In the middle of the night
I share this poem with you

What do you know
what do you see of me?

A few patches of black
carved in the white of a screen
a few sad words trying to soothe
what is left of me

I live secluded in an apartment
downtown of a half a million souls' city
founded by the Atlantic ocean

I live a cosy and quiet life
sometimes going out to feed myself
and breathe the lousy air of town

Me and my few friends gather once every week
to share a drink
to exchange meaningless thoughts
and useless ideas
around the fate of man
the hopeless prospect of our destiny

We are bachelors around forty
We were born wild and hard
offshoots of the oddest
long gone sycamores
rooted in the most infertile soils

We used to read powerful litterature
Nietzsche, Kafka, Broch,
Joyce, Balzac, Beckett,
Shakespeare, Goethe and Bernhard
to name a few

But none of them has ever helped us out
to find a heart to love
and a pristine soul to care for

All the books we read
have tormented us
with many questions and relentless issues

Now we sit still in our chairs
and watch the clouds go by
hoping for the next blue sky
hoping for the next feeling to come

And never do we ask when...

Why is it always
coldness
silence
and death
that bring people together?

Why are all the poignant
and beautiful rhymes of poets
stones poured out of a tap
of disregard and contempt?

As I stepped in the country of words
carved by pristine souls
and utmost sensitive hearts
I thought I saw a light

But again my so-called friend
this screen just hid another world
of wounded ghosts and shadows

Solitudes face to face
cold and careless
We do not communicate
we lock ourselves in shelters
of oblivion and emptiness...

We used to be flesh and bones
we used to talk and share our dreams

what has become of us?

Technology has slain us all
with its frozen lights
freezing scared and lost individuals...

*    

I thought poets had words to communicate,
I thought poets had a heart
I thought we were human beings sharing
or trying to share something human within us,
something true deep inside us...
There is a screen, there are thousands of miles between us,
is this not enough?
Solitudes face to face
disdainful and careless...
I write and speak to ghosts
lost in the desert.

What a world I am living in...