fortunate? how could i be so lucky and have so much when others had so little?

that is how i stayed and discovered that i had written my story and then proceeded to live it. when the subconscious bubbles up dreams that have me wonder what reality is because these dreams subsequently happen during my waking hours while i can make no sense of them, then i want to curse it all. now i am just annoyed and hating the fact that it is as it is. i want to embrace this hate like i have embraced this love. i do wonder why i have not yet ran away from it all. you tell your stories and you muse of your fears out loud and hidden in plain sight, and i do wonder if i will abandon caution and pretence and just hold out my hand to you. if i hold my hand out to you i know that we will stay alone as alone as we have always been. but do i want to hold your hand now?

so it is that i know no love, no hate, no passion, no glory, no emotion. am i like the wind? water is the most humble of all elements. are you like water?

the love and the enemy

thoughtful. these days i am thoughtful. i am humbled too. i write fragments of sentences as i am tired of the incomplete syntax. i cut one incompleteness with another and hope that somehow you will understand even when what your fear is to understand. there are the long hours of silence which we share, and those are the best, then the most gets said, and we never misunderstand each other.

i have been distracted, i am distracted. today i was even irritated and furious. i wondered what held me from piercing through all the conventions and do something explosive and violent. i watched myself. how is it that i return to that place so quickly?

scream

i want to scream

i want it to be loud

i want you to hear it

i want to scream

my scream:

i have a right to my own insanity!

it is all that i possess

i have nothing else

just this empty mind of mine

and

i want to scream

adventure

adventure was the word that you offered me recently. remember? i do!

you said that you were not an adventurer. i heard your words, you believe your words. you are master and you are muse, you are you.

adventure. i am an adventurer.

how could i have not known this?

it is late...

yes, it is late. a while ago i seemed to know it all, now i seem to know nothing. perhaps i am just tired after a long day and a few distractions. i fear getting distracted. tell me, what is this thing with fear? why does it keep on returning?

i am tired of remembering, and i am tired of so much that seems remote, foreign and about to be forgotten! i am tired!

i am even tired of you and all that we have gone through. i am tired of your wisdom, and i am even more tired of mine. i am tired!

i watched myself today being bored, curious, patient, indifferent, amused, and jealous. i thought that jealousy was something that i would never know... yet today your words was what i was jealous of. i want your words, i want your mind, i want your understanding. i do wonder if i am all that interested in the carcass that carries your body?

i was even charming and bold, i miss the stage. i miss the acting, and i miss the playwright! if it is not when i write that i exist, then it is when i act. why is it that i only exist when i write, when i speak or when i move? what happens when i sleep?

still in the east

there is no time

there is no glory

there is no fame

there is no fortune

there is now

i felt it all

a direct hit of the senses

how could we have been so careless?

we were not.

we were bold

we explored

we explore

we discover

we live

to live is to love

just now

i will not judge. kind-hearted as a grandmother, i will not compromise. faithful to my old shoes, incomplete and unfinished, foolish. i am dignified as a king.

empty your mind of all thoughts. let your heart be at peace. watch the turmoil of beings, but contemplate their return. each separate being in the universe returns to the common source. returning to the source is serenity. if you don't realise the source, you stumble in confusion and sorrow. when you realise where you come from, you naturally become tolerant, disinterested, amused, kindhearted as a grandmother, dignified as a king. immersed in the Tao, you can deal with whatever life brings you, and when death comes, you are ready.

want

but what i want is not important, is it?

oh! i am tired!

i resent

resentment! what a strange word in my vocabulary it is. it is a foreign word in this vocabulary of mine. here in the place of horses and egos, my resentment has found a home.

i talked with you yesterday, you called, i answered, we both had no time. we connected. i feel naive and humbled. i am tasting sadness like i have never tasted sadness before. you told me about your back and your kidneys, and i told you about that secret that i keep hidden in plain sight, my pain.

i resent that she never took action to touch me. i do not resent being ignored.

it is strange that time and again you appear in my life to comfort me. you are a muse, you are inspiration, and you are imperfection itself.

are my sadness and pain the expression of my resentment? i do not resent not being acknowledged.

how can i tell you that it was not in the arms of another but in his arms i found that warmth that i dreamt could exist? when he found me i had so much resigned to my own solitude. now i need you the muse, and i need him the one of my one, his own.

i resent the deception. i see the suffering. i find myself powerless. i can only observe. but do i feel? do i care? i resent.