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Ondrej’s Poetry Posts

Cranial banter

You, sitting over there with your AirPods in
or you, with those funky glasses
and those trousers retrieved from a dustbin

What are you thinking? How are you doing?
What did you do today?
Yes, the wind was blowing
but weather’s so damn blasé
about the whole thing.

I often wonder what we all go through
John, are you also wondering about life
or maybe your investments failing to accrue
What’s Maria wondering? The same as Sophia?
Yes, he was cute but he’s got a girlfriend
and maybe we should talk about local politics
No, let’s not

What are you listening to, you with your AirPods in?
I hope it’s as nice as as Chopin or Purcell
they didn’t really have auto-tune (it’s a bloody sin)
Or Springsteen, he’s pretty good
when you’re in the right mood

I’ll never know anyway
maybe it doesn’t matter
It’s fun to think, though,
of our collective cranial banter

Leaving home behind

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.

Snowflakes on your lashes

On a resplendent December night
I last looked upon you in a resplendent way
the thick snowflakes, a glorious sight
they fell on your perfect eyelashes, blinking them away.

This little poem is a search for closure of sorts
and I will not reflect upon you like so no more;
despite the pain, the sadness that contorts
my soul, my joy, all bruised, bandaged now, still sore.

We spun around on the dance floor like two fireflies
glowing in the dim cold winter, bright—
your laugh, your eyes, your hair, my heart cries
such raw, unblemished, naked emotional might.

For a fleeting moment I allowed myself to entertain
a future, in sync, waltzing, laughing together
of which now must an icy memory remain
not should our paths cross, for the better?

Your inner and outer beauty shone like a pale rose
and I understood the predicament you lied before
and, for the better like this, I suppose
this final cry, this final poem for you—and no more.

When you voiced your reflected thoughts—
it is as if all winter stood perfectly still around
snowflakes frozen on your lashes like catapults
shaking, crumbling, melting my ground.

I did not wish to give in to hope
but hope and future joy found me nevertheless
since our profound, shared, mutual joy needn’t cope
alas we were wrong and allowed hope into this mess

But now, I have written my raw, grinding emotions for you
Yesterday, when you told me—I would have
cried you a river if it would mean us two
together, our cheeks a light, naked mauve.

This is the best way forward; but didn’t you know
how much your company meant so profoundly
I will miss the laughter, the perspective it used to show
a faded, defunct light will no longer guide me.

I will turn to other lighthouses on these December nights
but never fill I forget your resplendent sights
snowflakes on your lashes
before my heart crumbles, smashes.

This is how it should go, farewell dear friend
no use in pretending, my heart is on the mend;
good luck to my memory of you—my love is now in this poem, here
for I was forced to extinguish its inner end
this postcard of thoughts I will here write and send
and I know, I hold steadfast I will shed no tear
this is best for you and me, dear.

The right puzzle piece (2/2)

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

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.

A free gym pass (1/2)

It’s been many months since
—you could say “an elapsed ellipsis”—
I have felt like this towards
towards a most resplendent lady

And this time—despite having
caught the monarch butterfly migration in my stomach
I don’t feel paralysed
Excited, scared—good scared—maybe
But not petrified, worried or anxious
okay, maybe yes anxious

But she’s beautiful, she’s many things,
she is her—and that’s true beauty.
Check in with me next week. I hope to have an answer.

Worst case, it’s good to keep your heart pace up:
like at the gym but kostnadsfri!

Keep it coming

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

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

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

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.