Aubade Poem by Benno Barnard

For Piet Piryns
We talk until we see the morning double.
The bar is spinning from the cigarettes.
A dishcloth on the tap is wrung and sleepy.
"If I knew who I was, I wouldn't be me."

We make our way with straight backs to the toilet.
Ah, l'orgasme du pauvre… The river runs dry.
The front door yawns about the morning paper.
Another man's impersonating death.

Ah, friendship's demented reign of terror!
Few dare to raise their voice against the heavens,
many will see the sparrow fall and not reach out their arms
(although the barmaid with the dimples has her charms).
We'll take our knives to the wind that blows her any harm!

And now we've nothing else to do, let's raise a hollow glass to the mothers
we bury deeper and deeper in the iron anecdotes of childhood,
remembering with a smile that wasted longing for a South
beneath the silver clouds, iconostasis of these steaming lands…
And to our fathers, murdered so much more than necessary!

"I've written a book, but I haven't read it."
"No one told us who we were."
We scrape our hearts out till they're empty.
We mumble like Jews.

The day is white as dough.
I stare with stinging eyes
at the gods' gold watch,
hung between the fraying clouds:

the time is three thousand years in Europe.