I was swimming across the ocean, trying to hang on to dear life
When I came upon a boat floating in open water where I found
Seven spirits waiting for me to come aboard and sit with them for a while.
The first spirit was my friend Jonathan,
Someone who is always on my mind when I am down,
Someone who knows me in and out, someone who would never let me drown,
So why didn’t you throw me that lifeline, dear Jonathan,
When I was twenty-five and you seven centuries the wiser,
When you were still young and I with wrinkles on my forehead.
I asked you where we’re all heading to, headed at, and you smirked and said
“It’s all a matter of time, Dearest, until we’re eaten by the worms,
but while we’re here, let’s make a fire out of our boat’s wooden arms,
our oars, our legs and wooden hearts,
that would not be touched by sympathy,
by whatever emotion there is to express what we truly feel about ourselves”
and I said that I’m too scared to bluntly show him,
that I would rather talk about him for a minute.
And so he faced me, kissed me on my cheek and thus threw me over board again.
The second spirit, flaming red hair, was the image of myself
In seven years’ time when I’d still be stuck and you all be bored
By this electronic networking, our strong and independent cup of tea,
And Juliet was her name, told me to stand my ground,
Never to give up, because surrender, oh yes, surrender is futile,
And I asked her whether to wait for another life in exchange for mine
Would be another solution to the lion fighting with herself within me,
And she said that “we’re all doomed to live with and through and by
Ourselves, to face ourselves in the mirror, and every single person we meet
Along our path is yet another story-line to stretch and decorate with
In our eulogy.”
And I said that we were all cursed and purified at the same time,
That we could always choose to drink from the cup or the flask,
Choose left or right, choose a card, as Tom the ferry-man had pointed out,
choose to loose some weight,
but then again, who are we loosing it for?
The third spirit I was glad to meet in the boat, of all places
I know that is the least comfy, so I was dragged out of my zone
To meet her again, and she gave me that glimpse, that glance to
Freeze the world wide over,
And spoke down to me in that condescending, tantalising voice
That would never leave my ears again when she said that
“nothing you have ever seen or heard of or experienced or came upon or
across will always stay with you, since most things
will be forgot in that last second before your world turns upside down,
all the information you gathered over the years
could have been of such use to another life but yours,
yours was pre-destined to end up on those ghastly encyclopaedic sites,
and all the rites, all the rhythm in your heart you rehearsed for when you
imagined yourself to glimmer and glitter will be forgot as soon as you
enter that last second before hell freezes over”
and I could only but break down, show my weak side
in front of her, when she was the one to blame for that harsh streak,
that character of mine I could have sworn I left behind when I left home
when I was eighteen and a half, when I heard that trumpets bellow
that unworldly tune, when the noise started to entice me
to finally let go and jump off that bridge,
when I suddenly ended up on that ocean and in that boat.
“So you have changed” the fourth spirit, lady-like,
told me to my face. “I never thought I knew you, but then again,
you didn’t, either.”
I sat with her for a while, and we chin-wagged about the good oulde days
When we were twelve,
When she was still blonde and I still dumb,
Numb, and barely a woman at all,
When hair would start growing in the unlikeliest of places,
And she would kiss her bed-side poster goodnight,
When we were still full of imagination and dreams to behold,
And she drank out of that cup, she drank that coffee on that boat
That rocked my world for so many years,
And she added that “maybe those past ten years were a waste of time,
A waste of thoughts and a waste of money” and I said that
I had none of those things at my disposal,
That she had stolen my life since I was fourteen,
When I was sitting on that desk, staring into nothing,
Feeling the first bout of winter-depressing coming on.
So I took that knife and carved a last goodbye into the wood
Next to her thigh, and she smiled at me, and her tooth
That was still crooked, still standing afar,
Was yellow to the nerve and I never rocked her boat
from that moment ever ever again.
The fifth spirit was my friend Benjamin, a name
Of all the names that I’ve heard that I have cherished the most;
He and I are like brother and sister, like teacher and student,
Like mentor and candle, like water and wood, swaying from side
To side, and I told him that he had never looked that good
And he smirked, as he always did, and whispered his thank you,
And his good heart that he carried in his hands for everyone
To easily pierce through, to rip out of his grasp and toss over board
Was beating relentlessly and spoke to me as loud and clear as his voice
and it said “why did you leave me, why did you leave me
when I was thirty-three and you,
You were only still a child, you sent me to slaughter, you
Who were my daughter, my only friend in this world,
You tore me open and poured all the water in this ocean over me,
And the salt in it ached like hell and kept me from healing”
And I tried to close my eyes and ears and it just wouldn’t stop
Speaking out to me, calling me to make it all right again,
But it just wouldn’t do, all my tears that I shed sitting next to him,
Plunging down into that big wide open made the water even more salty,
My eyes even more dry and our live-long history even more rocky.
So I got up, ran to the very end of the boat that rocked my life
For more than a quarter-century to find my dead sister sitting on the edge,
Ready to fall off again, ready to leave the dry and safe place again,
So I grabbed her arm to let her be my sixth spirit on this tiny island.
She turned to me, and speaking through her long black hair she said
“I know you’re thinking about me seven times a day, seven days a week,
but why don’t you wanna visit me in those places that were ours
when we were children, when we were too scared to face this evil world”
and I said that I was all grown up now, that life had slapped me in my face,
that I have been beaten way too many times to ever return to that happy haven,
and she said that “nothing is too dark to never reappear, you should
never tend to make your life that easy, and if it does, then please,
forget about me; do it for my entity and for my safety,
but should you ever get too uncomfortable, we can always claim
that place of all places for ourselves” and I said that
I have stopped dreaming a while ago, I am grown up now,
I have embraced reality in its entirety, and so she started weeping,
And her sobbing still haunts me sometimes when I close my eyes for too long,
And I wake up from slumber, thinking she’s lying next to me.
The seventh and final spirit I met on that boat, on that
Rocky Road to Dublin, was my saviour, my hero, the lover of nature,
My kind of guy that would never let me down,
And I said why I am so afraid of giving with both hands
While at the same time I am waiting for you to return some of that gesture
And he said “well, I am a tatter-tale, don’t take it too personal,
I am that kind of spirit that keeps taking because you are sweet,
You are that perfect soul that I would hug and cuddle and kiss,
But my words will never get through to you since you are that bell
That keeps ringing whenever someone is opening his or her mouth;
You are the noise the seven of us hear whenever you are the queen,
The queen of it all; don’t get me wrong, we still love you,
But the train has left the station, the car used up all its petrol,
And you’re standing there all alone, all by yourself,
Always keeping people at arm’s length, with that mistrust
In your eyes” and I said that my eighth spirit told me to be free,
Which means never to expect or imagine situations seven minutes
Before midnight, and most of all, I stressed and stood up
And made the boat rock even more, I knew not to be afraid anymore;
And so I took that leap of faith, jumped off the boat into the cold cold water
And kept swimming until the waves swallowed me whole
and my baby-girl Kathleen was born.
MJ 21st June 2010
