123. Derelict

Contained
in an impossible metallic oblong
trapped sounds
emanate

Rustling
gossiping
pens scribbling or
twirling around,
bored

eternities could not
sort through these
mysteries

they are static
at rest,
waiting

silence
is never truly
silent

Listening down the
empty line
of a half-
abandoned
phone –
podcasts, sitcoms,
pop songs
in the
foreground

There are sounds we will
never hear and
sounds we
always hear

static interferes

122. Vestibule

A moment is
nothing;
a glance is
everything!

Smiling, we
recognize each
other;

to think that you
love my company as I
love yours, that
the stranger I once
observed discreetly
across the room
is somehow here
with
me

is a strange miracle I
do not understand!

you seem to
digest my tedious words
ravenously as I do
yours

as if each one
would be the last
we ever
say!

121. Śliczny chłopiec

In the flurry, we
went our
separate ways
yet I return to you,
ablaze from a recent
victory

Conveniently,
the spot beside you is
free

Slipping next to you I
observe the last rounds
and you likely know such
tedium
is not my
aim

When they have cleared,
we take up cards:
I struggle;
you are a stronger
player than
I

Not a victory,
it was a ruse

Pulling the cards away
from my puzzled,
earnest fingers,
I see, I hope it is
I,
my words you
desire

Such tedium is
not your aim
either;
I hope
it may be the same
as mine.

Separate ways:
as we part
you seem anxious,
confused,
timid;
I never know
what you are thinking –
eyes are not so helpful
after
all

I am descending the
stairwell
myself,
alone;
I am passing a
display of books
biographies, calendars, and
things –

I greet the night
sharp breeze reminding me
how early and how
late it
is

It was November
when I wondered if I
had become a
wonderful thing to
you;
walking along the
dry cobblestones
I am smiling:
maybe it is best if we
do not know

Such simplicity, such
novelty
is one such
irreplaceable victory
I will remember,
often and
forever

120. Bell A23C

As all good actors,
I act so well I forget
the role:

All of a sudden, I
abandon self and
reclaim you.

Only after the
trance I look,
disgusted at myself.

Copy of a copy,
designed artificiality:

false grain repeating on
false planks of wood;
modems glowing in their
green domains,

chanting mutely in the winter breeze

We are all the same
only I am clever enough to
copy, copy
for I am too afraid to
disrupt this elaborate,
sickening
suffocation

for I
must

119. Erythrocytes

A moment’s sadness
evaporates,
clouded by the empty joys of
life.

Humans are pliable,
elastic.
This is what we do to
survive.

Words are immobile

Let me never die
obsolete;
let this moment of
desperation echo,
echo through days,
years, and if I presume
haughtiness,
the centuries:

Let some naïve student
encounter such a pristine,
eternal ode to
regret and
remorse,

knowing it is beautiful
to weep, and that
poet’s tears are worth
nothing in private
silence,
yet untold
millions in the hands of
invisible
spectators.

118. Indictment

I do not understand my
gift;
judgement makes all
relative,
relevant.

All seems
bland and
weary.
Child’s enchantments
revealed as
empty.

I am happy though I am
sad
Smiling though I’m
crying;
Callous, wry, and witty
when all I feel is
hurt.

So many disappointments,
so I have learned the game:
I can play too:
let us both
say empty things

only you mean them,
and I invent them.
Quicker the lies are said
that I may retire,
observing how alone I am,
remarking the silent absurdity
of my worthless life
somehow so exalted by my
ego that

it must awake again
each day,
to produce, create;
to hope
and regret.

117. Il fiore della gioventù

Frost melts in the morning sun:
it is beginning and the
end.

Everything is just as always,
and it will be, evermore;

On the final days,
when silence looms more present on the distant fields,
there does not seem to be enough
to count the branches and their
geometry

the blades of grass
or their migrant residents

there was only time for so much
before the moment is lost and
replaced, cycling
nowhere and
evermore.

116. Zerbinetta

Callous, cold,
and full of spite:
degenerate, the
courtesan is teasing
once again…

We were all of us
Ariadne,
pining after one such
demigod

Retired
to a life of trickery, cheap wine, and
heroin:
they are all the same,
one after another,
wicked,
implacable.

It is a life of
hard tales,
lost hopes, and
splintered dreams.

Yes,
some are meant to
saunter aimlessly on a
ridiculous pedestal,
Emilia Marty in her
39th century, gazing over
blazing lights
into an audience who is
not there.