Bücher 2021

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Andrew Taylor The Ashes of London HISTCRIMEFIC **
Andrew Taylor The Fire Court HISTCRIMEFIC **
Andrew Taylor The King’s Evil HISTCRIMEFIC **
Jan Jacobs Mulder Joseph, der schwarze Mozart LIT (unratable)
Bill Bryson Notes From A Small Island: Journey Through Britain
James Ellroy L.A. Confidential CRIMEFIC ***
Alain de Botton The Art of Travel (reread) **
E.M. Forster Howard’s End (reread) ******
Sharon Dodua Otoo Adas Raum**
Åsne Seierstad Der Buchhändler aus Kabul * LIT
Conrad Schetter Kleine Geschichte Afghanistans *** SB
Barnett R. Rubin Afghanistan: What Everyone Needs to Know SB

Currently reading…
Daniel Mason The Piano Tuner
Wolfram Eilenberger Zeit der Zauberer – Das große Jahrzehnt der Philosophie 1919 – 1929

Currently listening…
Bill Bryson A Short History of Nearly Everything

On the »to read« pile
Albert Camus Die Pest LIT
Paul Auster Talking to Strangers: Selected Essays
Anthony J. Cascardi The Cambridge Companion to Cervantes SB
Italo Calvino Die unsichtbaren Städte LIT

Currently in the shopping cart
Pierre Hadot The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

little i knew not

late for bela. we were almost late.
in november drizzle 
lost and kissing,
darkness slowing our gait.

wishing, when I play
i play like booker
angry, and incredulous
words in vain,
that I knew,
knew little not.

rushing past us rows of languid lights.
vowels inhaled –
words in vain,
in the darkness,
of november rain.

from here

from here
we cannot see the harbor,
where a vendor – hoarse and reeking,
sings,
and whores – gray and foreign
drift, 
gossiping of fishy things,
along the creaking gangplank.

bottles bob, barrels roll
miles of mesh lie limp and waste
windless years –
on the creaking gangplank. 

in this vast paradise – 
horizonless and edgeless –
we are bunched up 
in the middle of our dinghy.
i raise my hand above your head 
at midday.

poetry slam-dunk

Oh my sloppy joe, forlorn,
rippling with mirth, 
down my chin you ran, 
like a plantain.

Once upon a hot summer ragu
In the blue bayou.
Of mint and thyme
And bristly porcupine

speak, if you must
smile, only just…

Your skin – soft and golden
In the august sun – slow and swollen
Sesame and quints
Saucy vitamins.

But my memory 
fades as the twilight 
till just the secret melody lingers 
in the bare boughs –

and whispers to me, 
whispers of charles mingus

Rains will surely come
and wash you away
or on a ship you’ll depart 
to return never
into the haven of my heart.

But perhaps on a rainy day –
Dark and gaunt –
I may forget

To remember never that day
in september.

Like father…

In his whimsical autobiography, H.G. Wells – detailing his family’s history – claims that his father, while in service as a gardener, stood model for the sneaking youth in the painting The Maid and the Magpie by Sir Edwin Landseer.

„…a frequent visitor at Redleaf was Sir Edwin Landseer, the „animal painter,“ …who did those grave impassive lions at the base of the Nelson monument in Trafalgar Square. My father served as artist’s model on several occasions, and for many years he was to be seen in the National Gallery,… But afterwards the Landseers were all sent to the Tate Gallery at Millbank and there a sudden flood damaged or destroyed most of them and washed away that record of my father altogether.

finish

seeking chaos – sandpaper for the soul that i have polished to an indifferent, non-stick finish, repelling disturbances – irrational, inconclusive, incoherent, outlandish. 

this here

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will the momentum of puberty’s paroxysms suffice to persist in the investigation? and truth and wisdom – arbitrary, spacious, elusive and implacable? is there consolation? how to endure the tears from the stinging light, the tears of epiphany…the bliss of grasping, even for a moment, a meaning, or an idea, but not consciously, but with the soul and mind and senses.

truth demanded many lives, of men worthier than i. and with my social suicide I join them, if only thus – still meek and doubting, fearful and selfish, still glancing back nostalgically, at the other life – so snug, so peaceful. and so false.