No one born too far from Niedersachsen, said Oma,
ever quite captures their sing-song intonation.
Characterized by subtleties, like an umlauted vowel,
all non-native imitations sound inevitably as ******
as would a cry of “ello, guv’nah!” in a London coffee shop.

Her Plattdeutsch instincts neutered
by decades abroad, married to a son of Milwaukee,
her permanent, dormant longing for Salzgitter awakes only
to trigger hunger pangs of irreconcilable nostalgia
at the passing whiff of a Germantown bakery.

She taught me the word “sehnsucht” over lukewarm coffee
and a pause in our conversation: a compound word
that no well-intentioned English translation
could render faithfully.
It isn’t the same as just longing, she sighed— longing is curable.
Sehnsucht holds the fragments
of an imperfect world and laments
that they are patternless. How the soul
yearns vaguely for a home
remembered only in the residual ache
of incomplete childhood fancies;
futile as the ruins
of an ancient, annihilated people.
How life’s staccato joys soothe
a heart sore from the world,
yet the existential hunger, gnawing
from the malnourished stomach
of the bruised human psyche, remains—
insatiable, eternal.

Long enough ago, a reasonably-priced bus ride away
from the red-roofed apartment in which she babbled her first words,
a kindly old man in a pharmacy asked her
about her peculiar, exotic accent. Once inevitably prompted
with the question of where she was from, she responded only
that she was a tourist off the beaten track.

And when I pointed out, to my immediate regret,
that she gets the same question back here in Ohio,
I realized then that, not once, has she ever referred to the way
the people of her pined-for hometown spoke
as though she had ever belonged to it.

-I-

Adoration-
Somnambulists cast
paradise magic, allowing a thimble to fall
upon the floor of our private heaven
(a perfect disquiet to our loving)

We daily reveal our reclusive
sensitivities, a flash (a lowered head, laughing distinctly)
Trailing close behind German poets/path of devotion, a second summit of their passionate influence, rippling generations ago now:

(vineyards caught by grasping suddenness/placating daytime/fig & flame/false tower of Babel, ornamental ruin/he feels owed the sensations of an active spirit, to repent the contrary forces within him/myself)

-II-
                      & upon my reflection in the Cabaret of Hell,
I see a gate perched at the base of my wondrous
Sehnsucht-apparition

                    BLUE MOON                 WALLFLOWER

(or perhaps the other way around?)

Overtaken by oscillating darkness/hall of mirrors (memories)
distorted flashbulb *** and anger

until the acts become indistinguishable from themselves/doubly
******* tigers brushstroked in animal blood... essence of devour/temper/
captivation, incredible lips, pulp teeth, pure excitement all disfigured
& joyous

-III-

My azzurine goddess, faced away in
shame, no wonder why!

(hair let down in a drowsy spill of
uncertain hours, wavering in a sullen high, thickly feeling,
the immensity/pleasure renounced for a cabbalist subliminity)

Mockery of the dead dead dog/blind in boyhood/while
curious ghosts skate across the ice-peripheral of our dreaming

I feel love, and horror/a frigid hand who's body I have dissolved-
-caressing my back tenderly
bordering terrific malevolence

...Later, in another try at my own eternal return, I find my comfort brother, accompanied by an overhead
divination lantern..

pounding! At the sun skull, for you (my cherished)
are of high order
I tempt soaking the cloth,
to steer the intention

..missing black mass, indulging instead
on feverish Damascus perfume

Splash ramp
down. Flesh, wailing
vampire/poet
hidden by darkly earth to inevitably
decay by their self-solitude

(descent writhes in the milk of heartache
and cusps the night firmly in his *****
withering palms)

I refuse this fate, and
in Western-fashion
fire down the city worshipper which was once
I, too        (unmercifully so)

..burying his bones in the Scottish dirt

Terrarium hydrangeas, pale (yourIrises) lipstick daggers
slashing in the white sleeve-
red with epicurean
baptism

-IV-

Big bad wolf
banished to his hole,
I kiss the winter fruit clean from your mouth (succumbing to pinnacles of fire/your lost domain) ******* on pebbles, trying to crack through the surface
like a dragon's egg for pride
(big bad wolf is hungry)
We wear away the season, memorizing the newspapers
which are tossed carelessly to our door. Ah, the kitchen ballet dancers are finally tired..endowed to the triplicate beauty
that we individually define (takes a bit to get there)

You/I privileged to ******* Venice with our mutual
imagination,                              owing to Calvino

To crave eachother
as an Acrobat craves the

trapeze

the thing that scares me the most about being in love with you
is that as the more hours for us to be together are ripped from our hands by the hectic schedules we've set ourselves
the more I crave the feeling of your lips against mine and your arms around me.
In the hours that you are unavailable,
I want to hear your voice,
your every thought,
and the pattern of your heartbeat.
You have no idea how much that scares me.
I wish that I could spend hours listening to you talk
In the many hours between our goodbyes
and when my heart finally stops fluttering from the thought of you,
I go over scenarios in my head of me and you together.
I see nights out,
nights in,
fights,
making up,
making out,
and everything in between.
It's during these hours of darkness that my heart wants you so bad
that I find myself gasping for air
and clutching my chest.
You have no idea how much that scares me.
I remember all the times your lips touched mine,
and how warm they were.
I try to count on my fingers how many times you've said
"I love you," but I only have 10 fingers
and I can't hold in just two hands the number of "I love you too's" that I've said back.
There's a word in german
"Sehnsucht"
which is the inconsolable longing for something
or a high degree of intense
reoccurring
often painful
desire for something unknown.
For so long my insides screamed for something
but I could never put my finger on it.
I've discovered the unknown
the key to my longing
the end to the pain
and that,
my love,
is you.

Poetry is sometimes easy like the wind rushing
to where there is not much wind, caressing in waves,
invisible and pliant like the air, as effortless as
breathing it. Poetry is sometimes impossible,
like turning the tumbler of a lock with your fingertip,
like climbing a mountain barefoot in a blizzard
of screaming, sliding sleet, like a tearing cry
that dies into a whimper in your throat as you
realize the futility of that which you do,
the implacability of the beast you fight.

Sometimes, there are no words that can describe
the machinations and the subtle ticking of a clock
that beats in time to the human soul. Not hearing
the rhythm, you forget the music until your heart
sings again and you dance free like a young ballerina
cutting ballet. No poem is a picture that captures
the fluttering, soaring and sinking in the heart’s chambers.
You choose a word that fits, discard ten of its brothers,
yet feel surprise when your sentences have no answers
for the questions in your chest. You mourn every phrase
you have lost as you fell asleep. Knowing not
what you forgot, you move on to new questions.

You cannot miss what you’ve never felt, but you can yearn for
something you’ve forgotten. What is the difference to you
if you cannot remember the difference? The embryos of
the heart and mind are fragile. Your heart sings of a country
it cannot see anymore now that your back is turned,
you cast fishing nets behind you into the past blindly.
You remember that you have forgotten, and you forget
what bears remembering. You remember a day long past
not as the day that passed but as the memory of its passing,
yet feel surprise when years later and many forgettings hence,
it happened to someone else altogether.

Sehnsucht!
Strangles my
Soul
She
Swims inside
Suffocating me
Sehnsucht!

Ever had a teardrop fall out of nowhere?
Like you aren't sad or anything; it's just...

It's almost like
Someone you lived as
In a past life
Still reeling over heartbreak
Or a dredging loss
Breaks thru for a
second.

sehnsucht nach einer person*, würden menschen es in
worte fassen, dessen gebrauch sie gar nicht kennen.
oh nein, ich habe keine sehnsucht nach einer person –
ich habe heimweh. ich habe mich bei ihm – und
zwar egal wo: im bus, oder auch in einen dunkeln
raum, der gähnend leer ist, außer zwei personen
und eine handvoll worte, denen ich mich nicht
entziehen kann – mehr geborgen gefühlt, als
in meinen eigenen heim.

denn zu hause ist kein ort, sondern ein gefühl.

ich habe Sehnsucht nach Dingen, die nie passiert sind
sehne mich zurück nach etwas, das es nie gab

dein Arm um meine Schulter
mein Atem auf deiner Haut

ich will nicht weitergehen.
nicht ohne dich.

ohne dein Lachen im Ohr
ohne deinen Blick auf mir

wieso kann ich dich nicht vergessen?
wie kann ich etwas vermissen, das ich nie hatte?

There are these moments all the time
Where I think, "This is not the life I signed up for.
This can't be my life.
This
Is
Not
My
Life."
But I am dizzy and hungover,
Stumbling to the kitchen for water
Wondering how I got home last night.
25
and tail-spinning--
How did I get here?

Last night
I had a glimpse of many could-have-beens.
I found myself wistful for a life I never had,
Risks I never took,
Words I let fizzle out on my tongue,
Courage that left me when I should have chased it.
A boy with a brogue nearly brought me to tears
Drunk and disoriented
Inadvertently reminding me of a future that's
No longer mine.

After every margarita
It feels like I'm falling further and further
And I'm scrabbling without footing,
Tired and dizzy,
Losing my way,
Wondering what all I've walked away from
All these years
Because I was always so scared.

A Sparrow crashed against my window
as I was writing this line.
Outside, soft and warm
in my hand it disappears,
leaving behind only metaphor,
which I put down
                                                 Here
for later use.

How is it that I long,
No, yearn,
For a place I've never been,
Never seen,
Never touched
My toes to its land?

How is it that I pine,
No, crave,
For a home I've never lived in,
Never sat down in,
Never woke up
From peaceful slumber in?

How is it that possible?
To be so full of feeling
For that which I have only ever imagined:

Home where tranquility prevails;
Home where joviality reigns;
Home where love utter saturates.

Home where
My hands know their crafting dexterity,
My feet know their dancing steps.

Home where my heart beats.

How is this feeling more real
Than that which I have lived through?
For it is;
This longing tells me it is;
This yearning proves to me it is;
This craving solidifies its existence.

I want the intangible to become tangible.
I need the imaginary to be reality.