The eternal gazes of Rodin’s men, hidden away in a secluded garden in Paris, anchor the flesh’s agony onto the dust from which it came from; the hallucination of the love and serenity that Paris had ignited within my tethered youth now dissolves and as I emerge from the winter garden, with my palms punctured by a broken mirror, I am reminded by those bronze muscles and hidden eyes of the inevitable pain of being human. But in a room at night, I am warmed away from winter by a fog of familiar breaths and smoke and am hypnotized to a sickness unlike any before - the sickness of the tired feet, the cholera of the urban daze, the end of strength and youth, the melting of the amoral, the return to beast, to a beheaded beast forgotten by Eden.
-p
Shades of Pompeii
Molten and flowing, the clouds of an Hungarian afternoon roll across the sky
Throwing the city beneath a blanketing shade
The streets the buildings the parks the cars the statues
Their stony lids drawn down
in rest.
The sun will set.
And rise again.
-n
In a Roma suburb of Ostrava, the sun seeps from the sky, sucking the warmth from the cracked pavement, leaving the early evening air cool on the cheeks and lips. And in the light of dusk, gulls fill the sky for one last flight.
-n
“My men went on and presently met the Lotus-Eaters, nor did these Lotus-Eaters have any thoughts of destroying our companions, but they only gave them lotus to taste of. But any of them who ate the honey-sweet fruit of lotus was unwilling to take any message back, or to go away, but they wanted to stay there with the lotus-eating people, feeding on lotus, and forget the way home.”
- Daniel Mason’s translation of the passage from the Odyssey, from the book The Piano Tuner
We return to Paris - we will forever return - out of anxiety, to assure that the city has not burned down while we were away. “Paris is the girl you love.” I remember Saul’s smile as he said this to me almost three years ago, before he rode off on a vespa down his precious Saint-Michel. It was the last time I would see him; but Paris, I saw again.
-p
Like the statues of glory and strength in Heroe’s Square, the spirits of our youth revel in distant nights. Now, like the Madonna emerging in tears from the shadows of the Basilica, all that is left are their momentary whispers - and if I am quiet I can hear them laugh behind the honks and light of the metropolis. It is winter, and the days end quick, and stillness and silence take over the darkened city like a platinum plague and there, amongst the cold, I listen to the rustle of our lost souls of youth and joy; I hear the river still splashing at our feet, and a deep, demanding voice, Chronus, telling us that we must part.
We are in Budapest, and the morning comes, and a silver light bathes our tired faces. Soon, we are on the move again, and Budapest - our silver city - is left behind, along with pieces of our young souls that become incrusted into the immovable air of the Magyar throne.
-p
Of the cities I’ve left behind, now resting dead in the back of my mind, Budapest - the silver city, the spectrum of our youth - remains the one most cherished.
-p
