Thoughts on Faith and Faltering
All Poems © 1998 Maurice Dekker
POEM WRITTEN AT 4 A.M.
I could not sleep.
The crickets all came
to my window
and ordered me to
play a song for them.
How could I not comply
and sing Take This Longing,
in the hope they would
carry it under their wings
for all the chosen to hear?
It is 4 a.m.
I have just written a poem,
sang a song and watched
how the crickets made their way
towards the moon,
which was in the wrong
half of the sky.
It's raining (unsymbolically)
ALWAYS I SECRETLY HOPE
Always I secretly hope that
no-one believes what I write down,
calling it 'irony' or 'sarcasm' or
anything else but true.
But most of all I hope you
will not believe what I write,
call me 'funny' or some such
nonsense word because
everything I wrote is about you.
COMMENTARY: ALWAYS I SECRETLY HOPE
Substitute every 'you' with I;
Make every 'truth' a lie,
And the image you will see
Is surely that of me.
SECOND COMMENTARY: ALWAYS I SECRETLY HOPE
Substitute every 'I' with you;
Make every lie sound true,
disguise the facts but keep the scene
(just to leave the slightest clue).
Deny the truth, lie through your teeth,
and then pretend that you are mean,
make appear that you are lean,
and claim you're right in your belief.
IF THERE WOULD EVER BE
If there would ever be,
or never be (it doesn't matter
all that much),
what would I remember of you
after one week of absence?
May God forgive me for the
paralysis of my reason or
lack of logic.
Guts, really, but my fear
prohibited me saying so.
Would there ever be
a day when I dare to
actually take a step
forward instead of stammering
and standing in one spot
and hoping you will come to me?
Will I ever voice my true thoughts?
ARE MY HANDS TOO WEAK
Are my hands too weak to hold a pen?
Is my baldness finally showing?
When will we all be spared my
incessant whining about petty
problems no-one really cares about?
Are my hands too weak to hold a pen?
Is my mind too feeble to hold a word?
I don't even rightly know which word
I had wanted to hold in my mind anyway,
directing some feeble lines through
this pen held in my weakening hand.
I QUIETLY BELIEVE
I quietly believe
I can still say
what I want to say.
I quietly believe
I stand a chance
against all and any odds.
I quietly believe
you do things on purpose.
I quietly believe
in small gestures
with a majestic beauty
that's inherent in them.
I quietly believe
I will one day
voice my thoughts
when the small gestures
and the chance I stand
grow into something
tangible right before my eyes.
I quietly believe,
but when probed I will say
I'm an atheist.
I NEVER SAW YOU
I never saw you when I needed to see you.
Now that I can only see you,
now that my body is as useless as yours,
do I make all the right choices
which we left to chance so many years ago.
Damn you for looking the other way
when I cut out my heart for you.
Damn you for being seduced by Lucifer
to a journey underground and
damn you for casting me in flames
above our arid bed of bodies untouched.
I should tell you I miss you
but the truth is you never left
my side in the first place
and the only reason I'm sad
is because my hair has fallen out
and it hurts to move
which means sex is out of the question
even though I can see you
and you still manage to turn me on
in your unconscious nakedness,
dripping wet from a bath or shower or rain
or because my own tears have fogged
my memory enough to place you
within a pool of moisture.
And damn you for stabbing me
with a fork when we could have
spent time tasting each other's
juices when you still had a body
and I still has a body that worked.
Now all you do is haunt me in my sleep
as if it is my fault your dance ended
in the demise of everybody.
I should have guessed you were untrustworthy,
but I allowed my eyes to be blinded by your
naked body in the rain.
COMMENTARY: I NEVER SAW YOU
Today I have decided to wear my x-ray spectacles and night vision goggles so I can scrutinise you better than I ever did before. This helped me spot a pothole I would otherwise never have seen and so this time I didn't make any noise as I approached you in your light sleep. You always were a light sleeper and you always woke up whenever I tried to look at you closely. Now, with my x-ray specs I can see right through your blankets, and with my night vision goggles I do not have to switch on the light in order to see you so I can sit beside your naked body and wait until dawn to carry you into the bathroom. I will have closed my eyes before you have left but that's okay since I had all night to scrutinise and judge my body a disgrace.
THE LOST POET
How frustrating to be a poet
whose words don't flow anymore,
whose lips don't sing anymore,
and who bothers other people stiff
with his own shortcomings.
And standing before this balding God,
I cannot help but wonder whether
the two are related.
So I stare into the sun for a bit,
smile,
and then try to find my way
with black spots before my eyes.
THE PUNCHLINE POET AGAIN
As I was writing this letter,
just to a friend of mine,
I suddenly found the clarity of vision
which I had been in need of
for such a long time.
Of course, at the time I was
(unwittingly) searching
I had no idea that I needed this
so much as I know I need it now,
and the gift of finding it
(received in retrospect, but not posthumously)
was such a wonderful present
that I blundered upstairs
and opened my notebook
to congratulate all on this
most promising premise since
I first dubbed myself the punchline poet.
(A title of which I had not been worthy
for too long a time.)
Come rain or shine, the punchline is mine!
(And writing this I realise I might be in need
of a bit of practise.)
THE OTHER DISGUISE
It started with my friends,
who said I couldn't have her,
that she had too much spirit for me,
and that I could never handle her.
My friends didn't know me very well.
There were other people too,
who told me she was evil,
that her haircolour came from a bottle,
and that her spirit did, too.
These people didn't know very much at all.
Then there was she, herself,
Who told me I was too soft,
that she could wind me around her finger
and that I was way too kind.
The poor girl never had a clue.
And there was me,
who was proud at fooling all,
who barged in and walked all over
his friends, the people, the girl,
and who then rewarded himself
with a cigarette,
and with the girl,
and her best friend as his lover.
OF LOVE AND RELIGION
I woke up this morning with a terrible hunger.
The food I ate, nor the coffee I drank,
nor the cigarettes I smoked could quench it.
My hunger was spiritual in nature.
I needed a different kind of nourishment
and an abandonement of all which served
my mind no purpose.
I couldn't quench it, but the continuation
of my starvation was secured forever by the absence
caused by the absence caused by an abundance
of things for which I had no need.
Abandoning these elements of absence forced me
to examine my stubble in the mirror
and sit in the darkness with my eyes open
for so long they felt stuck to my eyelids.
I failed to abandon my absence, and destroying the cause
of abundance faltered on account of the judges' verdict.
I took to religion and studied my Bible
while my teachers looked on in scorn.
I felt abandoned and the absence grew.
I tried my hand in love, but my cards,
which I had made myself out of wasps' spit
and woodpulp, were no good, crumbling
before my very eyes.
'I need you,' I stammered softly,
to make sure it would never be heard,
although I meant it.
My final exam will consist of writing
poetry and convince all of my own good will
and harrowing hunger from which my heart
cannot escape without the religion of my poetry,
written as a testimony of my apprehension
with the forceful ways of the universe.
For her I will call it a hungerstrike,
instantly defeating all by making it seem
as if I chose my own precarious predicament,
willing my absence to grow inside me,
to grow on her until my poetry has
convinced her there is no better second best.
Then my hunger will strike
and appeasement shall follow
until there is no sparrow left
who hasn't come to my window in love.
COMMENTARY: OF LOVE AND RELIGION
It wasn't until years later I disguised my near-anorexic state under a masquerade of obesity and got to grips with its eternal implications, I was forever on the verge of being found out, but it never mattered - anyone who found my hunger always wanted to fill me up with religion, love and poetry, of which I shall never have enough, in my anorexic state of mind.