coffee tastes better in Spain

a simple hello is groundbreaking

comfort can be a warm bed or a “like” of a picture

the cold is different in the UK (you can feel it in your bones)

they will always give you a knife and fork to eat a hamburger

sometimes you need to eat at a Hard Rock in Lisbon to be reminded of home

if you eat the bread, they will charge you 1€

crying alone in a hotel room or at a Chinese restaurant in Italy is perfectly normal

never doubt the power of distance

now you can never say you didn’t try

just because you don’t speak the same language, doesn’t mean “*******” isn’t universal

sometimes sleeping next to someone who peeled your outermost layer off is the most intimate you need to be

“I’ll never see these people ever again”

have pride

ask me now what it is that I want

I have come to loathe all brown bags and black suitcases

vulnerability does not necessarily equal intimacy

remember that you pulled yourself out of the sea

your feet tread castles and cathedrals where thousands walked

art galleries are best enjoyed alone

now you understand when mom and dad don’t answer how agonizing it is

write it down if you want to forget it

acknowledge buried truths

eat paella and shnitzel and pizza and fish and chips and don’t think

go to movies at the tallest cinema

slip a little on the cobblestones

lay for hours on the beach

then

go home
be humble
remember
reminisce
teach
embrace

Glasgow – 1/8/15

Look at the child with the rifle
She's posing for a photo
She just doesn't know what it means.
Give it three years, and she still won't know.
Except now her people,now her country have nowhere to go
She's 6 years old with an arms embargo
The country is suddenly three now
The people inside can't see,the people murdered along its beaches can't see.
The people washed ashore can't see.
Air strikes fall somewhere distant.
Militants front and center
Nothing else but to surrender
The country's identity is reduced to its language,their colors and the violence around them
Never did it experience serenity
Fully get the wealth from their oil and luxury
Nobody could guess that people could shake and shimmy along the beaches
Where the nameless faces appear,dreams dust in their open and clenched fists.

They are holding
your pale wrists
tight.

Your new side was fake
And covered in all the rust you need
To start a war.

There were springs sticking out
From holes in the mattress
The night you told me
I was void of form.

It must haunt you now
To think that I'm such a good abstraction.

Lacrimosa,
Lacrimosa...

My dear,
I'd prefer to sing alone.

To think of you washed
In all the colors falling
Like Whistler's Rocket
So far below the moon...

I cry away any sanctity
Placed upon me in my youth.

When I am stricken
With all the words
Uttered over the silence
Of our modern, beautiful
Communication...

I will fall silent.

I will fall still.

I will be quiet,
But I will be swift,
And I will be void of mercy
To all but myself.

the foxgloves explode
in infinite slow motion [silently]

from them also we can learn
the soft crash and save ourselves

from the genius suicide:
the brief fame of a supernova

…

intermittent rain keeps the land fecund,
a deluge cleanses to the bedrock,
rain in perpetuity is impossible
and we think we can control this

but we live at one speed,
and measure in standard units:
our language is insufficient
to give a precise reflection

…

to assume our laws are true beyond appeal
puts into question our democratic process

we forget the necessity of conversation
the original Greek ideal of the agora;

to meet friends and argue is the point, is it not, of life,
of all this noise, after all, what use is silence?

…

our luxury of having the exercise of our conscience
is subsidised by the suffering of a multitude other

..and yet

when we all speak with one
language / currency / voice
there is no poetry anymore
no rhyme, no metre, no form

in this Heaven only, [on Earth], we are united

Until recently, I had the impression
Of decaying
Along with the moral standards
Of contemporary Europe,
With London as the lieu
To which all Autoroutes lead.
                                                           ­         
In my room, I was surrounded
By debris
Of my existence,
Lacking the will even to clear
The carpet, whose colour,
Incidentally I came to forget.
                                                         ­           
I ceaselessly tampered with my hair,
Growing it long,
Having it cropped, hennaing it red,
Dyeing it blue-black, bleaching it near-white;
It fell out in bunches,
Desiccated and exhausted.
                                                      ­              
My face grew sallow and haggard,
With bloodshot, inflamed,
Glazed, blue-ringed orbs,
And bitten, bloated, ravaged lips.
My body lost its athletic aspect,
And became shapeless and emaciated.

You tip-toe out of the day
out of the Atlantic Ocean

with Africa's sun on your brown skin
with Africa's wind grazing your dark hair

and all of South America behind you.
Had North America and Europe

had enough sense
they would have followed, too.

Had they known of everything good
tucked away in your womb

then surely surely
they would have followed, too.

Your small hand, is all I asked for darling.
The wedding band, well it comes after darling

I've seen your seams and know you're not a human being
But you're the dream that I've been looking after

I've torn off to the East coast and I've gone to the West
Your parents and your siblings have only done what you've said.
I didn't lead you on when you showed me how you liked to be touched,

Do you know how long you've asked me to wait now?
Do you remember when you used to faint and cry?
I remember when you couldn't feed yourself,
I remember when you tried to lie about dying.

Why do you do this? We both have mothers, we've got sisters and dads.
I've seen you broken, sick, and crying while we laid in the bath.

I never thought I'd see you settle or give up on your dreams,
Now I've given up six years for someone I haven't even seen.

It's like when you held my shoulder during that downpour
Driving 75mph in the Mercedes back and forth on Highway-19

I begged you to tell me that unconditional love story,
About the girl who met a boy three weeks before she was to leave.

You can keep the story but I want my penguin back.
It survived Fallujah as well as the war in Iraq.

Even though I ache missing the taste of your skin,
Nothing's more important to me than being in your company again.

Maybe you could stop the torture
While I do more than taking pictures of the talent,
And instead you might consider doing something romantic;

I think you're brave enough to live an incredible life
But can you speak your mind without having to lie.

Maybe one day you'll realize I don't have ulterior motives
Except to earn enough gold so we can live how we want to.

Mustard sweaters in the Mauritshuis,
     scattered ashes at the foot of our bed.
We run, run round in circles,
     till the stars drop out of their cat's cradles and into our laps.
Empty paintings and glasses frames,
     dozing atop anarchist literature in the back alleys
of some distant treasure island.