There are tents with tubs
and tents with mattresses
for the girls and women

in the middle of the camp
behind the front
where they are buried alive

Buried who they were
Wishing to die
from the pain, out of the hell

of unknown soldiers
who are honoured, for
what they do does not happen

Because it's not allowed, so
they will get the flowers
which are not at the camp

that tomb
of the human dignity
of the snatched women

From the isle we sail

across the lake, a man sings --


and the sun is low.

Together we can

untangle our confessions --


before the mirror.

Mama woke me up
She embraced me sobbing and
stumbled down the stairs
in my arms, and I

stumbled down the stairs
in her arms, to daddy
in the kitchen, arms around each other
we were crying

but I had to go back, see
how I was
breathless on my bed
still warm

as if I was asleep, oh
you are thirteen
don't go, stay
here with me

Paramedics arrived
They put me in a bag
and carried me away
leaving me behind

Uncle touches me,

my *******, well, I will let him --


he's so pathetic.

Let us just enjoy

this late evening together --


After us the spring!

The car is broken:

garage sentence. After that --


it is free to ride.

An automatic

wristwatch gets little pushes --


from its wearer-slave.

Something small you see

becomes large: a tiny ***** --


is missing somewhere.

A person who boasts

of a quality, wishes --


to receive it, right?

Shed.. my tears of grief,

rested.. with my misfortune --


Forgotten.. myself.

The yellow glow scares me
Already this afternoon, when things got blurry
yet I seemed to be awake for a second
from the pain in my belly

It shouldn't be, I don't want it
My belly must be safe
for the baby, hopefully
it will soon be over

here, in my own bed
oh, what is happening?
I gotta get out, close the curtain
against that dreadful moon

All is well, the doctor said
but I couldn't get up
and not thank him
I just lay there

Guy smiled and the doctor shove
something into me, not as nice and sweet
as I am used to with Guy
not even in my wildest dreams

Being silent was best
Ham is strong and he threatened me
with a fatal accident
Then there was a child

Oh, my dear husband
the tireless
naturalist of the fermented juice
of sweet grapes

His old age has been tarnished
by that made-up anecdote
which hid the rapes
under a moment of shamelessness

But the punishment betrays it
anyway, the eternal curse
from the first scream
of the baby, innocent

Canaan, my youngest son
His generations to generation
subjugated and squeezed to death
in the purple lowlands

I tell everything.

You look at me guiltily --


I understand you.

The sea is whitened,

the sand's blown up in the air –


secure from the flood.

Objects from the past,

just a few remaining friends --


nocturnal ground frost.

She looks at me, puts

coquettishly in her eyes --


her whole soul again.

I entered the display case
of people educators
subsidizing snobs
the multirich and companies

among tourists and inhabitants
who want to be seen
in the museum café and
with sophisticated pastry lard
the conversation with careless clauses

they quote from an authority
whom nobody has to understand
to get the intention
of the praised artists

The shop was crowded
Spotlights on show-pieces
fancy coffee table books
and chic presents
for the season and the next holidays

Especially the past
is on sale, postcards
of the attractions
and sights of the city

interchangeable
like the collections
which graduated stylists
cast in international moulds
to magnets for visitors

The sand, lying down

and blasting up, this is how --


the beach is breathing.

Great, swimming at night,

alone in the silent lake --


black trees around me.

Mary was pregnant
with God, a story
can't be stronger
and I think of myself

as the saint or the prophet
I would like to be, so fulfilled
of pure inspiration, I am
in this silent, holy night
of the birth star

Let angels descend
to praise God
and sing peace
I am awake
under the palm tree

which bends its branches
and gives everything: fruit
and a source welling up
between its roots

The cows are mooing,

sheep are bleating, and the wind --


disperses the seeds.

Like wild geese, fishermen
and monks landed here, others

sailed on and discovered America
but they came back

by the north, Thule
where it rains glowing stones

where the land burns and the rocks
swim between boiling fountains

There are the gates of hell
and the paths to heaven

invisible above the clouds
around huge curtains of ice

They came back to tell
about these wonders, too biblical

to want to keep it secret
from their family and friends

And the new world
they forgot

The snow stops traffic,

all I can do is stand still --


with my own shadow.

Only in Paris

waltzes a fly like flies are --


twirling in Paris.

My abraded knee

is bleeding, I keep looking --


So beautiful red!

In evening twilight

everything shrinks, the street noise  --


the houses, myself.

Until the Spring Ball

the farms in the bog form an --


archipelago.

Finally the sun,

in the park a dove flies up --


freed from my pale skin.

Grandma's tapestries,

which she wove as a girl, are --


decaying with her.

The waves rolling round,

in wild curls, steady and flat --


is the horizon.

Being a hero,

still thoroughly despised --


for some bad manners.

Unfortunately

none of my birthday guests know --


how to celebrate.

I don't imitate,

I learn, and hope to become --


who I will be then.

Your house can be my house
our house, a nice house
I love you

if you don't want to be more
than I am and want to be more
than you are, not a boy

but a man who dares
to see me as Í see me
then you'll see more

of reality than you think
you see with your self-conceit
Look carefully, look better, I am

not a lesser man, I am
more than your expectations
How far do you dare?

Hand in hand we sit

together in the garden --


of our affection.

My tent has a hole
at the top, that's the moon
which always shines
Before me, after me

Moon, you have room, right?
Tell me, do you have a place
for my heart?
Then, I'll come

to you
when I die, I will
to let my love shine
together with you

..One day I'll have to leave
..everything behind
..and none of it is mine
..except my love
..which is mine, all mine

for my loved one here on earth
That's why I hope
I can shine on him
with you later

..Nothing is mine
..except my love
..which is mine
..all mine
..all mine

It will not have been a long time
that my parents sent someone with me
when I went to see the trains
after school and at the weekend

Far too often, they thought, but
I liked to be there, on the bridge
at the station, especially in this town
you could see old models pass

I know them blind, by their sound
the vibration of the viaduct
their smell if it doesn't blow too much
and the Doppler effect

It is mainly freight transport
yet the town is connected
to the big world
and still there are children

on their toes
to look over the wall
and I never saw a daredevil
scrambling on top of it

Appearances are an art, a few strokes
form out of paint, an intimate experience
of velvet, skin and sadness

There is no better job
than feeling proximity and depth
shamelessly direct, like in bed

Appearances are deceptive, my insolvency
is just a façade, like a name
given to you in ignorance

I no longer have debts
nor money, I earn nothing
and can work without worries

So let the pious people talk
I take care of Hendrickie
and Titus, everything is theirs

The doctor wavers,

he sighs and looks through me, so --


I already know.

We danced to a new year
in the utopia of the music
and the Golden Oldie
songs of love, longing
and sorrow that live
in our lungs

and emerge unpredictably
all of a sudden from the depths
of our breath
caressing or storming full
of experiences that make us
feel who we are

and what it's all about, seize
the eternity of our lives
in the stream of our breath
which is also the breath of others
while we are completely
engrossed in our presence

In the land you dreamed

for us, I still wait for you --


dead and buried there.

Quietly she looks

at me -- a comb through my mind,


waving in her wind.

If you don't take risks,

you put everything at stake:


you risk all your life.

Once again we walk

in the old track, we're absent --


There is no meeting.

A boss claims to be

caring, but he is a child --


that always wants more.

His farewell wishes

were: take good care of yourself --


and one another.

Grandma is bored, she waits
for my wedding and perhaps
she fantasises that I'm getting pregnant

How would it have been
with grandfather and her in bed?
We don't talk about that

just about the afternoons
in the sun, gaining some
colour for the summer

She would have liked that, but
at that time people thought differently
Anyway, bikinis did not yet exist

So much has changed, she reads it
to me from the magazine
and I laugh at her astonishment

She is old, her hair as white
as the walls in this sun, lovely
Lu does not have to come yet

The Knitting Needles Museum
has a prudish name
that frightens the schoolchildren
and obscures the oppression
of desperate and ***** women

The torture museum
and the war museum also
lack the inspiration
from a muse
They are monuments

and should be called that
With the unbuilt museums
of destroyed art and
ancient cultures, they can
fill a street in any city

'Ecce ****', behold man
the noble beast, the master
of things and nothings -
virtual and vanished
worlds that are unlivable

A circle of pink

petals spreads around the bush --


fully packed with buds.