I have almost started this poem
with
“Long time ago”.
With this displacement into indefinite past
I could easily commit an error.
Remain motionless,
free from the cracking of moments
which permeate the body with warm patience.
Without a blissful smile
that slowly matures.
That turns suffering into a smooth beauty.
That can be sipped straight from the lips,
then sucked in like a phantom
which offers a different outcome.
It is late.
From the window to the door there are
only a few steps.
When I pause
I am seized by panic,
I feel the barren time invading:
from the floor,
through the cracks of the walls,
the errors multiply,
the ones I was not aware before.
When I think about what I missed out on,
I tremble.
What do I feel? What do I give?
What can I receive?
“I write with my body”,
I used to say.
To be without scruples,
invading the void slowly.
Finally, I waved my head,
finally, I could recall.
I did not shout, I did not sigh,
I did not wave my hands.
I was sitting down.
Staring dully I tried to reach what was left
of the trifles.
I held that my desk was a machine
for the erasure of forgetfulness,
and the fine layer of dust on it
was the imprint of time.
From one of the photos applauses,
merriment caught in passing.
I want to tame that which you
could call unthinkable,
than turn it into a letter –
expected,
received,
displaced,
forever lost.

What are you waiting for? I screamed, I think,
amazed.
In an opportune moment I could hop,
wring the body like a dirty rag
and be forever devoid of desire.
Eroticizing particles
which have separated us and brought us together
are now just a sediment
that can slip away forever.

Do you want to?
I could walk over
to the window again,
and recognize in the branches the same aggression
that radiated from the skin I used to caress,
the skin that I can now hardly remember.
I can’t sleep.
To watch, to watch in silence,
to remain without words,
without wonder.
Listening for the sounds which
represent perfectly nothing.
If they were only words
that I could take up,
and suck them into my body and
than resist clumsiness carelessly.
While I type
I sense the aimless incertitude
on my fingertips.
Do I really write with my body?
Or is that longing reaching out,
greedily looking for a place on
a piece of paper?
Nothingness
, Emptiness
, Nightmare
. The decision ground into tiny particles,
unmelted sugar crystals
lost on the upper lip.

I got the scissors
and started cutting off the tips
of the leaves on my plant.
Suddenly I discovered the uselessness
which trickled across the leaves
in tiny jets
becoming a mere pile of dust.
I will lick that dust,
push it into my nostrils,
and finally turn into something that
trembles in the faintest wind.
I may go out,
abandon myself to the unknown drives
just barely inscribed in my cornea
and strain my eyes looking for
some sharp contour on the horizon.
Or I will stay at my desk
and tremble from time to time
from newly found pleasure,
and sighing loudly write
a sentence which I avoided before –

“In the past when I took every mistake
for a defeat,
I believed that it is very easy to love”.