Apology

I mix up the killed, I with my almost photographic memory

lost now in the labyrinth of the dead

whose faces are carried forth by the martyrs of tomorrow.

The same hand killed them, those men with similar faces,

but their deaths demand remembrance.

The youthful face smiling through the years,

martyr Bassem Abu Rahma of Bi'lin, brother to martyr Jawaher,
leading the weekly protest.

16.04.2016

Climate change spring

Climate change spring:

Snows gone the barren autumn landscape

without a straw of new grass or a bud of a leaf

on the branches swaying in the cold wind.

A month, a month and a half

stuck between winter and spring

in this second, man-made autumn,

with all the colours of a muddy battlefield.

12.04.2016

Today is a dream

of the past

from which

it can never wake.

01.04.2016

Death of the Author

The great and -- despite his Nobel Prize -- underappreciated (in the US/UK, certainly) Kertész Imre has passed away. He'd been seriously ill for quite a while, so this isn't unexpected, but it's still a major loss. 

M.A.Orthofer

When an author is incapable of writing

more - whatever the reason -

his or her physical death is no major loss.

They are just flesh and flesh doesn't last.

He or she have done their part,

the works will live or perish

independent of whether

the author breaths or not.

I repeat:

We must not bother with the author

after the figurative pen has been put aside

for the final time.

No quick glances whether the chest

still rises and falls,

no mirror before the mouth

to check for the weakest sign of life.

Let them go in silence,

let them pass in obscurity

and when we see or hear the news

let us just nod and move on.

No need to know about final words,

the exact manner of perishing.

The executors will give us in time

what truly matters: Words unread.

01.04.2016