From my miserable cavity, out spills terror;
An illusion waiting to bite, the heavy desire of hunger
Splatter and traumatize with desire
Eyes creeping around the corner
When the shadow swiftly descends,
The next victim has been found.

Like a cell drawing in pure water, rejecting unnecessary, undesirable molecules.

Like a virus spreading multiplying, taking over with vigor and tenacity.

Like the bubbles on the burbling lips of a toddler, growing and popping and dripping.

Like a ronin samurai without a lord, coming and going like the wind.

Like a thought that just won’t quit, a feeling that burrows into the bones.

Like the intensity of a fire, when a steady wind presses the seat of the fuel source.

So is my passion for life.

we stopped believing the agora of the mind
our souls empty rooms colliding
full of amnesia on incessant roads
walls of flesh we were on the edge of terror,
steel confused with clarity
souls plucked like nails inside ruins
suffocated tales & archives of illusion

the shadow is closer to the center only
in the diaries of the blind
no hole of god is dead, we ***** fresh prophets
with inviolable gaze
for the sublime and holy in our sweat
believing is seeing the most lethal duel

the one and only the fake divine
who thinks alone on a road with no views
he planted spotlights in their eyes
for everybody to see only the world in his arms
hate kept in empty milk bottles

life is this schweitzer, passers-by were saying,
it has taste but only  in foreign countries,
with their fists in pain caressing concrete asphalt turbines
as in quick sands no muscle was moving

carboard smiles unprotected against the evacuation of desire
wooden language didn't invent choice
no decomposition of the edges the totalitarian thought inside
the narcosis of time merciless

the clouds lost their sound we still don't look at each other
no hypothesis of sight no discharge for humiliation
wither souls made history grappling bending
twisting nonconsensual reality

no destiny for the allegory of truth  
there are no angles of sight
facts become beasts
holy cannot be anybody's name
repelling of the heart beat

There is danger down on the edge of town
Fire on the horizon it's scorchin' the ground
Hoards of unrest as people pass the blame
Who's the real culprit at the top of the chain
The burning sunset spills across the rot of the land
While the deceiving evil doer licks blood from his  hands
Greed riddled bombs fall from dead skies
Blanketing the poor, warm tears swell in their eyes
Oil soaked hills burn down through their valleys
While war torn screams ring out from all around me
The milky white sap is scraped from the flowers
Then sold in the streets as ****** powder  
Junkies fumble over spoons with needles in their hand
While the money is filtered to rulers of land
On with the show the director he screams
While the masses consume garbage projected on to screens
I sit motionless and stare at the wall
As the prison door slams shut I wonder how long
How long  will it be till I'm back on the streets
With a dagger in my hand and blood on my feel

my imagination
suffers from excess
yesterday in a dream
I said that I sleep
I ordered personalized matchboxes
I saw the sea
in a plate from soup
I heard how a baton
conducts the conductor
I saw a breast
****** by a child
I uncovered a naked surgeon
on my operating table
and I recognized the voice of ******
among those gassed in auschwitz

by Volker W. Degener translated from the German by Adam A. Zych with Andrzej  Diniejko
from The Auschwitz Poems an anthology edited by Adam A. Zych

i lift my shoulders and hunch my back
don't look at me don't look at me don't look at me
walking faster, heart racing, i feel the presence getting closer
leave me alone leave me alone leave me alone
i break into a futile sprint

it's not as though i can speak
tell it to leave my sight
tell it i have nothing left for it to take
hope it believes me
while i shove the final page of my story deeper into my pocket

i know better than to lie to this thing
my legs are growing heavy as i try to outpace it
but it's no use
an experienced hunter, the creature waits for me to exhaust myself running from it, then moves in for the ****
at least there, i have the last laugh-
i have already died from fear

jaeger.
chasseur.
foxtail.
seduction of fascism in mind,
like tumbling autumn leaves
ever and always
on the steps of a country house.
always and ever
just outside the aix-les-bains dance hall.
his blousy new bride
and her old lover
aware of his sympathies and
  the danger he presents to them.

jaeger.
chasseur.
foxtail.
seduction of fascism in mind,
ever and always
on a deserted alpine road.
always and ever
one trail of blood,
remnant of the preyed upon.
she screams against the glass,
quiet devil in the backseat
haunted by the disorder
  of his own mind.

eyes opened to
his own mutability.
alienation is immanent,
bred in the bone.
a desperate need for gravitas,
built upon vaporous credulity.
and she is pursued through the woods
ever and always,
through iridescent fields
always and ever,
until finally in his crosshairs
  she falls.

those like him have not suddenly
vanished from the earth, but
  are merely lying in wait.

There is a quality to desolation
that I have never seen.

I have been in a desert, touched
the aridity of it’s soil, and its
air like hot feathers
on my breath;
I have seen the sea far out
with only a blue smudge on
the horizon
to mark our return.
But I have never felt that terror,
that awe and loneliness
that has been spoken of,
and said by the poets
and deliverers,
to bring ones face
to God.

Do not misunderstand me.
I have felt these things;
at the end of a trail
leading nowhere,
on a *****
with loose stones
for footholds.
I have been in places of terror
and beauty,
and been overthrown.
But not wholly.

Perhaps
I have not been still
enough, have not lingered
in those part-wild places
that have seen the summit
of my fear, my longing.
Perhaps even they, even
they, have what I seek.

Perhaps
I have not been still
enough.