International Kissing Day, 2015

Gustave Klimt's The Kiss

Yes, today's international kissing day. For the rest of the year, only hugs are allowed. And a lot of killing.

My studies in linguistics remind me that first we've to deal with ambiguity here. Is this a day for international kissing, or a kissing day for more than one nation? I chose the first meaning, but you're free to kiss only persons who were born inside the same abstract, controversial, and man made borders as yours. 

Borders that are now being used as safe havens to withhold cash from your economy, extracting cash from your pockets (which has a dire effect on the amount of kissing you may get or are willing to engage in) through higher taxes to those who cannot evade them. Borders that in some cases are likely to be linked with devastation in many forms. And therefore having to do more with killing than with kissing. 

In some instances, however, the absence of borders is what makes conflict more likely, as in the cases of Kurdistan or Euskal Herria (Basque Country), which are single cultures divided by borders not of their own. People there can on occasion be forced to international kissing even if they don't want to. 

I'd be even more of a fool if I forgot to mention that in Eastern Ukraine the majority wants to kiss Russian men on the lips while in Western Ukraine kissing Germans tends to be more trendy. 

The apparently steady rise of nationalism in Europe will most likely hinder international kissing. In Hungary, the extreme right is gaining ground as we saw by the outcome in the last elections, while, in France, Marine Le Pen doesn't want her dose of fatherly kissing any more. 

And if you're still in doubt that kissing is related to borders, here's one last argument: inserting the tongue in your partner's mouth is a question of establishing a bridge in between two different bodies' limits (borders). And if there were no borders at all it wouldn't be called French kissing. 

So wherever you are, whichever is your gender of the six (heterosexual, bisexual, gay, lesbian, transsexual, or asexual), there are no limits to this international kiss of mine. I particularly nourish the thought of ISIS (Daesh) men French kissing each other today. They are indeed fighting to establish borders where there were none, and their origin is international. Set up the example, boys! And stop fooling around with more borders.

Rodin's Riders

Auguste Rodin's "Centaur"

To ride with and be ridden simultaneously;
pure, coeval, ride and rider:
the very stuff of synchronicity.  

Abandoning self-control, sweaty, 
animal and anima together, 
the longer they trot the more
their minds bloom away disarmingly, 

Then they gallop:

road, dirt;
orchards, colours;
stones, moons;
town, church;
hilltop, silence;
beach, breeze;

Halt! A break: 

a verdant picnic ensues, new smells,
sight scanning the surroundings,
a radar which will bleep only once 
to tell love to home in on the lover
thus beginning their face à face,
coeur à coeur: il faut courir.  

Newark

for Jennifer


In Newark, a bird landed,
of skies weary, merry its eyes.

An entire continent of humanity
had been under its wings,
incontinent prattle by its side.

Yet, when we move up close,
birds that so gracefully soared
are the embodiment of anxiety.

Mostly so in Spring, nesting,
collecting twig and straw
out of the best tree and field
that while soaring they saw.

Drinking from a nearby pond,
they cool down for a new round
until down the sun goes,
their chirp piercing the dusk
before the tranquil night.

Half the work being done,
soon our bird will fully rest
its bright plumage and breast
amidst the fruit of its toil.

And then, seen from the soil,
secure, a work of much art,
its nest will become a new ark.