writing The Armchair of Louis Caligari

[RiseofSpectrum 359]

Note: I wrote this poem as an ode to a character from a portuguese theathre show call "POLTRONA" (Armchair), called Luís (Louis) Caligari, which is itself a tribute to the film "The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari".

 

Sit down, child
Let me tell you who I am,
Remembering the wild,
Being taken to Vietnam,
Countries, boundaries, limits,
To me they do not exist,
Natural laws of physics
Are something to be dismissed

Tell me, my armchair, what am I supposed to do?
To speak emotionally, to burst a few tears?
I'm dressed up in style, I'm prepared too
For one session I've anticipated for years

I know you stand there, you want me to sit,
But the room is big and I don't want to feel comfortable,
Unprepared to cry, the elevator blocked it,
Commanding desire, but feeling unable

My name is Louis Caligari,
I sleepwalk and have strange memories,
Insane ghosts, don't know what they are,
But I have so many lives, so many different stories

Old hags at the bus, I love pissing them off,
Horsing around, the wood doll's frozen pain,
We go back and forth, something unheard of,
Unsightly, mentioning Descartes in vain

Drop from the window, Mister Doctor X,
Burn your arm, create your own street,
Careful approach, removal of mask,
Armchair, so long, let's get some coffee to eat

With the force of expression, my speech gets fragmented,
The lift that took me here is an old and beautiful creation,
A musical room lately in need to be resented,
Alone in here, my movement is nothing but spider animation

So now, I'll go and feel, I'll take a seat
Just to discover how I feel, how I sit in this armchair,
Because it is it, a sofa, a marquise, a chaise long, something neat,
I'm tired, not from being here, but because I am, trapped in the air

So I'd kindly ask, at this precise moment, to die
But first, I'll need to take this out of my throat,
It would be all over with a simple blink of an eye,
Just so I can get out of this room I loathe

Edited September 2, 2013 by RiseofSpectrum