two things
we can give our children:
roots and wings

apparently
we live in times
in which disasters chase each other
around the globe in never-ending sequence

    or is it just the real-time news media hype
    that gives us this impression?

yet even if I generously discard
the ****** massacres and crises
far away

there are enough rough dreadful things
that even if they don’t affect me ******
do touch my heart and make me grieve
with the afflicted

methinks we’re coming near the point
when the majority of normal people on our globe
will rise an tell fanatics of all creeds
to shove it  
     take a shower  
          just go home
and let us live our lives in peace !

look at nature
with the lover‘s eye
not the hunter‘s

If you want to see the light,
OPEN YOUR EYES!

frisky freckles frolick
over his fair-featured face
like a flickering fresco
of furious lusting frenzy

a vibrant flirtatiousness
fills all her fibers
she falls into his arms with finesse
foreseeing fond fantasies

******* with fearsome delight
after failure of foreplay
the foman farts in fectasy
his font flushes fondly

though he almost faints in the feat
for his front has become
far more fragile
than in former feasts

    fewer the forays
    more frequent the flops
    further away
    desires formerly frequent

yet his feelings
still flow to flowering females
forever fertile and fragrant

therefore
he never thinks
of a final
farewell

if you are seriously listening
to genuine folk songs of the world

     not to the muzak that pervades all malls

after a while you find yourself
     floating into these worlds  of ancient tunes
     imagining an ambience  of ages past
whose melodies have kept their power over centuries
and still keep tickling legs and bodies
     in our days
     of young and old

these melodies of our ancestors
simply remind us that they,
     too,
did know a thing or two

about the joy
     of living

Some people know
how to surround themselves
with shields of rhetoric
appropriate to their time

they find believing followers
who take a while
till they are undeceived
and then grieve ever after
in somber disillusion

Some people know
how to excel
by crying 'wolf'
when all around
are only sheep
easily frightened
into trustful obligation

Some people build their lives
with shocking frankness
on the patience
of their fellow beings
claim for themselves
what they would not
concede to others

Some people!

that lovely night
when suddenly
you put your hand
   upon my knee
and later
snuggled up under
   my paw around your shoulder
a gentle flame sprang into life
   from dormant embers

when afterward the two of us
were rocking to a softer tune
than music would us have
   (we never made it
   to the dancing floor)
the brilliance of your eyes
shone through your flying hair
  the flame leaped high
  and built a wall
  hard but transparent

completeness was

   within

           * *

taking care
of all
the things
we happily buy and pay for
can take
all our time
and make us
   unaware
the people we love
may be left
to take care of
themselves

no matter which religion
no matter who you are
      in class or race or otherwise

your only goal in life
     if you are interested in our survival
is to maintain all natural resources on the globe
      fish  fowl  plants  mammals
      even human beings

if we don‘t care
we‘ll not fare well
and go to hell

full stop

there is an American billionaire
who looks quite flamboyant and debonnaire
he was leading the race
for Republicans’ ace
and ******* his competitors everywhere
(unfortunately)

congratulations on this special day

remembering the gain of freedom
from unjust monarchy
after hard struggles for democracy
and universal human rights

we also need to be aware
of new dependencies and tyrannies
that have since come among us quietly
and with deceptive lures of easy lives and riches
of glamor  reputation  millions of virtual followers
& other such amenities
try to persuade us that these are the only goals of our lives

the most decisive loss of independence
is when we do no longer feel its absence
and happily embrace the bars of our golden cage

at least one shooting every week
congress & president mild and meek
whatever they might do or say
no blame goes to the NRA

that keeps abusing the 2nd amendment
     who needs militias today?!
and thanks to that ****** arrangement
more students weekly fall prey

to psychopaths in our states
whose weapons open the gates
to free indiscriminate killing
thanks to our politicians unwilling

to forego all the boons
they receive from their insane tycoons

it may well be that I no longer am good company
     or that I never have been anyway

it’s not that people make me feel like that

it is myself that questions me
and I am spending more time with myself
     than anybody else

I have noticed lately
a touch of crankiness
looking at me out of the bathroom mirror

I wonder why

is it just age encroaching on my life
with its assorted ailments
or disillusionment of archived teenage dreams

I look again at the reflection of myself
and see what I did miss before

there is a spark of youthful mischief in these eyes
even the serious bearded lips seem ready for ironic smiles

maybe no everything is lost

maybe I can myself keep company
for some more years with little strife

even, perhaps, until the end of my sweet life

my lover's eyes
   are island seas

changing their colors
   to the wandering of clouds
lit by an inward sun

at times
   a brilliant hard shine
   of greenish gray
   with tints of brown

at other moments
   the sad grey
   of pastel slate

and then
   some times
   a dark green velvet

drawing me in
on endless gentle waves

once you let your poems
fly freely
out into the world
anything can happen to them

and it does

why is it
that this day weighs heavy on my mind
though nothing special has occurred
except the usual bad news
     of deaths and fighting and catastrophies
     greed and abominable politics

my private life is safe and fine
remote from all the global strife
it runs a fairly pleasant course
with just occasional disturbances

could that weigh heavily on my mind?

when winter is saying goodbye
our nature prepares for a high
all juices start flowing
the farmers start sowing
but the snowmen are beginning to cry

and now the numbers
are rising again
hospitals filling
ICUs getting sparse

it seems this virus actually is
a bit more dangerous than the common flu
no matter what irresponsible leaders
across the globe keep telling their citizens

against the advice of medical experts
despite almost
30 million infected
1 million dead
and hundreds of millions of jobless

encouraging their followers
to ignore safety instructions
making them believe it is OK again
to spread infections on parties and in discos
or massive election campaign events
continuing the vicious circle
… continuing …. continuing …. continuing...

in Duino
no access for us
to rainer maria's view
across the sea
from the castello

a servant of
il principe
   who owns the place
   and whom we happen
   not to know
bars our way
beyond the open gate

therefore:
no elegies

learning once more
of innocent people killed in the name of whatever
    some psychopath’s personal  crisis
    a violent protest against other cultures
    or an abuse of some religious creed

the motivations may be different
yet the results are all the same

the wanton killing of women  men  and children
who do not know that they are ‘enemies’
of someone whom they also do not know

the murderers may have been led to think
that they are heroes for some glorious cause or god

fact is that they are simply murderers

and I believe
they will not even receive
their 72 raisins when they face their gods

because to ****
in the name of any god
is always wrong

a crumbling asphalt road
   is the only way up
winding amid wild slopes
young brush  and vinyards
heavy with grapes

in the distance
we see the evening sun
   catch bare white mountain peaks

   on the hills before them
   glitter little towns and villages

the air is mild
chestnut trees
   keep dropping their fruit

the farmer's restaurant
   announced downhill
is closed

so is the church

a German shepherd dog
   silently
lies watch over the winery
   behind a cast-iron gate

the castello
turns out to be
   a not very impressive ruin

advertisement and reality
seem to have grown
far
     apart

what makes me write
is the quiet of the hills
   through which we walk
the sight of the full moon
   we enjoy
   with my hands
     cupped over your *******

our togetherness

          * *

is a familiar phrase
we like to flaunt
    especially
when we would like to utter a complaint
    about contemporary grievances
    god and the world & cetera

in doing so
we keep good company
from Socrates to Livius
    to Shakespeare, Goethe, Emerson,
    Whitman, Fitzgerald, Hurston, Vonnegut,
     Morrison, Angelou, Nabokov, etc.

I guess this is because
the times like these
are always those
in which we live

few tourists
on this september afternoon

the sun warms
   without sound

the langobard museum
    is closed

next to it
a noisy little waterfall
   flows undisturbed

a boy
keeps flipping flat pebbles
   across the quiet water
   down from the fall

for a few hours
   the past  
   remains victorious
in the clash of centuries

* *

your body
   my body
together
   apart

they remember
they recognize
   each other
register sensations
exchange molecular information

   receptors and synapses clicking
   data processed in nanoseconds

output:
you are the one I love

the night in which
the dead come alive for a while

only to be frightened
right back to death
by the terrible masks and pumpkins
of the living

when our mind is full of great ideas
we want to write them down
yet there are times when we  discover
that there is no connection from our brain
to all the instruments we use
to transcribe our flighty thoughts
    to give them shape on paper, screen, or in the sand

sometimes it helps to pause a bit and reconsider
what we do really want to say  
    focus and concentrate
    articulate precisely yet suggestively
our indomitable urge to formulate
    the turmoil of emotions we may harbor
    our wild ideas of revolution
    the overbearing pain of loss and separation
    grey landscapes of depression
    attractions of dramatic suicide
also the joy and pleasures of deep love
    of unexpected friendships found
        where even angels fear to tread
    the happiness of our children
    the love we recognize
        often too late
    our parents have bestowed on us

et cetera  et cetera

the catalogue of our themes
expands through our lives
so do the challenges
of how to tell the tale

it helps to aim for clarity
we have to  let our instruments of writing know
which of our turbulently swirling thoughts
should earn the privilege
to become words
    and be communicated
to people who
    before they read our verse
have no idea at all
    that we exist

the sight
of a blonde Austrian 5-year-old girl
happily hugging a Senegal mammy in Vienna
joys me beyond belief

to give
while taking in

to feel
your life in mine

to rise
with you
on growing waves

to be aware
   in almost desperate desire
of nothing

but you

         * *

the rhythm of my life has changed o’er time
from hectic to considerate to more relaxed
things that pressed urgently in previous years
now suddenly can wait a bit, and without fears
that anything important might be missed

the wisdom of maturity, or just the laziness of age,
allows me now to cast a much more probing look
on our daily world, watching events and people
with more distance than in younger days

whether this is a  blessing in disguise
I dare not say, I’m not the sage
who tells you where the long-sought treasure lies
but just a greying man who tries to figure out
what his life and the world are all about

the loving way
   you take me in

and send me out
into an orbit
lit by a million suns
moving in spiraling commotion
toward their brilliant center

the way
   you loving
take me in

my father’s younger brother
was quite an interesting fellow
worked over time in different jobs
and on the sided wrote poems
stories  novels  texted songs

we lived about 150 miles apart
exchanged occasional mails and comments
on each other’s writings

then I received an email rather strange
stating that he had underestimated
his sickness but wished to have no visits
at the time

it seriously felt
    like something was not right

and two days later
    I was just about to call
a weeping aunt was on the phone
and told me of his death

from what she said
it was not nice

he died of  cancer of the pancreas
could hardly move in his last weeks
and only weighed one hundred pounds
down from 200   when he died
guess his demise was a relief for him
    as well as her

how sad that he  a man of letters
     who wrote thick novels and articulate verse
could not find words for his own pain

maybe  like many of his generation
he felt his sickness was  a shame
or he was furious at his body   or his fate
or did not want to burden others
or did not like them to be witness
to his waning health

I do not know

what I shall remember
is the loud silence
in his last mail

          * *

coming to think of it

the first woman
to whom I ever
had been very close
must have been desperate
to claim a father
for her three-month child
as yet unborn

she came into my bed
   out of the blue
with fierce determination

the mission failed
   I was too cautious
and her rash parting
left me wondering
at her dismay

not until some months later
   when I saw her push the pram
did I become aware I had
   unwittingly
emerged fairly unscathed
from ancient battlegrounds
of social order


* *

that many followers
    of the man who
        in their scripture
    died upon the cross

keep praising this
    as sign of his great love
    of humankind

yet seem to only love
themselves?

In spite of all the learn'd have said;
I still my old opinion keep,
The posture, that we give the dead,
Points out the soul's eternal sleep.

Not so the ancients of these lands --
The Indian, when from life releas'd
Again is seated with his friends,
And shares gain the joyous feast.

His imag'd birds, and painted bowl,
And ven'son, for a journey dress'd,
Bespeak the nature of the soul,
Activity, that knows no rest.

His bow, for action ready bent,
And arrows, with a head of stone,
Can only mean that life is spent,
And not the finer essence gone.

Thou, stranger, that shalt come this way.
No fraud upon the dead commit --
Observe the swelling turf, and say
They do not lie, but here they sit.

Here still lofty rock remains,
On which the curious eye may trace,
(Now wasted, half, by wearing rains)
The fancies of a older race.

Here still an aged elm aspires,
Beneath whose far -- projecting shade
(And which the shepherd still admires
The children of the forest play'd!

There oft a restless Indian queen
(Pale Shebah, with her braided hair)
And many a barbarous form is seen
To chide the man that lingers there.

By midnight moons, o'er moistening dews,
In habit for the chase array'd,
The hunter still the deer pursues,
The hunter and the deer, a shade!

And long shall timorous fancy see
The painted chief, and pointed spear,
And reason's self shall bow the knee
To shadows and delusions here.

we have found each other
   across thousands of miles
   across different cultures and traditions
    
we have found each other
   among seven billion plus people
   on this globe

   finding each other
   was the easiest part

   strangers in the night

   staying together
   has been truly challenging
   at times

idiosyncracies
failures deficiencies fears
hopes wishes dreams
illusions and taboos
pieces of history from previous lives
   keep popping up at crucial moments
   in often Freudian transfigurations

   innocuous words
   may trigger convoluted memories
   freighten new contexts
      with old pain and sorrow

   a gesture
   a tone of speech
   a situation
   suddenly turn into déjà vu
   twisting their present freshness
      beyond belief
   into habitual frames of order

   the prisons of our pasts
   do not offer easy escapes

yet we have found each other
   among the billions on this globe

there is no other but the each
   to build a life together

love that is generous
and waits not
   for a thousand little things
   to feel diminished

love that speaks openly
   rather than store up
   the souring years
   of unsaid bitter trifles

love that enjoys
   it is returned
knows that it is unique
   yet may not be the only one

love that does not possess
    and has no need to rank
    itself on a monopoly
    carrying the seeds of self-defeat

love that gives freely
   and takes in alike
   but never needs
   to add up scores

   is such a love
      inhuman?

* *

naming the world
is our daily task
temporary and forever new
challenging and ambiguous

   like the name of the rose

only few names last
most are forgotten
the young ones usually
do not understand

   a rose is a rose is a rose

names can move masses
   Oedipus Napoleon ****** Ghandi
   Jesus Stalin Mohammed Rockefeller
or just a few
  or one or two

names are what
remains of us
   aids to some fleeting thoughts
   in the dear memories of friends
imprinted on official pages
   and electronic discs
strange signs for future generations

to name
   against the flow of time
   what we see hear feel taste smell  and do
   our dreams and visions and desires
   the thoughts we have and those
   we do not dare to think
   and to name those we love and hate
fills our lives

  the rose is

             * *

Having just climbed
      through ages
up what seemed an endless flight
of narrow winding gothic spiral stairs
I step out
right into the wind's brute force
     instinctively
my arms grasp for a hold
    fearful lest I blend suddenly
    with the white horses
    and the fields of the Camargue
    far down below

Wedged safely
in a nook of stone
a hefty tourist
leans out wide between the walls
toward the setting sun

her summer skirt is blown waisthigh
revealing
unexpectedly delicate lace
above sturdy thighs

her body opens
to the strong soft touch
of the Mistral

A little later
she walks past me
clothes gathered
level gaze calm  
and self-assured

and leaves me wondering
whether the mighty abbot
    on his solitary tower
and his exclusive brotherhood of men
had ever understood
the wind that blew
    and still blows
through two feet of stone
  like they were silk
and thrills a woman
to her bone

      * * *
                                                              ­                        © Walter W. Hoelbling

A certain Mr. Frederick
seems unable to prevent his ****
from creeping up into his words
that end up sounding much like turds
vented on **** sites popular galore -
ON HP WE DON'T WANT HIM ANYMORE!

right in the eye
of history
I walk
among the crowds
that taste
the absence of confinement

   an unfamiliar space

between the band stands
on the avenues
where people
test a freedom
   newly won
still strange
as yet in need
of daily reassurance

crossing and recrossing
   the big gate
   and the bridges
that for generations
connected nothing
marked divisions kept
   by guns and barbed wires
   and well-lit empty spaces
   between walls
   watched from towers

the new reunion
brings happy smiles for most
   quiet tears for some
new doubts for many
who  are uncertain
   now
about their lives together
after decades
of separation

right in the eye
of history I walk

just now and then
a little bit afraid
that she might
rub her eye

just now

       * *

when I wake up from my dreams
   have to leave you
       then it seems
that the mornings are much colder
and I feel a little older
all these mornings without you

when I stumble out of sleep
   sad     because I cannot keep
loving images of you
           in my mind
and my body aches with longing
    for your warmth I cannot find
all these mornings without you

then I wish that time would fly
dream of mornings on which I
   turning over drowsily
find you sleeping next to me
happily can lift the cover
and come closer to my lover
oh, these mornings, loving you!

   * *

I wake up
my arm
finds you not

only a pillow

you are not here

anymore

listening to the news
that brings disasters of all kind
with reliable regularity
     thanks to our sensationalist media

you may be tempted to believe
the world is going straight to hell
apocalypse is near & unavoidable

     whether by asteroids or comets
     the Russians or Americans or Chinese
    
fact is that rising ocean levels
are much more dangerous than changing presidents
flooding the fields and homes of millions
     in the lower lying islands of the South Pacific

the cold oblivion of the powerful
about the real people’s tragedies
is what I find most missing
in the so-called news

the 19th SCHOOL shooting in the USA in 48 days

the gun lobby is lying low
the president
     surprise
avoids a straight comment

17 school children dead
because in the land of the free
any psychopath can buy
a semiautomatic without problems
and vent his frustrations and fears
in a shooting spree

home schooling is on the rise
for better or worse

what do you call a president
who is unwilling
    or unable
    to protect
the health and security
of his people?

LOSER!!!

I smoke like a chimney
   my ashtray fills up
   like never before

I smoke like a chimney
   to fill the void
   that surrounds me
   with your absence

I smoke like a chimney
   and refuse
   to see my hopes evaporate
   like the fumes
   I inhale & exhale

I smoke like a chimney
   burning myself out
   draft by blue draft

I smoke like a chimney
   knowing I should not
   measure out
   my days & nights
   in cigarettes

   yet I do
   four   five minutes more
   time is running so fast

I smoke like a chimney

I am smoking for my life

closing my eyes
I feel your lips
   close over me
   in firm embrace

close to your ears
I murmure
words of love

and then go on
to close my lips
   lovingly
all over yours

holding each other
    close
we close ourselves
to the rest of the world
   for a while

and open up
    to us

         * *

our daily information
defies all expectation

reporting in unnerving detail
how trains derail, tour buses fail
   to stay on roads without a rail
how terrorists attacked again
    when nobody expected them
what nonsense politicians spew
    unfortunately quite a few
how the economy keeps getting worse
    yet billionaires still fill their purse
pollution levels have ‘improved’
El Nino has the jet streams moved
millions of refugees are loose
    around the globe, few clothes, no shoes
armies and gangsters flex their muscles
cannot resist the deadly hustle

and for the icing on the cake
thousands of lives are now at stake
we learn  without too strong emotions
that a new virus was discovered
the waters of our rising oceans
     have by now covered
     a third of several island nation's land
no more idyllic beaches with white sand
    
all this mixed in
with those exciting human interest stories
about the latest dog show winners
some brilliant wunderkind beginners
major and minor worries
from  distant neighborhoods
commercials for the latest fads
and all the current healthy foods
self-advertising TV channel ads
who’s s great in sports
    and who of sorts

in short  
24/7 of much useless blather
that neither alters our lives
nor can we change its mostly dreary facts

yet we risk drowning  under this debris
    of cacophonic sound and image bites
unless we learn to
    set our marks
    clear our sights
    turn into info sharks
devouring just those bits
of almost hidden information
we can make sense of and digest
the clues to what is really going on
below the surface of our media-created ocean

it’s the commotions in the depths
    that teach us best
    give us a glimpse behind the curtains of stale words
    make us aware there’s little time for rest

on the first day of spring
my mother died

she had always loved flowers
and had turned
our interior hallway
into a luscious greenhouse
   father was not always happy
   about the falling leaves

in her later years
when skiing was no longer hers
she hated winters
   their long nights
   their waning sun

she was always longing
   for spring
waiting for the day
the morning sun lit up
the kitchen desk again
in her parents’ house
where she was born
   and had grown old

the night before
I had called and told her
that here in the south
the first flowers were already
   dotting the gardens

she had smiled on the phone
   almost inaudibly
speaking had become difficult

   maybe her last images
   were of colorful spring meadows

today at 7.10 a.m.
my mother died

spring has come

four decades of professional life
    considered with benevolence
(how else …?)
have altogether
not turned out so badly
even though no party politics
helped me climb the ladder
of not so easy scholarly achievement

often in the beginning I discovered
that my politeness was mistaken
for simplicity

and so I had to learn a bit about
   how I could stand my ground
to kick the shins of those who thought
    they could step on my toes with cool impunity

until they noticed that they were mistaken

over the years I found my ways to garner
    not everybody’s love
    but their respect and recognition
    
which is what we all mostly need

     eventually