My house has large beds
in which naked people groan
and girls are *****
by other people's loneliness

The guests pay for
washing the curtains
which their soft hands stroke
after the night

They don't expect calluses
from the day, they rearrange
and they smell, they don't pick the flowers
themselves, they live inside

where they are content
without achievements, because
the world is exhausting
if one wishes to change it

and spring admits no delay
life must be lived, enjoyed
since no one spoils you
better than you do

You don't have to say a thing
not even my name
we walk a bit

from embrace to embrace
securing all the preceding
deep in our belly

Maybe there is too much
to discuss, but soon
half words will be enough

and we will kiss each other
with poetic sentences
full of love in their gaps

like our whole life is
an agenda full of gaps
filled with friends

care and roses
experiences kept deep
in our belly without words

Always build a tower
solid and in the middle
make a daily round

along the outposts, you learn
from that, also from the wind
and the farmers, sit down

with the children playing
and listen to what they repeat
from their parents and the neighbours

Occasionally beat the drums
but never dig holes
for the dead of tomorrow

plant flowers every season
around the squares and the cities
as a welcome to the enemy

in your suspicion, and pay attention
because the better you look
the more you see

A person must learn,

there are no suns anywhere --


that don't cast shadows.

Reading books you fly

in everywhere, completely --


without being seen.

Orange light at night,

the whole wide country whirring:


the gas field is on.

Be responsible,

and legitimise nothing --


with a nice story.

Maybe I'll have to move
the neighbours are watching
whether I belong to them

and don't go too far
in oddities
Well, a little can be funny

They are also proud themselves
of their profession, their unforgettable
exploits and their indispensability

for the traditional holidays
for everyone, including me
so they count on me

I value their faces
what kind of men they are
fighters with an ax

in their hands, or soldiers
in black clothes, servants
of the dread counselor

Have I been playing

that I match you, did you play --


that you are my friends?

Over there: the Ocean,

inside me another one --


Without Lighthouses.

Progress is the storm

that has risen at the gates --


of Eden's garden.

I like to travel,

but only a few can come --


to share it with me.

Before they can speak

angels always have to wait --


for a listener.

Words do sometimes fit

with someone's situation --


as a deep insight.

An exploded world
inside out
unfaltering

the water swallowed up
and the crust an asphalt sea
a dead sea, wasteland

where no cattle can graze
and everyone starves
is a horror dream

of one and a half hours
in the cinema hall
Outside we rely

on nuclear bombs and smart solutions
for a humane environment
because there is no growth

in placenta earth

It just keeps growing

and fills up the living room --


that you are not there.

It has already been two weeks
since we wrote to each other, rejoiced
weaving springs into a poem

about love in which we mix ourselves
with the candour of a friend
and our need for being connected

You rhyme with me
into an ethereal love, we create
daisies in waving fields

with kissing gates in the hawthorn
the golden keys shine
upon our hearts

Come in and play, dance
blind man's buff, reach and touch
each other's soul

He is leaving me,

though I tried my best so much --


It was not enough.

Everything happens

to me, nonetheless I am --


the protagonist.

Here are people living
in wet boxes
and I don't cry
I am not campaigning
for an allocation in the budget

I feel alone
just like the others
in their houses and clean clothes
who already have so much to do
and who walk by embarrassed

with a friendly greeting
that cuts off a conversation
before it can begin
and who forget this quickly
before it becomes a problem

Sometimes we give money
What else can you do
but ponder your sin-
ful needs and spend
what you have got after that

Two teenage girls sit-

ting opposite each other --


form a closed circle.

I'm a sane person,

but out of love I believe --


in some afterlife.

Long, long more and more,

for me, for my company --


and for my body.

Be cross, be angry,

but please, don't do anything --


for once and for all.

The plants will show you

where it is passable here:


the Questioning Bog.

People keep thinking,

about their feelings, even --


about their thinking.

People celebrate

the astronauts on the moon --


who'd like to join in.

Trolley cases on the quay, tourists
are part of it when you live here
And Thin John, sitting straight on his bike
every morning three times around the block
in the afternoon on foot the other way around
Mario the Sidewalk Speaker also
is part of it with his dog

Children jumping cannonballs
next to party people in their sloop
Anyone going on vacation
Every two minutes an air-plane
against the wind, low over the houses
Cyclists with their priority face
and the people who live here

The Americans in front of their café
on the corner, where believers sat
when the church with the tower was still there
Red Mia shuffling around
the litter bins, and neighbours
arguing again
They all belong

Here and everywhere the world
is maladjusted, we know
about ourselves and we address
each other: Hello! Good morning
good day here where we are at home
and can only wish that
everything remains different

Waiting is living

half, putting deeds off, looking --


in front of oneself.

You softly knead love

into my skin, you mould me –


godly beautiful.

Once there was no space,

until it ever arose --


as it always was.

I'm sitting at the table, maybe
sleeping, I think for a second
at the blare of a siren
that takes along the smell
of puffed chestnuts from my nose
to an emergency

In the kitchen I see
the cat looking expectantly
and the clouds pass swiftly
past the drowsy sun
We're going to play soon
first I make coffee

High and low the boiling
water and the traffic rustle
my eyes shut, I feel
the cold under the arid air
of autumn, it will take long
before spring comes

Among the bright stars

our happiness shines for life:


a future of love.

No blood needs to flow
we may as well separate
and combat only in stories
who we are, brothers and sisters

with the common needs
for a place of their own and virtues
that are sometimes vices
knowing better, living better

thinking to be better
willing to sacrifice lives
for lack of an angel
who stops us

only reading the discord
in the stories and concealing
that we are brothers and sisters
as if we are not

Father, now waddling

from left to right, seems to walk --


on spherical feet.

After the crossing

I've tea with the ferryman –


no need to travel.

I am shy, you know,

because of my big secret:


I'm very ugly.

I furnish my house

with more and more stuff, around --


the sewer system.

When I'm furious,

I react inhumanely:


neighbours are a prey.

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

Hi boy with the bike on the vase full of bloom
.........................................................pl­oom ploom
hi chair by the table
hi bread on the table
hi fisherman-fish with the pipe
........................and
hi fisherman-fish with the cap
.................cap and pipe
..........of the fisherman fish
..........................hi

Hi-i fish
hi sweet fish
hi little fishy mine

The city, people,

its pulse of fast flowing life --


all bustling beauty!

On the veranda, we wait
for coolness, a fresh shower
Only with us there is light

Nobody sees us
nobody is at home
What is he thinking of?

Not of me, fortunately
I'm already hot
in my underwear

I keep quiet
otherwise he'll fancy
and that takes me too long

The nights are so short
we need sleep
no sweaty ***

Today, too much is

happening, I must pretend --


it is a story.

No fast traffic here
no high steel and concrete
in the streets, but
walkable space

The sun draws attention
away from us, towards the light
on the black facades on the harbour
the white cornices and red tiles:

the picture for the photos
of the tanned tourists
on the terrace of the tanhouse
who walk into our gardens

as if we live here
in an open-air museum
and should praise
their silly insolence

as a decent interest
But we can live with it
The visitors walk around
in a parallel reality

and we have real neighbours
a wide sky, the wide water
and the green island
We can breathe here

as the wood breathes
in the seasons
as the wind breathes
in the grass

My body becomes a wreck
if I don't take care of it
and am dissatisfied

if it's not all that beautiful
not as it seems, and so much
should change what can't be done

I see shiny people everywhere
they devote their bodies
as temples

of flesh, bones, and blood
to plastic beauty
or something higher

but my temple is for myself
a work of art
of my mind

that listens
when my body calls
for recognition and tenderness

to give and receive it
I am not an avatar
but intimately myself

I feel no worship,

no love or amorousness --


but a blissful fear.

We'll wash the dishes,

talking between silences --


only, do not sing!

My clothes are heavy, pack animals
with bags full of worries, I have them
washed when I sleep, dried
in the light of the moon, breathe

Water ripples in the dark
of the gorge between the mountains
here and there fireflies
wanting to ***, they dance

in front of me to the bay
the water is still warm
like when I was a child
with mama in the bath

her soft body
the sweet, lukewarm air
that I still can smell
in the light of the moon

I spread my arms and legs
like a peacock
and draw a circle around me
only my body is still here

I exist! Me too!

And I! Here! I exist here! --


And I? Who hears me?