Tag: Abendland (page 5 of 12)

kids wear raincoats & play in fountains
in the ljubljana rain

lovers don emergency ponchos
in the ljubljana rain

streets are slippery & cobblestones weary
in the ljubljana rain

maps turn soggy & poets wander
in the ljubljana rain

when the rain tumbles down in july …

lake bled fills with stones & sparrows’ heads look stylish
in the ljubljana rain

mist makes a milkshake of the sky & words fall like acid
in the ljubljana rain

like a train in vain …

listen to the backpackers snoring
in the ljubljana rain

send it all home on a postcard
in the ljubljana rain

well i’m sleeping in a hotel doorway …

(i’ll blame it on a certain fame)

in the ljubljana rain

in the ljubljana rain

yeah these lonesome petalled shambolic mystifying
sweet deep breaths of ljubljana rain

dad gives me the signal & so
i walk slowly towards the table
at the outdoor bar – my mum’s
already there so we sit down
& order drinks … it’s all
normal but i don’t look coz dad
said just act natural … out
of the corner of my eye i can
see him focussing the handycam
on our table (a perfect family
scene) & then comes a long slow
pan across the other tables the
street the city – finally it’s
over & he comes to sit with us
obviously ‘a wrap’ … he smokes
cigarettes settles the bill & then
it’s time to move on – he goes
first leaving an unextinguished
butt in the ashtray – i stare at
it until mum leads me away …
little to i care but as we walk
back to our pansion i’m imagining
the smoke rising from the table
the ring of empty drink bottles
then finally the waiter coming to
clear it all away leaving not a
trace of our transaction & no
proof that we were really here

polish paper-cut art doesn’t move
only intersects with light or beige
backgrounds – in fact depends on
them as accents require the noise
of pub chatter … meaning only
comes through reinterpretation
invention or else all life is a
museum a display … leather-bound
irish boats on the other hand
possess an abstract magic when
transported elsewhere & today st.
brendan lives on through someone’s
crazy re-enactment of his impossible
arctic journey – kind of like the
north’s answer to kontiki or la
balsa … taking photographs of
headless models sporting the latest
slovenian fashions seemed a good
idea at the time but now it feels
vaguely pornographic – listening to
croatian tambouris likewise reduces
folk music to an HMV listening stand
(still there’s the nativity scenes
to go and find or re-appropriate
somehow in muenchen if that is
your desire … but reindeers dis-
sected in the snow or black & white
images of the finnish hunt – that’s
something else completely something
carnal oblivious anthropological …
it encourages only the most empty
of identifications – false as plastic
trees or yesterday’s weather report

a fine place for a village she
turns the first clod let it be
here & so it comes into being
with the barest fore-planning
to be truthful yet soon enough
the characteristic boulevardes
thoroughfares cross-town tunnels
appear dictating future streets
lanes & public spaces though who
will build them isn’t quite clear
so slowly surely a city breathes
& lives despite the intermittent
natural disasters power failures
riots its shape endures within
its walls our new community &
culture is created similar to
yet sufficiently different from
those other metropolises that
its name becomes known its parades
& summer festivals the envy of
other cities (people begin to
migrate there pull up their roots
& start a new life & they are all
welcome the city grows & grows
then bends two ways the first an
ever-spiralling sprawl the other
its antonym the dystopia the
smashed windows & abandoned cars
underground solicitations & street
closures midnight raids on no-go
blocks in short the danger zone
& in this city the clocks all
tell a different time (it’s soon
to be demolished rumour has it
that a new city is being planned
but then nothing comes of it &
one day we will visit there again
& wonder why we ever lived alone
for so long with so few hopes or
friends.

the hands that made the hands
then passed her to the second set
the hands that plucked the human
hairs & threaded them into a wig
the hands she passed her to then
sewing on the little yellow jacket
passing then to unknown hands that
gave her eyes to see herself mouth
to breathe in cotton hands to hold
her head until she fell asleep
two hands that made her cheeks
pink in case she was called upon
to blush the hands that filled her
little belly full of sp‰tzle or
gruel hands that kept her upright
while they sewed her tiny feet
into place made her shoes & then
left her there wobbling but alive
alone but made of human hands
of hair the petite skirt to hide
her girlhood hair combed then
platted maybe depending upon
her mood & then the hands that
transplanted the still-beating
hand-made heart into her chest
her covered breasts & silken brain
with which k‰thy produced her
first truly human thought: their
hands have stroked my arms & legs
my doll’s face into dreams … my
heart that beats like a baby drum