Dominika Visy

    MY DESTINY
 
Not a star to escort me.
Not a sunray to warm me up.
Not a lightbeam to guide me.
Not a stream to cool me down.
Not a fruit to satisfy my hunger.
Not a bird to entertain me with a song.
Not even a stone to pave my way.
It is my destiny to be alone.
My unchangeable,
Sacred
And everlasting
Destiny.
I am not born to be loved.
Or to be surrounded by friends.
I am not born to be happy.
Happiness is an illusion
That deceives me before it flees.
For moments I dare to think my paradise is near.
For seconds I rejoice and laugh and cheer.
Then the cruel reality reveals its ugly face.
I collapse and live an endless heartache.
Before another vain hope brings me
A few days’ worth of joy.
I am the laughing-stock of God.
When humanity exhausts him
And he wants to give up,
He looks at me and he’s reassured.
I suffer. So all is well.
How much fun it must be to watch me
Struggle and cry and ache!
He’s without pity for my troubles.
And I am without the will
Or the way
To live.

​

NIGHT-TIME/NIGHTMARE

I don’t know where’s the door
I can’t find my pillow.
Smoke fills the empty room.
Yet my dreams are aloof.

Again I hear the distant rumble,
Again I hear the war-drums cry.
The world is on fire.
The horizon’s crimson dust.
And yet,  I cannot fly.

The marble that we call life
Rolls off my fingertips,
Flies up and turns to dust.
And yet, I cannot cry.

I sleepwalk on a path
That’s paved by Rubik’s cubes.
That turn beneath my feet
But they don’t give me way.
And now I cannot sleep.

Light explodes in my hands.
The torches are going blind.
But rest I cannot find.

Bang-bang-bang.
The world is going mad.

The vain beams of the moon
Melt on the green concrete.
And yet I cannot sleep!

I scribble without thought
My letter-voice changes shape.
My pen cuts like a knife.
And yet I cannot sleep!
And yet, I cannot cry!
And yet, I cannot die!

​

TO HOPE OR NOT TO HOPE/MY SOLILOQUY

To hope or not to hope, that is my question.
Whether it is worthy to bear every blow with stoic resilience
Or to foresee the stubbornness of fate
And by protesting, reach peace. Peace,
The senseless darkness, shielding us from the assaults of pain
That we, the unlucky must endure. That’s the ultimate shelter
When all hope has deserted.
Peace, perhaps in heaven
But would heaven be the destination,
Or is what awaits a million times worse
Than our brief earthly stay?
This choking fear halts us
Before we parachute down the abyss,
And willingly submit ourselves to
The ghost of chances past, the cloud of lovers gone,
The moodiness of time, the injustice of wealth
The sword above our head, the weary weight of life
That’s mere honey seasoned by vinegar
While we could give up and resign with ease?
Why would we face the avalanche of despair
That overwhelms our present days?
‘Tis because the future is an unread book
And whether Fortune will be benevolent
Or an adversary, can’t be known.
So in or souls still lies the seed of hope
That our dreams are more than dust
And thus our natural urge to revolt
Is repressed by the force of hope
While we wait for the great moment of joy
That deceives with promises, and then fails to come.

​

INSOMNIA

For a week now
Dreams avoid me
But I am chased by
Monstrous angels.

Whitewashed shadows,
Our nightmares wrapped in cling film
Wherefore live they?
Wherefore haunt?

Wherefore drop they
Rancid honey,
Sweetened poison

Misty abyss,
False comfort,
Wherefore tempts me?
Whence this charm?

Clocks are ticking
Doomsday songs.
Cruel heralders
Spare me not.

Blood blackens the
Shameful snowflakes
In the distance,
A waltz fuelled by
Schadenfreude.

Hellish wonders,
Do not beckon,
Do not call!

Or speak to me in
Crystal voices.
I would like to
Understand your
Guiding message.

​

      BRICKS

My pillow is the granite of the floor
My blanket is the starless night.
Dead time floats in the air
As flies circle around me
Like black, fat ghosts of my past
And agents of hate.
Of my undying past that alienates,
And of dark hate that destroys me.
The icy hand of silence squeezes my throat
And the war of tears is suppressed
Before it even breaks out.
In the grey fog, all thoughts are drowned,
And what remains is the prick of pain,
Ubiquitous and yet unreachable.
Sometimes a word flies towards me,
Or a snarl, or a cruel laugh.
Their weight crashes into me
Before they hit the ground
And then turn to bricks.
Bricks that build up, unprompted,
Until I am trapped behind a wall.
A wall, how curious, that is transparent!
Across the wall there beckons the promise of joy.
But here I am a prisoner
Of the bricks,
And of my own soul.

​

     OVER THE BRIDGE

I walked over Westminster Bridge one winter afternoon,
And watched the people as they hurried on.
But disgust frosted every eye, and hatred blew from every breath
So I turned towards the water instead.

I stood by the fence and watched in awe
As it ran restless towards an unseen goal.
The wind couldn’t ruffle and frost couldn’t still
The queen that has ruled for centuries.
The silken waves danced to their own tune
And shone proud in the silver moon.
And the surface seemed warm
Like a mother’s lap,
Like a lover’s arm,

At that moment, against the selfish horde,
I longed to sink into the warmth
And find everlasting peace
Down where men could never reach.

But beyond the bridge’s other end,
Beckoned London’s golden light
And howled a benevolent wind
That promised to lift me above the land.

So I turned around, and marched on,
Wishing to escape the scorn
Not down in the bottom of obscurity,
But high up on the peak of glory.

​

SOMEWHERE/SOMEONE ELSE

Tortured by tedium,
I oft long to be somewhere else.
In a place where work is pleasure
And not Sisyphean labour
In a place of smiling skies
And caressing sea-waves
Where the wind doesn’t chase me,
And the rain never assaults.
In a city where love is king
And indifference is extinct.
In the midst of luxury
Instead of an unheated attic.

Or just sheltered from the world
And free to cry in my own room.

Seized by sorrow,
I oft long to be someone else.
Someone who talks without inhibitions
Someone radiating confidence
Someone for whom food is a friend
And not a cruel enemy.
Someone who flies to the mountaintops
And makes her dwelling there.
Someone who never blushes,
Never blunders,
Never despairs
And never falters.
Someone of resilience
And resolve
And a solution
To every problem.
Someone taller
Blonder,
Prettier
And smarter.
Or I just wish to be
Someone who can love me
Because that person must be
A saint or an angel.

I sometimes wonder
if people ever long to be me.
Then I wonder why it is
That I can embrace an enemy
And forgive a criminal
But I can never learn
To love myself.

​

     BACK TO LONDON

The black shadows of memories embrace me.
As paradise flies away on a paper plane
And the leaking vase of joy falls into pieces.

And I awaken on the riverbank
To see all,
My hopes, my dreams, my life flow by
Slowly, surely.
And only London stays behind;
My nightmare in daylight,
The city of choking air
And empty hearts.

I hold onto the wind, the smoke, the puff of steam,
All that's upward-bound
And saves me from the inevitable,
Unavoidable,
Ultimate fall.

​

  A STORM IS COMING

The waves still sway softly by the shore,
And the mist of paradise still curtains the land.
But yonder black clouds hold their council
To herald the approach of war.
A storm is coming.
The wind screeches and mocks us.
This time there is no escape.
The boat, oft besieged by rain, cannot withstand more.
The mist dissolves.
The sun hides in fear.
A storm is coming,
And the boat must capsize.
Its cargo, gathered lifelong,
Unseen treasures destined to delight,
All will succumb to decay
When the storm arrives.

I pity thee, woeful captain, who dreamt of 
Happy excursions on summer days,
Envisioning love, and feeding on laughter.
Summer has run away, captain.
And winter is in charge.
From now on, storms will reign and rage.
But worry not, captain.
A mighty storm is coming.
You will soon be at rest.

​

​REMEMBRANCE (IN MEMORY OF MY GRANDFATHER)

A tree with a hundred branches lost its roots,
And gone are the days of candy-coated innocence,
The sunscreen-scented summers by the lake,
The pastel dreams born in the faded grass.

We don't float weightless in the golden light,
Nor weave hopes of the coming millennia.
Now we discuss our workplace woes 
And mourn the glory of the past.

One more curtain has been drawn,
One more library burnt to ashes.
In our hands, a box of overexposed memories,
In our ears the whispers of the victorious dusk.
Cries, prayers, smiles all swallowed by the greedy night
And ten questions grown from the seeds of sunrise.

Nausea engulfs the stifling stillness 
Tornadoes scream in the boiling silence.
But the river flows undisturbed,
And the tree stands proud like the nursing roots.
And it will prosper again, and flourish forevermore 
A billion branches will soon conquer the sky.

​

    WHAT HAPPENS?

What happens to dreams when they die?
Do they grow wings and soar to heaven?
Do they roam free, do they play,
Their white robes untainted by the smoke,
A piece of my childhood in their hands?

​

     OF TRUE FAITH

The truest faith is not of those
Who brandish their blessings
In feigned awe,
Boasting of that which they unjustly received,
Nor of those who drink freely of fortune's fountain,
Thinking the reward fair
And themselves better than the rest.
For it is easy to kiss the hand that abounds in gifts,
And lift the name that has raised you high.

No, true faith is of those who are ever-pressed by misfortune
But still only bend their knees to God.
Those who welcome illness, pain, hunger, and all evils
With an unfaltering smile.
Those who dance amongst the shards of dreams
And give thanks for a sip of air
A touch of sunlight,
The fragrance of blossoming trees.
Such faith, born in rags and not silk robes,
Anchored in heaven's hope,
Blind to injustice and ignorant of caprice,
Is wisdom beyond life, beyond time, beyond fortune.

​

      SILENCE LOOMS

Neon light fades, black velvet shrouds me.
Swansong on a broken gramophone.
Blunt, heavy, blunt, heavy
Clockbeats. Heartbeats.
Dying time. The air moves no more. Rigor mortis.
An inkpot rolls across the ground.
Wasted ink flows, wasted blood,
Then it dries a stain on the carpet.
Memento mori.
Silence looms, silence calls

- Unwelcome.
Words purge me, words console me, words embrace me.
Yesterday I cried the bathtub full,
Today I dove into it.
Tonight I'll cry it full again.
Then I'll write, write, write
Half-formed hope on a torn sheet
I'll write, write, write
In haste
Until my pen dries out
And the bathtub overflows.
Or until my pen overflows,
And the bathtub dries out.