Jozef Vizdak

Jozef Vizdak Feb 2021

Choice and compassion-
Just those two sum up a man.
And evil originates only
From a desire
To be loved.

Thank you John Steinbeck

Jozef Vizdak Feb 2021

And what did you get
O, you famous poets of eternity
What did you get
From all the words
That were scribbled
In the darkness
Which flame couldn’t reach
Or under the lamp
While outside
The world snowed
And was being bombed
*****, murdered
And built again
By the few hands of the faithful

Did the world ever
Repay your kind observations
Did it even notice
Your steps in the snow
The mud and the dirt
That you held in your hands
While offering but a single word

Slowly despair settled
On the knuckles
Of your hands
Vowed itself into the bright hair
Turning it white and soon
To nonexistence

Yet the word remained
Growing through the hearts
Once it got settled in

And when the time
Played out to be the destroyer
It offered a silent prayer

In your eyes is everything
A man could ever know
How it feels to love and be loved
How it feels to be alone

And you restlessly wrote on
Of the pains and of beauty
Of one and all
And though burned
Your life shone for all
To offer hope

Jozef Vizdak Jan 2021

Ancient Box

without the feather’s might
and plow to sow the lines of soul
at the violent hour
the hour of blade and blood
we reach the same shores yet again

and if we do not come too close
we shall never see the wrinkles
that stretch like markings
left on earth left without water
for the yellow heated dust
for the rock and the death

what is dug from hardboiled soil
is only a flicker of hope
the last thing lingering in the ancient box
trapped while the other vile evils
trample over the old and new roads
and the rain’s still nowhere
but in the heads of perpetual dreamers

I cannot make sense of things
for some time now
there is me and there is you
separate, separated, separating
the trash in the mind of none
and when the photos we took
and the silence we shared
is all but gone
there still seems to be some life in us
there still seems to be some light in us
there still seems to be some love in us
yet not for each other

Jozef Vizdak Jan 2021

Needles in the hay

when we walked and walked
through the golden forest
unwitting about the future time
when you cried bitterly and over the line
and there was wrathful defiance in my blood
(hazy eyes that still looked the other way)
and from nothing to nothing the clock jumped
just to see another lazy stillness of the day

when we laid and laid
on the isle’s sunny beaches
unknowing about what is to come
when you wanted to take the leap to none
and there was only hopelessness in my hands
(mad mouth that moved without anything to say)
and from nothing to nothing the clock jumped
just to see another weary stillness of the day

when we flew and flew
on a plane or on a motorbike downhill
unaware that it was already done
when you held the hand that held the hand
and suddenly there was but one
(promising lips once red have turned to gray)
and from nothing to nothing the clock jumped
just to see another timeless stillness of the day

and when we fought and fought
endlessly about the colour of the sky
I wanted to be forgotten when I’m gone
when you finally left and at your place
there was only a screaming empty space
I started to hide memories like needles in the hay
and from nothing to nothing the clock jumped
just to see another sorrowful stillness of the day

Jozef Vizdak Jan 2021

Cool haiku

Winter sun
Looking into myself
I find only snow

Jozef Vizdak Jan 2021

End of the lengthy voyage

One night upon the stormy waters,
John the sailor lost his hearing
But the sea and the sky,
Indifferent as ever,
Continued humming and screaming.

Before his eyes waves came and went
Just like the days of his youth,
Seen only through the lightning
And faded glow of the lanterns,
Never destined to sooth.

Unable to hear the shouts of his captain
He felt lost; in his nose only salt and sea
With their notion of deaf eternity.
A piece of mankind’s suffering shone from his eye
While his hands, stretched onwards, perplexed,
Were desperately trying to grab the invisible sky.

At that moment a memory came to John,
From the depths of human unconscious,
Of a drowned Phoenician sailor who resides
In every man who hath passeth the seas,
Of the end of the lengthy voyage,
Of the leaves of grass and of the breeze.

Burried by the ocean or burried by the soil,
Matters not to those who seek eternal life
But more often they end in the stony places
Where only dark and ghastly things form -
Considering this, he regained control of his spirit
Prepared once again to conquer the storm.

Jozef Vizdak Jan 2021

The mountain and the city

At frozen midnight when he reached
the lonely mountain’s peak
(only patient owl and restless rabbit
keeping him their ghostly company)
he beheld before him deep in a valley
a city with its lights so bright
one could weep the rivers of gratitude

City people love and hate it at once
as it shines the light on the middle
of every man’s fall
minutes before utter destruction
of every sensation felt
different for thousand times and more
a great theater of many actors
each living and dying in their characters
that they themselves created out of desire
but it is only and only the moment
the short duration between the dark and dark
that franticly matters in their distorted hearts
that and only that moment in time
when light turns to them
and they are seen by others
a moment of shammed fame
for nobody’s listening
but waiting for his part

The owl silently caught the rabbit
while he turned to sleep the other away
his back facing the city lights