Shadow rich dance music


The way I make faces or bodies out of the purple clouds and fingerprints on the window. 
The way  I'm orphaned, sitting like a dark lump
on a chair, smiling at your helion chariot whispering:
'Heaven'

That's how I try to keep you alive,
even after the cold night of dead.
Out of fear of forgetting how you talked,
How you said 'by the way' and clutched my 
hand.

And that's why I'm letting you dance, here.
Like you used to do, in between verses, (Charleston!)
and between the many stanza's.

(Conga line! Get in line!)

The movements and music I'll orchestrate
myself to the best of my ability. However
it may be, It remains unparalleled, always
heavenly.

Little bird

I looked for you in what is still alive in me,
in everything that was a dream
and was broken
on the stairs of the body,
in that deep sigh, in joy.
I looked for you in words still waiting,
in winter that is longer than time,
in the ashes of love,
in the cold of loneliness,
in my hand, in my trouser pocket, in my skin.
I looked for you
and didn't find you.

The arms of my days
wait to embrace you this minute, 
the door
wants to be your entrance,
but
for space, time and love
I'm not enough
to find you.

An honest answer

Does it help
when I don't walk
under a ladder tomorrow?

Answers seem to be prettier in the moonlight
than during breakfast, when the bright day

leaves the sleepy poets drawing blanks,
places obstacles on our sneak routes 
and provokes it's followers to a shaky superstition

Does it help
when I don't walk
under a ladder tomorrow?

You think that the universe is after you, digs metaphysic
pitfalls and black holes for you,

You think that you can exorcize the unrest with a question
that delays our last morning hour

and keeps us at the table, makes us eat
until your impending departure.

I give you
an honest answer:
No dear, I'm afraid not.

Later


Who would she be
if she was born earlier
with D-Day as a daily freshly
told story. The war 
not yet history

The beatnik with the black turtleneck
clandestine rimmel around the eyes,
circling in smoky circles, 
fraternizing with the blues.
With the residue of cheap wine
stuck to her tongue, pouching her lips
to the audience and the bad boys, 
conversations with drunk painters

or would she be secluded from the world
in a room with the smell of old velour
and potato peels, reaching for the radio, too high, 
tuned to nasal voices, 
her knitting within an arms reach.
Sometimes leaving the house, on her bicycle,
white socks under a bell dress
cringingly checkered
past fields of yellow primroses

At home the pot with stew
on a linoleum covered kitchen table
after that some tapioca pudding in a
chipped bowl that stands dripping in the 
granite sink an hour later.

In her cold room the light
already died.
She folds herself in silence
and saves herself for later.

Finally you're here


with bloodshot eyes
I pour you old coffee
now that you're home
and extinguish the past years
in a cigarette

I trade them for today

why ask
now that I have you close 
and the answer
lies in a tear on the table

I hide knives  everywhere

One razor sharp knife that always
is at the ready to cut an end to it

In the bathroom another knife
that slices through water with
a golden shine

Beer mixed blood squirts
through the kitchen from the little scar knife.

Never again be able to cut
a hospital room 
from your head.

I hide knives everywhere
under blankets, so that horny men

can cut the ties around my desecrated body
liberate the cage of my womanhood.

With make up I cut myself a clowns mouth
on my sharply drawn lips.

This way nobody sees the knives in my soul
daggers turned inward
swords turned outward

I hide knives everywhere

Rain smell


Rain wrinkles the silence
Longing is sealed
The dream has closed its gates
The morning closed the night
I listen to water falling 
on water
But even the water from the rain
keeps yearning when it falls
The dawn is blind and quiet and 
everywhere and empty
The earth has rusted
into the color of a dead sun 
My naked loneliness
knows no word nor gesture
Hungry and cold 
I'm being pushed into the future
In the shadow of dead
I hear the  footsteps of fear
speaking to me about the past
Why this cruel nostalgia
for a disappeared life?

A love poem 

They're turning the world upside down
into the hollow of a vague universe
Shady tigers prey from walls
and the crooked ceiling
Music plays from a window outside
where summer bloom contaminates 
the air.

I extinguish my breath in an ashtray
between the empty glasses
and suddenly the spotlights are upon us
they're going to close;
knees pulled up, backs against
hard wood.

You are wearing ridiculous socks,
I show my cleavage in a half open shirt
Pale chest under a pale face.
Together we're sick from the abundance
because you're a man
and I'm a woman.

Like two drunk puppets
we stumble outside
under the carnival of stars
and the happy, busy city

You are wearing your special hat
and I'm counting the falling stars.
And in your ear I whisper things
you don't want to hear anymore
but you postpone yourself
and laugh anyway.

Under oath (for a while)


Following the tracks of small animals 
by the light of a flashlight (a caterpillar, 
a dove, a snake) and getting drunk together

on mixed messages, wine and smoke,
and everything that casually goes
from mouth to ear on summer evening breath

fold your hands into a bowl
and sigh; that scent will always be
lost

now that you're in love
with the way her knees bend

because she insists on pissing in the grass
where the crickets and grasshoppers fuck
in the moisture that rages between her legs

burned on retina: ass on calves in white socks

or else this: warmth in the dark, salty
and willing

look mom, no hands!

you are kneeling with the leftovers of a song
about love still in her mouth

and when she points out which candles 
to blow out on the heaven cake
because this sleep will be black and deep

but light enough not to get lost
if you hold her tightly, then
you will, yes you will...

we've all been there, we all want to go back,
store strange bodies voluntarily 
in tents under oath (for a while)

you know, she knows, we know, we've been
there

so it will be a lifelong  
swaying between guilt and innocence,
between this and dreamed time,
looking for a common
emotion on each field, two 
children on your left side, you third
wife on your right

excuse me sir but do you happen to know 
where the toilets are

finding those

while behind you the grass is already
rising again

Boneyard (a dream)

1. Mother


My son walks with me up the mountain path,
forgetting the stream in which he played
and the butterflies that circled his head.

He looks down at the rocks, sometimes 
tripping over his feet. I don't tell him about
the the big black birds circling overhead;
visions grasp him when they're tangible.

He climbs upon my shoulders during the thunderstorm
and spreads his arms in innocence.
The St Elmo's fire sparks hellish green around his temples
No God can keep his hands to himself during a storm 

Three times I give him up but he keeps falling back.
The lightning fingers can't hold him
and from his eyes flows a strange empty light.

2. Daughter

I lie on the grass looking up 
and see the butterflies dancing in the sunlight and
over the water that is my source.

My father calls my name and I get up,
he beckons and I follow in his path
up the mountains to a crude cross
above which black clouds are waiting.

Pale and emaciated he walks in front of me like
a starving pack mule that could break with
a gust of wind.
The sounds from his throat are like dry wood.

He looks for the green and I climb upon his back;
fiery tongues strike me and I spread my arms.
The grubbiest words spill from my mouth.

Evening

drunk- sitting in the doorway
looking at the moon
the house following behind  
like a hump

the ground is sleeping at my feet
heat pouring out 

the front door 
keeps the silence inside this evening 
while at the same time in the garden 
a world is about to begin 

D-Day

My father said: they are buried here, 
the Canadians. I imagined them standing
on the dike, in their green uniforms
Endless rows, ready to be sacrificed.

Shoulder to shoulder they stood:
a little wind and off they went.

Peace. On both sides 
Canadians. Too long in the country 
to return home. Too deep in the 
ground to march off.

Diego is made of wood.


Diego is made of wood they say
he carries dark knots on his back
like on his leg 
the other leg  is soundless meat
there is shrapnel in them from
grenades

his eyes branch out when he catches
a prey in his sights
his fingers crack like clicks of a tongue

he stands there snapping the lust in his fingers
one by one

I often watch him
he is exciting and dangerous
his look is like glass, his skin is rough leather
like his jacket
I wonder how he will smell

while doing me

suddenly she pulls me close to
her behind the tree
and twists my wrists 
she swears that she will break me
if I grow boobs while I watch

I am the purest animal on earth

I am the purest animal on earth
I sleep with the night as with my body
and the night is growing in my heart

in the dark weaving-loom of your fingers
I weave a night of loneliness
colorful, demanding and changeable

I know all the tears of loneliness
beat me, open me
I'm a rose of joy

come to me, trust me
I litter the wind full with stars

Like a boat of abundance
in the thrift of the sea

But you haven't come
so I softly close up