Когда исчезла земная опора,

I left the door open too long.
Light crawled in,
touched everything I couldn’t name.
Dust circled like old prayers,
too quiet to believe in.

Streets crack below,
each car another beat borrowed from your world.
I think of you in the reflection
not your face,
just how still the glass was after you left.

If I’m still somewhere,
it’s between stars,
in the pause between a sound and its proof.
A small, patient sound
forgetting who made it.

I walk until the sky erases the idea of destination.
Billboards speak in light I can’t translate.
The moon flickers,
as if buffering another planet’s thought.

I used to write lists of things to fix
now I just listen to silence,
wait for it to rhyme.

If I’m still somewhere,
it’s not for long.
Every error grows tired of spelling.
Every goodbye becomes a friend.

Night folds around me,
neither kind nor cruel.
Just enormous enough
to call it peace.

Still Somewhere

the german word for despair is ‚verzweiflung‘ which has the word ‘zweifel’ (=doubt) at its core. this means that despair literally translates as ‘lost/entangled/caught up in doubts.’

etymologically, this can be explained by the loss of hope for improvement, i.e., doubt that something bad could turn out well in the foreseeable future.

one could philosophize at length about doubts. I guess this has already been done in heaps. especially since, beyond the torment of perceived hopelessness, doubts also have absolutely positive aspects. they are an essential part of intelligence and wisdom. just as their absence clearly indicates stupidity and arrogance (#dunning-kruger). so being smart always means agonizing over the question of whether you are actually smart.

apropos agonizing, a relatively tolerable form of despair undoubtedly goes hand in hand with the conflict between the desire for individual freedom and interpersonal bonds. can I translate that as the “have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too-dilemma”?

fortunately, I/we personally never had a problem with this, because I/we never experienced or felt our relationship as conflict of freedom and commitment. however, looking at the course of relationships in our son's generation, I get the feeling that there is a lot of turmoil at work. relationship stress and divorces all over the place. that fits with my album topic! 

here’s a song I wrote about 20 years ago with just the first line of the chorus and later released as a semi-instrumental on sc ages ago. now lyrics have been added (translation hopefully not too wordily phrased) – and with them vocals based on my guitar templates, where suno once again acted extremely annoying. the machine repeatedly tends to slip into hackneyed vocal patterns and that means having to start completely from scratch…

©music and lyrics by Hans-Michael Albers, instrumental cover & vocal performance by suno 5

I reach for your arms, but I dream of the sky
I ache for your touch, yet I can’t comply
You whisper ‘home,’ and I drift away
Each time I linger, I lose my way

My heart’s confined while my thoughts run free 
Two fractured souls coexist in me
One craves the flame, one longs for the breeze 
I’m love’s own patient, undone by its disease

As much I love you, I feel the blues
The more I hold you, the more I lose

It’s a holy war, a graceful crime
To beg for forever yet plead for time 
You’re my redemption, my sweet undoing 
Every path I take leads back to you

There’s no victory in a game like this
Where freedom and love can’t coexist 
To live is to lose, to stay is to die 
So, I fade to ash beneath your sky

As much I love you, I feel the blues
The more I hold you, the more I lose
As deep I feel you, I lose my ground
As near I find you, you can’t be found

As long I chase you, the more I fade
As much I trust you, the more I’m afraid
As much I need you, I pay the dues
As much I love you, I feel the blues

John My Beloved (iPhone Demo)

Sufjan Stevens

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