Castorp

Floating between a decent past and an unknown future.

Feels like my head is spinning in these wuthering heights.

Here rules a different dimension of time,

like smoke on a glacier trying to escape the ice.

I'm urging my nephew to leave this place behind.

The walls can barely fend off the coughs of death.

In a bed where someone recently passed away,

staring at the ceiling: clutching my health.

 

A door slams shut, a pneumonic whistle.

My heart is pounding, like a maniac,

the floor keeps dancing, tidal river.

Pale green skin, no intention to stay here

amidst fragile souls living horizontal lives,

but my bones are brittle, like putty,

headaches, nosebleeds, nausea, cold sweat.

 

I feel like an old man, forever trapped on this mountain.

Once again I'm enthralled by Kyrgyz eyes,

my head in the clouds, devoured by fever.

The doctor says, "You need to lie down

and stay for much longer.

Fortunately you've got a talent for sickness."

A talent for doing nothing at all.

 

Thunderstruck and lightning like a spy

looking inside me, the red bulb a vicious threat.

There is a fire, there's an earthquake.

Look deep into my fleshless bones,

my pale green fragile soul.

This is what we all look like a hundred years from now.

 

We experience time like an abandoned child.

Weeks turn into months, months turn into years.

And she crawls inside my head and rattles my tear ducts.

She slashes and stabs at my heart, making

flesh wounds, promoted to art.

She holds me enslaved, I'm a puppet

attached to her strings.

 

And I'm dancing, dancing,

yes, I'm dancing, dancing.

There is no time, there is no mind,

only the body, our sick, sick bodies.

 

And we're dancing, dancing,

yes, we're dancing, dancing.

All the moribundi are dancing,

yes, they all dance the dance of death.

 

Bring them flowers, light a candle,

make conversation, they shall not be forgotten.

Drink with them, share a light meal,

take them to the movies and make their eyes

flicker with glee, keep dancing, dancing,

they shall not be forgotten.

 

Visit a cemetery, shiver in the cold.

An empty grave, waiting in the snow.

They shall not be forgotten.

Can I borrow your pencil?

Do I know you from a painting?

 

A door slams shut in my heart when you leave

and I dwell in memories of you the way you dwell in me.

You left a picture of your soul: flesh and bones.

A yearning that shall not be forgotten.

 

Everybody's leaving and they're trying to snatch me away.

They're coming up the mountain, they fail.

I have earned my freedom now, I will stay.

Just a few more months or a couple of years.

Maybe! Waiting for her to come back,

to come back to me.

 

I saw your face in the snow one day,

kept pushing myself until I almost froze to death.

What is the relevance of time? When did my nephew die?

When did I get another chance

to look into these Kyrgyz eyes?

Who did she bring with her? A king or a fool?

A captain. A venomous kiss. We're only human.

 

There is a huge gap inside me, fill it with cards

and music. Talk to the dead, evoke visions

in my head and fill the room with glee.

When did all these things happen on the mountain of sin?

Gossip, violence, suicide.

 

Thunderstruck and lightning, war is now inside me.

It's been ages since I last read a paper, head in the clouds.

War is all around me, nothing else matters.

War is all around me, nothing else matters.

 

And we're dancing, dancing,

yes, we're dancing, dancing.

War is all around us,

but we're dancing, dancing.