Sometimes I wonder
if I really mattered to you
Sometimes I wonder
if you even cared
Or was I just a pretty flower
brought to make you smile
One you never took care of
walking away from me as I cried

To write food in the stomach
Of every hungry child.

To spell war as peace,
Metaphorize flowers into the barrel

Of every gun on Earth.
The poet has responsibilities

Beyond those of mothers,
Of kings and presidents.

I refuse to give up hope;  
This could be a poem world.

Come on, write your worst piece
Of literature.

Even misprints may give other
Meanings to a word,

Write me a green sky, blue dirt,
Trees the colour of air.

Sometimes the best poets
Have the least to say,

So keep writing, write until your
Fingers fall asleep.

Write until you havent slept
For weeks in search of that word,

That one right word,
Then rest on a notebook pillow

And dream the world right.
Write the world right.

There is no such thing as
Wasted poetry.

We laugh
at least you do
I watch you laughing
thinking the joke wasn't really that funny
at least to me

But maybe that's the punchline
I know to you this all makes sense

But that's a different punchline isn't it
for another joke I've never heard
or just don't find funny

maybe this just lacks context, don't you think
even the slightest sense of reality

But the gap between where I stand and where you do is only getting wider
we're drifting, but not together

You keep punching holes in your boat
like bad jokes
asking where the waters come from as you sink

lower
              lower
                         lower

I think its time I untied you from my life (preserver)
less you climb aboard when your boat sinks

Bad jokes and all
no punchline here

Just you and I, not making any sense at all

Four old friends
Dead of winter small town
Germany.
Smoke rising from chimneys
From cigarettes, and pipes
From trains riding the rural rails
From city spires
And factories
From airplanes
Airplanes
and Airplanes,
From Airplanes.
Smoke dancing and laughing
Stinging and coughing
Smoke in my hair and jacket
In the pores of my skin
Smoke in my eyes,
Up the hill
And through the woods
Dead of winter
Small town Germany
Four old friends
Walk two by two
Three by one
Four and four.
Walk by the church,
Down the creek,
Up the hills, the hills
And through the woods
Small town
Germany four old friends
Dead of winter
Cigar smoke and beer
Cigarillos in a chain
Smoke from crystalizing breath
And fireworks
Smoke from bonfires
And tailpipes
Smoke from airplanes
Airplanes and airplanes
Smoke from airplanes.
Smoke stains and cigarette burns
Little circles in my jacket
Germany
Four old friends dead of winter
Small town
Smoke tears
Smoke promises
Smoke memories that linger
Like the faint nausea
Of what-the-hell-has-happened.
I watch the **** end of your last cigarette
Crumpled and fading
In the ashtray of that Badischer bar
And your eyebrow twitched
The heart-wrenching shiver
Of what-the-hell-has-happened.
And I whispered:
(airplanes)
airplanes and airplanes
I whispered airplanes.
That’s what the hell.

Everyone needs something to be good at.

Drowned by your words
Suffocated by ink
Struggling for breath