Farewell: we don't eat,

it just seems that way, as you --


also see in plays.

The cat does not move,

she is observing the moon –


the hypnotic ball.

Not dinner time yet, on bed
I am drawing you, your back
the book and the red candle
the almost empty mirror image

We've seen enough
of the city today and no longer
immediately jump on each other
even though we're on vacation

I love you equally profound -
looking, drawing and feeling
how absently totally present
you are, your bare shoulder

which I caress with my eyes
your full attention
for the story and for me
as soon as you put the book down

It's something from years
elusively there
even if we don't pay attention to it
or if it's absent for a while

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

There the waxing Earth

is low in the sky, lying --


in its starry crib.

The Beast is free, we kiss
outside the wall around
the Beauty of your fidelity

Of course we want to be
good, not stun ourselves
or stay in bed

to dream of big deeds -
figuring them out step by step
within far too many rules

We kiss, we are free
Nothing can hurt us today
We are each other's Hero

Our Love is a big deed
out of sight of the watchtowers
on the wall against our desires

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

Was I waked
by rattling buckets
like ticking rain

against the roar
the whistling inhalation
and the musing sighs

of the ***** monster?
Curved pipes *******
into space, everything shifts

until I no longer have a hold
and my body dissolves in trance
between wringing sounds

Compact like a saucer
I swing increasingly heavy
through octaves of space debris

with withheld breath
looking forward to the redeeming
light of the eternally distant

gravity, which will
melt and burn me
if I ever arrive

A false siren song lures me
with harmonies in which
the dashboard lights up

my thoughts clear again
to chart a course
and go away

from this depression
as if there are destinations
Hope and desire

tumble through the stardust
like the splashing water
from the sources of the Moldau

The monster roars again -
Maddening at the risk
of bursting asunder

and dispersing
in debris, ticking
against the silence

like the end of a downpour
But after the calm masses roll
towering over it, ever

I float
between dream and deed
Sleeplessly

I babble a bit
wading in acquiescence
Songless

The sand wants to be

here, or on the other side --


not in the middle.

My diligent half

does homework, my dreaming half --


still lingers with her.

Differences draw boundaries
and there are words for it:
baby, child, man and woman

red, brown, yellow, stupid and smart
black, white, compatriot, barbarian
We know all about it

there is a reason
that we are innocent
and others offenders

There are words for it
and answers too: punishment, pest
crash, bombs and grenades

manslaughter, hunting, gas and fire
all within the boundaries
of own laws first

At home, on this side and
at home, on that side of the border
people wish for peace

Mum wants me happy,

it's her misfortune I'm not –


cooperative.

Are there aliens

inside the clouds? Who is there --


rummaging about?

Mama told me things,

as a toddler, that I'd like --


to know from her now.

Women ****** men,

that's a fact, it is the way –


they are, made of girls.

The dog runs in, slips

on the linoleum floor --


and sniffs at my chair.

They can be loving:

father talks to the dog and --


my son lures the cat.

Orange light at night,

the whole wide country whirring:


the gas field is on.

A poet fiercely

yearns for a louder silence --


than the other speaks.

It is summer fair,

I hear it at home, passing --


me turn after turn.

I count all my friends

and am left with five fingers --


to shake hands with you!

The front wheel drags, grr,

short of breath I cycle on --


panting like a dog.

Nobody is as

good as the landlord, always --


he's pouring out love.

No one is themselves,

people are always leaking --


in each other's lives.

There is a boulder

in the middle of the road --


there is a boulder.

Not grown apart
still familiar, changed
/by each other's attention
Grown along in the other
in who we are

For everything
there can be a time
For slow days
/For closer to home
For constantly creating order
For new projects
and old friends

Occasionally
a message
without a hold
/on whether it fits
in the moment
and falls, falls
into place

Occasionally
the nearness
of our voices
/our most unique selves
talking freely
with open endings
for other times

Storm in the city,

dashing on the brick pavement:


police on horseback.

It is just like then,

as if I have tumbled down --


in between two times.

Maybe we were once stranded here
on the slopes of these mountains
between the white peaks and the low land

We certainly came up with words
to tell that story
and we went into the world

with that answer to the question
Where do we come from?
From the belly of the boat

as the image of our Mother
Earth, who is born where she is
in the lap of heaven

above the Holy Mountains
which kiss eternity
on the border of our existence

We move on and give names
to the world we discover
Time and space embrace us

Men are cautious
they rather spurn their chances

than to rely on their noses, but
they can be seduced to take a little bite

if you insist and
have not gotten sick from it yourself

Indeed, it started
with the famous apple, a fig

After the first one he too wanted more
We learned

to look through the foliage
to remember where the trees are

and how to get there, to smell
where the fruit is ripe

We got up earlier than the others
and left in the moonlight

to be the first just a little further away
and get the prize

We grew in our head
and became human

In the beginning man created
the thought: everything, mankind
and the earth, is a miracle
with a beginning

and anything that procreates
will die, only the sun
the stars and the stones
had no end, until later

infinity was conceived, the being
of even never having begun

so the rest, actually everything
that is known, the world
will have to perish one day

and, if you dare
to think it out, also
the elusive time

will not last and already
now, nothing is left
but nullity

In the morning wind

my thoughts are tinkling clearly --


like a carillon.

The Promised Land does

exist, it is on the map --


of my beating heart.

Everything happens

to me, nonetheless I am --


the protagonist.

If only the little animal could
understand everything
no questions unanswered
when it dies

It does not live long enough
and flying is the time
of hundred wonderful times
of playing to die, the time

of asking again and again why
thus, this or that, and how
curiously cutting and pasting
knowledge, screaming

and throwing away angrily
lying down exhausted
and cry, but still
starting over once more

rearrange or discard
the half answers
and go looking
for new data

always ask another question
principally blind
full of confidence
that there will be an answer

Dear grandma, I remember you

and a few of your stories

of the war, the little big

dramas to commemorate



my children only hear them half

because of the bombardment

of images of wars far away

daily in the news



so

we play reality today

to feel, to know

how rending it is



I am the grandma and my daughter

is her mother, the street breaks

after a shot, the air creaks

and we hold our breath

There are no best years,

they're different, all of them --


are most beautiful.

We didn't dare, but could

we have done it anyway?


Just believe in it?

They have braced themselves,

their heels in the solid earth --


their boots full of fear.

Smoke plumes everywhere,

curling up from the chimneys:


comfort, a hot meal.

I like to run with

the hare and hunt with the hounds --


Is that my freedom?

With wide eye shadows,

looking back at all the men:


my perky *******.

Glimmering beauty,

clear and upside down, doubled --


in the little pond.

Mass of supporters

times corruption-degree squared --


makes a dynasty.

Lilith was just like him -
from the clay, not as docile
as me; she left him

She prefers to roam
the world, seducing
men in the evening and robbing

families of their babies
so say the malicious tongues
that blacken everyone

who does not fit in their rules
It's true that she lives in trees
like a snake, I saw her once

at least, I think it was she
who praised me for my brain
and showed me the ripe fruits

With Adam I got two children
rib from his ribs, blood of my blood
The third was later made up

by the false tongues
that whitewash everything
that does not fit in their rules

The giant that stopped me
was a wall on the bank
of the big river, far
beyond the palaces

where servants like angels
provided a heaven on earth
for princes and princesses and always

there were naked sages before the gate
begging to warn the people
that they shouldn't have any illusions

There was a small hatch in the wall
which opened for an old hand a moment
giving me an ordinary pebble

It was a stone from paradise
on the other side of the wall
It was smooth. What to do with it?

I am just such a stone, polished
by life and in the future
falling to dust, pity us

stones from paradise
on this side of the wall
where the kings suffer in seclusion
from boredom and the trouble
to keep it that way

Collecting little

bits of happiness: fresh bread --


and filling the bath.

Golden cloaks for sale,

against all evil-thinking --


Of you? Or of me?

For the Heads of Heads

holdings are a game, marbles –


you swop, so boring!

I'm longing for him,

to fold himself around me --

wrap me up for good.