don't be afraid
you may start over
determined, purposeful 
or hesitating, fumbling
keep to rules
follow your own way
let go of that hand
or grab on to it

don't be afraid
for dreams too big
go when you know for sure
and if you hesitate wait
how vain the things 
you envisaged 
the most beautiful things
just happen, the least
are contrived 

don't be afraid
of what they think of you
what do you know about someone
if you don't know yourself
don't lose your origins
by committing yourself too soon
life seems alternating 
but even love grows accustomed 

don't be afraid
you are one of many
and at the same time
there is only one of you
that means
that you have to share a lot
and sometimes have to shout
let me free

Basket with small fish


What do you think it's like to be me?
What do you think?
Do you think that I go out everyday with my 
basket full of small fish
to feed the sharks?
What do you think?
Do you think it's fun to be me?
How would you imagine it's like to go out
every morning with a fucking basket full
of small fish to feed the wild sharks!
How do you think that is and do you think
you can imagine how it is to be like that?
To be like that, do you think you can imagine that?

she sings

listen how she sings
like she doesn't care
that death sings
backup in falsetto

proudly she keeps tone
even when the light breaks 
through the stained glass window
and vowels sink

stubbornly her foot stomps
the rhythm through the floor
she keeps the tremors in check
and casually keeps the beat
with her red polished nails

This is not a drill


Closed the hole in the dike
with a mouthful of words.
No wonder

that darkness like water
is up to our  necks, any form 
disappearing under

the wavy surface of what is
missing its own form
and roots deeper.

Living on wet feet
the sky,  with icy
gusts, scourges  our thinking. Flashlight

sees the world with red eyes
and makes us look like devils.
Behind me sirens wail.

Tongue

It's never one word that parallels life
there are many, It's many faces
contorted or fragmented, with bristles
or light make-up, with hair or 
a hat that doesn't go with anything

In every face a little box of skin
in every box that opens a treasure
of flesh and blood whereby any 
assertion can come to life, and each
antonym with the same force, so that 
each word can live its own life.

Can you still understand me when I lisp?
Do you understand me when I put my tongue 
between my teeth and bite? No face that
can make all others redundant, no word can
be sufficient unto itself, there are many,
especially those that are about nothing:
nobody can exist in language alone

I only know


I only know
that she was born with it
with all that blue
in her eyes

as soon as she knows words
she forgets them
but knowing she does
she folds the sheets

she airs out the blankets
says that she has been gone
for a while
there aren't more words

also the desire is lacking
the desire to form words
because for telling

what happened to her
she's got her silence
she often cries when she hears
what that silence is saying

The great Eskimo vocabulary hoax

When I tell my mother that I've read
that Eskimo's only have one word for snow,
and not, like they say, more than fifty,

she doesn't want to believe me, because 
she has the house to herself: my father 
was not aware of this a century ago and she 
wants nothing changed.

She says: maybe the the Eskimo's didn't
want to overplay their hand

I say: we have fifty words for intercourse
and death. Do you want to hear them?

She says: I suddenly fear that I've expected 
too much from the weather report.

Summer deceit


You cuddle up against me
in front of the TV
like you just came home
after years of looking for me

while the vegetables go through your hands
you fill the kitchen with your songs 
and you feed me your history

If only I could softly 
-without breaking the light-
tell you that what you feel
isn't always there

Answer


light unfolds
in the room that I immeasurably inhabit
twice you ask why
I know no reason
I don't play questions and answers

I save the light up to the edge of my pupil
while I irreparably caress the dusk
called shadow and paint it
till it disappears

offer and counteroffer
I say

take me
push me to the edge
save what I waste
love the drought and
shoreless stream
and know
this is this

Finiteness

To the limits in the light of
a reading lamp, to the fields of
enshrouded things, to the reflection
of faces unshown, to the relieved
illusion of being excited, to the twisted 
words of a child playing, to the shock
of unfulfilled wishes, to the ultimate courage 
of stunts never shown, to the poignant
longing of the poet for the pain of vulnerable
submission to her mild look, to the melancholy
of lead shoes for the garden, to the silly
of never before, to the start of a braid, to ground colors,
I had the end but I brought it back.

How can it be


This inviolable succumbing for nourishment
on the table and in bed, how we fucked up
time for a couple jolts 
of stillness.
True nature was rotting away in our
bodily fluids, losing ground on
our depraved bodies, movement became
a repertoire without the chance of being 
caught on something real.
We lusted after the smell of decay,
every greedy draw of breath felt 
like a small, beautiful revolution
on that fleeting
mortality.

And now, from this diluted life
I try to breath
like then 
but time persists 
in being what it is.