Poetry reading

and for a change I will show you a photo I took, but will not write anything about the evening itself. Instead, I will attach a poem I wrote a while ago (as the ones I have been writing lately are sort of not finished and can obviously not be shown yet)

Il sacco di Roma (revisited)

Darling, sit by the window, for you can see

the dead aligned along the roads from the aeroplane.

Millions of starved, mutilated and distressed bodies

thrown in the gutters along the roads leaving Rome,

corpses ready to be devoured by wolves or shipped away

in the white styrofoam coffins dispatched from China

and paid for by the nice people in the Bankviertel.

If we took the car we might have discovered these bodies

were still alive (well, when I say alive I mean they might

still be breathing  this foul and toxic air, for this is all

the hope they deserve) and kicking at each other’s jaws,

hoping to crack them open and fishing their best friend’s tongue

from his broken mouth, eating it raw and washing it down with

a spot of black blood erupting from the mangled mess of bones,

teeth and flesh that used to have a human form and that was

capable of reciting Shakespeare, Burns and Blake, arguing

against or in favour of Nietzsche’s nihilism (depending on

the day and quantities of wine drunk), explaining Plato’s

Republic to the children playing footie in the cul-de-sac,

drinking single malt and shedding tears over the writings of

Sylvia Plath and Sarah Kane, and still bringing the evening to

an end with a gentle kiss on the lover’s lips, tasting the sweetness

of life and sucking it all in.   

The men in suits and with blood on their hands have turned

their backs and walked  away  a lifetime ago (mind you, a

lifetime these days does  not last more than the first few

breaths of the newly born – and that is if you are lucky);

they have locked themselves in their castles in the sky,

started inbreeding and produced even more vile offspring;

with almost no heart but a lot of greed they look around

in search of what they might still need to grab and rub against,

laughing wildly at the thought of mankind, certain that

people are worthless machines, disposables, not worth

the ink printed on a piece of worthless paper.

Darling, as we make a run for it, cracking our teeth

against the two cyanide capsules in this deafening aeroplane

take a last look at Europe as it used to be, close your eyes,
and remember it in all its glory and splendour.

(January 2013)