The Calls of a Siren

Once I caught a glimpse of the Northern Light

It was fragile and soft

so I held it tight

From the mountainous horizon

of a city in red

I could hear it calling like a siren

Ever since, I have been carrying it in my pocket

where it keeps glowing

like the fire trail of a rocket

It reminds me of the Moroccan colours

so loud and sonorous

that they make me shudder

It evokes Marrakech’s sounds

so colourful and vibrant

that they shake the grounds

Back in the real world

I can still feel its vigour in my heart

where it is lying unfurled

And every now and then

I take it out and touch it

with kid gloves again and again

I balance it on the tips of my fingers

where it feels as soft 

as the memory it triggers

And just like the water under my feet

it drives me to islands

where life grows on the street

And just like the wind under my wings

it takes me to places

where love springs

"Goodness can be found sometimes in the middle of hell." ~ Charles Bukowski, Women

Arriving in my own Mirror

Some lessons in life come naturally. They grow organically in the back of your mind until they finally settle within your system to blend into your wall of wisdom. Others, however, hit you like a hammer and shake the wall's foundations. Becoming a parent is probably one of the most “traumatic” and yet therapeutic experiences. It comes with all sorts of concrete and abstract obligations, sentiments and resolutions. And while everyone around you seems to know everything better than you and overwhelms you with a colourful and incoherent puzzle of advice, you still need to figure out for yourself who you are as a mum. As a dad. As someone who suddenly becomes the most important person in the world. And this very circumstance constitutes the one thing that surprised me the most. On the spur of a moment, my existence gained a significance that didn't go well with the beliefs of an amateur existentialist. Now, almost two years later, this novel perception has turned into an utterly fulfilling affair and I find myself babbling about the meaning of life. I have realised that being self-centred – a habit that is not exactly my second nature - is the key ingredient to parenting. Why? Because there is someone whose happiness and well-being depends on you – completely. So your happiness, health, sanity and value backbone have to be secured, protected and defended as only a happy, healthy, sane and morally firm person can provide these little people with the framework they deserve and need to grow. Translated into other words this means that you need to stock up on self-respect and self-reflection in order to become a model that is fit to take care and fit to be copied. Because that's what children do. They copy. They learn by imitating. Sometimes, when I observe my child, I feel like somebody is holding up a mirror. My child's gestures, intonation and movements bear an uncanny resemblance to mine. And it is a very natural reaction to try to be the best version of yourself when facing your reflection. And this, I find quite amusing. I expected myself to get out of focus and sink into oblivion during parenthood but to my utter astonishment I learned that I need to take care of myself, too, if I want to take care of someone else the best possible way. I learned to put myself first – with a very selfless intention.

"The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who had loved you

all your life (...)"

~ Derek Walcott (Love after Love)

The World that is my Oyster

My world is a canvas

with the painting changing its shape

changing its colours

and changing its age

Depending on angle,

depending on light 

and the eyes of those catching its sight.

So please be aware that the romance on the surface

could be a crime between the lines.

And the foe holding my hand

might be the shadow of a friend.

The stranger who promised me the world

could be swallowed by the latter

and be cast into an eternal hush

by the monochromaticity of just one brush.

Amidst the peace of the wheat fields 

that are the scions of summer

there could hide a thousand monsters

or the world that is my oyster.

And if you dip it into water

the painting might show another layer

that will change shape

change colour

and change age

Depending on angle,

depending on light

and the eyes of those catching its sight. 

"The Maestro says it's Mozart but it sounds like bubble gum when you're waiting for the miracle to come" ~ Leonard Cohen

In good times and in better

Happiness is a foul companion when it comes to inspiration. At night you sink into a silky sleep bereft of dreams, and a couple of blank hours later you wake up out in the open. Overhead a cloudless sky and the sun in full bloom. But still no shadows to be found.

You think of the old times when you flitted about on a narrow ridge between vigil and swoon. Not black, not white, not on, not off, always somewhere between here and there. Inspired ad nauseam, pouring words onto paper, screens, keys, walls, windows, streets, people. Absorbing the waywardness of life with all your senses and spitting it out again in form of creative vigour. Ups and downs in a continuous stream with poems and stories intruding upon you without your wilful involvement, consuming the arts like a voracious beast. Fast, wuthering, always in motion, washing down smiles with tears and tears with a smile.

Today your tears never meet your smiles, they co-exist separated by a thick wall of steadiness. Happiness weighs heavy on your shoulders and satiates you to the core. Your muse couldn't thrive in that culture of continuity and left the ship. So you will have to challenge yourself now and tap into that bliss to create breeding grounds for a new muse, a muse without airs and graces, a muse that will be your faithful partner in good times and in better.

"The man who arrives at the doors of artistic creation with none of the madness of Muses, would be convinced that technical ability alone was enough to make an artist. What that man creates by means of reason will pale before the art of inspired beings." ~ Plato

Brave New World

Seven months of silence. Icecold and cruel quietness. Instead of words I bled unuttered thoughts and mute sentiments onto empty pages. I still had a lot to say but I had nothing to share. Private happenings had excavated an unfamiliar medley of anxiety and anticipation and had brought a swarm of feelings to light that rummaged about under my rib cage month after month. In silence. Eventually, these happenings and their flustering side-effects resulted in one big wonder. The world as I knew it was shaken up and turned upside down - in the most wonderful way.

Today, I have settled down in this marvel and I am dwelling within it with a heart as light as hydrogen. I am more alive than ever and each day spits out so many new memories that my inner photo album is bursting with cluttered pages. Everything is "good" now, and my quest to embrace and conquer this world never tasted sweeter.

It's merely my return to my home country that leaves me slightly unsettled - ironically enough - and doubtful. Discussing this very matter, a friend of mine recently said: "Every decision is a good decision. Simply because you can't go back and take the alternative route to check where it would lead you." I entirely agree with him here. Regret is an unknown emotional reaction to me. For when I do something, my venture was either thoroughly verified by my ratio or it was driven by an emotional impulse that was too strong to be controlled by means of rational willpower.

In this case, however, my decision to "remigrate" created a sensation of failure and regression. And this is something that I agonise about. But there is more to it. Munich feels different today. The traits that I once respected, loved and missed today spawn tedium and pity. I have mentioned the homogeneity of the Bavarian capital more than once throughout my compositions, and I don't want to belabour this perception but this uniformity that naturally mates with a great deal of intransigence becomes uglier the longer I look at it. The fact that my negative feelings towards monotony intensified during my Italian adventure surely also enters the equation.

Munich didn't change during my absence of four years. But I did. I became acquainted with different cultures, different cities and I came to appreciate the heterogeneity, the ability to compromise and improvise that I credit London with. Let alone the artistic and creative potency popping and sprouting from every crack and crevice and of course all the people that I fell in love with as well as the memories and friendships that I carried home with me. London turned me into an altered version of myself, a version that I like better and that struggles to feel home again in its hometown. When I wander about the streets of Munich today, the familiarity doesn't touch me anymore. I somehow pity all the efforts this city takes to keep everything in order as this "overstructuredness" induces a rigidness that thwarts creative outbursts and individuality.

I miss London. And I will miss London every day that I will spend away from it. So, let's see how long I will be able to resist London's call or how long it will take Munich to reconquer my heart with its forgotten beauty. Right now Munich is the right place, and I will embrace the boredom the homey familiarity entails to focus on the excitement of the new world that I live in today.

"Your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty - his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure." ~ Aldous Huxley

The Dust of Spring

With our hands, we dig in the dust
no sticks, we find

no stones

just drifting sand

It’s not the present-day

that weighs heavy

that weights light

In our pouches

 

It’s the past

as what is the instant worth

if it sinks into oblivion

when we forget

 

It’s the foretime

as the present only merits

what it becomes

when translating into fame or infamy

So we dig, deep

for the dirt may stick

under our fingernails

and reflect some unknown colours

Our knees bite on to the ground

and yet when we stand up

no marks, no signs

just the stolidness of negligence

We walk off

our feet stomping firmly

our arms moving in time

and ahead lies nothing but the change of season

"Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower" ~ Albert Camus

Some dreams just linger

Tonight I dreamt I was cold.

I dreamt that the bestial eyes that I saw bleeding in the sun

glared with barbarity.

I dreamt that the ruffled feathers on the ground

were carried away by a gust of irony.

I dreamt that I dreamt.

I dreamt that I woke up.

I dreamt.

Today I am stuck between the sun and the ice.

You are both. The sun. And the ice.

I am cold.

I am hot.

I am stuck.

A connection, you say.

A link.

Ice melts in the sun.

Sun light is reflected by the ice.

Don't you think?

Tomorrow I will dream.

About the sun and the ice dancing in the wind.

About you and me.

"Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice" ~ Robert Frost