Mama went to work
we stayed at home
could not get out
snow, no shoes

silence everywhere
fear of the police
and suppressed madness
which strangles desires

without killing them
impossible love
only the daily potatoes
hoping for a piece

of the repeated promises
for us, the children, and now
that we are no longer children
for our children

Rustling lanes, winding roads
the rippling on the bank
of the path along the river

wherever the land is not buried
under city, I walk my days
in the smell of rotting

Mushrooms, spider webs
birds in the undergrowth
and dearest to me are the wild
flowers, thistles, chicory
pink anemones and poppies

I admire the gaunt, the sallow
the beauty under
the beauty of
the scars, the life
they pass on

The wall without end,

without gates and hope, carries --


many illusions.

Girls tease each other,

just to attract attention --


from the toughest boys.

Car with a driver

waiting for me, it is just --


too big to be parked.

I was floating in

the sea of your eyes, they led --


me into your port.

Afterwards it is

only vague what it was like:


a passion, a pain.

The war happened to me
the hostile people
my neighbours and family
I have to
      
take my loss
anyway

The dark is teaching me
to accept
that I am invulnerable
there is no need to flee

my soul is my asylum
if I ****, I **** lovingly
      
with a silvery shine
around my duty
which is not a mirror
of their motives

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

Reading books you fly

in everywhere, completely --


without being seen.

The clouds are the blood

of planet Earth, my mother --


the blood of my blood.

The wind surrounds us.

The restless howling tells us --


that we are inside.

Divine help is for

young people, and then they have --


to do it themselves.

It just keeps growing

and fills up the living room --


that you are not there.

I am a thinker:

although, can I think away --


sedimented thoughts?

After the crossing

I've tea with the ferryman –


no need to travel.

The clouds heavily

sail through the lake of my eyes --


Swans are flying up.

Too bad, halfway through

my working day I am stuck --


with the word puzzle.

Mother shakes her head,

she has a different view --


of my path in life.

Two people travel

and they discover the world --


A journey called Love.

In ashen wisps clouds

are moving across the sky --


Far away: the moon.

The little blue hat,

she always wears it, because --


why would she undress?

Cold rain being blown

under my hood, the shelter –


of the mosquito.

Borders in our heads
where it becomes unsafe
and we are on our guard

against those who come in
with a mouth full
of questions and criticism

who keep a low profile
as good neighbours
with democratic rights

to undermine government
whereby they change colour
until they feel strong enough

to blow up differences
and to welcome others'
losses as gains

until there are no more borders
just gaps and stinking fistulas
with internal bleeding

Sun on the roof edge,

underneath we sufferlead --


our cold shadow lives.

The fountain is clear,

I dry myself with some grass --


The nightingale sings.

Shall I ever see

you again? I'll wait for you --


in rain and in sun.

Rainy days mud
my garden, the golden root is rotting

my wishing well spills over
I am spent

flaccid roads to the city
get me nowhere, no one wants

to pay for that, the world stands still
my little son is sleepwalking around me

by touch, cow and calf look
at me and frown, sighing

vapours muffled by the fine droplets
of rainy tears on the globes of my eyes

the sachets of water in which the world
always is upside down

a violet hangs and thinks:

mud will become waterproof
slate, eventually

Nothing goes to hell

with a big bang, it always --


happens with moaning.

The light at the end

of the tunnel is my hope:


heaven anyway.

There's a woman in the verge
of the highway, I know her
She looks like me, like the face
next to me in the side window

She comes closer and bends
forward to my indicator
I break a sweat in the dark
behind my steering wheel

'My boy, what are you doing here?
I turn over in my grave
of all my worries
about you'

Mama, I'm going to work hard
and then I'll get rich
'Oh boy, don't you know?
This is the road to hell

On your journey through barren poverty
from the desert to the source
you got lost, you turned off
to hell'

The harbour: the quays


are like a flat sea, the ships --



are walls of iron.

In the evening the dunes are flat
and swampy, watery grey
bushes darken with dashes
of red and blue

Everything loses solidity
land looks like sea and sea seems to be land
in thin waves of twilight
water coagulates to shades of sand

Clouds resemble a massif
and moonless, mountains
seem to be a night-black sky
in which there are no stars

Ideas are lifelike
shapes do pass
Know what you attach to
then you are free

Believers give God
a portion of His abundance
not as a sacrifice, but as a person

who helps neighbours and fellow villagers
spares pack animals and allows butterflies
to flutter and who is not only sweet

to stuffed animals
but builds fountains
to water the noble horses

Unbelievers decide for themselves
whether they sell their yield
what they eat and what they share

God and greedy people too
choose themselves who benefits
what the henchmen get

for taking, and the front men
for hiding the abundance
in the heavenly clouds of Moneyland

The birches are called

silvery white, yeah, language --


can be very poor.

With a broad chest
a ******* tongue
beautiful feathers, a hot breath
and a forked tongue
they live on our skin

We little ***** rats in the eyes
of the screaming crowd
that rattles the fences
in the zoo, the cages
in which we are trapped

The gorillas who clear the way
the hyena who says she is helping
the peacock who dresses our hair
the dragon for our image and
the hissing of the tour manager

Don't step on their tails
and don't feed them, please
Just let their airs
explode, no more ground
beneath their feet

Every time I think

what my mother would have said --


Yet, do I know her?

He's unsure and can't

do magic, yet he can do --


magical thinking.

People are praying:

God, please do keep your distance --


You're getting too close!

Wild waves, the shore comes

close, it narrows more and more --


Then, calm, the strait.

Stay, no promises,

just stay, stay with me tonight --


with my lovesickness.

My memories are photos
that life rushes over
from white to dark
night to day
feelings
already vanished
in black
or blanched
in the bright sun

Snapshots of the earth
frozen, still fleeting
by the rapid spinning
in the eternal sky
of time
from white to dark
night to day
to past, past
past forever

It is by waiting

that you can see what the world --


has to offer you.

Watching videos

I see shadows of people –


Is it Plato's cave?

I'm living in meantimes

in a checkout queue or a lobby
at the hairdresser and the laundry
and when I take ***-bits and pastry

I'm living in meantime

when it's quiet in the train
when it's cloudy under the plane
and while I'm singing a refrain

when I'm at a stop in suburbia
take shelter and wait under a pergola
or pass over a few turns

when visitors are not coming
when it is silent after a greeting
and after excuses for early leaving

when friends whine about communication
repeat their stories with every consideration
for a lack of interest in a real conversation

In that meantime, the quotidian
breaks in between the action
I realize that I am alive

It is night, I walk

across the metropolis --


which denies the night.

Am I in hell now?

I don't think it is heaven! --


There is no one here!

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

Party-time today,

the world turns yellow: the stars --


my heart and my love.

Have I been playing

that I match you, did you play --


that you are my friends?