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Category: Life

Life is a strange thing: we’ve all been thrust into it without having much say, and sometimes events seem to be whirling around so quickly we hardly have time to breathe. The same as you, I’ve been around for a while now—and at times the happenings around me have compelled me to put them down upon paper, and whatever this digital ‘paper’ is.

Leaving home behind

Published by Ondrej on December 18, 2021

Overcome by melancholy
Once more on a giant metal bird
Leaving home behind,
Going home,
Flying home for Christmas.

Leaving love behind
Love which was not to be
Not the right time, day or year

Leaving friends like family behind
Leaving home behind

But coming home!
Leaving all the sweat, tears
and stress all behind.

There’s nothing like a parent’s embrace
Of that I needn’t dream.

“What is home?” they ask me
Home is whatever you make it to be

Home is going from one home to another
From love, friends, stress and bother
To family, love, togetherness and a previous life
What is home? This is home. Home is life.

The right puzzle piece (2/2)

Published by Ondrej on November 27, 2021

I told you I’d be back—and this is even before next week!

There’s something quietly satisfying
where everything fits together
a burden cleared right off your shoulder
right off your heart,

setting it free—happy, joyous and all
when you meet a kindred spirit
talking for hours without a conversation fall
could this really be, is this really it?

What’s more is that’s she’s absolutely stunning
stunningly intelligent, her green eyes shine
can’t wait till we’re even more in sync, moving
together to even more Springsteen rhyme.

I thought I’d share this joy with you
for future reference and reflection
and after all these days if internal turmoil, true
it means it is real and not only my imagination.

Looking forward to laughing with you
on many more occasions too.

Hope

Published by Ondrej on November 23, 2021

It’s hard for me to write this
as I know not what you or I seek
but it’s my heart and yours I miss
even if they’ve had no chance to speak

I hope they will have one—
not just one, but a great many
I dream of beautiful places, some
you’d take me to, others about you’d tell me

This outpouring of emotion comes quite unexpected
as there was a lady before with whom there was none
there, a dearth of heartfelt I suspected
you, I’ve hardly met, but do you seem to be, could you be, the one?

All this feeling leaves me tumble dried after a storm
It almost gives me wanting to mope
or is it a new chapter being born?
I don’t want to give in to hope.

Keep it coming

Published by Ondrej on November 18, 2021

Even on late evening mornings like this
I recall how truly fortunate I am
to be surrounded by such wonderful people.

Often, I am reluctant to go, to meet, to get out—
but why?
When I know I will be in excellent company
with my friends as dear as family:
what more is there to say?

Apart for thankfulness, gratefulness and more
I love my life—keep it coming!

Reflection

Published by Ondrej on October 23, 2021

With the aural experience of eighties synths
And flying through straits not so dire
That men have no emotion, among other myths
For this reflection upon the present quagmire

For a brief interlude this new land, this new home is left behind
My own feelings depart as a surprise
It turns out, this country, my friends, you mind
Are precious to me beyond any prize

A lady, my sister, my home, my work, a Strait away
This lady, a guiding light, a beacon in times sombre
My friend, a best friend, a sister as bright as day
My work—bleak, grey, compared to my friends’ hearts’ joyful colour.

Strange collection of proud blue and yellow,
I adopt progressively it with great content
The mellifluous language sounds so mellow
Before the dialect’s true internal advent

This meandering sequence of rhyme
Does little justice to those dear to me
Or the country whose habits I mime
It’s hard to talk about, to even see
When you hugged each other thrice
And three cinnamon rolls apiece
So I rolled the fateful dice
Until I return from the seas.

Fifty-six

Published by Ondrej on October 16, 2021

At the ripe age of fifty-five
I went to a club for the first time
was this a head-on dive
into the youths’ pantomime?

With glitter everywhere, my twenties just begun
thank God there are other things to do—it wouldn’t be much fun.

The sweaty Swedish schlager songs
made me spill my drink into girls’ hair
what’s the point of apologising for my wrongs
if neither will remember we were there?

So much needless alcohol
or maybe just bad music
might’ve as well slipped on huile de tournesol
I shouldn’t just confuse it

At the aged age of fifty-six
I now conclude the clubbing
along with the chilled drinks
left behind in the drain, pouring.

Evening travels

Published by Ondrej on September 23, 2021

You sit here as the wind groans
listening to grand foreign overtures
you silence the moment the heart moans
for the bottomless taste of foreign statures.

Always imagining where else you could be
as the windowpanes creak aloud
seeing, feeling the rush of the mountain, the flow of the sea,
your thoughts pile on the redundant historic mound.

Here you are, having invested in irregular attire
A shame the peak of it all’s a vest
with your vested interests minding a quagmire
and your mind’s vestibule aflow with alpine zest.

Your thoughts are the only geographical constant
as the seas and oceans they fade into the night
as tonight’s ceaseless winds rampant
wishing, being, hoping to wish to be out of sight.

A bus from Malmö

Published by Ondrej on September 6, 2021

I was just reading a paper
about the American labour market
when my dear friend calls about a caper
so he comes home to describe it:

This altercation led to a police call
and everything turned out alright
all it was a verbal brawl
on a bus from Malmö at night.

My dear friend was a bit shaken
beads of sweat were on his head;
the troublemaker was away taken
among the Swedish locals not a word said.

This rowdy man played his music loud
so my friend asked to lower the din
this man was far too drunk, too proud
to even consider this being a sin.

Thankfully push didn’t come to shove
although the police did drag him away
what this situation does prove,
is that it helps to keep loud music at bay
or else the taxpayer must policemen’s salaries pay.

Student association

Published by Ondrej on August 27, 2021

It’s quite something when you meet a kindred spirit
And quite something more when you meet many of those
so many conversations you hear only a snippet
you want to hear them all as from the table you rose

The table is like those imagined long ago
a length of many metres or feet
(Depending on if you talk about ISO)
the people sitting around you try to greet

But there’s just so many interesting folk
There’s no time to daddle,
Almost not enough time to talk
About Sweden’s strange game of padel.

A Norwegian Girl (1/3)

Published by Ondrej on August 22, 2021

I long struggled to find words to describe
the sheer bliss of gazing up into her eyes
no colour in the world is so crystal
not even brightly polished amber by the most skilful artisans
a blue so bright, so humble, so piercing
the crisp winter sky pales in comparison
this sky, such a radiant blue on a January day
with her, it is a bleached grey
such was her beauty
such was her poise.