Some things
have stopped in their tracks,
like the small washing machine
some relative gave me,
when, after a divorce,
I became a single father with a son of two
in 1986

My brother, 15 years my senior, now turning 90,
installed it in the kitchen

It's still not uninstalled, but completely dead

I don't even think of it as a washing machine

I haven't, for decades

It occupies a small space in a corner between the door
to a tiny inner hallway and the sink unit;
a meaningless space;
at least not used for its original cause;
thus stopped in its tracks, forgotten & forlorn,
like a temple grown over in a South American jungle,
used for whatever item I place on it, temporarily;
small things of the kind that swarms anybody's presence
in this world

This used-to-be washing machine was left to itself
very early on,
when it became more practical,
as the son grew a bit older,
to use the big machines in the basement
of a neighbouring tenement building,
where the block's common laundry rooms are situated

The son – the 1986 reason for my tiny white gurgler
forever displaced in off mode - is 40,
and we've not been on speaking terms for decades

Our relation stopped in its tracks long, long ago

That white cube in the corner speaks silently
of another time,
which stays alive nowhere but in my old diaries,
so it never will gurgle again, and that's it!
Stopped in it's tracks!

In fact, that whole way of living, down south,
has, more or less, stopped in its tracks,
kept slightly alive like an ill individual
in a respirator
by my intermittent periods of attendance,
which, however, more & more feel like visits
to a museum
full of distorting mirrors,
some of which are covered;
a museum-to-be that was left, stopped in its tracks,
when I met Anna in the mountains,
on whose farm way up north near the Polar Circle
I spend most of my time since fourteen years,
resorting to a kind of half-life or maybe double-life,
that isn't uncomfortable; just unusual,
none of us needing, or looking for, a final commitment
of any judicial kind,
moving on together and apart with not one day
stopping in its tracks,
while others around us indeed do stop in their tracks,
recycling their thoughts, their manners, their days,
their moments of holiness & sins

On the balcony down south
I have a mouldy armchair made of wood
and imitated leather,
covered with a large piece of some synthetic fabric
covered with white bird droppings,
made to put under your tent
when hiking in the mountains,

Out there I also have some contraptions
with FM antennas
that I needed back in the 80s & 90s,
before the transmissions got digitized

Now they're just remains from an old time,
stopped in their tracks, stooping, useless

Downstairs in the tenement building
all tenants have each their own storage room,
mine crammed with rejected furniture
and other meaningless stuff, plus an old bike;
all items that have stopped dead in their tracks
a long time ago

I haven't got around to disposing of all these
dead & immobile objects,
which becomes all the more obvious and worrying
each time Anna & I pack the trailer
or even the horse trailer up north
to bring stuff that has stopped in its northern tracks
to the communal waste dump

Anna has chosen a lifestyle up north that demands heavy tools,
machinery and vehicles,
while I, down south, don't even own a car

If I'd been a more social being
I'd probably had friends and associates
that I'd easily could have asked for assistance,
but that not being the case,
the stuff that stops in its tracks remains present,
silent and immobilized; only hidden from view,
crowding my past with dysfunctionality!

Of course I have to rent a car and a trailer
to get the remains of times gone by out of the way

I'm not accustomed to driving a car with a trailer hooked up,
but I know that is a poor excuse

That chore is growing on my mind, I can feel it,
I can feel it...!

Still, the only tracks I personally stop in,
from time to time,
are the ski tracks I make on open black core ice lakes
and through the depths of unlimited forests
here up north, from November to May,
in the wider vicinity of Anna's farm,
which is good for now

Later, we'll see

I'm not a Buddhist,
and I don't believe in getting a replacement self,
so some day I will stop in my tracks,
but I won't be aware!