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Light and Shade 2007 - 2016
Lycabetou Stairs
Stairs cast in magical light,
while a dog waits there,
let a shadow peer ahead.
As to who may descend
besides Nothingness
if not Duchamp’s naked beauty.
Much has vanished in the Athenian maze
no more was he to be seen once she left.
The dream at the top of the stairs
wondered if Vermeer’s blue
would ever make her return one day.
Atop of Likavitos hill she searched
for her own self having gone astray
in some other light and glare.
About a man and woman,
if they wish to outpace destiny,
nothing will reap their changes.
Fixated at the bottom of the stairs
he waited for her to descend
as if bidding forever farewell.
She still waited at Phileon café
In expectation of the book
To have been completely read.
If only life could begin again
by climbing up to greet the sky
finally coming down to words.
Say nothing more, nothing less
since desire for love needs to be
fulfilled foremost together
and not alone.
Hatto Fischer Athens 20.1.2007
Half shades
Evidence of the photo club in Kolonaki, Athens having closed down in 2006
Half shades, my fellow, do not become your face,
You need to touch and paint with some colors
For otherwise no one will adorn your grave
But then you are not the weeping willow or
An empty hand of a beggar standing outside the church
But the photographer wondering where the black and white
Has gone in the digital age for things are left behind
As never before and abandoned are the reminders
Of what life was before not half a century or more ago
But just yesterday even though that seems so far away
To even remember how films were dipped in chemical waters
With magic like development processes transforming the images
Until on paper there revealed themselves the contours of a different face
Never seen before but after such a blow up it was recognizable
That this was not the person I was relating to before
But now how to deal with the difference if not Josef Karsh like
Then as Spoon River imaginary dialogue with the moon lit face
In the park by the dream street passing over to the other side.
Hatto Fischer 17.1.2007
The fisherman in Southern France close to the bridge with different shades of light
Southern France, near Monpazier Photo: HF
If fishes could only see what he is up to,
But then, mountain streams differ
From wide rivers becoming lazy at the next bend
Especially when they dry up during the hot summer months
And no one there to care for them.
But this fisherman is ostensibly foregone,
Different to himself in this other world
When silence hovers around his head
Like sweet dreams cooling the forehead
When left alone to just think about time
Flowing past at a slow drift of leisure
At the finger tips when yet another fish
Takes a nipple or two without so much biting
Onto his tune of come with me, come with me…
Forsaken, forlorn, a spice and darn of a belly,
The songs of the children spin him around
And whatever he begets, he forgets
So quick is the pace once he has his dancing shoes on.
It took him a while to recover from this pace.
But now, down at the river, he does not mind
So much that his side still aches a bit
But if observed carefully he does touch with his fingers
In the left side pocket a bit that wounded side
More of pride than anything else.
Countries look for symbols like the farmer for the mill
Whenever there is a need to identify a place
Not via a complicated language but with an imaginative guess
This would be it, if some doubts are put to rest
And freedom just a way to let that fisherman get on with his life.
Hatto Fischer
Athens 16.12.2009
November sky in Southern France @ hf 2009
Just to remember, light plays everywhere a role, but when one is in Southern France during November, the coming of the winter can be sensed. Heavy clouds rush along the horizon as if to compliment the heavy truck moving fast along.
Shadows on the wall
Spetses August 2015
What do shadows say
when projections on walls
take care that the glance
does not go far,
but in the imagination
they curl back
as if twisted
by the soft wind
speaking with branches
about health and troubles
in need to be resolved
in time to escape
for now the grip of death.
Or something else
is entailed in projections
as reminder of Plato's cave,
but now in broad daylight
they appear like a puzzle
since elections loom ahead
in September and no one knows
what other outcome there exists
than uncertainty and more confusion
about the consequences
especially after the referendum
left in doubt what a "no" means.
26.4.2016
* Note: September 25th Syriza and Tsipras as Prime Minister was re-elected to the surprise of many observers since he had agreed finally in July to the conditions connected with the Third Bail-out and after the referendum had 60% rejecting the new conditions of the Memorandum of Understanding.
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