Mit heiterem Blick sitzt er immer noch und sagt mir heimlich: Lass Dein Schicksal sein wie ich: Unerforschlich fremd und Deins zugleich. Zu früh Dreschen ist schädlich und zersetzt eine verheißungsvolle Ernte. Eine Prise Eitelkeit nur reicht völlig.

Mantras that stay

Fugitive hours stare blankly from the coloured bindings of the books on the desk. Writing seems to be a task with no telos, a flight with no aim but the snatch of blue between the clouds. A little Buddha holds up his alms bowl and smiles and behind the cheap figurine I hear the real croaks of the handless woman on the corner, in her wheelchair, tirelessly chanting her mantra: Spare Change. She'll haunt us into the ground.

A Lost Civilisation

Strange, the last time I was here it rained too. Most of the hollow ostentation of the city vanishes when this weather descends upon us. The windows of this corner room remind me of that: where on sunnier days in the distance the sky merges blue with the water, today it is all diffused white rain, relentlessly colourless. One day not long ago there were great white waves – even from here the water looked like a hoary old man. Maybe it was mustaschioed Poseidon greeting us from afar. Maybe Atlantis really is nearby after all, under the Shining Waters perhaps?

From the tenth floor of this city it sometimes seems the clouds are running away from their own weather, only to be swallowed up and disappear into the white rain.