Love – Of Glass & Paper

You #IWD2017

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You haunt my dreams, you haunt these pages, and the places where I once was, and the ones I haven’t seen yet, indispensable, sometime smiling, sometime not, as if you wanted me to know when I keep to the path of truthfulness, and when I don’t.

In a crowd you always find me, and, in my worst nightmares, I no longer see you…

Without you I wouldn’t be here, just a few mineral atoms lost in vacuum. I would not write, what is a writer without muse? How would I even know that this world existed?

Yet, without me, you would be around for sure, but someone else entirely: her reflection in your eyes would belong to another being, maybe even the opposite of me? Can I imagine that strange being, in a world I know nothing about?

No, you are saying, this couldn’t be, for you have made me, and in many ways, I have made you.

Picture: The river, by Chris De Becker

Unfinished #DailyPost

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We have got so far, much is still to be done. We have to go further, down the quiet streets, and the wide avenues, through the small parks, along the canals… There, somewhere, we’ll find ourselves, the meaning of us, the ultimate ecstasy.

Till then, it’s unfinished business, work in progress, the novel unfinished.

Till then, there is only you and me, lovers, haters, fighters, humans.

After us, the déluge…

Image: Maurits Cornelis Escher – Procession in Crypt. 1927 – via drakontomalloi

From the cool guys

Dilemma #DailyPost

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So, this is the deal: you stay, and then, here is your place, or you go, and good luck to you. But, you insist, the deal is reversible: if you want me, you have to convince me to stay, or I go. And so, we go on, late into the night, do you want to, or not, and if you want to, how do I convince you to say you do?

For the city attracts us both like a mantis its prey: how to resist beauty beyond belief, how could we say no to paradise? And we won’t. But then you have to make your choice, stay or go.

We know you won’t go, and neither will I. We are playing a game, with blank cards, as white as your beautiful thighs.

Photo: “Der Verliebte”, Paul Klee, 1923, Lithografie mit roter Tonplatte – Museum Berggruen, Berlin

From the crazy crew

Berlin, Stadt der Frauen #stadtderfrauen

Until 28 August the Stadt Museum exhibition, “Stadt der Frauen“, offers in sound and pictures twenty biographies of talented, heroic, sometimes outrageous, human beings, who lived in Berlin, all women.

As is the case almost everywhere in the world, it is mostly men who have written Berlin’s history. In politics, culture and architecture, they have shaped our perception of the city’s evolution. But this is not the whole story.

Even 150 years ago, Berlin was a place where many things could be done that seemed impossible elsewhere – particularly for women. This exhibition presents the life stories of 20 women, showing how they cast off the corset of societal constraints, what they experienced and how they helped to shape the city’s history.

Don’t miss it is you are in the city. From the socialists of the pioneering period preceding World War 1, to the Trümmerfrauen of 1945, go and have a look at courage and grit.

Photo: Trümmerfrau, inspired by Anni Mittelstädt, chairwoman of the Klub der Berliner Trümmerfrauen (Berlin Women’s Rubble-Clearers Club)

Liminal #writephoto

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We love the valley, the grey rocks arising from the ancient land, and the forest. Here they lived, a life of danger, of icy winters, of suffocating summers, but also of intimacy and joy. Where did they come from, and where did they go? We shall never know, their tradition was oral, only their dwellings and graves remain, empty, as a testimony to a past and a people distant from us, but in some way so close.

Thursday Photo Prompt – Liminal – #writephoto

The City knows #WritersWednesday

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She never forgets: the humble swamps of the beginnings, the far away sounds of war, the medieval cruelties, the triumphs, the parades, the Enemy at the gates…

Then there was the long war – thirty years of destruction, rape, pestilence and ruins. Out of this came a stronger state, and she was the capital. The Soldiers” King – Soldaten König – made her powerful, perhaps a little agressive too. She knows what the fate of his son was, the sweet Friedrich, and Russia: a predicament for the next two centuries.

She remembers the Corsican invader, who would have feared Friedrich, and would lose his pride, and an empire, in the snows and fires of Moscow. And she loved Schinkel, the master architect, he who gave her the cross – on the hill: Kreuzberg, and what followed, the victories, the invincible army, the birth of the Reich, the Iron Cross.

Of the First World War she only remembers the trains full of enthusiastic soldiers, and then the revolution, machine guns in the street, Spartakus, the bloodbath, the corpses thrown into the canal.

Of the long night that started not so much later, she speaks often, soberly. So many sad memories, all those little brass stones on her pavements – so many human beings taken away, old and young, and burnt. The memorials, the thousands buried in her parks. Yes, the trees, fallen soldiers, reborn to adorn her streets.

Of the wall of division, yesterday really, a few seconds ago in her life, she knows all, and now she sees the builders, the speculators, the newcomers.

She sees us, my love, and is willing to tell us her stories. We will listen to her, in awe.

Guest #TheDailyPost

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

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I cannot recall when you came. Probably long ago. Probably in one of those moments of sadness, of pain, perhaps of love. You stayed. You shaped my thoughts, my feelings. Nothing has been the same since.

“The same”? Do I mean, before I knew? Or simply before awareness came? We are not alone. And you are many. Are you from this world, or from the next? Are you beyond time, juggling souls, from one to another?

Image: Patrick Gomersall – All these things, via tauchner

Island #TheDailyPost #BerlinDiary, July 3

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

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We are ready, almost. A lot to pack, a lot still to plan. Will it be Wedding, or Schöneberg, or Tempelhof? The search will continue for the next few months. But now we have a foothold!

So, soon, we will be leaving this little foolish island. Maybe forever? We don’t know. The present atmosphere does not give us reasons to stay! And then we have so much to do, far from the politicking of monkeying politicians and their media puppets…

The diary to write, the photos to take, the novel to restart!

And you, my dear, to worship as ever…

Water #TheDailyPost

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

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From the Wassertor, the watergate, we walked slowly, hand in hand, along the bank of the old canal, and reached the Engelbecken, the angels’s lake. You looked at the sky, then at me: I understood, no need for word. Sunlight vibrated through the little fountains, antic roses shone on the brick walls.

The water reflected our thoughts, deep down ancient spirits awoke, to remind us that time is the great healer.

We found our place, and we knew it would take time for the dream to be realised…

Voyage #TheDailyPost

Not sure how to participate?

The deed is done, my dear, so there is nothing to hold us back: we shall return to the City, among the youth, and the ghosts, and the walls full of memories. We will walk along the canal, remembering Rosa, and the heroes of the revolution, we will walk along the river, our souls in unison, our limbs alive – despite the attraction of Death.

For the City lives, not in her past, but in the present, forever renewed, walking resolutely to her future, a tall, blond walkyrie, who speaks your language with an accent. Along the tree-lined streets we will observe, and be observed, by those, like us, who have found themselves again.