before you do

getting ready: a cup of tea
or a permanent water mug
index finger, a control key
or an input and jack to plug

naked skin versus naked brain:
guess which one will be hurting more
no one promises you remain
just the same as you were before

expectation / prediction / hope
handkerchief or a heart-warm laugh
that's a legal permitted dope
you have chosen to suffer of

that's a moment before you hear
something you have received today
get prepared to disappear
have the pleasure
of pressing
PLAY

My dear mistakemaker

Then again, everything is a journey, sweetheart (sourheart, bitterheart, poignantheart, choose any). Your skillful swimming in the irritating dark winter mud – be it literal melting snow with dirt or your melting soul, discovering dirt underneath. Your mesmerizing falling down, my dear mistakemaker. Isn’t it beautiful to see us fall? Take a photo of it, make the journey eternal. 

Our path is full of spices. Bring some adjika to the front when the world gets too full of cinnamon. Love through tabasco, soothen it with some sumac and peppermint. Yerba mate is pulling your hair: get out of bed! Upcoming spring is getting nowhere without you. 

Pat this old city on its brown shoulders. I know it got empty. If out of you both one has faked its anabiosis, the other one has to wake up. I know it doesn’t sound like it at all now, but don’t you think it could have been the only way to teach you? Disagree, blame it on the cold February wind, continue acting like a lonely warrior, fight the shadows. Realise it has always been you who kept going. 

Words you are definitely going to regret are a part of the journey as well. Master of useless feats noone is going to learn about, be brave and call someone when you think it’s the right time to. Because one of all the times you gracefully fail is going to be right, after all. You’ll nail it – once that very moment you’ll think you’re inevitably falling might be the moment she’ll be on her way to pick up your call. 

don't interrupt

seen but not saved: so meet me at where i am:
i have gone years, and this is my highest peak.
i am aware of being so small and lame.
i will keep going to hear you before you speak.

i am so grateful i’ve come here, so hear me out:
sometimes that race to perfection’s a heavy brick
often at times when my wish is to shoot not shout,
one inappropriate word is a heavy kick

i am as clear in front of you as i might:
sometimes the rescue is not what i’m waiting for
any idea how dark is the way to light,
fully encompassed by aching for more and more

yes, i’m beholden you challenge me to refine –
please, just be patient, cause many before you tried.
nothing as simple as drawing a finish line, 
nothing as hurtful as making it amplified

i will keep going to hear you before you speak, – 
i am aware of being so lame and frail.
i have gone years, and this is my highest peak,
part of my plan is to make it a fairy-tale.

never too late

your coloring childhood books,
the first of your soft toy idols,
is where you have got your looks
and colorful painted titles
of novels you dream to write
and publish, at least a couple
you’re sure you will get it right
you’re supple

ten years before you grow
moustaches and beards and ego
the world is your greatest show,
the stages are still illegal
it’s fifteen before you get
anxiety that’s so trendy
so easy to get upset, 
so handy

in twenty you’ll throw that trend
in trash can of eco plastic
live balanced, don’t overspend,
stay versatile and sarcastic,
use hashtags, obey the stocks, 
eat clean, make your peers ecstatic
the books were just childish talks
in attic

then somewhen in late July
it’ll dawn on you, gray-haired, fifty –
you’ve spent all your life to try
to prove everyone you’re thrifty
it’s never too late to weep
on chances you fucked up neatly,
on those you have hidden deep,
completely

while hugging you tight and warm,
your grandson will say you’re boring
too rusty to be transformed, 
too tacky to get restoring
remember creative state
of writing, as if you care?
it almost became too late
to share

Creator

in the darkest of ultimate possible depths
there’s an infinite centre of growth
if the planet is ready to slowly collapse,
then the question is whether you quit, or perhaps
keep on playing — and learn from them both

if the number of words ever outflows the time,
we are left with a reason to live
and a reason to finally drop off the dime,
and a reason to surely remember that i’m
always willing to hope and forgive

that’s too bad we are often not having enough
solid chances to prove we exist
but it’s thanks to the mess and the darkness and huff
our spines do get stronger and perfectly tough,
and the hurricanes having them kissed

who was kissed by the wind, he is ready to go,
he’s more ready than anyone else
he might seem just a shadow a second ago,
you might even not notice his dim afterglow,
but you’ll feel irresistible spells

they will tell you the names hoarsely whispered by wind,
they will mention you probably can
also follow the steps of the razored and thinned
ones who often accept they’ve mistaken and sinned,
so are free to let go of the plan, —

and the freedom is golden. you suddenly learn
you are able to outgrow your fate
with the light that has given you blisters and burns,
through the clouds, that are roughly excessively torn,
you are standing to love and Create

don't you give up

don’t you give up on me, don’t you dare give up,
when i’ll be curling in agony, — it will pass.
there have been times when i desperately had to stop
just to prevent me from breaking the fragile glass

that sounds so weird, but my life was consisting of
anti-examples, all showing me how to not.
every predictable breath could reduce to cough,
transferring strongest belief into second thought

don’t you give up on obstacles — they will change,
right when you won’t be expecting your gods to hear
sitting on top of that mountain within your range
won’t necessarily trigger the biggest fear

good that you are unaware how much it aches
banging and banging and banging on rotten door
might be the time to let go and release the brakes,
might be the moment to cancel that need for more

although i’m tired and silent, don’t you give up,
you’ll be surprised what you’ll patiently unexpect
modern professional options to overdub
drastically lose to imperfect and incorrect

silence

the ways, how silence lies between
two people, sharply may vary
sometimes depicting things unseen,
thus useless to a focused eye

there comes the time when silence is
as sharp as freshly sharpened blade
that brings the other to his knees 
to make him realize he’s late

a silent cloud that hangs on top
of cosy little empty towns
like long ago forgotten prop,
accumulating extra sounds

then pours those sounds when comes the time
on top of someone who deserves
a lesson for committed crime
or justice to his rotten nerves

a silent night, that’s rest to some,
to others — torture ‘till the rise,
an empty void to overcome,
survive until the morning skies

adjust the compass, calibrate
its tiny intuition peaks
to guide you through the utmost state
of listening before he speaks

the way of silence giving space
to faze, embarass or support
is gambling on a paper chase,
a trust you have to learn of sort

it may be comforting and light,
or may just hang there like a sword
it takes you both to feel alright
before is born the precious Word

quilt

I was born white. Caring family, mom and dad, a country that was just one year from getting out of the Soviet Union and 14 years before joining the European. My passport said Latvian, and I believed it to be true, until I lived to my teens and figured out I’m quarter Latvian, Polish and Belorussian, quarter Jewish, half Russian with a hint of German blood. Half of my family was Old orthodox, quarter Jewish, and remaining quarter christened me to be Catholic – then I took the nationality out of my passport stating I belong to them all. Living in an independent country with a bunch of interdependent people, being able to speak loud, say what I want, without too many consequences.

Dad did his best to teach me how to carefully pick my principles and stick to them until I die and never betray any, nor ever to change my beliefs. I grew to learn he was all wrong. Mom did her best to teach me unconditional love – those lessons brought me to some harsh outcomes, but probably that’s a part of the lesson as well. Do whatever makes you happy, if it doesn’t harm anyone else, is the lesson I’m sticking to – hopefully this one stays with me until I die.

We are different, all of us; skin colours, behaviour patterns, religions, names. “You have to grow up and learn all people are following the same patterns,” once said one of my employers, and all I learned ever since was that despite wars and betrayals the world can be beautiful, it can depend on an angle you’re looking from, and she was also wrong. The way you can hug a person in one country and cannot enter a private space of somebody in another one is just a dance with some certain rules; you might not know them but you’re still leading your part. Actually, you might not like dancing at all, but you were born in your dancing shoes, so don’t fuck it up.

Quilt is a multi-layered textile, traditionally composed of three layers of fiber, combined using the technique of sewing the layers together. You, me, each of us in this room, we are just a multi-layered textile cloth sewn together to cover the globe. We are a good large quilt, all of us, and there have been so many times I’ve damn hoped the stitches will never fail.

I know three and a half languages, two of them I talk while sleepwalking. My family lives in five countries and I have friends living in more countries than I can count. The least thing to learn is the ability to be grateful in as many languages as you can, even if the only thing to be grateful for is the fact that this planet speaks more than six and a half thousand languages, and I believe each of them has a word for love.

light

the world is my favorite mess
its wrinkles - my favorite flaws
there’s something in carrying less
of cemeteries, ashes and claws

there’s something in caring more
for people who wander around
‘cause if you undress to the core
you’ll see it began with a sound

how long has your half-rotten ship
been sailing to infinite lands?
you’ll see, if you loosen a grip,
your life-long detour never ends,

i wonder and wonder and stop
inhale and admire again
the last irresistible drop,
the battle of monsters and men,

the humans who’re taking the lead,
whatever they’re climbing onto,
and those who are cautiously hid
behind their angle of view

the world is my favorite heap,
disorganized, tangled and tight
but when you have fallen so deep,
next thing you observe is the Light

calm down

taking care of little things
taking pictures of autumn gold
to your window november clings,
wonder what was the truth he told

through the phrame of your latest pic,
auto-focused on grainy glass,
there’s a sparkle within a thick
sacred message “this too shall pass”

after learning to be a huge
irresistible warrior hound,
next you’re learning to build a fuge
that’s as tiny as it may sound

fill the shelves with your fiction books,
pour some tea to your dearest friends
satisfactory as it looks,
hug the battlefield while it ends

to the art of those pumpkin pies,
smell of cinnamon in your hands,
under humid november skies
lie some infinite autumn lands

now you walk through them, calm and slow,
captured hero through tiny lens,
when you try to recall that glow,
you’ll be given a second chance.