just a lost wordsmith

I make no effort to decorate my words with elaborate ornaments. I keep them simple and safe. Try to bow to them or make heed for a force that is sometimes beyond me. But there is always relief in the proximity of emotion that raptures the heart on creating, reading or just being. For a moment all stands still. Every nook, every corner of the world, every little breath, every silent step. Greatness then pounds my luckless talent into the ground. No vain attempts will be tolerated when time is so precious and life so short and love so bound by selfish creed. And I try to draw away from the light that tickles my curious whiskers and lures me ever closer to its deadly centre. Warm turns burning hot and cold holds ice its prisoner. Captive.

Pearls roll down the hill. One by one. Fast as winds that blow across fields of wheat. Golden fields of lustrous grain. Gazing eyes fixated on the eternal kingdom of clouds. Could there be a way higher? The rain appears and with a power so mighty dries the soaked land and leaves the drenched shrubs only cracking soil. Walk a bridge a thousand miles and free the mind of deadly greed. The soul whole and hearty, all the marred parts cleared by imagination and love. So fast does guilt run and so slow does forgiveness arrive. When waiting for the pure intention to appear a lifetime tastes what eternity must feel like. No odour or sight, no ruffling sound just two weary hands reaching for a higher ground. Closing in.

Summer may leave and behind comes a palette of magnificent colours, but longing can never replace the abundant love that surrounds us each night. Every whispered word may stand as a testament to the most fragile bond between woman and man. I keep my weight off it and you should think to release it. Never mind what the branches whisper, they only know the sweetness of your eyes and not the hurtful words that you pick so carefully to fire. The peaks melt their snow. Rivers tumble to lakes and plains. Rocks carve the back of the mountain. Torture. And they never complain. How can meeting hearts cause so much pain? The spark never arrives.

What more to say when the hearts love and leave lonely. When the lovely love betrays every secret word. When the world takes no heed of your pain. When the rain starts to fall on the leaves and taps its lovely melody to all who have the ears to hear. Hush now, it’s starting. Listen. Love. Learn.

Resting in the bounty of the Lord

Let his flawless soul travel the distance between truth and lies.
Where eyes no longer show that which was once hidden.
He took so much. Almost all of me.

Take his righteous soul and keep it safe.
Where hands can no longer reach, soothing touch can no longer bring relief.
He took so much. Almost all of me.

Ask him not to measure love from the tears that drip.
Or to bear the secrets that we have entrusted with him.
He took so much. Almost all of me.

Now I see that time will not have mercy on me.
Slashed my heart open, watches it bleed, stealing a part of me.
He took my heart. Almost all of me.

Show him what he’s done.
Dried tears when they fell like rain, kept whispers like breeze, sang with the angels on an empty field.
He took so much. Almost all of me.

My one love, just a fragile ghost, I demand you to haunt me.
Your eyes spoke of tender love, unforgettable gratitude.
You took so much. Almost all of me.

Now I’m hurting. Aching. Bleeding.
And you’re in a hurry. Helping. Giving.
But you left me here. Grieving. Crying.
I want you back. I want you back.

May you rest your head on velvet grass, safely, happily, in the bounty of the Lord.

all we can do is keep breathing….

It’s hard to understand what it means to let go
When the warm flesh becomes cold and rigid
The hazel eyes become distant
Then waiting patiently for the lights to dim

If ever I was prepared, now is not

Grasping the potency of death
Leaning for a gentle touch
A kiss by the parted: a final goodbye
Then I wait patiently for the lights to dim

If ever I am prepared, now I can’t

From the slow fall time must wake us
Pick up the pieces from these fragments
All you knew to be once real now is gone
Then he waits patiently for the lights to dim

If ever I am prepared,

I’m not.

Bullet Point #8

“Your friends will change and some will leave you. This will undoubtedly cause you grief.”

Deep do the roots of friendship lie. Deep in my soul there are a few other souls who have claimed home. Home I gave them, or have tried to.

But some friends have turned from you.

That they have. My heart pierced. Pain took a throne right at the centre of my heart’s secret place for love. I had no words, none loud enough to keep those who were slipping away. As the miles grew below my feet, the ties grew thinner and some friends disappeared out of sight, forever. The pain this caused, like a deadly serum, spread over my soul and kept it ill. It can only slowly recover from the loss of the lives it thought it was connected to.

Loyalty you say is a virtue.

One that is often neglected, one that has been my essential companion on the journey to finding friends to travel the lonely road of life with. Early in life I have learnt that friends mean air, source of life, answers to many tangled tales told along the way. First I stayed silent and in the silence listened to murmurs. From those fragments of words I picked the origin which best suited my ears. Then I watched as that person showed their outline to me. Then I saw the smiling face, held the sweaty little hands, laughed at jokes made at somebody else’s expense and then showed parts of my soul; without them realising I gave them my all. These friends I still have, they still see the whole of me.

I heard you have changed.

My one foe: time, has made me who I am. And change must come hand in hand with time. Sometimes welcomed sometimes not so much. But the most dearest parts of my soul have had time to change with me, to see the change in me and see the change in themselves. It’s a two way mirror.

But you cry.

When I know that a friend has been lost to the world, yes. When I know that no longer will my ears hear the whispered secrets. When I am alone. When I realise that alone might also mean lonely. When she’s on an island and I am not. When he is fighting for his life and I know not. When they’re together and I’m not with them. When a song that we danced to plays on the radio. When a phone call sounds distant, too distant to comprehend what has happened to us. When time robs us of the most precious moments a friendship can have. When I know that treasuring a glimpse of a past life can never carry meaning in the now. When weekends are too short for a meaningful conversation. Then I weep.

Then I weep.

154 Folk Songs

Through the creative formations of some of the most talented musicians, poets, tellers of truths, I hope to stay afloat. These strings, ropes of hope, I clench to. On any other day I would walk by, but today I stay. Earnest.

When coming undone can seem so harmless is when I realise there are ways to let go. Parts will disappear so that something new can grow. For them much like for me.

There are 154 new ways to live.
There are 154 chances of seeing the beauty in this world.
There are 154 different juxtapositions of words and tunes that all sing of the despair and the love and the marriage of the two that almost always ends in pain.

My heart is still beating. How ‘bout yours?

Time – what if I had You.

A pointless infatuation with something that’s past. With someone who’s never been. Reappearance, or the illusion of it, somehow can throw the self into a dark and damaged state. The right to be tortured and tormented grows with every time the heart gets shattered. Hang on, there’s a life to be lived here. Pain, even if dire, will seduce the yearning soul into thinking it is living. Then it thrives and seldom leaves. Wait to see if you can stand. If you can get up from the floor. Count the minutes that pass, the pain that sets in. Watch as the soul gets emptied and another spirit takes its place. A more cautious and careful spirit, a more rational and pragmatic spirit. There are lots of different ways to live. Each day can change us all, eternally.

So when you enter again, in such a fashion, having never been here before, is when my life unwinds. Stranger, here I give my heart. You can’t see, can you? I always pick the ones who cannot be. Who cannot be mine. To you I offer my all. But what if my all is not pleasing to your eyes? In every season I find winter, wrap my flawed body in many layers, hide what could appear unpleasant to you. You need not ever unwrap.

Our story goes: the Moon was half full. Soft melody danced around the room and got us drunk with its hazy and seductive words. All it took was just one lonely glance. You had me. Once you knew you held time, you pulled me ever closer to you. I was shy, you were curious. I was afraid, you were adventurous. I was damaged, you were strong. In the safeness of your hands I began to uncoil. Traced my once proud self back to how it used to live. I found my voice. No longer alone, I walked straight, stooping only once in a while. I let go your hand and never lost balance. Alone was just as free as with you. Every secret wanted to belong to you, so I let them make the trip from my heart to yours. You kept them safe. You would have kept them safe. You would have kept me safe. If only you had ever been. Been mine.

You look lonely, lonely in that picture. I hope it was just that moment, that unfortunate moment when the iris closed. You breathed and showed a much happier face the moment after. Time caught you off guard. Time tricked me into believing in you. If only I had you. If only you had ever been.

An Evening

Not a day has passed and yet you’re already a memory. Nothing in me warned that you would capture my heart so wildly. There was no telling.

Since I’ve known myself, I have always been prone to your advances. Just a glance and your smile would linger. My stomach would shrink and your eyes so motionless conveyed your undying desire to have me. Yet a loveless future is what awaited me. Years later I saw you again, carelessly trying to make meaning of the puzzled feelings that rushed through you upon seeing my face.

Not a decade has passed and yet you’re my only one. Still. I stare into the present with hollow eyes and empty emotions. I did what needed to be done. Love seemed not important. Your hair grew long and curled carelessly on your forehead. I never saw you again, all the years we were married, I never ever saw you.

Now we’re in a different time, altogether altered zones of reality. This is my time; that is yours. The plane that you exist on is unknown to me. There’s no crossing to the other side. Whisper to never forget to let you know where I am. This is where I am.

I would have needed you with me tonight.

Somehow someone has engraved a name in my soul, but you seem to not see. For your eyes my all is blank, waiting for your soft knife. Now there is weight to time. There’s a serious and heavy burden that comes with the passing of time. Faces from a long time ago appear if we ask them. We both remember. Remember that lake, that tree, that bench, that cobble, that bridge, that piece of heaven, that lovely bush, that high fence, that forbidden kiss. But quickly reality comes to softly cover with a white sheet all these useless moments of perfection. There is no need. What lies dormant stays with us forever. Time passes. Weighs us down. Looks us in the eyes. He never comes. He wasn’t there. He never intended to hurt. Life passed without love. For me, much like for you.

But there was that one…

Evening.

names

ray lamontagne
catherine feeny
rachael yamagata
william fitzsimmons
joshua james
sara bareilles
joe purdy
rosie thomas
patty griffin
ingrid michaelson
the weepies
amos lee
iron & wine
joshua radin
tom mcrae
lori mckenna

people whose music will change your world

Now I write only for me

So all that’s secret can find the page. Because now there’s no threat. There is no weight to my words. Only for me. Now is when I share that which I wish for the most.

Love.

I cannot wait to meet you, my dear unknown someone. I will start loving you now and learn to love you more each day until we meet. Then I will have a bag filled to the brim with love. One that will never empty. I will lie still next to you. Silent. We will discover sweet melodies together. I will accompany you on the journeys you’re yet to take. Just a word and you will have me fully. I will love the now you have and you will learn to love the me that lives in your future. Each day a new beginning, but a continuation of everything we knew before. I want to be whole with you. I want you to know that all it will take is a look, a whispered word, just a glance and I will offer my flawed love and my fragile soul, my damaged body wholly to you. Just for you.

Until we meet I will write for you. I will live for you, breathe for you and love for you. I will memorise routes to hidden places to share with you. I will capture moments of sadness and tenderness to show you. I will preserve the amazement, the excitement and the hunger for honesty. I will wait patiently. When we meet, the years will wait so you can read all I’ve written for you. So you can see all I’ve been keeping for you. And in turn, each day we will fall in love all over again. All year long. All lifetime long.

Love.

If only the sometimes deadly and dark clouds wouldn’t come to overshadow my undying faith in you.

I wish I could take you with me, all the way to New York City

First the song it rattled.

There has to be a point of realisation, where everything that is to come would have been, pointlessly existing even before coming to life. Words that have yet to surface would plunge into the depths of the dark, staying secret before all eyes. Here is the collection of such words, just enough to pause for a moment but weak enough to demand that final point beyond which no further memory would be recorded. A suspension of all ideas and emotions. But first, before I say goodbye, let’s hear that song rattle.

When you’re as selective and undoubtedly limited when it comes to styles in music as I am, and swear by the simplicity of both lyrics and music, then the only place you could enjoy the real roots of contemporary folk music is the Boston/Cambridge area of the state of Massachusetts. There I sat in a bar, listening to any old musician who would pull out the chords and the phrases which would paralyse me. Folk music, the guitar rattling, the voice filled with emotion. The music follows a linear path and the words echo that almost dying and sorrowful but gently fragile realisation of a sometimes futile but ultimately wonderful life and its equally mind boggling challenges. How could you not fall in love with the world upon hearing that music? How could you not love the place you were in when first that chord chimed its way into your ears?

All my favourite songs took on a new meaning because I was travelling the roads they were written on. They could have possibly been written on. Were inspired on. And then I remembered home and realised that I am much alone there. For five days I was in a place with likeminded people, where everything that I love is the lowest common denominator. Where everything that I am inspired by is taken as a given on any random Wednesday night. Where a conversation will begin with not places but names, titles of songs, titles of pages that line books of grandeur. Only in Cambridge will you get a soul searching folk song with your beer. Only in Boston will The Weepies CD start playing in an indie bookstore’s coffee shop. Only on these streets will they know every single singer songwriter I praise as deity in this ungodly life of mine.

Then came the city.

Then came the city where dreams are rarely made, since it’s said to never sleep. And as threatening as it may seem at first encounter, it is the gentlest places I know. Ruthlessly fast, but shimmeringly gentle on closer look. Like a dragon waiting to be loved, it lets you touch and bask in its beauty, ready to take you on journeys you’ve never thought. You love the crowds of people hurling through its streets, barely exchanging a glance let alone a brush of shoulders. The cloud of stench that carries you from avenue to avenue, that you grow to miss when in a corner it disappears from sight. Excuse me, do you know where I could find some peace and quiet? Seek not that which we do not have here.

New York City felt comfortable, homely, familiar. I felt it embrace me with its wide avenues and orderly numbered streets, with its chaotic sections of its chief Manhattan, the island formerly boasting many hills. Now this flatland of fortunes looks only to provide you with coffee to go and a good advice before an opportunity for world market domination would arise. Still, amongst the many faces I felt at ease, like I was one of them, a nobody on the streets of a city designed to be ruled by the people of the world.

Coming down has never been more heartbreaking. Seamlessly sifting through the streets of a supposedly busy Budapest I saw that my first love is a dreamy, sleepy little town. I commuted twenty four hours to my out of town, countryside retreat, where they not only speak a different language but have sharply objectionable ideas about political and economic unambiguity. But I could not help but be glad and smile. Because I am happy and proud, glad that I am here to share the burden, happy to be here paying my way into this new world we’re building. Happy to be a part of a place with history and not so busy streets. A humane, huggable city of twisting and narrow streets, always cleared of litter lest the angry mob should build barricades in sign of their growing disapproval of the tongue in cheek politics of the so called fathers of our homeland.

Now I rest my pen.

And with this trip to a place where I felt maybe I should or could belong, I feel the time has come for me to rest my pen. I have come full circle and have grown tired of caring too much and not caring at all. You have seen much of me and have travelled a lot with me. You have held the magnifying glass, seeing deep into my soul and have carried the map open at the page where the wind took me. You have endured pages that spoke of a lover without love. You have read, all along, a fractured and misleading interpretation of an evolving democracy founded on quicksand, managing to stay standing only by holding onto a thread. You have listened to the world’s finest songs with me. You have made me feel there was a need once for the words that made it onto this page.

Thank you. Now find another blog where the writer needs all your support. Find an idea that can inspire you. Find a day when all your fears disappear. Find a city you can love as much as I love the one I got. In the meantime, learn to be kind to everyone around you.

Everyone, everywhere.

Once there was an emotion

There was an emotion that started all this. Maybe a long time ago, I can’t quite recall, or maybe just a few moments ago. I forget to make note, I just know there was a feeling of wanting more out of life that lead me to words. I know that I wanted to see the dark and the light, the ugly and the shining, the dirty and the clear of this life. If there was something graspable, something that I knew I wanted to hang onto, then that’s the emotion that has lead me here. Because there is so much crap, too much crap all around. We kick the empty can on the street and have become too accustomed to the derelict sights of the inner cities to ever notice the gap that is coming between us.

When nobody cares is when all things fall apart. When those who could make a change choose to live for the now is when small things show cracks in the ceiling. When I feel I have become powerless and indifferent by the challenges of this world is when I feel I need to remind myself of the most essential emotion that lead me to begin writing all those years ago. Because once the words had found me, I could only succumb. Their power, much greater than the power I can ever comprehend. And the Truth sometimes surfaces in the most hidden lines of my writing, without me knowing, surprising the unsuspecting reader with a phrase that will stick and will haunt until it has the power.

On a hot day I will sit with my skin bare, listening to the simplest magic of a few words and a few musical notes and I will be inspired to cut through the fog and haze and reach deep down for that hidden emotion that started everything. As long as I can find that and through that justify what it means to be a writer without anything to write or a lover without anyone to love, then I can safely create that dream without anyone ever knowing the truth.

Let’s take a bow together and vow that from now on the emotion that has kept us captive will continue to inspire, on even the dullest and most hopeless of days.

Potpourri

If ever you were wondering how hard it would be to slowly dance across a burning room, then you wondered enough about the pointless allegories of life. For life, a mere mirage of ideals and dreams, a recluse for those who believe that there can be such a thing as the realisation of morbid, unearthly, irreplaceable, unattainable goals: a fortress of unsavoury hopes and adorations. Then you find out that there is little more than a year left. Or maybe that year will soon be reduced to a sum of only a few of its months. Perspective changes with each hour passing. There is no more need for courtesy or regret. This is happening to me, to someone close; to someone I should feel close to. But even if it happens to the most irrelevant person, that hymn should not be forgotten solely for the reasons of irrelevancy.

For forty years I have lived a loveless life, without meaning or tenderness. Save, just save a lovely minute of your time for me. I will promise to cherish that dear moment for all eternity. For now I know what time means. You, the beholder of eternity, and me, and how no other can threaten the sovereignty of the magnificent dream. Even if you appear in a glowing white robe, just a silhouette on the distant horizon, I will hold you close to my heart and whisper words like love. You may see the purest of emotions appear on my tired face. The bones sharp and brittle, old and used through the wondrous years of an elusive life. But as of yet, I have not had a chance to weep.

And this, this is a one page poem with no rhyme or structure other than strands of thoughts that run through my mind. But there was an emotion that started this non-poem, started everything. I clearly recall how helpless I felt, how frustrated and how useless. How wondrous I thought the journey home was. How easy it was to love and how painfully difficult it was to be loved. Reciprocity lost interest, a long time ago. And with that, no story got ever fully told.

Who could dispute the obvious? He says there is no way that I can compete with the other woman. So I draw stick figures in the sand, on the paper and imagine my life in only two dimensions. There is the dimension of me and the dimension of what I imagine to be. But I stay earnest in my efforts to convince myself that alone is what leaves me thriving, happy, inspired. Let’s leave tonight with the hard earned conviction that what’s ahead is something to look forward to and what’s behind is nothing but an empty collection of minutes deemed significant. I may even find someone who will make me enter the world of three dimensions.

What's up?

Please don't ask me that. When you raise your pen and gently roll its tip on the paper and circle the line "what's up?", then that's a question that needs to be answered. But my reply would be lost among the many hopeless hearts, aimlessly wandering in the dark night. So I keep it to myself, better to just whisper it when nobody can hear. "I'm doing all right, just confused sometimes."

There are lots of good plants growing, blooming, oozing their balsamic scents, sweetening the air around them. They are picked one by one. Torn from their stems, from the branches. They happily fall into the sack, then lay spread out on the canvas, waiting to be cut into exact pieces. They will dry and give their power from nature to someone who waits instant remedy. "We're herbs" and they're proudly singing with the birds. We're waiting for the hands to pick us from this tree. We want to travel in the sack, we want to be spread on the canvas, to be dried by the warm air of the attic and stay still in the cup and let the water dissolve all the goodness. We want to bring relief. I know.

"How has your day been?", but we used to walk past each other every single day. You remember what I have erased from my memory because it seemed unimportant. Now I'm faced with you and having to explain where you've disappeared to. I'm sorry, it all seemed too unimportant to record. Maybe if I had kept my eyes more open. Maybe if when I was 13 I could have been 25. Real importance rarely finds me in the now and regret travels much the same road as realisation does with me. If I was to write a poem, your name would be its title. Can that make up for the lost time? A piece of me has been lost to the endless history of childhood.

The story tells of a card that has traveled the world twice. It saw very little apart from the back of another card which read:
From
Mrs Jill Willows
34 Cone Drive
Surrough
OL2 6YF
Only when the light broke through the seams of the Royal Mail bag could the card read the exact address. It never learnt where that other card was heading. It was happy traveling by its side, in silence, in oblivion to when their journey together would end. That was a secret in their relationship neither felt needed to know. They lived for the now and knew that they were moving closer to their destination with every black second gone. The card felt proud of its poppies, bending in the wind on its front. Nobody but the recipient would see that. This made the card feel special, unmoved by the futility of its journey through the busy streets of the suburbs back to where it was posted from. It wanted its sender to quickly lick those naughty little stamps and affix them to its free corner so it could start its journey anew. "I'M TRAVELING THE WORLD" and with that enormous shout it fell into the bottom of yet another grey Royal Mail bag. It never stopped until it came home. My hands ripped the envelope and marvelled at the poppies on its front. It's home now, it arrived from home and traveled the world twice to see its brand new home.

25

One of those virtual greeting cards with a page long insert which gets you up to speed on the sender's life.

Lately I've been much confused, worried, even scared at the prospect - or lack thereof - I may be faced with. Most of you know what I'm talking about, since not a phone call or an email goes by in which I don't voice these concerns of mine. Some of you say I should travel, see things my way, shake myself up a little. Some others point out how it's not all that bad and compared to most of my contemporaries, I'm in fact doing very well. There are the ones who see no problem at all and still more who have nothing but empathy towards my failed attempts at trying to relocate myself physically and psychologically. But I fear to admit that the problem, my troubles, may prove to be buried deeper than I cared initially to show. The dark may even become darker, the fog denser, my Sun may be blotted out leaving only a golden trail.

25. I never imagined anything for when I'd become 25. I don't really want to imagine anything for when I turn 35. Those ten years will whizz by sooner than I will care to admit. I remember my 15th birthday very clearly. It was in Prague, I got a green top with little flowers on it, dungarees shorts and a back pack. My mom's aunt was visiting and I had very few problems. Ten years have passed and I still have very few problems, but only because I've learnt how to deal with most of the things life threw at me. So the few problems I do have, they seem to hit the core of my existence. But there is a mature weight to this age. There is wisdom in traces, there is solid and honest sincerity and there is doubt to unravel the slowly meandering certainty. I don't know if I'm heading in the right direction, I don't know if my private life is running its predestined course or if my professional life holds any surprises. In fact, there is very little I know. I have started to settle for content when I should scratch and burn until I find happy. I have become lazy and complacent. I have entered a state of mind where moments present the only alternative to a numb void.

What is most worrying is that I have lost inspiration and a desire to create. When all else failed, I always had the words. Now the words seem to not care at all, not care enough. I leave them dormant at the depth of my soul's despair and with that, hope never surfaces either. They dine down there, together, silent. I toil up here, I sweat with fear of actions never taken or taken in vain. But the words stay unconcerned and even the music doesn't move them any more. They have slowly given up on me because I never let them shine. I have never given them the chance to bask in glory. I have never fought for them or fanned their vanity with careless hope. So they have turned from me, these conspiring little wiggles, lines, straight and bent. Now I'm on my own and on my own is where my road divides. And look at me, instead of choosing, I stand still.

I feel powerless, unable to hold a firm grip, unmoved, uninspired, weak, irresolute. I feel like I have no patience or determination to see anything through. I care so little that my days follow one another and nothing ever makes me fight or believe. I skim the surface. The books I read leave ideas unformed. The scenery that is all around me brings only momentary satisfaction. But the power to change lies in my hands and I fail to make progress. Continuous rejection has left me with little desire to run at full speed. I see my tired little life lean towards the comfortable and unchallening future. But my tearless crying shows me that this should not be where I end. Right now, things are bleak. I have no idea which direction to start walking in. I am scared of the unknown and scared to leave the known. I find myself in a trap and nobody has walked past who knew how to get out of the hole. And I have no elaborate plans.

So 25. Please don't ask me to list my successes. Tomorrow morning, on my birthday, I will wake up, it'll be a magnificent spring day, full of the Sun's hopeful rays spreading over the lands. I know that I will wake with confidence, with hope. I will walk amongst the buildings of the greatest historical importance. I will fall in love with this city all over again, as I did last spring. I will see the Danube wash its banks slowly and seamlessly away. The bridge will hold no secrets and the seagulls will circle around the part of the river where the ships have not moved. For a moment, for maybe even the better part of the day, all the doubts, the uncertainty, it will all be forgot.

Now everything around me is perfect, I see it as perfect, only I have not found my perfect, my endless, my humble way.

Home – from where once removed

“Come, sit here” he said, “little girl, look” pointing to the dark window, “this is the journey that you have once taken, that have lead you to where you are now. So sit patently and watch closely!” The man with kind eyes showed the smiley and unsuspecting girl to her seat on the empty train. She had embarked without knowing where the train would go or who she would encounter whilst on it. The magnificent engine just pulled out of nowhere, in her room, golden and red, inviting her with a curious murmur to take a look inside. The girl was standing on the steps, with her nightgown touching the floor, when the man reached for her hand from the top. Now she sat comfortably and was ready for what would be unveiled before her eyes.

They whizzed by hills and rivers, buildings of all sizes, houses empty and filled with love. There were bridges and pastures, chapels and cathedrals, slanted chimneys and solar panels. The brave moon was shining, lending light to the magnificent display of places once seen, free, and places would be in the future. The girl chuckled as the train hit a curve, the man sat beside her and pointed to each significant sight, adding his own commentary to the journey. Slowly each building became familiar to her. She pressed her nose against the window, breathing heavily, covering the view with steam along with every breath exhaled. The outside seemed cold, icy, but radiant from the early rays of the spring young sun.

Then she recognised the Vltava hurling towards the south right below their train. “This is how you can see the truth” said he who was still sitting beside her, towering over her like the most fail proof protection. The bridge that bore the name of Charles then took them from one familiar site to the other. The tracks of the trams were used to fly their train around and around the city. Inside the old town, outside the new town. Suddenly she saw what had once been. She saw her endless journeys from one end of the city to the other. She saw seasons change the scenery and her in them. She saw herself struggling with teenage idealism. Korunovacni. Parzizska. Vysocanska. Sokolovska. Suchdol. V Udoli. The people paraded onwards and the tears were streaming down her innocent cheeks. She saw her past and she saw the future and all at once she was in the past and in the present. “Don’t worry, you won’t be alone” he then placed his arm around the little girl. But there was nobody else on the streets with her. Nobody to sit beside her on a lonely, rainy day somewhere on Wenceslas square. But somehow the past had seemed joyful. She saw days filled with hope, places filled with dreams, herself as a lover filled with love. The all too familiar routes she took from places unimportant to home. Quietening warmth ran through her body as she watched the weightless snow fall to the road, free of asphalt, just outside the forest, her forest. Every memory then soon followed and she stared out the window hoping to catch a glimpse of every scene enacted in the past, in real time, in the future. She felt herself free, happy. She also felt her heart ache from the void of love. She felt her stomach tighten into a knot when she could feel the end near, when she could see that once she would forget what it all felt like. Dread came over her as she faced feeling like a stranger in her own town. “Have to learn to love the flawed” said the man. She knew that what he had meant was that life was flawed and nothing in the present could change the past. The past remains as flawless as we dream it to be. The present stays as flawed as we can bear it to be. The future is too close to place distance between things done and consequences not yet mature.

The lights of the city grew ever smaller. She was ready to get off, to change the past, to live the once had, but he was firm in holding her hand. “Here comes the next one soon, just sit tight and you’ll see it will all be all right”.

1848, then now

The Sun is gently setting on the day. The golden rays flicker on the rooftops, the rusty antennas, the wind battered chimneys. The streets channel the attention towards the wide avenues, lined with flags obstinately waving in pride. People flock to sites history has deemed with relevance. Cars stay away; the hum of the city quietens. The silent chants for freedom make people walk upright, more so than on any other given day. The country becomes melodies and rhythms, verses and shapes: a heartbeat.

Budapest, a city gleaming with history. Pick a street, any street, and stand quietly, motionless in the middle. Allow the buildings to ooze their stories, to penetrate your skin, to fill up your soul. Pay attention to their wounds, respect their age. Bow before you move away, for the scent of history, the whiff of unrecorded privilege: you are now a bearer of. Here is a city that I watch in awe, amazed at its wisdom and patience. The cobble held the Hapsburg carriages, the revolutionaries’ horses, the boots of armies marching in, the steel of tanks, the blood that was shed, the shoes with holes, the tyres of cars.

I see what you see. The dirt and the neglect. The homeless, the ones who are cast out. The not so craftily veiled contempt of a shop owner, post office worker, and civil servant as a task is pushed in front of them. The reluctance to sacrifice for the greater good. The greyish colour of the Danube, infected with litter. The hopelessness in the eyes of people whose lives have been broken twice in half a century. The pensioners who have toiled to build a prosperous country, only to spend their remaining days suffering. The incompetence, everywhere. The lack of smiles. The shortcomings, the backwardness, the sometimes false pride of my people.

Do you see what I see? I see immense beauty. I see women and men with an avid desire for change. I see a nation that’s holding its head above the tempestuous waters of a malleable democracy. I see a country making mistakes, tripping on its own shoelaces, bringing with it a naïve, charming sense of hope. Its people are proud, they understand the sacrifices, the consequences. They will work to secure a better future for their children. I see a nation whose people for many generations were broken, crippled under the tyranny of lies and deceit. I see a recuperating society, willing to take on tasks almost beyond its capabilities. I see the citizens of this country as individuals with an ardent aspiration for more.

We have fought for our freedom countless times throughout history. I am a proud Hungarian, well versed in the problems a citizen of this country faces today. But I refuse to give up on my principles, on this land, on my people. Our history is rich, our endurance knows no limits, our hopes no invader has been able to crush. Our politicians we have picked, their mistakes we are carrying on our backs. Our anger grows fiercer with each carefully misplaced step. But look how well these people, my people, have endured. They know how to use their democratic power to demonstrate, with the force of thought, in peace. Look how proud they are of the land they call their own. Look how beautiful the sunset is over the hills of Buda.

The Danube peacefully rubs the shores of first Pest and then of Buda. Same as then, same as now.

Curing the soul

I don’t know which is harder, being dragged through the unbearable layers of a black hell, or sitting on the sidelines watching helplessly. Lying or being lied to. Living in a world of deception where the façade is voluntarily man made, or waking up to the reality of a pretended world. Holding a glass or reaching for it. I don’t know which is harder to understand, having sense of the destruction or causing the disappearance of mind and soul.

On any given day, we may stand or we may fall. There is no telling who is next and there is no telling who can stand. Once the sadness is so deep that no tears will fall then the soul will merge with the body and give up its fight. The outside and inside will separate and the sick part will watch the ailing part disintegrate into oblivion. The substance will shrink and leave a hollow shell. The mimicry will only be a result of involuntary muscle contraction, yet it will disperse any doubt cast over its authenticity. Can the sun help?

Rilke, Van Gogh, Beethoven, Rothko, Tennessee Williams, the guy you knew in school, the friend of a friend, the actual friend: all whose souls have succumbed to that insatiable hole. The desperate well to where creativity drives the critically genius and the ordinary: there is no distinction. Going down to the sound of the most pleasant verse cannot glorify the tumble. Bowing out with a last stroke on the canvas cannot make the exit glitter. Yet they try.

The example of one cannot be the rule for many. The testament of a soul that had been cured by physically removing parts of the body cannot become a rule, merely an anomaly. There’s a more profound quest for those who watch their souls drown in the sea of their painful existence. But the sight of victory brings greater displeasure and there is no telling when the outside will mould to the inside. Fear and pain keeps us on our toes because this formidable dark cannot be a force that overwrites things previously established.

I don’t know which is harder, being dragged through the unbearable layers of a black hell, or sitting on the sidelines watching helplessly.

They Float Through The Air With The Greatest Of Ease

Her songs that is. Her new songs. Patty Griffin’s new album. I know I talk about this all the time, but if in the years to come I am to ever have the determination and courage to create anything, I would wish to bring to my audience what Patty Griffin’s songs mean to me. The same level of intimacy, of excitement, of endearment. How can her songs mean the same thing to someone else they mean to me? These words I feel speak only to me, that what she describes and wraps in music can only touch my heart so abundantly. She sings of loneliness, of yearning, of hope and then of hopelessness. She strums the chords along to her coming undone. There is harmony is desperation. How can so much talent fit into her wooden box?

Her stories propel me onto a path of self discovery. I am more me because of what she sings. I am encouraged to sit here and type, to write down my deepest and darkest secrets, to admit to the loneliness creeping, to face the lovelessness haunting, to tackle the desperation that lurks at each end of the day. One carefully placed perfect word shakes me to my core. Beyond belief I let myself be sucked in by the mystical tales of another woman from another country, a different world, a much wiser and more talented dream. It would seem pointless to disobey or even disregard. Let the voice wrap my fears around me from the outside, make them more visible than ever. Let me see where I fall short of the glory. I might learn to make myself better and stronger, so much more willing to admit to defeat and insignificance. Compared to such talent, I am a mere impostor. I need to let humility take lead.

My world would be less if I did not know the magnificent art of Patty Griffin. I would be less and there would have been many writings unwritten, stuck at the bottom of me were it not for the tender words of Patty Griffin. Because she lets you come undone, to fall to a million pieces whilst you listen to her fragile songs. She will lay you down, prepare a resting place so magical, so soft, that you slowly rest your weary body into that cushioned haven. Then just before you close your eyes to velvet slumber, she will wake the dormant spirit in you. She will sing with all her might so you catch your breath and hold your head in growing strength. She will not stop till you are standing on your own two feet. Ready to meet the vice, the unforgiving reality that now can be endured just because you are armed with the most tender Patty songs.

Then you see that there is power in frailty.
Such power.
Endless strength in honesty.
Such glowing strength.
Passion in admittance.
Such withstanding passion.
Then you see that there is love in every broken moment.
Such unparalleled love for one another.

Then you will see that what we are, are just simple outlines of lives lived once before. And then you will see that every part is a part of truth.

I have to learn

And so today and from now on I have to learn to write better. I have to take my stories and give them a start, give them a middle, give them an end. Sprinkling the words onto the page, carelessly, will not do any more. If my dearest cannot understand, then I can surely never expect my foes to heed. I want to feel close to my words and I want to make sure that I am able to tame them. I will give them a regime of exercise so they line up, the ones that begin in the beginning and the ones that I want to use at the end go to the end. I may lack power in many areas of life, but with confidence I can see this will work. For a writer, writing is never this complex; it’s never dissected to these depths. Phoneys like me must learn to make friends with the words first. Phoneys like me have to beg these letters to obey just for a half hour.
Then I am met with doubt, for when my words are plain, I feel distraught. If I feel exposed, I will feel vulnerable and weak, little and insignificant, I will see the real me and it will confuse me. Maybe I’ve just watched too much Sex and the City for one night. I need this place, this forum, the outlet, to not be real so I don’t have to face the reality of my existence. For at least with these short writings, I am able to transcend to another life, another person’s life. When I’m me, when it’s late and I am alone, I break into millions of pieces and hardly have the power to squeeze a drop of superglue out of the tube to fix myself. But I do because I cannot stay broken. These words hide me. They burry me. They wrap me soft so I don’t feel the harsh wind, the bitter cold that’s so imminent.
What I write then gets twisted and sees layers upon layers until it’s so bogus even I can’t relate. I mix a word with a thought with a colour with a feeling and expect nothing but appraisal. Simple is true and I wish I could write simple. But even if I was a writer, I’d have to trample across an insane amount of complexity just to realise the beauty in simplicity. I realise the beauty, I long for it, but I most probably will never attain it. Fears laid down on paper somehow seem a thousand times worse than if they are hidden in a cocoon of mystical phrases. And I’m good at that. I’m good at making fog when it’s a clear blue sky. That’s why I have a humidifier that’s blowing out cold vapour. I’m making my life hazy so that everything that makes me nervous is covered. Because when I’m alone, when it’s dark and there’s nothing else but the music, the moon, the humidifier, the heater making crackling sounds, the lonely guitar waiting to be strummed, the open book waiting to be picked up, the three channels on my shoebox sized television, then I catch a moment of truth. That moment chains me to the floor or sofa or chair. The pain from inside of me reaches up and up and escapes through my eyes, if I’m lucky, the tears stream down. That moment throws me into a well that I see no way out of. Those are the times when I take my machine of words and start typing as fast as I can to make the lucid dream disappear.
Because the reality is that I am alone. I’m afraid of holding on to the past and I am petrified of the emptiness that the future may hold. I come undone when the prospect of a useless life flashes itself before my eyes. I realise that life is a circle. Everyone is just a part of the system, taking a place in the grand scheme of things, setting foot within the revolving doors. The Farris wheel. The hamster cage. Join the club! Get married, have children, have a career, retire, die. If I think there is no point, will I stay unhappy? I know that it’s all good and well for me to say now that I want nothing but to be alone, that this is the most comfortable for me, but in ten years time, I will look around and I will not see anyone. All who matter now will have whizzed on without me and I will be left lonely. Confidence? It’s never been a friend of mine. Hope? Oh, there’s always hope, but I tend to think not for me. If I am lonely now and if this is something I enjoy, then this will never change. I am the problem. I tell myself I need to be loved, but then this sends me on an even lonelier quest for fulfilment. What do I have to offer to the world? And is it justified to be existing on this planet in vain?
Love might make sense, but the kind of love I know is buried somewhere deep in the past and I have only just learnt to leave it in its place, in peace. This is why I have never been more scared to take a trip back to that place where it all started. What if I find my heart that I left there so long ago? Is it wrong to always look for the kind of love that touched me the first time? Am I not willing to compromise? Because after I have admitted that I am lonely and after I have admitted that I am unhappy, I still would never dare to hope for a change in things.
It’s comforting to know that there’s a surface and that the raw, the wounded flesh doesn’t stare out to every passer by.

So here. These were uncomplicated words. Untwisted sentences. This was clear talking. From me to you.

I really have to learn to be a better writer.

Photographs

Sometimes it gets really hard just to hold on. To maintain some sort of motivation and not let everything be bogged down by the crude, blemished, disease ridden reality. Shutting out the screaming voices that bounce off your eardrums, always. Shutting out the murmurs and constant drone in the favour of your favourite tune blasting through your headphones. Could those dear songs make forget that life sometimes like a mirage shows false versions of the truth? Defeatism, such a much used word, so powerful on its own, so deadly in its letters, so empty when it stands in the middle of a sentence. These pictures in your head, can you ever be brave enough to show them to me? You say you photograph the insides, that each word is a pixel of another’s soul, mood, emotion. You openly and at the same time secretly dread the idea that you forgot to tell people what you photograph. They tell you, they can’t see. Endless hours turn into fickle traces of burnt paper, dead with just one finger pressing against the other. You say your work is never done. Are we done?

The toil over each sentence, like the discarded clothesline that some foolish geese believed lead to a magical ending, pulls the scent of motivation from her guts, out, out, out. But she is alive and she knows not because her finger bleeds or because she breathes, but because she feels lonely and empty, she feels a deep yearning, a churning of emotions not in her heart but her stomach where no amount of indecency can ever live again. She knows she is alive when she sits crumpled up next to the bathtub, waiting for the water to cover the room so she can float. She knows she is alive when the bread that she tears a piece from never leaves the table but still dances laps around her plate. Where is her home? Who is her home?

You think it all can be undone with one word. When mountains are moved on the inside, when water and cliffs clash and the weak stone leaves itself bare open to the carving and bruising and bullying and finally gives another of its piece to the fearsome ocean. When the fall is met with a cushioned haven that wraps its kind glance like bubble wrap around the unsuspecting fallen victim. She has been building a nest, brought ornaments from far and wide, lined the inside with rose coloured broken images of melodies once sewn to her skin. The seams came undone and she laid them one by one, patch for patch, on top of the branches and their lovely shoots. When the music plays, she paints melodies and imagines paintings of a million colours. She will pick at the thread, she will pick at it at the seams. She will use words to sculpt her broken body and tightened stomach. To make nothing. To live in a dream.

In the end it can be a heavenly day or just another useless collection of empty hours. And now, have you seen a photograph above of a sensation you know you once felt? Read slow. Read again. Has that image been really recorded? I. I try to play with the exposure, the focal length, the colour temperature, the iris and the depth of field. Sometimes it’s a collage. Some other times, it’s a clear picture of a moment that you know to have passed. I’m no longer angry at these words above. I understand that some subjects present themselves hazy even to the best photographer.

My head bowed down…

Somewhere deep and unexpected there is tenderness in letting go. The roots, one by one, snap as the once living is torn and moved to places more plenteous than before. The moss serves as a resting pillow for the tired head. Leaves and meanders embrace the weary body that gently succumbs to the call of the earthy ground. With a silent hush, all that held on tight must release the grip and let the winter wonders take the lead. Snowdrops breathe fresh droplets of dew into the resting eyes of the beholder. Lilacs and honeysuckles lie buried under the solemn turf, but come springtime they will fondly fiddle with the beauty resting amongst them and cover the dreams with yellow and lilac powders of magic. Just wait and they will appear.

Useless feet have now been replaced with eternal wings. Unbearable pain has been speared by everlasting love. Comfort of the old and the wholly unforeseen entwine as they guide the soul through the gigantic doors of Heaven. One glance at a time. The filthy and corrupt, the evil and careless, the lies like balls of dirt rolling on the street, are erased from the imminent memory. Glowing is the way ahead. The beauty far outweighs the dread. His steps now float: far from the memory of falling, of breaking to pieces, of unwillingly withering away.

Sit here and promise me it will never be like this again. Whisper in my ear that you know something more beautiful awaits. Stroke my snow-white hair, carelessly resting on the pillow and smile with your eyes so I know that you will travel with me. I fear to go alone. I fear to go alone without you. But how can this magnificent place, this kingdom of friends past reunited, this everlasting beam of radiant hope, be anything than reassuringly reminiscent of home? Speak in endless words, for now is when time stands still. The palms of both hands now young and pink are turning steady towards the warmth. We have been waiting for you.

The lamp is burning low, the snow is softly falling. The chains are broken, pain no longer rules. The body, the heavy and burdensome, now roams as the shackles have been rid, yielding to unimaginable freedom. The Sun warms the lovely cheeks; the stars keep the memories sweet. Think of us when you sing. Think of us when you dream.

Farewell dear one, may your journey be safe…

Gentle January

As alarming and irreversible as the phenomenon of global warming may be, undoubtedly there is something subversive about the irregular temperature patterns manifesting these days. Indescribably, an almost naughty and mischievous notion, that the Sun can have such unparalleled freedom to roam this part of the globe this time of the year. The forbidden fruit has indeed been touched. So as concerned and weary as we all are of the changes that present nothing positive for our future, we still stand by the freakish weather and hail it as more pleasant than bitter frost or flaky droplets of water. And what can winter bring that we have not already seen anyway?

This current state of weather has become yet another thing that I don’t understand in this life. Like how I find it hard to understand Bulgakov. Would I ever make a deal with Satan? If I loved another or if I loved the creation enough, would that drive me to such extents as selling my soul? I also find it hard to decipher Milton. What good is freedom of choice when there’s really no choice at all? Still, I shred the words of these and many other great masters, literary giants, in the hope that some of their knowledge and wisdom and sensitivity about the world will clench onto my susceptible brain. If not - this of course remains to be seen luckily so I don’t have to confront the harsh reality just yet – then I’ve spent much time reading pages which have seldom made sense to me. Is it enough to feel what the author is writing about? To glide over the actual words and skip to the part where all that remains is certainty about the tone, the mood, the spirit?

However cruel or abstract life is, it’s worth talking about the points which unsettle us all. Or about the parts that make universal sense. Or things that never make sense to anyone else but you. But me. The sun and the moon, the wind and the clouds come to play their lovely hand, leaving us all gasping with fright, foreseeing the disasters that our children will have to bear. Disasters which might wipe every living thing off this planet. Then Bulgakov won’t matter and the archaic verse of Milton won’t matter. I won’t matter and my confession of not understanding these literary classics won’t matter. But until then, I feel I have a moral and intellectual obligation to at least attempt to come to terms with the despairing human character that unveils itself on pages of books, on streets, in front of my very eyes.

This month is no different to any other. An unexpected song starts playing and it whisks me back to countries and to secretly kept years. To feelings and friends who I never had but still somehow forgot. This winter so far may have been gentle but its poison is odourless and colourless. The still river may reflect the towering bridge above it on a clear sunny morning, but in reprise the day will come and it will show no mercy. I see no real reason or cause to plan.

The present is all we have, this mild and unusual winter month. Onto bigger chunks of literature that will lead me into more confusion, sinking every ambition I may ever have to deeper ground. Seeing a better version of ourselves in the eyes of the one who says real love is always enough. Seeing nothing but a blur when it comes to the road ahead. Hoping that the hazy, opal reflection will be taken far, far away. Then comes the end, swiftly and silently like always, like always.

I’m learning to love these words fully

As if it was some heavy duty physical work, I roll my sleeves up and sit with abdominal muscles tight, waiting on an idea. I can hear the mischievous, mocking laughter. I can hear in the distance a tone that aims to discourage at all possible angles. I throw my toxin ridden body between the timid frailty of the unspoken words hiding in the dark and the power which aims to sweep across the mind the size of a continent. I try to hold back the centrifugal force to let the shy sincere thought venture outwards from within. The ability to tame the magnificent and nurture the weak is a task set before hardly pardoning the coy.

I know these things should be heard. Ringing clear everywhere but in my head, I still try to carefully choose every instant to have meaning. But the burden, I wish for only a beautiful man to see. Please let me try one more time. With almost unblemished certainty I can say that I know now where I went wrong. I know why you never enjoyed the words that laid themselves bare in front of you. Would you be more comfortable with simpler ideas? Allow me to untie the knots that appear in every paragraph. Stand firm so the muddled confusion does not turn your attention towards the chaos but rather more vigorously attains the notion inside you that reading is eventually beneficial. Pay no heed to words that are used as calligraphy to decorate the page. They make lustrous figures surface whilst covering the void of an idea.

Tonight, I can see the stars. Not a well lit sky, but enough to spot Jupiter or Mars. But I understand if you would rather not be reminded tonight of the vulnerability, the uncanny disarray that shows itself evident. I rest my useless pen for the night. I will try to shine less light on me and withdraw towards the back. I will try to build a pedestal for words which will celebrate ideas and not one failing creator’s excessive need to bask in unwilling glory. I may succeed. I may even succeed.

I’m learning to love these words fully.