My spirit is just a splinter

My spirit is just a splinter
Just one beat in the world's giant heart
But added with your spirit and all the million others
We push life
Into veins between the stars

the mighty playful water

some things take time 
to let them pass, 
to be a leaf floating on waves
accepting the mighty playful water 
drowns leaves from time to time

Face to face with a tree

When I was a child
I stood face to face with a  tree

He was young and sprouting 

Brim-full with sap

The texture of his leaves

Felt mellow on my skin

I loved his brisk and noble sight

Today he would have outgrown

All of us, wasn't it for someone 

Who chopped him down at night

I sit on his chair and know

I should kneel on the ground

Winter had grown

I sat on the steps to my garden
waiting for nothing. Winter had grown

and covered me in snow. A fine layer 
gleamed on my fingers,
my hair, my chest and my naked toes.

I sat still, listened to trees tinkling
while all birds had headed South. 

After many days and nights,

my heart was frozen too. I didn’t hear a beat, 
my lips were blue, my lashes breaking,

didn’t know, was I dead or still alive.

One afternoon, 
just before the sun set behind the trees, 
a soft breeze rustled through their branches.
It was time for him to come.
He sang to me with a warm and deep voice.
Very close to my ear I heard the sweetest melody,
it captured me. My heart started beating,
a rush of blood danced in my chest,
flooded my fingers, flooded my head.

He kissed my lashes, woke up the trees,

tiny little flowers unfolding in ice, 

sending their scents to my garden's rearmost corners,
awakening beehives with all their fragile strength.

He picked a blossom from a nearby tree, 

very gently, placed it in my hair,

a cherry blossom melted me in sunset
and all my layers of adamantine ice.

Äpfel im Morgentau

Äpfel tropfen noch vom Morgentau, Bäume halten reifen Atem an, während Vögel auf saftigem Astwerk sitzen, das im ständigen Richtungswechsel von Blatt zu Blatt überrundet wird. Ein Kater schläft in der Mulde, stört sich nicht an Läusen, die die Rinde und sich selbst unterhalten.

Und dann rief ich die Krähen, trainierte sie täglich drei Stunden, richtete sie regelrecht ab, mit Krähenfüßen auszuhacken, was im schwarzen Feld vergraben lag. In den Murmeln stecken Fingernägel, beim Spiel gebrochen, die du immer poliert, lackiert, an den Enden so fein geschliffen hast. Auch jetzt noch sind sie sicher vor dem Dreck, der die verlorenen Perlen beschichtet.

Eine Höhle zwischen Wurzeln diente als Versteck. Als ich nachsah, war alles geplündert. Ein Mader, ein Fuchs, vielleicht war’s ein Hund. Nur eine Locke, ein verblasster Schuh und die verwelkte Schleife, die jeden Tag das Haar umstreifte, blieben als Zeugen zurück.

Ich trug sie heim, errichtete einen Tempel, dem Gott der Glasperlen zu Ehren, opferte Haar und Seidenschuh. Was jetzt noch bleibt, ist die Schleife, sie hängt neben dem Kater im Geäst, und es bleibt der Baum, der alles trägt, was wir ihm vorgetragen haben, als die Welt schlief und Äpfel im Morgentau reiften.

learn what it means

why worry so much

about falling houses

it’s time for them

above my left eye

I open a door

for sloughs and tadpoles

swampy grassland

growing in headrooms

spreading with damp

it’s too wet

to make a fire

let’s come together

and learn

what it means to

warm up hand by hand

When all houses are debris

I must go to the streets
and protest
against houses breaking down,
and stars being buried

I thank every bird
who picks a fallen star
and brings it back to sky

every star holds a wish,
hell they don’t!

but one day
when all is in debris
stars are all that’s left
to look up to,
don’t bury them with houses

To find what you have buried

There will always be
Stars in my sky

Doesn’t matter whether they have 
Fallen into dark lakes

Or yielded fields of rye

Don’t hide them too deep

Else birds must cease to fly

I will turn around

Every piece of debris

To find what you have buried

So birds can pick them

Like worms to feed their fledglings

Please don’t ask me why

I have this eerie feeling

Without stars there won’t be sky

We do not get thirsty unless we do not drink.

swallowed a cat

a big and fat bird

sat on the antenna

i wondered what it had eaten

it looked as if it

had swallowed a cat

All we catch is fish

All letter writing peters out with time
Even the secret ones, the very secret ones

Where poets themselves sense nothing,

Of stars and hidden moons
In trivial discussions,

The tenor of events 
Has a stubborn melody

Who is to blame

That moonlight is nothing 
But a reflection of sun.

We keep reaching for stars in a lake

Well aware
That all we catch is fish

Which doesn’t mind the moon to fall

Off the sky, 
And sky doesn't mind either
To become a clear and yawning void.

Why is it so hard
To throw away flowers
When they are withered.
After all, we throw away
Those who have died.

The moon

Realizing the moon

doesn’t glow,

turns his existence

into a very pretentious 
reflection of sun.

Where the ducks go in wintertime

I was seeing this guy

And he showed me around town,

His town, he even knew

Where the ducks go in wintertime.

I was new in town

And curious to know

Every hidden corner.

He was handsome and tall

And I asked him to jump

Into the icy pond.

I would if he did, I said,

And tossed his vigorous shoulder,

Just a little, it was a joke

But I was serious about it.

He laughed and watched the swans

Passing by. Taking each other’s hands,

Still kind of shy, we continued walking

Down the road, believing

It would be forever

For the next couple of months.

We were so young

And didn’t know better.

How should we have known.

Maybe we should have jumped.

His plight

When you asked me for a favour

You cried without tears, but I could tell

Snow covered your eyes, tiny little flakes

Caught up in your lashes, melting in light.

In a mix of desires my shadow serves your believes.

It is so cold outside, icecastles grow from rivers,

We skate around but never go inside.

When you come back, you said,

I might be dead, and the castles be molten.

Can’t you stay and wait till winter is over?

You know my wings would grow old,

unlearn to fly, I would turn cold or fall from the sky.

But then, is it too much to ask me to suffer.

I left you and your castles and remember

One window in the taller left tower.

To make me see his reflection
Someone switched on and off the light.

Sometimes when I wander in streets,

Tiny little alleys, pass around a corner,

I expect to find him waiting to hand over

His plight. Switching on and off the light.

inhaled

when i read your poem

i wondered, was it for me

but then how should i ask

for what was answered

by thinking out the question

words written by one

who has to bring forth

what is inhaled by the other

can they not only belong 
to all engulfed 
by subtle streams of life

a pretentious layer of sun

have been staring at this square
for hours, days, many more to come;

the right eye’s view flinches
into the left, slightly irritated

I wonder why it moves, observe,
monitor it closely, I know

it doesn’t move,
still I suspect the square

to play a trick on me, too proud
to think of my eyes

being tired;
they don’t even look baggy yet,

it’s just my skin,
pale toothpaste,

my natural colour,
everything else a pretentious layer of sun;

if I was still in school,
teachers would send me home

again and I wouldn’t mind
looking sick, for a day or two

to think about life and all,
what to do with my future;

but school is over for good,

nobody sends me home to think

and I keep staring
at this square on my desk

and wonder when
it learned to play tricks

Insane

This world leaves us with three kinds of people:
Those who cannot cope with reality and are diagnosed insane.
Those who deny reality and are diagnosed normal but are nonetheless insane.
Those who face reality and know they are insane.

Carved by a river

Just imagine a rock

Carved by a river

In millions of years

Just imagine

The patience, persistence

Continuous resistance

So that one gives
Little by little

In to the other

A piece of river

Carved into a rock

Something else was the matter

Today in the morning

I read a letter

About roses and keeping them

Free of Rosegrower’s grief.

Something else was the matter.

What I read was a

Midsummer Letter

Enfolding a poet’s Midlife Belief;

How could I feel

So close to his grief?

When the mind of a poet dances 
Around universal constellations,

We are reduced to atoms and chances;

Not this one; he did not shout out

But reached into substantial relations

Infused with free will

And a dash of psychosis

Providing some form of crude explanation

For this creeping unease to chill
On stage of a drama

Called life. A huge play

Resembling the Simpsons or Futurama.

In comic lies wisdom, 
A humorous madman
In life lies decay.