With the proceeds he bought the bank
the water company and computer halls
Modern Monopoly. He invested
in advanced filters and the internet

With a wink he kept his title
'Landlord'. Ah, the good old days
Now we are the owners, we pay
the subscriptions and pay off our debt

Things are going well, fewer members
are active, there is talk on the sidelines
and self-interested owners
collect proxies

The administrator acts
opportunistically and follows
the outside world
There is a call

for another system:
with so little involvement
a transfer of power will do -
blank until business is done

Buzzing everywhere,

the oasis full of bees --


All flowers empty.

Underground, my thoughts
collide with him
They tear flames

from his stature, from his voice
They blow fire into his house
put a fire around his wife

A chain of craters
Ash clouds over the world
And me in the Peaceful Centre

of the catastrophes
which must hit his marriage
without harming him

How many aftershocks to go?
How much heat?
How much desire?

A gale bumps and beats

branches away, gates open --


bears into their caves.

What is home, everyone knows
from experience or lack
or both, as I do

And still
I know what I missed
when I think about it

Not often, at last
I got my home
And still

I am the saviour, the angel
I have practised to be
from childhood

I hesitate at the old Christmas card
with me as a little angel, back then
when I got a cat as a present

Stars on my white dress
gilt-edged wings
and a halo

But unable
to definitely redeem
my family, their desires

Wounded, I crashed
bipolar between heaven and earth
between love and failure

The mouths are open,

wide, as if they are screaming:


the leaf ***** in air.

You cannot sleep?
It will come
It's the clock genes

Just come over here
and lie down with me
Close to each other
You are so sweet

It tied knots in me
that are not quite undone yet
I was a saviour, an angel

not yet used
to her body, a child
who does know heaven
but not yet earth

It recurred
Anger grew inside me
Powerless aversion

It recurred
And with others
I lost my wings
A worthless angel

My room: a waste bin,

chair, chamber ***, and myself --


tossing in my bed.

Man is a wild animal
in a herd, a group
that organizes
to be tamed

but it's not easy
to get the systems right
There are unexpected effects
or oppressive requirements

No one is responsible
Deposing leaders, killing
dictators makes no difference
The people tolerate the successor

Help is needed
From the outside, but
the borders are deadly
to humanity

So I must appreciate little
things, a glance
the clouds, fresh bread once
and dream what is forbidden

In the gusts of wind,

the waves foam yellowish green --


and.. a boat dances.

Forgive me
I don't want to explain away
the fact that I needed time

to put the consequences
of one or the other
together

The appearances may be against me
but I didn't hold aloof
really, I never wait and see

I don't look away
I just look thoroughly
for a well-considered decision

because so much is happening
and often there is no clear line
in all the details

And I don't want to do anything wrong
That is the seed
of my passivity

My aversion to misdeeds

Eavesdropping always

changes something, except when --


it's done secretly.

I dare to get into bed with you
Your big mouth is too small
for the world, your heart too big

for me, here I am
Well, tell, then I'll dream
with you, about you

in a purple cloak
the skin of innocence and power
Very discreetly, very discreetly

you take revenge
on anyone who does not get into action
and just lets everything happen

You issue wise orders
that camouflage your agenda
Much trouble for nothing

for though you loathe them
they are not another species
they are like you

only not angry enough
to be able to choose
what is important

That is the seed
the seed of your anger
Everyone's passivity

Here too, policemen

coming to deport me to --


a death of torture.

Hand over my mouth, I laugh
at the evil child
you are, who wants everything
as it should be

a better world
justice, equality
and brotherhood, now!

No longer an ideal
that makes fellow human beings suffer
in order not to lack anything themselves

So immature, not you
your complaint, your desire
for more

more solidarity
more harmony
more self-criticism

I know, the seed
of your gluttony
which wants all that
is your sweet anger

The riches we have

are limited, we want more --


attention, on call.

The night is safe. Come
Whatever goes wrong
you did what you could do

Come. You want too much
love and appreciation
from others for each other

and fewer regulations
fewer regulators
who interfere

and, like puppets
decide your fate
Mistakes are forbidden

They're in the system
and that's being worked on
Come. Over is the day

in which the seed lies
the seed of your fear
Your gluttonous love

We have coats of arms

to protect us, our courage --


against doom-thinking.

We live a sober life, enough
is enough for me, and reserves
are necessary according to you

Everything is insured, luckily
no loans, we are working hard
because otherwise one has nothing

The children have their own lives
they won't take care of us
and are already asking for part

of their portion of inheritance, but it's stuck
in stone, in vaults, and in your head
that also wants to cover the coverage

People should grow up
and take care of themselves
reap their own harvest

though we could share more
relying on mutual aid
not just on our own character

in which lies the seed
the seed of greed
Our fear

The gum bubble bursts,

people scream about profit


motives: blue ******!

Always just joy and happiness
would be boring, but what can I
know about something that doesn't occur?

It would also be unfair, indeed
unbearable, if fairy tales
could be real

I don't begrudge my friends anything
as long as we go well together
and they don't flaunt

their children
being in the clover
or other prosperity

I avoid neighbours and colleagues
who like to brag about
additions and gadgets

I can miss those things
but Gladstone Gander's certainty
that there will always be enough

the blessing of good fortune
I would like to have that
And therein lies the seed

the seed of my envy
my greed, so that I can show
that I am blessed

Gold chips on the street

can't be real, such a party --


would be pathetic.

There must be misery hidden
behind glitter and gold
wouldn't it?

We talk about it, right away
if there's anything suspicious
A child staying at home

grandma on a visit for a week
a new nanny
or a long business trip

Call it gossip
It is the cement
of our neighbourhood

And we know very well
that it is possible
it is not true

And this is the seed
the seed of our slander
Our envy

The world your parents

keep impressing on you is --


fitting less and less.

I'm not vain, I'm noble
Beyond reproach
I know the world, the people

with their little souls
their little minds
and little worries

I understand them, I see
the guilt and the shame
with which they punish themselves

for their lies
to keep the corpses
hidden in their wardrobe

I can guess them though
and I pass them on in a whisper
like a gear, a compelling eye

That's just how it works
Thanks to these seeds
I am exemplary

The seeds of my high-
handed, high-minded ideas
So practical, my slander

The tall man is dressed

in nothing, nothing but ties --


So superior!

The people here
are not quite grown up
They live past inconveniences

So I'm gonna settle it
Like a parent for their own good
Comment is all in the game

I don't mind, we have to move on
Who does not act, is manipulated
and my own preferences
don't appear out of the blue
I have experience

I chip and wipe away the chips
I am a doer, a maker
No expensive gestures
no desperate remedies
to reassure desperate patients

I know what I'm doing, there are goals
to achieve and worlds to win
with ambition

the seed of my misdeeds
my taunted pride
to want to achieve something

Just sully your hands

and cover them, draw the veil --


of your black money.

Where are the poets
who devote themselves to music
to the songs that are too good
for the lyrics to the melody
so that nothing impairs
the sound of the feelings?

Songs without empty wishes
Songs without tall talk
And no commonplaces in rhyme

Only tenderness and joy
to my anger and anxiety
my melancholy and desire
my sadness, the love
and the wonder
at everything

Otherwise a title is enough
even difficult enough
for a song without words

Poems can be vague,

naming the unnamable --


unsilencing it.

Grandpa is so strict:

storms never thunder, because --


swearing isn't allowed.

He is dangerous,

he paces in a system --


of fabrications.

It's always like this,

whenever I am happy --


I feel so lonely.

That's how the world turns:

by people making something --


tangible that lasts.

It is empty on the Grand Square
The guide tells about the past
His words blow over

Birds above the roofs, white clouds
it takes a long time
until we go for a drink

In the café we cross over
in each other's language
to the streets where we live

and everything is the same
in a different way

We sing along to the songs
of our teenage years and toast
the world that is becoming ours

I stall for time, don't want to let go
of the guide, I'd like take him with me
and show him around my own city

let him see with my eyes
after seeing what he saw
not knowing what he was thinking

Tourists are a plague,

going further and further --


they keep crossing lines.

Crippled, skinny gull
puddles in the potholes
of empty streets

holes in the walls
the school closed, no one
who could leave stayed

after the riots
no one who was released
from the cells

Losses have been taken
suitcases packed
the water shut off

Old town, dead harbour
where I was at home and would
have liked to come back

clean your white steps
turn on your lights, please
turn on, turn on again

Grandma's tapestries,

which she wove as a girl, are --


decaying with her.

Everything flows, a coming
and going of opportunities
Flags blow everywhere
but I don't put poles
of certainty around me

My work and my relationships
are fluid, my fate
is not in my hands
not even in the lines
that fortune tellers read

Pleasure for myself
idealism for all
between the flippers and
the facades of the day and
the dreams of the night

The flippers of catastrophes
and consequences bang
on the bonces of power
the wheels of money and
the cannonballs of contempt

At the reception

I am bouncing everyone --


like silly putty.

Can people still have a discussion with me?
I can confront you
with my falter
That searching, the slow
which I can hardly bear myself?
And what do you think of me?

I'm getting smaller, too small
for everything and everyone
I know, more and more
is falling off my world
Dependent on friends
who need me

So nothing seems to have changed
but it's not like that
not the way it was
not what I was worth
I know too well what it is
to endure the day depressed

It may take a long time
that I'm not there for a while
Lost in unreachable thoughts
until I sound again like
I'm doing better
than I'm telling you

Am I elitist

if football is new to you --


and I explain it?

After today's four steps
I'm sitting in socks by the fireplace
My heavy boots are standing straight
and my back is still rattling

I am a henchman
I push the boundaries
of the ladies in love
and the rich gentlemen

I leave horse **** behind
and take the scent of freesias with me
The water in the bucket sloshes
like yearning love

I don't travel alone
We are armed
The papers are precious
Sealed letters

Beginning and maintaining
of relationships and major interests
Between the stops, the reins
of fate are in my hands

The world we know is

an evolutionary


boundary crossing.

You say: attention
is the most loving thing
you can give

I answer: carefreeness
is the most loving thing
you can have

It often eludes me
Then I lie awake
because I can't do anything

as long as there are no certainties
no current measurements and slices
for relief or a new plan

I want to try everything
to gain time
exhaust all my strength

adapt
and save who I am
what I'm worth

my head full of purplish blue fragrance
which turns my feelings blue
Blue Bluish blue

Numbers: Eight times eight?

When I am in doubt I know --


that I am in love.

The melancholy

that it's true, the earth is small --


but our soul is not.

As a reader I

would like to buy with each book --


reading time as well.

Not living for later
but together, social
and respected

The king loathes it
He takes palaces and farmsteads
His taxation breaks

the compliance, cold
causes hunger
Threat of war

Propaganda points the way:
there is a saviour, a Father
of the Nation, he protects

the refugees from Antwerp
and the trade, he will
drive out tyranny

that beheads dukes and puts
believers at the stake, that makes
the country pay for the oppression

I kindled a fire,

from it blows a wind, it blows --


the fire far away.