Moments of Grace by Wolfgang Dios (Excerpts)

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MOMENTS OFGRACE POEMS, PIAYS AND THE REMNANTS OF DREAMS

By Wolfgang (Stussi) Dios

v Compilation @ zozo POLLY POEM PUBLICATIONS

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DEDICATION To the next generation,

with love and gratitude and hope May you find as much beauty in words and feeling as I have

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For Errol, Max, Rosa, Nora, Julian, Fabiana, Katja, Tanya, Alessandra, Ellie, Rudy, Kathy, Alice and Danny your uncle Wolfgang A special thanks to Max Stussi for helping me put it all together

All illustrations by Rudolf Stussi except the black and white illustration on this page,

by Irma Anita Bebie Stussi Dios

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MOMENTS OF GRACE recentwork ENDLESS WINTER

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MODELS ON THE MOON FIRST DAY OF FALL ON REMAINING HUMAN

WHIMSICAL

mo stlA theatrical piece s

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THE POLLY POEM (illustrations by Rudolf Stussi) WESTERN SANDUICH (play)

THE MAzuENBAD ELEGIE (play) THE MARIENBAD ELEGIE (poem by Goethe) (translation by Wolfgang (Stussi) Dios)

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earlier poems A FEW SATIRICAL OBSERVATIONS

THE MOON IN CONJUNCTION WITH VENUS AND JUPITER ELIZABETH IN THE VIOLET PATCH A NIGHT LIKE THIS WRECKAGE LIGHT AND DARK HUNTING SNIPE TO STAY OR TO GO THE IA.ST STORM OF \AruNTER

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COUPLES

A GARNET PENDANT FOR DIANNE LOVE POEM THE DANCE ON VISITING MY MOTHER'S GRAVE I-A.BURNUM GATE

song

THE LONG ROAD AHEAD v

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E]VDI,ESS WINTER

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by Wolfgang (Stussi) Dios

Day and night, I dream of hiding

In the darkest hours A life that leads its own way A moonless night A sunless day I dream of waking When I sleep I think of sleep In daylight hours The sun beats down The moon, it rises I ride the clouds Into the darkness Bathing in the hours of promise

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All secrets I will now reveal To myself in distant fields Where memories rise up in vain Hard to hold on Hard to grasp Like swmming in a sea of glass Of moments lived Of hours loved Of failing hopes And dreams that bring you Down to earth

You dream oflove

And hiding things Of certainties like beating wings

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Howfaryou've come Yet never know

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The distance You have yet to go Restless hopes resurrect the past A future that reveals at last

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What comfort now To move with grace To hide the things That lost their place To come to terms With whom you are To walk through love Like falling rain Where hours gather Like a storm Waiting for the voyage home Words that drift Like wingless birds And moments that Mean all the world Be yourself, it's all a dream

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The silence Of what might have been These words will take you far and wide Into yourself, and then outside One final hour in the sun And a fading light will take you home And a fading light will take you home

A stranger in these mirrored times The sound of loss like distant chimes The bells you touch With hope and fear Of all the things that You hold dear Each moment shouts a silent prayer

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Awish,

a hope

Too many to embrace Of daylight fears And nights of grace

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Of dreams that rise like spectral clouds Of words that drift in hurried hours Hopes that vanish

Dreams that fade Of costs that you have never paid Yet love it lingers

Like a flame Ashamed to be in daylight hours Which fold their petals like the sun Embracing all that you've become Take that hope Climb up the stairs Made of dreams and solemn prayers Force yourself Reach towards the light

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And in that moment Catch the night Embrace the hopes that linger now Grateful for each passing hour Moments take on monstrous shapes A place where fear has no known place

And memories are like the wind Taking you to where you've been

Apast of love and hopeful joys Importuning like the fading dawn And in the sudden light of day You face when you are now alone Sometimes real, and sometimes strange Yet filled with love for what remains The brothers, sisters ofyour heart That fade in darkness, grow bylight That light, the journey of your life

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Dedicatedwithloue to my brother, Rudolf Stussi, in commemoration of his March zotg uisit, the'endless winter' referred to in the title.

Composed 5:7o a.m., March lB,

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MODELS ONTITE MOON a sleepless morning limerick

By Wolfgang (Stussi) Dios

I never stood a chance When models have no pants I look on in frustration And tell them, put some clothes on But how can they obey?

They're all made out of clay Faces frozen in a smile Andbutton eyes Andwrinkled sighs

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It's just a strange small fantasy Now I'm awake, the night has fled

Hauntedby a distant smile The remnants of a sleepless night

Where fantasies push offfrom shore Andtake me somewhereworlds away From where I was just yesterday Laughing faces in the waves Grin and tell me, just be brave Then disappear like broken thoughts And leave behind a frilly froth

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Someone's laughing

Don't knowwho Teasing eyes and wordless lies Awind of promise Clouds like sighs A strange shore looms I see ahead Orjust the headboard Of mybed

I thrash and moan And toss about The naked models throw me out Sink or swim they sayto me But do it quick and gallantly

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I never stood a chance Where models have no pants Stranded in my memories Where everything Seems somewhat real I hope I get to sleep real soon Before the models Take me dancing On the moon

composed 5:So a.m.

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FIRS? DAYOF FALL byWolfgang (Stussi) Dios

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Mortality Thoughts on a Christmas journeyto Lenzerheide.

Odd yet strangely beautiful. To come back to the place of one,s youth, to contemplate death and endings, yet the worldtoo has aged, and one finds

oneself out of alignment.

At first, barely measurable. And then as age takes its toll on the senses, on seeing and hearing, a distance sets in and also an inevitable, yet also sad, nostalgia for a past that seems so much brghter than it was.

Age looms large. Mistakes become regrets. Decades merge remorselessly and in the midst are your restless dreams of hopes and goals accomplished, and failures irretrievable. Hard to grasp. The past has left you behind. Stranded. Isolated. Time in flux. Emotions so neir the surface, so fragile like winter crystals of snow, dissolving as you watch, forming the very heart of your watching.

Yet your life has a meaning it did not possess when you were young.

There is a breadth and depth to memories and experience, an often painful perspective of what was achieved at such great effort , and what was lost with so much pain.

Yet you would not exchange it for anything. Dreams are heaven and doubts are hell.

Photo albums. Memories of distant songs. Of friendships,love and all the attendant emotions and expectations so densely packed together they become impossible to separate or, sometimes, to dis-1nter. pride in whaf you have accomplished along with the painful humility of memories in

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ebb andflow.

Always you think of death. What once seemed romantic and fraught with passion, eagerly embraced by youth, is now weak and watery ur[ full oJ doubt. With age come memories like a waterfall, cascading thiough the present, you drink endlessly yet somehow are never full.

Best not to be alone in this. With age eomes a restless seeking out.

A brief sharp pain in your chest reminds you of mortality. A heedless tomorrowthat once seemed urgently endless, burdened by memories that oc,casionally seem too much to carry further. yet you cannot bring yourself to put this precious burden down.

You hope. You wait. You wonder.

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composed Sept. zB,

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ON REMAI,IVIATG

IIUMAN

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by Wolfgang (Stussi) Dios Our lives are more than mere history -- they are the echo of love and despair, of hope and resignation. The invisible filaments of memory in which lie our guiding spirit.

Even on a motorcyle, you cant out-race time. It follows, it perseveres, it embraces. As you age, you tend to lose your bearings. There's a distance between you and the world, chance leaves you stranded. Now a world that shares everything electrically, but little of importance. A dense fog of irrelevancies you struggle to rise above. To resume some clarity about yourself and life. The tenets of early childhood, of adolescence and being an adult are eroded, leaving you isolated and unsatisfied. Around you the worldbecomes noise, and it is not music, but the echoes of memory, of what the world (and you in it) once was.

It is not merely change, but the importance of being an individual within those changes, and how understanding increases even as the ability to effect change erodes.

It's heartbreaking -- the dissolution of this fabric, of what fashions our common identity, a welter of electronic signals sending posts into the ether like lost prayers. Even the realitybecomes an often unbearable dissonanee between you and your heart.

You are isolated and seek solace in memory. No cell phones here. No video presence. It is you confronting yourself, protecting the mind and heart from much of the world you no longer understand or empathize

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with.

Of course friends still exist, as to remembrance, photographs and hidden recognitions. Yetyou no longer really recognizeyourself, clinging somewhat desperately to a half-forgotten past, struggling to find an emotional balance in a world increasingly at odds with your soul. The cold realities: climate change, crooked self-serving politicians, a society at war with itself and others, ultimately untenable. Electric siguals do not bring us closer but shred reality into irrelevance, the truth sadly lost amidst all the noise.

It is your memory that makes you human, the rest is mere diversion, an isolation you resist but inevitably permeates each restless day. You seek solace in words and music and friends, in photogtaphs of past Christmas celebrations, of remembered words and instinctive kindnesses.

Family, or memories of family, are the eternal guides: steadfast, stalwart. Where hope and faith are not irrelevant. And where you are most trulyyourself. composed 8 a.m. Aug 9, zotg

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WIIIMSICAL a Christmas poem

by Wolfgang (Stussi) Dios

An intimate wind Andbeautiful dreams The world is not always Quite as it seems The weather, it shifts Where memories fail And a past full of longing Is the future ordained

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Where maps make themselves And roads never end Where hope struggles onwards Searching for friends To be lost, to be found With the sky as your mirror

Whilethe earth Holds your heart

composed 6 a,m. Nou 14,

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TIIE POLLYPOEM (Upon Waking From A Forgotten Dream)

Intimations of mortality follouing open-heart surgery.

By Wolfgang (Stussi) Dios

Illustration by Rudolf Stussi What is wrong with Polly She's heading for a fall And if you tried to catch her Her skin would make you crawl Her eyes are sharp like razors Her breath is like the sea She'll tell you that she loves you Until the tide comes in

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Polly is the creature That lives inside your soul The darkness and the pleasure Will never rest for long

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She climbs the wall like raindrops

Her tears they flow like ice Her touch is like a memory Of someone else's life

The gifts she tries to give you Are always filledwith woe Wrapped in all her daydreams Tied neatly in a bow

She laughs but can't remember

The sadness of the world Her laugh is like an echo Like a sound without a friend

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Polly isn't you or me She's there, that's all she is

Lurking in the corners Caught inside herself, you see Uncertain of what is to come Forgetful of what's been Not to knowthe future But to live the past again Polly is a part of you Her grin is like a clock That doesn't know which way to turn The hours fall like rocks

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Yet keeps on coming back

Polly is a dreamer Whose dreams are like a mask

She says she'll be a friend to you Then goes her merryway

Laughing with a sound So very much like pain I

Polly is a side of you That's almost never seen She runs, she hides She's never through And she ean be quite mean

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But sometimes in the darkness When all seems to be lost She comes by like an empty room And offers you her heart She sings to you With notes like willowtrees She hugs you and just won't let go Just like a summer breeeze

And when she leaves There's something odd A moth that wanders in the night A star that just ean't fall

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And when she's gone A stillness comes The patient sound ofyears The grass beneath her feet Has furned into her fears It's time to put your boots on It's time to leave this place Polly is another word For what you have to face

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We never know what's coming Or what we must endure

It's Polly's little secret you'll come back soon

She hopes

There's always just a grain of sand On which you havent stood There'll always be a star so far It really can't be yours

But Polly's there and speaks of all The beasts and all the stars That gave you life, that make you dream Of coming back again

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Not really like a promise Nor is it a threat just It's that playful Polly Is clothed in your regrets

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Her eyes they are unflinching Her gaze is still and pure A distant look, that's like a gift That's waiting at your door

And when at last, she turns away

It's with

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silent grace

Of all the things that could have been Of all the love that stays

And as she leaves Her tiny steps Are beating like your heart Waiting for the moment When the two of you will talk

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The seconds are like marbles She rolls like living dice Her moments are the memories That keep you up at night

She can't be grasped She can't be still

She's having too much fun To see the sadness that she brings Beats memories like drums

Towards the fading light she moves Dancing through a crowd Littered with the things you've lost And voices fade like clouds

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You can't pick up the pieces These hands are not your own Once theywere, but long ago You must be moving on

Her kindness is the hope we've seen Reflected in her eyes Her touch is grace itself, you see Forgetful as she is

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Now say goodbye, it's time to go It's been a special treat So dance with her before she goes Upon her flying feet

composed 5:3o

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