the empty spaces

once more, I’m tired
tired unwaking up
tired of sleeping

the cold next to me
the pillow still there
untouched
the empty space

above the bed
the light bulb
looks down at me
lidless pupil
it used to glow

no more light
as the dawn
breaks the clouds
your smell lingers
on the pillow
I need to go out

the streets slowly
stirring from slumber
the space so empty
so much it hurts
like tinnitus

the sounds around
don’t mean anything
or anymore
anymore

the cars, the stores,
the passers-by
it feels so empty
in the tube the crowd
yet I'm lost, and alone

the void around is
the void within
the silence often
the screams at night

treading the empty spaces
unlooking for you
where I first said
I love you
where you first smiled
and said
I love you back

I am where we were
happy once
happy once
your smell lingering
on the pillow
I see your smile
the memories bleeding
into one another
into reality even

breaking the veil

almost as if
you were here
but it’s just me
here again to shout
another message
hoping the wind
will carry it to you

I'm so lost
now you’ve gone
the world off-centre
spinning but
somehow stopped
clutching at the breeze

I still call your number
to hear your voice
on the answering machine
unthinking what will happen when
the voicemail will no longer work

did you get the letters
I wrote in my mind
and the pictures of
the places you liked
when we were there
now without you
I sent all the love
I had left

though I won’t send
your pillow, I cannot
I need it, like I need air
every breath
every breath
in and out

every time, you die again
every time, I die again

the empty spaces
in the bathroom
your toothbrush
on the couch
your half-read novel
on the pillow
your smell your hair
in the kitchen
your empty chair

you die again
you die, again
over and over
every day

but I keep you
deep inside me
where you won’t die
anymore
anymore
where you and I
will be safe
forever

watching the sun
set and rise
holding your scent
in the cup of my hands
white-knuckled

and the tears
through the tears
and gritted teeth
in the wind
your smell
the only thing
worth living
worth breathing

for a while
we are one
in between
empty spaces

I as another

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.

I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.

My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..." Mein Weltbild, 1934 (Trans. The World As I See It, 1935)

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Nunquam said this

"Religions are not revealed: they are evolved. If a religion were revealed by God, that religion would be perfect in whole and in part, and would be as perfect at the first moment of its revelation as after ten thousand years of practice. There has never been a religion that fulfills those conditions." God and My Neighbour (1903)

Robert Blatchford, journalist and author (1851-1943)

We who work in vision

"A scientist is in a sense a learned small boy. There is something of the scientist in every small boy. Others must outgrow it. Scientists can stay that way all their lives."

Speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, December 10, 1967.

George Wald, American scientist and Nobel laureate (1906-1997)

The Better Man

  

Queueing up at the store

the old man shuffled behind

in torn, ragged clothes

his hair unkempt,

smelling of wet dog –

the other customers stepped back

he was counting his change

a handful of battered coins

his wrinkles sagged like his shoulders

he had stared at sun and rain

with an unflinching face

his hands had seen winters

many winters

he was buying those soggy baguettes

the kind of which gotten

at the bargain section

a can of the cheapest tuna,

two cans of a good brand

of dog food

a tomato, two bananas,

and a couple apples

his hair showed signs of combing

those from a hand once firm

those which lack a mirror

then he muttered to himself

clenched his fistful of cents

left the queue in a hurry –

the people moved like an ebbing wave

the picture of him feeding his dog

better than he fed himself

of him trying to keep himself

and his clothes

neat

oblivious of his dog's smell

I moved the checkout divider

told the cashier I'd pay for his items

when he came back he didn't notice

he had picked a third can

when the cashier didn't stop

he extended his hand

she told him – she repeated

he didn't seem to understand

he looked at me

he opened his mouth

twice

he had no words

I nodded

he nodded

his food in his crumpled bag

he moved to go out

twice he turned back

I didn't look

too busy daring glares

at the judging crowd behind

when I got outside

I saw him near the door

his dog was happy to see him

nuzzling in his armpit

whimpering

patches of skin showing

through the shaggy fur

something broke inside

perhaps his dog thought

he'd been abandoned again

perhaps the man had forgotten

the impulse of charity

he held his dog's head

for the longest time

maybe that was their happiness

showing through the rents

their way of greeting

an unexpected stroke of luck

come dinner they would eat

out of their tin cans

smile, nod at one another

pick their teeth clean

he would tell his dogs

stories of the old days

and they would fall asleep

content, reassured

him patting his dog

happy he could get

the food he likes

come morning he would

try his best again

to look as decent as he could

comb his hair,

fasten his belt,

get enough food

to bring them both

safe and fed

till the next morning

he was

without a doubt

the better man

 

Etched in crumbling stone

  

"'Writing' is the Latin of our times. The modern language of the people is video and sound."

Lawrence Lessing, attorney and political activist (Wikimania conference, August 2006)

Fields of knowledge

“There is a beauty in discovery. There is mathematics in music, a kinship of science and poetry in the description of nature, and exquisite form in a molecule. Attempts to place different disciplines in different camps are revealed as artificial in the face of the unity of knowledge. All literate men are sustained by the philosopher, the historian, the political analyst, the economist, the scientist, the poet, the artisan and the musician.”

Glenn T. Seaborg, chemist, Nobel laureate (1912-1999)

All the wrong places

I've been looking for you in all the wrong places
down in the soggy dregs of coffee in my cup
I would try to tilt and turn the little bits
until they might shape into your face
but they dried so I had to give up

I've been looking for you in all the wrong places
up in the stars, connecting the dots to each
unsure if Vega was a good start or end
until I ran out of breath and space
as none were within reach

I've been looking for you in all the wrong places
into the bubbles of the foam in my bath
I would watch and listen to them pop
until I unsaw the mirrored gaze
and became Sylvia Plath

I've been looking for you in all the wrong places
through long nights of browsing Tinder
each ghost had something of you
until you would be effaced
drowned in cinders

I've been looking for you in all the wrong places
in between written words and musical notes
through hundreds of songs and poems
until I could no longer retrace
what I'm sure was a quote

I've been looking for you in all the wrong places
for you might have passed by in old Polaroids
I even checked VHS tapes and jigsaws
until no left-over puzzle piece
could surely fit the void

I've been looking for you in all the wrong places
in footsteps I never heard, in scented eaux
I never smelt, deaf and blind to signs
that you might not ever surface
until I have to let you flow

1+1

I'd love to thrash the idiot who told you
that happiness is a beautiful feeling
that it is as easy as 1+1

I'd love to catch the simpleton who said
that life is simple, just follow the signs
leaving me wondering where I screwed up

how many times have you genuinely said,
stopped mid-breath, I am happy right now
looked around you in awe and contentment

how many times have you actually said
I was happy back then because this instant
I am fucking miserable, and lonely

how many times have you added up
1+1 and thought you had the answer
why unhappy people thought they were happy

what if happiness was a trap laid down
by the most careful of hunters
catching only the unaware ones

what if unhappiness was a trap set
by the most careless of hunters
always catching the questioners

you see, happiness is like being well
you realise only after you get sick
that things weren't so bad after all

unhappiness is like being in a well
you feel the rising water and you stare up
burning your lungs screaming for help

then you finally grasp that 1+1
cannot be as simple as adding them up
that 1+1 is a fucking black hole

in my mind

whoever I have known might have died somehow
whatever I have touched could have withered
whilst I was only trying to feel alive

half my existence has been dreamt
painful day-to-day wish to belong
and to be someone else, and with

somewhere and somewhen else
because I have always been sad
without genuinely seeing why

even though I do understand how
as dusk brings hordes of breathtakes
and dawn its defibrillating gasp

the desire to persist even though
it means anguish, hurt and longing
the imaginedeath of others

living a mess of shifting somethings
ungrasped only in the twilights
images conjured perhaps
real, perhaps,
but all there
all there
in my mind