RILKE

In the gardens of countesses angels

came to him in visions,

and belief in god flowed in his verses;

but when cancer spread across

his flesh and bones,

angels, god and verses streamed no more

and silence came before death.

25.-26.10.2019

DECEMBER NIGHT

the deep elemental black

of a december night

has warmth

which the

brief pale gray

day lacks

like heated oil

waiting

to burst

into flames

16.12.2013-18.10.2019

october morning

morning

no dawn

of pale embers

in the horizon

burning

just cars

migrating

in small herds

in the black

night lasting

18.10.2019

OCTOBER MORNING

To P. R. C.

Another bleak morning of gray light,

wretched to be awake

to greet this drizzling dawn

drinking warmed up bitter coffee

alone with the cats, you

gone and lost to silence,

the dreams of the long sleep ended

filled with the longed-for dead

and their now unremembered words

erased by the surfacing

from the abyssal realm of slumber

to this ashen, watery morn, this

what goes as the reality

and is a purgatory for the

half-damned burning in their sins.

17.10.2019

THE POET AND THE BADGER

In memoriam Edward Thomas(1878-1917)

They dug out and killed the badger

in the dark and ancient combe,

they killed the poet

on the chalk plateau at Arras,

shot him in the chest there

where men hid in the ground

like badgers to escape death.

16.10.2019

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

DEATH IN WINTER

Day spend in bed reading,

drifting through an alien winter;

day spend in mourning

people and mistakes

that kill and estrange people;

day spend drinking coffee

black as the night and the mind,

day spend with closed curtains

to hide from the gray light and the dark.

Day and life, life and day alike.

16.10.2019

JUST LIVE THIS DAY

You shall not live forever,

you shall not die today -

put aside your sorrows,

do not look beyond today,

just live this day

without watching past.

The days without you

will be without end,

the world beyond the wall

of death shall not exist

more to you than you to it.

So just live, live this day.

16.10.2019

BUBBLES IN THE VOID

Our life a bubble soon to burst,

our cosmos a bubble in the multiverse

- a child's soap bubble floating

in the air has same reality

as the galaxy clusters, universes

sprouting, growing, dying.

Forget it, live, embrace

the illusion. Escape

until the bubble bursts.

15.10.2019

DIDN'T GO

I cancelled, didn't go - why should I

take that long walk there and back

just to hear pointless talk

from lips behind which

no knowledge of this exists?

Just an absolute vacuum of solutions.

It's a theatre of the absurd, a charade

worthy of Beckett and Ionesco

and so forth, a facade acted out

so that all can go on pretending

- except you, who flew away.

And for what?

So I laid on the bed in your scent,

with the cats on my side,

surfed the web until slept

again till night had fallen,

awakened from seeing their

dead faces alive again,

and it was dark, the pale light

of the brown and gray day

no longer whispering

of what should have been

and what was not done.

Purgatory of the starless autumn

night had engulfed the hell of

the bleak October day

and already I cursed the weak,

pointless dawn to come.

15.10.2019

october

birches

have but few

bright yellow leaves

left

beside the firs and pines

dark in the pale light

of autumn

05.10.2014-14.10.2019

ONE

Still like a fallen leaf,

more brown than yellow,

on the cold ground

waiting for the rain to come.

08.10.2014-14.10.2019

IRONY

Criticizing North Korea's regime

for lack of liberty while behind

her hangs the flag of the

Confederate States of America.

26.10.2017-13.10.2019

WHERE?

To P. R. C.

Gone silent like a hand of a goddess

would have taken you

during the flight over the dark ocean

and raised in the heavens

a star bright yet lost

in the galaxy's glow,

looking down

upon the desolate grief.

11.10.2019

JASON

An old man, a beach bum

beside a ship coming apart,

a fallen hero on the desolate shore,

a myth ending in a lesson.

'Stop when you are winning'

- or you end up sleeping

under a ramshackle boat,

with your murdered children

long in their graves.

How many were there?

Two or was it four,

send to the Hadean gloom

by their mother's hand?

What could this dishevelled man,

for whom Medeia dismembered

her own brother, answer

before his death

by Argo's decay?

'To win is about not

knowing when to stop,

reaching for one more thing

until none are left to gain - or lose.'

11.10.2019

A BLEAK ISLAND OF LIGHT

To P. R. C.

There is the darkness of an

October night behind the windows,

the drawn curtains.

You are not here, so why

leave this bleak island of light

in the autumn dark,

to go in the breeze and the rain,

walk those desolate lanes

when you are not here?

There is no purpose, no goal

left, so here among the books

I lie on the bed; the blanket

and the pillow still have your scent,

a lingering phantom

for a single sense, your fragrance. 

There might be nothing

in the darkness

beyond this bleak island of light.

I wish.

09.10.2019

AFTER ISSA

Our world just

a mote of dust

in the Milky Way,

our galaxy just

a mote of dust

in the Cosmos,

and yet... a mote

of dust our world

of billions of beings,

our wandering

star of five billion years,

a mote of dust.

07.10.2019

THINKING OF YOU

To P. R. C.

In the gloom of an October dusk,

walking through the bleak

evening weaving night.

Coffee from a paper mug to warm

a chilled mind thinking of you,

flown faraway and lost.

I have the falling dark, I have the emptiness

left by your leaving, torn fabric of the world

flapping in the breeze.

I have bitter old coffee burning

in my mouth, something to numb the thoughts

against the falling leaves and snow.

07.10.2019

ALONE, FACING THE NIGHT

To P. R. C.

1

You have gone, flown

to the sad, distant spring

and here, alone, I face

the falling snow and the dark.

2

When you came, you said

I have so many dreams.

When we made that final trip,

you said: Haven't you done enough already?

and I saw them all, like delicate ornaments,

broken in my hands, your dreams.

3

I miss that girl who came here,

I said, in a moment of desperation

between the arrival in winter

and the departure as winter came.

I miss her too, you answered,

and that was worse than any cursing word.

4

A winter night

now encloses me,

but more than from the chill

I quake from your distant silence.

05.10.2019

BALLADE, BALLATA

To Ezra Pound(1885-1972)

Everytime I read

the words 'Ballade', 'Ballata'

from you, I wish

I could make you ballast

- but alas! You are dead,

you are dead, you old Fascist

and your 'Ballade', 'Ballata'

sadly endure...

01.10.2019

THE NIGHT HAS FALLEN

To P. R. C.

The night has fallen, a starless night

cradled by unbroken clouds;

what hope of morning to come

in the bosom of the night, now

that you are leaving me,

that you are leaving me in anger?

The night has fallen, a starless night

under unbroken clouds;

what hope I have of light of day,

what hope I have now

in the bosom of the night,

as you are leaving me alone?

The night surrounds me,

a night devoid of stars;

the night surrounds me,

a night soon devoid of you.

I fear the morning shall never come,

I fear the light of the pale, broken day.

01.10.2019