it must have been light
that invented my mind
the light terrorizing my eyes so
that I walk obsessed by beauty
I am trapped inside the circles of time
they grow and revolve in my tissues
it must have been love like a pocket of darkness
like the gravity that is so simple
that we can't understand

shadows entangled so it happens
the oppressor and the oppressed
such an intimacy of pain terror and shame
in the quietness of the right hand the left hand
surrender to the cruelty of an exchange
to be or not to be delusional
this is a question
reality just an approximation of a terrifying
mystery without meaning

a beat of a heart alone in the dark
we have many songs but still little understanding
about the growing shadow lurking in the bright light

Listening to the future
Sing a song, sing a deeds our
In the stark and relative promise, we cure
With hugs and kisses, the toil of anarchy in all power

Cherished time...
With imbued lips, the chastity of sorts
The wind to live once more, in world and chime
To know a clash with poise, these tears are yours...

Rights risen, to voices of callousness...
With the claim of sincerity as a tool, that becomes
A harrowed force, we have never seen without bless
Of a seclusions kindness, though even a hate may be some's

Risen rights, to voices we care
Forth a heady Christ, the trade of a lifetime?
Walls of avarice and heed of a monstrous appetite to fare
Is here and now, beloved, even in the eyes of barren lives?

Burden in sight, brief as a war with silence is
Evermore, the turn of chastity into a problem for needs
That burned a charity's flames, a grant of sin to substance
That in the spoken drive to see another become, living seeds

Welcome home
The vanity of surmisal, and its hurry to question the truth
Has added, has asked the vestige of powers, has life atoned?
For the notice of speed in the vices we spare, from even the risks of poorness, so aloof...

It's not Christmas without Santa
Or without the jingle bells
But, in the darkness there's another
Taking children down to hell

Yin and Yang, a balance
There is darkness and there's light
Santa on the left side
And Krampus on the right

Parents watch your children
If they're on the naughty list
Because Krampus is out hunting
And these children are not missed

A myth, or dark reality
A monster from below
Did Johnny just go missing?
Or was he taken down below?

Jingle Bells, both have them
One is joyous, one is not
Santa lives where it is colder
Krampus lives where it is not

Bad children do not fear him
But soon enough, he'll find them out
With dark hair, claws and cloven hooves
They'll learn what he's about

He doesn't have a favorite
He'll take girls as well as boys
He doesn't mind the screaming
In fact, non one hears the noise

So, if a child disappears
And no one seems to care
You'll know he was a bad one
And that Krampus, well, was there

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