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

and it does

over the years
when the signs of time
begin to show
   on your brow

you look into the mirror
and think that
   maybe
you can actually learn
to make peace
with the face
that looks back at you

not easy
though

though I was happy
   I did forbidden things

though I did forbidden things
   I was happy

those killers of innocents
will die in their own blood

not even mistranslated 72 houris
can save them

   the misguided fanatics of Paris
   who shot happy civilians
   with their Kalashnikovs
   and then blew themselves up
   will have discovered that
   by now

to throw terror and death
into people’s daily lives
is an abominable crime
not a heroic deed

those who instigated the massacre
shall be punished accordingly

fake heroes revealed
as ruthless criminals
shall face judgement

in whose light
their great deeds
are shown as what they are

****** ******

yet – far beyond the proper punishment
    required after cruel acts
there is the need to look ahead
and face the somewhat inconvenient necessity to
    remove the roots of violence veiled as religion
    speak up and stand up firm against fanaticized minorities
        no matter in whose name the claim to act  
    bring peace to regions devastated by the dire games of politics

we simply cannot allow
a bunch of ruthless desperados to dominate our lives

            * *

the pain
of having to let you
go your way

after such loving days

pulls my face
   into a joyous smile
makes me speak
   words of reassurance
   crack jokes
   ostentatiously enjoy
      a Manhattan at lunch time
   and boisterously hug you
      au revoir

anything
   to overcome
      unshed tears
      the hardening lump in my chest
      the tightening knot in my stomach
      the cold fist that grips my neck
      tightens my throat
      makes my eyes dry
      with the knowledge
         you will not be
         by my side
         for weeks

              * *

the past casts
a long shadow
on our life

to unveil its mysteries
to trace
how we have
become what we are
demands a leap of faith

acknowledging
the nooks and crannies
of a life
that took its turns
not by strict logic
but at times
followed coincidental paths
   leading nowhere
& then retraced its steps
to surge ahead
sure of its goal again

running the wide road
to its predictable end
yet vaguely aware
of alternatives
that remain possible worlds
outside the choices
we made

meandering through life
at one corner of the labyrinth
we notice we have lost the string
that could have led us back
had we ever wanted

we do not worry much

to have it all
requires time and space
beyond our ken

looking back is fine
going back impossible

in an age that brings instant gratification
by hitting a button or two
we are perplexed that good medication
cannot be found in a month or two

patience is waning  so is dedication
after a month or two
no matter what the explanation
we start throwing a tantrum or two

in spite of our expectation
of a miracle or two
our desire for vaccination
may have to wait
for a year or two

relearning to be patient in this situation
may give us a headache or two
when we surmise that salvation
will not come
by hitting a button or two

sitting at my computer
I hammer out my messages
to the world
sometimes mark them “high priority”
mostly just “normal”
unencrypted

grateful
that there is at least
one part of a technology
that connects people
rather than
makes them fight
over it

the favorite dish
of dictators
to devour
until no peace is left

avoid military service
due to a bone spur
for which there is no evidence

have managed to tell
an average of 16.5 lies per day
since elected into office

slander possible opponents
and everybody else who
has a different opinion

divide their country
at a time when unity
were most desirable

sets police on peaceful protesters
just so they can pose for a photo-op
before a church flaunting a bible

but only for self-aggrandizement
    
     no prayer
     no empathy
for those who suffer most
    the victims of racist violence
    the thousands of deaths from the pandemic
        caused by his delayed actions
    the 20 millions of unemployed

people there are who
are simply too incompetent
to lead a country

all poetry is personal
some more than others

to just spread out your private feelings
     in your verse
may not be everyone's delight

but if you choose words
so that the many find their voices
    in your own
you may be lucky
to achieve all poets' dreams

your personal voice
becomes the public

the pictures from the ISS
make it very clear
to everybody with a TV screen
    or a computer

our earth is a globe
    and blue
        and finite
            and in a delicate balance

determined by more factors than even
our most sophisticated computer simulations
can so far figure out

it makes you wonder
why
of all people
those who surely own more than one TV screen
    and a couple of notebooks & cetera
are the ones who deny
that they are
   destroying our rain forests
   polluting our rivers and seas
   poisoning our environment
   ruining our lives
   deadening our minds

maybe
    if they dare to set forth
    even a step or two
    from their isolated gated  habitats
    and walk in the real world
    they have created
they are able to begin
to understand

I played with words
much like I fed the birds

    one morsel here
          another there

then suddenly became aware

they pulled together
     and made sense

have been a player ever since

I played with words
much like I fed the birds

    one morsel here
       another there

then suddenly became aware

they pulled together
     and made sense

have been a player ever since

poetic justice
is not reality
yet
we keep on writing

the venerable Plato would have shunned
the very title of this verse

for him philosophy and poetry
were as diverse as Spartans and Athenians
who fought each other in his time

yet later thinkers of the western world
    as well as many teachings farther east and south
were much less adamant to so divide
philosophers, statesmen and politicians
from those who gave aesthetic shapes to life
made people gather in their public places
in theaters  or just with friends next door
to listen to the words that offered powerful examples
    of love and pain and happiness
    of power   treachery and greed
    losses and victories   and visions
    of our origins and what the future might be like
and that to recognize and love the beauty of our world
    leads us to understand the depths of life
    so we may choose our paths accordingly

that was the time when beauty   truth and  good were
                                      one

such words are difficult to find in our time
when three-word soundbites have replaced coherent speech  
statesmen are few and politicians many
professionals claim expertise each in their fields
talk business only with their kind

philosophers  speak to each other
    at conferences and universities
poetics are not really on their mind

poets have found themselves part of the arts
whose function in the common understanding
is to embellish everybody’s everyday
with pleasant images and notions
mending the harm done by so many hurt emotions

Plato’s revenge   it seems
has finally come home to roost
and the poetics of philosophy
is surely  desperate to receive a major boost

how do I write about the beauty of the world
when barefoot people pass before my window
in search of shelter

how do I share my pleasure of the birds' sweet song at dawn
when I see faces etched with panic
from the deafening blast of bombs

how to rejoice in love and friendship
when meeting people who could barely save their lives
after burying their loved ones

how can I write with passion of the kindness of the human heart
when I see thousands fleeing from the ruins of their homes
only to face police   walls   barbed wire

true words are hard to find
as said a poet of an older war

    when it is a lie to speak
    a lie to keep silent

not easy

how do I write about the beauty of the world
when barefoot people pass before my window
in search of shelter

how do I share my pleasure of the birds' sweet song at dawn
when I see faces etched with panic
from deafening blasts of bombs

how to rejoice in love and friendship
when meeting people who could barely save their lives
after burying their loved ones

how can I write with passion of the kindness of the human heart
when I see thousands fleeing from the ruins of their homes
only to face police   walls   barbed wire

true words are hard to find
as said a poet of an older war

    when it is a lie to speak
    a lie to keep silent

not easy

when daily news
over weeks and months
reports events that  far exceed
most people’s homespun nightmares

can we react as poets
and not be seen as cashing in on the sensation
like all the media have come to do without regret?

It may be wise not to give in
to the temptation to create ******* of violence
but try to just suggest the essence of catastrophe

a lonely high-heeled sandal on the roadside
one flip-flop much too small to fit adults
a tough man crying without shame

there are events for which we don’t have proper words

this does not mean we should keep silent

a special month, it seems,
when poetry is celebrated
by people near and far

it makes them feel so good
that they forget about it
for the other 11 months of the year

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

it seems that Trump  Johnson  and Putin
are not really free of that gluten
which  though it be healthy
tastes only for the wealthy
like something not to dispute on

before we elect politicians
they present themselves full of ambitions
when elections are over
they go under cover
and blame others for their demolitions

violence is a  terrorist excuse
for lack of good arguments

the brush creates
    in careful steps
a painter‘s vision of the face
lets eyes shine bright
    or filled with pain
the lips closed firm and serious
    or hinting at a secret smile
abundant hair, a bit, or none at all
large ears, or medium, or small
pale cheeks, or rosy, with a glow
firm chin, with or without a beard

few limits to the versions of the world
in the attempt to make
the portrait gaze
right into viewers' eyes
    wide with surprise

we feel
experience
   has no end

maybe death
but we do not
   really know

so we speculate
   or believe
in one or many

one day perhaps
we know an answer

and then
may feel
we have known it
all along

         * *

some people seem to believe
the power to **** makes them safe

deadly error

just makes them more dangerous for everyone
themselves included

Spread claims you are the only one who can stop corrupt politicians and their dependence on the rich (even though you yourself belong to the rich)

2. Spread lies and insults about anyone who might look like a serious opponent

3. Once you are in power, continue 1. & 2. and put your rich friends into influential positions in state offices and courts, give tax breaks to the rich and claim that everyone benefits from them. Declare any information that runs counter to your lies „fake news“.

4. Invent threats to the security and well-being of the nation and then claim you are the one who can solve all the problems by strict measures, like building a 2,000 mile wall against those criminal immigrants that threaten your people – what the „fake news“ reports as a few thousand refugees from neighboring countries who flee from misery and persecution and crime and hope to get asylum in your country of 350 million.

5. Cut your aid programs for the home countries of those resfugees so that the situation there worsens even more and even more people will try to run for a better life, and you can rhetorically justify inhuman security measures at your borders.

6. On a different field, isolate your country internationally, be the elefant in the china shop, break or end international agreements, destabilize whole regions, and then threaten to send the military – all of which, you tell your voters, makes your country great again.

7. Start trade wars with old global partners, accusing them of taking advantage of your countrty, and when your own economy suffers from such idiocies, calm your afflicted followers with federal subsidies that jolt the nationl deficit to singular heights.

8. Fire (or mob into retirement) any critical person in your government until all your officials speak with your voice.

9. Look around for a worthy cause to be the focus of your consoldidated power.

10. Start a world war and lose it.

the power of the word
made our world
it alone can also save it

there still is a president  named Trump
who starts every day with a bump
he storms the fake media
and blames Wikipedia
for rating him below Forrest Gump

when presidents blow a gasket
the world goes to hell in a basket

watching purported heads of state
stage their pr shows on their national television
     aired internationally
for very obvious purposes

makes you wonder
whether these so-called politicians
really believe they speak to total idiots
or have just lost the ground under their feet

in the end, though,
*** do I worry

the results are the same

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

at times it seems
your future might be little else
but treasured memories
from your receding past

open the door, look outward,
let some light shine in
and remember

your life goes forward
not back

who does not like the feeling
that we are all protected
by our guardian angels

however

as the ancient Greeks
    and after them
Benjamin Franklin & others
maintained

God helps those
who help themselves

you feel it
when you clutch your wrist
before you cut

remember

it's your only one

feeling
the instinctive response
of the puppy
    three months old
to my cuddling her on my lap
letting her chew
     gently on my thumb
turning on her back
     so I can stroke her belly
she looks like she is in dog heaven

unfiltered pleasure and trust

when trump meets with putin
the one shows his routine
the other goes bump
when he bows over his ****
just to fail with his gross highfalutin'

Your eyes
when I am with you
sometimes puzzle me

Where does their loving gaze
come to a rest within me
when it sinks deep
inside myself

What do they see
when they get wide and soft with joy
and seem to look
beyond me
into secret lands?

And when they close
with pleasure
   and a little flutter
am I still there
within them
do they see
  me ?

supposedly
the competition
of the world's best soccer teams

has become
        very deplorably
a plaything of global politics

bad carma

will we finally know
what we have always
   wanted to
when our lives end
   long expected
   always too sudden

or will it just be
   once more
the old wisdom
that we know little
   and that
at the wrong time

drops falling steadily
upon a misty world
far more than fifty shades of green
dazzle your senses
make you
     almost
hear
trees  bushes  flowers
drinking sustenance
     ecstatically
dancing in the rain

we live in times
that make it difficult
to differentiate reality from fiction

     not in the field of literature
     where borders always have been fluid

but in quotidian discourses
of politicians  television  internet
speakers present unproven attitudes
as if they were reality unquestionable

and they get huffy and evasive
if proof comes out that they are wrong
they claim that they have been misquoted
or at least misunderstood

and even if they do recant
this never hits the front page of the medium
but somewhere inside mixed with trivialities
few people check

so it seems to be up to every one of us
to use our brains and bother
whether the data we are being served
are edible or rotten

bccause these speakers
seem to have forgotten
what communication is about

we need to really understand each other

warm for the season
clouds hanging to the ground
hiding the sun
making mid-day feel like dusk

such days may make some folks
forlorn and grey
and they prefer to stay indoors
secluded, warm, in cozy places
practicing various social graces

for me
the blurry silhouettes of familiar shapes
open the doors
to visions of a magic world

the old oak tree down by the grocery
looms huge, somewhat mysterious,
almost a bit uncanny
an ancient giant rising from his lair

the hedges in the garden
have grown into dark vanishing walls
the path between them leading
straight into misty white uncertainty

even my neighbor’s little dog
   appearing suddenly
looks like a werewolf’s tiny brother

I do not bother
nor do I take flight

I am befogged
yet I do recognize
abundant water in the air
enhances our view through ambiguity
makes us enrich our world with meanings
more fantastic
    and quite otherwise
than those when days are clear and bright

painfully shrouded
   in the presence
      of your absence
I go about my business

it takes me days
   to rebalance
   and to remember  that
the hurt of missing you
is a result
   of your existence  that
the joy of loving you
   will be fulfilled again  that
   the happiness
      will come back

only then
   can my eyes regain
      their smile
at the world

reflections
of reflections
backlit by fire
and glaring light
in a world upside down
where masks reign

green

in its circumference
of mirrored silhouettes
that seem to be
looking for something
elsewhere

much of my time
I spend apart from you

by necessity
     choice, or coincidence
I am not sure

we have our different obligations
which also   paradoxically
allow us freedom from each other

make us elated
when we are together
again

I listen to the mid-day news
wondering vaguely why
it sounds so familiar
     more or less
like what I heard this morning

    we know that repetition
    is a major didactic principle

yet lately it seems to have become
the dominant discourse
not only in the news
but also in discussions, panels,
pop songs  advertisments,  etc.

as if

repeating things
over and over again
made them ‚more‘ true