Geino Äotsch

Nearness

I wish that the needle that
She pierced you with
Was giving you life
Not taking it away

One more day
One more day

Jane says: “When things go wrong,
that’s when something really wonderful
happens.”

Nothing could be more awful
So then nothing could get more beautiful?
All these sounds around tickling
Me, my ears my non existent body
Tearing myself to shreds
Dreaming about how wonderful
Tomorrow will be detached

Pourquoi pas?
Pourquoi pas?

Fetch me a flame
To light a candle for love
Reminding the world of
Waves before red
And blue before sky
Earth after moon
Crescent around angels
Wings before tenacity

I would make more soup for you
A peanut butter cookie
A sandwich for two
Your favorite rotisserie
I dream of all the fish
Swimming all through
Sparkling around you

It’s only the first one day of the year
Just like you only once in a lifetime

Things couldn’t be more wrong
Now something wonderful happens

Mère de Misère

I don’t want you to be dark
I told her
I need you to be hopeful
There’s enough
Darkness in the world

Unreasonable wishes

She loves you with a
Broken heart
Even months in between
Next time a year

Is it a penny for your thoughts
What would it take to bring
The light out of your tunnels
Into my heart to welcome me
With yours

Life can be dark
But I don’t want that with her
I hear myself talking
And I know
I don’t have to say
A word

Greatness comes with
Her darkness because
Everything else
Is early

I know we know
Tension
We share blood
Even bad blood

It’s your time to be
Sustainable with me
Don’t talk about dogs getting kicked
And brothers getting bit

Somehow you make sad
Shamelessly sadder

There’s a space for that
Numbers work
The seasons pass
A comfortable pink
An optimistic sound with you

Nonexistent

It is impossible to trust
The darkness that keeps the faith
With you, a pyramidal parent

Delusional sibling
Resistance assured on my part
I bang my head out loud

Why did I call? Broken lines

Firehouse

She was the second person to accuse
Me of burning a house down
Just trying to be nice
Humble offerings
A touch of magic and
Suddenly the columns of
My temple were falling down!

Seen out of the corner of someone’s eye
Later reported almost by the bees
Mostly by the news but then they left too
I think we must have known
Each other in high school
Or maybe she just felt bad for me
In a way that my friends forgot how to
Because she knew I meant well
Because my face said it all

Because
Because

There was something genuine
And beautiful about my innocence
Or was it his if I am in fact a third person

Swift kindness and
Obliterated determination
To hold onto just one thing
One more column and then
It started to break
Open or did it close off?

It didn’t matter because again
It was changing and the
Most majestically gorgeous
Elements always do

Even when we lose everything
We gain the first time to have
Nothing again back

No need for a new wagon
Even flint can be used
To reignite the need for desire

Perhaps a sandy desert
Or a cricket in South Africa
Would be able to love him for his fire

Maybe it was a friend or a mother

Daffodils

Someone is writing a poem about him
Unbeknownst to his psyche
He skipped one day
Thinking it would be okay
And yet he still trembled
And returned quickly the next
Offering from the light returned
I can’t see walking around
In circles a hindrance
In a sad vacuum at the loss of you

Loud murder kaws overhead
But the beat of rejuvenation is
Heard instead and the barking
Of creatures some days are
Harder than others
Acceptance coiled up
With defeat into an ornately
Knitted spleen
Liberation in extremity
{internal art}

Reflective pools of nothing
Even Narcisse the child of nymphs
Looks away from the mirrored pond
Unrequited unreturned to the self
Not for others what of this!?
Hidden antithesis but a lonely
Strut into the forest of others’
Swampy feelings to be loved
So many someone’s that he forgot
{to love himself}

A workhorse bred
Stallion thread
For hesitation
Ready for the race
Perhaps the dark horse
In him will finally come to
Bare the regal gift of
Love upon himself
Or die in hilarity
Though the daffodils
{look lovely today}

Wisp

Healing power
Bird appeal
Acknowledgment of truth
What question deserves the answer
Existing in a better place
A hidden road from within
Two different parties
Meaning is unavailed to
Reveal an identity
Promise to give
Without contract
Any hypothesis can
Turn a key
Find the lock
Open the sincerity
Avoid the internet
If it’s torture
No matter how you do it
What does it matter
Heartache is a river
That runs through
A heightened aloneness
No name
No birthdate
Just ether

Spiders

Somewhere in the
Zeitgeist of our lives
In the time and place
That we both arrived
You made a path
Through the sea of my heart
Two spiders became one
Chewing and gnawing
At the right leg
Fuzzy light engulfs both of us
As if one barely makes it
Through the light and the other joins
Warm yellow glows a different form
Entirely altogether altered
And reborn

Electric aura transforms
Into our metaphysical positions
How many spaces?
How many lines!
Things in my hands feel smaller
Things on the earth feel taller

Gift of a voice recording
Some years ago
{That never got erased}
There’s no AI for that

Do you think requesting another
Would make a difference?

A perfect morning
A blazer of a day
Bird on my shoulder
Monkey on my back
Simple text is better than
Total exclusion
No doubt about that

I wonder what it will cost
In the long distance

Parts

I cried so much last night

I’m taking myself back
All the good parts
That I built up but then lost
I did them for you
Now I’ll do them for me!

Bring back the parts that I
Manufactured in the hope
That it would mean more for us

A disciplined construction in a
Scaffolding of emotional security
That will mean something for me

All of the experiences I wanted
To have for us but were impossible
Could be had even without you

My life is not on hold
A spirit that’s beautifully different
Must fly even without validation

The price we pay to leave the
Best parts of ourselves behind
Is an arm and a leg

Catharsis

Two leftover boys finding love for the other
The unwanted children that survived
We’re like brothers maybe I’m your father
Or maybe you’re mine you could be
I’m unsure but learning still from you

It seemed you loved me the least of all
And know you get all of my love and
Maybe that’s all you needed

White walls blue sky earth turning
Climbing eternally when do we stop
When do we summit, where is my peak?

I meet you here in the grass
On the mountain of my heart
And hold the difference between
Cold and hot know the difference of
Yes and no black and white
Who is right? Does it matter?

I can be a better version of my father
I can be a better version of my mother
I have many failed attempts and yet
I never give up trying even though
I have so much when is it enough?

I feel the need to face the pillow
Sleep forever comfort my willingness
To congregate towards the light
In a tunnel of sorts at the back of
My mind and outwardly overhead

Floating above with my cat friend
What entities are we anyway?
What allergies are we to one another?

Is it confrontational to hear our
Own words back to us?
Are we offending ourselves upon
Reflection for those words
To ourselves boomeranging back to
The root of who we are
Feeling nothing facting everything

Make up a new moment
How much would it cost to
Face ourselves with grace and
Forgive the parts of our hearts
That weren’t ticking right at the time

Compassionate beings who are we
Clinging to our stickiest souls
A beautiful twisting cosmos
Of whiskers and willingness

Voyaging

Tea ceremony to make us whole
The oblivion of Morpheus seems to be
A perpetual state of mind
Awake, asleep or dreaming
As if someone was going to
Break into my account to
Write poetry on my behalf
Is it really necessary
To lock me out
Hinging on what will be and a
Tongue in the corner of my mouth
Soft lips touching
Abrasive ground and mindful
Rushing out of things
Instead of in what is whatever?
Do we head to South Africa
Watch our membranes waggle
In Afrikaans roll our eyes
And find a trampoline or a hammock to
Lay together on with something
To make us complete like two stars
Full of electric juice not too soon
Will we fade and our passions
Burning hot like lights
Filaments you can’t put
Your fingerprints on
Branding your mark on my heart
Fill my sky; blind me

Behalf

He stopped playing the piano
But he hadn’t forgotten how to
He stopped riding his bicycle
But he still knew where it was
He forgot to meditate
But he remembered how to return
The path had changed
In the care of his keep
He was busy with life
And the challenges of it all
But he recalled the days
When doing all of these things

Meant something

To be the linchpin
Of ourselves holding the edifice
Together so as not to crumble
Explode or fall apart

Yellow leaves turned up
After the solstice was strolling past
Muddy tiles to witness inner strengths
Washed over and over to reveal
Connection and a use for time
Sliding down the fault of
Memories we attempt to get away from
Churning through the vast nature
If ostensibility is to overwhelm
To congregate in the belly of burden

When to bite and when to chew
Basic principles that should
Involuntarily teach us that
Enough is enough and that
We did all we can do

It’s a beautiful thing
Not to be through with our bodies
But to wake up in said vessels
Alive and renewed
All of our arms and legs
Working and if even only a few limbs
There’s still life in you yet
Old man