The perfect woman

is from marble, and barefoot –


she stays where she is.

The piano, skew

on the beach, slowly subsides --


in the rising tide.

With wide arms I listen
With hands full of green ears
Polyphonic whispers of fluff
Fine traces of sound
on the bench

A woman and her daughter
look around, the girl stares
and says with wobbling legs

I'll be a mum just like you
with a daddy and a child
who thinks this is the most beautiful place
of all, the whole world, the universe

*

The girl plays with a ball
pulls a flake of my bark
asks: is your name scratched in it?
What is he old, isn't he, triple thick I think
and those lumps, would he be sick?

Her mother laughs and takes the picture
she wished to have had of herself:
the girl, and I incognito

not as wise, not as full
high and wide
of past as I am now
and smaller than what I know

of all the people
who caressed me
of all the wishes
they shared with me

With a bowed head, Pilar is toiling
through the sand, she's been playing
along the edge, where the water is white
from foam, coming and flowing back
much further than she can see

Mama knows right away
Pilar, where are your shoes?
Tell me, where did you put them?
Here Señora, look, I got them

You know, I have a girl like her
but she is ill, she has a fever
and cold feet, we don't have money
to buy shoes, and all of a sudden
she was wearing these pink shoes!

Three women listen in
they flap out their handkerchief
when Pilar gives her hoop
her bucket with the shovel

and a kiss as a goodbye
to the sick girl
who will grow up and
will keep the pink shoes
in a glass jar

The plains are covered

with dental floss to be plucked –


with heavy tweezers.

The plants will show you

where it is passable here:


the Questioning Bog.

Tonight we solemnly celebrate
The Beginning, the screaming

afterlife of the day, the mysterious
play of being desired
as for the first time

be seen
in new shoes, laugh with new eyes

at decency and the people
who tell what to fear and how
love should be

the gentle hand
that moulds my body, the swift one

that completes it in heaven, and the
mighty one that sows the earth in me
and always

be important
to you, holding your beauty

in my caressing hands
in nights from which I wake up in amazement
pregnant of happiness

the magic of attention
that coddles me and makes me laugh

as long as we live in the same world
and then lie silently together because
it cannot be explained

Cleanliness and routine
a blessing of calm

giving me energy
and making me jump
"in spin, the loop is in
out spout, the loop is out"

I'm going wild in the garden
party of earthly delights
I jump to the fruit, ripe and green
every day again, it has no end

as long as it lasts -
until I write smaller and smaller
circles around my centre
under the caprices

A blessing of calm
cleanliness and routine

The pleasant strangeness

of your body, that body --


going its own way.

The poem opens

a window where I expect --


to go through a door.

The poets return

through the former slave gate, with --


liberated words.

The pointing finger.

Does it point to my finger?


To my path in life?

The polder is green,

nothing but grass, grass hides grass,


hides ditches and roads.

The pollard-willow

with its thick and gnarled old head --


freezes me -- away.

The pond and the ducks

under long drooping branches –


everything dripped green.

The pond is chilly,

the wind high up in the pines --


brings autumn again.

The pool is the gate

through which you can escape, if --


you are not afraid.

The prelate opens

the ancient reliquary:


holy is the dust.

The priest is too old,

not suitable for people --


not for God either.

Always thresholds
/everywhere
To the world
/to be alive
Surviving people
/everywhere
Chance, above all
/everywhere

Angel of Farewell, get lost in love
/Pass me, pass me by
Angel of Betrayal, get lost in friendship
/Pass me, pass me by
Angel of Conceit, get lost in attention
/Pass me, pass me by
Angel of Pettiness, get lost in freedom
/Pass me, pass me by
Angel of Destructive Jealousy, get lost in generosity
/Pass me, pass me by
Angel of Impatience, get lost in order
/Pass me, pass me by
Angel of Brutality, get lost in harmony
/Pass me, pass me by

But you, won't you pass by?
/You, yes you
please seize the day with me
/come and
take and give and share
/and
eat and drink with me!

Angels of Fatigue, kiss the mighty
/Hear me, see me, help me
Angels of the Tempests, kiss the vicious
/Hear me, see me, help me
Angels of Reluctance, kiss the manipulators and tormentors
/Hear me, see me, help me
Angels of Neglect, kiss the hangers-on and profiteers
/Hear me, see me, help me
Angel of Mistakes, kiss the hypocrites and deputies
/Hear me, see me, help me
Angel of Myopia, kiss the liars and imposters
/Hear me, see me, help me
Angel of Indulgence, kiss the bitter and frustrated people
/Hear me, see me, help me

And you, won't you pass by?
/You, yes you
please seize the day with me
/come and
take and give and share
/and
eat and drink with me!

The professor asks

questions and lets them ripen –


till the brain harvest.

It is a fact, not a favour, to be born
outside a ghetto, wasteland or slum town:

no one should reprove me
for not having cultivated the field myself
not having paved the roads and eating fruit
from trees that I have not planted

It is a fact, no a fault, to be born
inside a ghetto, wasteland or slum town:

no one should reprove me
for having come here
on roads that I haven't paved
to work in other people's fields

and to eat the fruit
of trees that I have not planted

The Promised Land does

exist, it is on the map --


of my beating heart.

The psychiatrist

desperately deals hard blows --


to me, to my thoughts.

The purgatory:

suffering with a prospect --


of complete Goodness!

The Queen of Nothing

gave hope to the poor people --


She was dangerous.

The questions, the doubts,

the suspicion, that monster --


with too many heads.

The radio waves

spin around me a wide web --


of nothing but space.

The rain shower pours

down, it rustles everywhere --


I'm treading water.

The raven in the elder
holds out longer than I do
to experience each other's soul
without blinking

What's the news
that she comes to get from me
what is it that she brings me?
I remember

the Queen Mother, the smile
at her kind words
that thrones falter
because of their own growth

steps are added
to descend with older knees

to the birds and the bees
the plodding of the people
their powerlessness and better knowing
and the ravens everywhere

The real miracle

of life just is that it is –


not a miracle.

The real special thing

about people is: special --


is each one of them.

There are boys, hunting

me to a detour, I'm tired --


It is getting dark.

There are just no ways

to our goals, we hesitate --


and saunter about.

There are knocks, no ring

at the door, I open it --


for a little boy.

There are long garlands,

and there are presents with cake --


but where is the party?

There are lots of stones

in my own cemetery --


heavy on my thoughts.

There are mists haunting

over the swampy heathland --


I don't dare go home.

There are multitudes

of faces, everyone has --


many more than one.

There are no best years,

they're different, all of them --


are most beautiful.

There are no limits

to culture, kitsch flourishes --


and it overgrows.

There are no treasures:

all people are different --


in their own wishes.

There aren't any words

for it, it is so special:


I still don't know what.

There are quays for, for

passers-by: the spectators --


and the cargo boats.

There are still places,

as usual, in the seats --


next to the bosses.

There are still traces

of you in the house, in drawers --


air holding your breath.

There are streets between

the paving tiles, busy streets –


of an ant city.

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

There, deeply planted

by your finger mouth, the seed --


tickles in my soil.

The red sun burns in

the windows of the city:


everything is lost.