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On Tuesday, Ed McMahon went off in search of the stars
Farah Fawcett waved a red kiss goodbye
And the King of Pop popped some pills for his one big last Thrill
And yet none of these struck me with any significance
Until currents of water pulled my friend under
When that light washed out, and fairness was torn asunder.
Soren. My friend. Some things I won’t forget:
Your love of techno, Belgian beer, and tight pants.
How you turned your head sideways for every Facebook photo.
How you smiled at those you knew – and at those you didn’t.
I remember a long day in December.
It was raining outside so I decided to bother you.
“Do Danish people eat Danishes? Isn’t that like cannibalism?”
I thought I was being clever.
You took it seriously.
I never thought I’d spent an entire afternoon discussing pastries.
Soren I can see you now
Walking slowly, lighting up the streets in Paris
Or standing tall across the ocean
Teaching the penguins how to fly
In a world full by brands, yours was the best.
I’d buy a million of you if you came in smaller packages.
When all seems fleeting
We suffer and wonder how.
How we can sustain ourselves through the morning.
But somehow, from somewhere, we gain the strength to move forward.
To move beyond moments like this one.
Where each breath comes easier than the one before,
where laughter fills the space where before there was only black.
What’s strange and painful,
bittersweet and lovely
is that this will happen to us
without us noticing at all.
Soren Hellner (1979-2009)
Cafés are making a comeback.
My second home
an office
a place to sit
alongside desperate Melrose screenwriters
overworked med students
and a crow of Israeli mothers –
a Hebrew gang in pink jumpsuits
absorbing caffeine and the cappuccino gossip.
A blonde sits in a square table to my left,
her face weighted down with eye makeup.
Green gray sludge takes control of her eyelids
and ruins her job interview.
The manager has just given me the look:
‘You gonna buy something or what?”
I reach inside my pockets and jingle keys
My eyes scan the coffee menu
For a well-deserved minute
Until they give up
Now I’ll sit back down
to steal more wi-fi
and eavesdrop
on your conversation.
When the rain gets heavy we stay under covers
Looking to ride out the day under cotton
Your small face and palms resting on my chest
Prying for answers to questions too afraid to ask
The green rug cluttered with socks, burnt matches, earrings
A clumsy trail of sex and bitter arguments
Your jeans keep the chair warm, heels hidden behind the door
Don’t forget to take them with you when you leave
In the morning we are thirsty and crave carbs
French toast and coffee, head back to bed
We are without shirts on top of one another
And then
Why don’t you write songs about me?
The voice is yours – small, defiant, inquisitive.
The stillness of the moment
broken
like the pelting of thick rain on cheap glass.
My eyes are distracted by the spider chandelier.
Bulbs out
a tug of chest hair.
Am I not inspirational enough for you?
My hands dig fast fast through her hair now
pull her head towards mine, kiss hard, let go…
It would be one of the last few times-
The words come when they want to.
In a few months she will wake up to me and leave.
And it will take months, months
To put this all into words.
you’re tired. its shabbat. you’ll never be good at advertising. your ideas suck. you don’t sleep enough. eat something. you’re great. what’s your name? take my number. you’ll never call. you need help. are you sure you’re okay? you bring such joy to my life.
why are you so sad then?
sweatstains #1 (this is for everyone…)
I’m sorry for bad beginnings
And incomplete endings
I should’ve told you I’m stupid
unfamiliar in these waters
Fetching for a rock, some truth, anything
It’s easier as façade, to conquer them all with guile
A soldier who has thrown away everything
Gone to war and come back with nothing
Not even stories to tell
I miss the days
When I’d lose sleep
but feel good about it the next morning
Now I cower under the covers
Evading the treasure right in front of me
And I wake up sweating
For no reason
Only to wonder
Why you aren’t here.
——
sometimes when days go black I prefer the indoors.
In kindlier weathers, simpler moods
Sincerity would spill forth
Straight from the source
Were the moon to change direction
I’d be all over you
Pull your hair just right
my hot hands on your back
sweat drops on your forehead
I’d leave Abraham and his burned out ethics on the shelf
to watch in invidious amusement
Listen – the Jews who invented guilt
can take it all away from me.
You stare and listen
while I come clean, pathetically behind bars
of unwarranted judgment and lies
my allegations made without evidence
were wrong.
the weak nod in receipt, the twist in your eye
that unpleasant stare into nothingness
Tell more about your hurt
than you ever could.
And I tell you all these things now
Yet there are so many words
that you are still owed.
With the right amount of resuscitation
could love breathe love again?
or is this some joke
that gets sadder every time?
Rickshaws and trains, camels and cars
will both get you there
But it’s not the same,
Nor will it ever be again.
the neighbor who fights cancer
teaches my mom how to live
over walks and frozen yogurts,
through cracked lips and a thrashed chest
she savors the occasional Sunday smile
they’ll disappear in between naps
and mom reappears, like Moses from the Burning Bush
suddenly seeing the light that Dr. Phil could never bring.
the neighbor – Amy -
a broken candlestick, still burning
yet melting into itself
getting deformed by the day-
When did death
become the precipitant
to know the living?
and now, I think of nothing but grabbing my Canon
to capture the intimacies of my father
preserve the pinkness of his Hungarian nose
the nearly finished crossword puzzles he won’t let me in on
the mornings he remembers to floss
oh, and his beastly snores.
(those my ears could do without)
i think the lessons exist in him
some covered, waiting steadily for the right key
unlocked with a son’s embrace
and the question
‘Who are You?’
just when i was convinced
that i disappeared you
filed you away in the bottom drawers
of long lost and never any chances
there you appeared
some dirty magic trick
learned way back when.
you ruined coldplay for me
stole gray sweaters
and my jonathan safran foer books
(the autographed ones)
tell me truths that only you could know
four thousand memories unlocked
with the sweet sting of an acupunctured kiss
your eyes
is that where you keep your power
to turn all the others into ghosts i never cared knowing?
can it ever get so familiar
that it becomes unfamiliar?
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