WHOOPING CRANES

In 1941, fifteen,

from the fifteen hundred

a century before,

living in freedom,

flying their long migration

across the changed lands

from their northern

nesting grounds,

untouched

when everything

else has been transformed.

Fifteen,

out of fifteen hundred,

heirs to three million years

of separate evolution,

three million years

migration

and then,

teetering on the brink

of extinction,

open both

the great wide

future

of millions upon

millions of years

and the long silence

of time given

geological form,

the long silence

that embraced

their dinosaur forbears.

Fifteen then,

and out of fifteen

eight and a half hundred

now, wings

soaring.

03.08.-05.08,2026

THE NIGHT CAME

In the ten minutes spend

inside the grocery store,

just before eleven,

the bright evening

turned into darkening night.

Almost Mediterranean,

this quick, abrupt change,

from clear twilight

to this soft gloom,

and so the change

in the mind that dwells

in the landscape

and adjusts,

a mere mirror,

to its surroundings,

going quiet,

becoming still.

02.08.2026

CEUTA

57 people dead at the outpost

of cruel Fortress Europa -

for this did we sell Western Sahara

to the tyrant king?

That tens of thousands of the desperate

would slip 'acciddentally'

through jailer Morocco's

baton-gripping fists

to enter our fenced haven?

Yes, for this. And now

we will come up with new horrors,

Europe Greyhair,

to please the worst in our morally

decaying bastions of Kultur.

Come the abandoned children

of other continents

whose future we robbed,

come and drown Europe

as we drown your siblings,

come, drown Europe,

and run us, the blind

architects of your generational

misery, through

or cast us at the closed gates

of some other immoral realm.

01.08.2026

BUT WITHOUT AN IMAGE THERE IS NOTHING

Eye receives the image,

sending it to the mind,

and the mind, intrigued,

constructs from 

its arousal a vision

that evokes the flesh

and the flesh,

ever the willing thrall

of the dominating mind,

responds, the vision

being all it cares

until it has gotten

its relief and the mind

exhausted its desire,

its imagination.

02.-29.07.2026

INACTION AFTER THE FLOOD

I took an anchor

from one rowing boat

adrift, driven

beside the broken pier,

and dropped it

in the shallow water,

something done,

but left the other boats

be as they were

half expecting

someone arriving

at any moment

when I would be pulling

them up a bit to the shore,

and they did came,

that someone,

and they did nothing

but took some photographs,

like I did.

28.07.2026

(MENTAL) LOCAL GEOGRAPHY

Just before I left

to my evening swim

the Sun came out

from behind clouds

and the ridge

beyond the valley

was all gold

seen from my

long shadows.

28.07.2026

A MYTH IS WHAT WE MAKE OF IT

A myth is what we make of it.

Leda is not bound

to spread her legs for a feathered

Zeus. She can take

a broken tree branch heftier

than anything the god

has between his webbed feet

and beat the divine

out of the avian,

leaving Helen unhatched,

Ilion unburned,

the restless dead heroes

lamenting other woes.

28.07.2026

AN EVENING SWIM IN LATE JULY

Swimming in the wine-dark

waters of the late summer

sunset, 

            cold darkling waters

of the lake

touched by crimson,

at peace

in its embrace,

                         yet on the shore

tumble of half-sunken boats,

a broken pier

                       adrift

like this unmoored Earth.

28.07.2026

BEFORE LEAVING FOR AN EVENING SWIM

Again I leave

late my leaving

for a swim

and this evening

it will be colder

still,

the darkling

water of the lake,

after

the long rain

that fell through the night,

yet

water will be colder

in the depths of autumn

and nights darker,

and the mind

will find its solace

in the solitary gloom

and the flesh

in the water's embrace

will remember its oceanic past.

28.07.2026

AT THE CLOSE OF THE DAY

Solitary bird

whirling, crying

over the dark mirror

of the lake

at the close of the day,

summer ending.

28.7.2026

ADOLF ULRIK WERTMULLER'S(1751-1811) "LEDA AND THE SWAN"

Brown-haired Leda gazes at us

as the swan is already between her legs,

we have arrived at the middle of the intercourse

to witness begetting of divine offspring

and mortal bloodshed,

and are standing there, voyeurs,

unashamedly, and in her gaze

that locks into our eyes

there is no lust, perhaps

apology for us finding her

on a moment like this,

perhaps a plea only half-formed

for help. But we stand only

and watch, as in all the paintings,

like waiting our turn

with Leda or the swan.

18.07.2026

SEVENTEEN YEARS LATER

The way to break

the calendar's grip

on the mind

struck with long grief

is embracing

the greater sorrow

of the world,

the bodies broken

on the wheel

of indifference

bleeding on consciences,

letting the hours

carry you away

or to go

and walk,

make your peace

in the cemetery

and go and feel the waters

embracing remembering

echo of how it must

have felt

in the ocean

of her womb.

21.06.2026

ON THE SHORE

Waves come darkling blue

with crests of black

across the lake,

across the expanse,

of the darkening summer night,

driven by wind

whispering in the foliage

of the colder waves

that will come

relentlessly

across the long autumn.

27.07.2026

WONDERFUL THINGS

In my imagination your thighs

are not alone, lonely 

wonderful things,

they have my hands

to keep them company,

wandering up and done

caressing them,

finding their way

under those alluring,

confining dresses

that entice and hide

and hiding invite

imagination to send

its eager hands wandering

and caressing.

27.07.2026

THE WILDFIRES IN FRANCE AND SPAIN

We have known this moment

would come if we wouldn't act

to stop Global Warming,

well-to-do people in major

Western countries

escaping fires devouring homes

in their hundreds of thousands,

but so many of us pretended

this would happen only

to communities that didn't matter

until they themselves

would be safe under the ground

in their bunkers or their caskets.

27.07.2026

IMAGINING THEIR LIBERATION

Yesterday night, walking back

home from swimming,

I started to think of your latest

gifts, your thighs

half-hidden, half-revealed

and suddenly I was walking

with difficulty thinking

of how I would, with trembling

hands, get those thighs of yours

liberated from the dresses

that so well brought them out,

thights that needed to be seen

without the limitations

you set for my eyes,

but which my mind,

running while I walked encumbered,

found no barrier to its desire.

27.07.2026

IMAGINED

Gazing at your thighs

I imagined myself

removing the deep

blue and white dresses,

imagined myself

between them,

imagined...

27.07.2026

COMPARING THEM

The electric blue dress,

I feel, is superior to the white,

but the thighs -

I can't find one pair superior

to the other, adoring both

with equal fervour.

27.07.2026

AS YOU SWIM OVER IT

The rains have swelled the lake,

it has swallowed a swath of the beach,

it sank a lotus leaf 

under its blue-gray surface,

where it, distorted, looks up

pale yellow like the face

of a long-drowned one

as you swim over it.

27.07.2026

FADING INTO THEM

We have landscapes

in which we

are not only at home,

at peace, 

but which make us

extensions of themselves,

our individuality

fading into them.

27.07.2026

ENVIOUS

Not only those dresses

revealing shapely legs,

but the t-shirt

with the message

needing to be heard

do I remove

in my visions,

envious

of them touching

your skin.

27.07.2026

CREATION

Even now it rains,

a steady drizzle,

raindrops

no longer hammering

the earth

as when the heavens

made a raging cascade

of the night,

but enduring, 

the landscape of late summer

one watery realm

of creation.

28.7.2026

GILLIS COIGNET THE ELDER'S(C. 1542-1599) "LEDA AND THE SWAN"(CIRCA 1580)

The wooden painting

has cracked,

paint flaked

and fallen away

at places,

as Leda,

lost in thoughts,

looks away

from the swan

taking her

these last five centuries,

the intended object

barely present

in her mating,

only in flesh,

only in paint,

only connected to the swan

by his presence

in her

which goes unacknowledged

by her.

No ecstacy

or pretended orgasm

even for a god,

no fear

even for a god,

no tears,

no pain,

no resistance,

not from Leda.

The brush has placed her

into this endless intercourse

yet she is lost in her thoughts,

half a millennia free

of the avian

and its thrusts

that never climax,

half a millennia free

of the male gaze,

Leda.

28.07.2026

AT THE DOOR OF SLEEP

Yesterday evening I had been up

for twenty-nine hours

when I arrived at the swimming

beach half-awake,

walked down the pier

and threw myself into the water.

When I surfaced,

I was two-thirds awake,

Sun perhaps blazed

brighter over the hills,

the lingering sounds

of summer going silent

heard clearer,

but I was at the door of sleep

still and it was ajar,

open into hours dark

as the enclosing water

that reached down

into the muddy bottom

evoking the depths

of our being

only the sleep releases

into dreams

that tide us

into unborn dawn.

15.-23.07.2026

INTO BLEAK WINTER

The summer two-thirds gone,

nights getting darker,

longer, light

soon again

a precious commodity

running away through

our fingers

into bleak winter.

22.-23.07.2026

RAMI RUBIN

I have watched Israel's wars in the Middle East

almost as long as I can remember,

still remember news from Lebanon in 1983,

and a hasbara troll account Rami Rubin

tells me to learn history, not watch Tik-Tok.

Seven years in university reading history,

fourty-three years watching Israel

invade, occupy and murder,

and here I am, being lectured

by fake accounts whose words

my countrymen instinctively believe,

these countrymen 

who don't know the difference

between Hamas and Fatah, West Bank

and Gaza, and don't care

that they don't know,

nor care about the genocide

that goes on butchering entire families

erased from existence without survivors

because they are told by bots and trolls

it doesn't exist. May they experience

all that they support.                                                                                                       0   

22.06.-23-.06.-23.07.2026

TURNING SEASONS

Long sorrow blankets the world

deep in its white mourning,

and when brief joy comes

and covers the land in green,

and Sun is supreme in the blue,

quickly chill grief rides in the air

and withers the grass and the leaf,

brings the moaning nights

when cold stars twinkle

between the streaming clouds,

and the first snowflake falls

and pierces the fading heart.

22.07.2026

HOW THE WORLD IS RUN, FOR GENOCIDAIRES

Israel murders each day

a dozen people still

and runs a pogrom

every night,

but this doesn't matter,

as Israel's supporters -

when not mocking

its dead and wounded victims -

declare they are afraid

because genocide is opposed,

that they are tired

because freedom

is demanded for survivors.

And this matters,

not the burning villages,

the exterminated families,

the one hundred

and twenty-thousand dead,

because this is how the world

is run - for genocidaires.

22.07.2026

AND IF YOU CAN'T TRUST GENOCIDAIRES, WHO CAN YOU TRUST?

Israel murdered an entire family

in Gaza, again, parents

and four children,

their home bombed

when they were asleep,

and the BBC

does propaganda

for the genocidaires,

as usual,

telling its global audience

that everything is well

because Israel

has said it was

"targeting a member of Hamas"

during a ceasefire.

22.07.2026

NOT ENOUGH

One writes

when one can't live

as one should,

words compensation

for the life

not lived.

09.-11.07.2026

SHOUTING AT THE DIGITAL AGORA

All night up

shouting

at the digital agora

and only a tiny bit

of what needed

to be shown

and told

is shown

and told

but hoping

for a thrown snowball

turning into avalanche,

a butterfly

fluttering its wings

ending up

causing a hurricane.

14.-18.07.2026

TODAY IN GAZA

Today Israel has killed 

at least eleven people

in Gaza, possibly twelve.

Even without new attacks

(little hope of that)

the death toll is likely to rise

as there are

critically wounded

and surviving 

doctors and nurses

can do only so much,

lacking everything.

Miracles are not

possible. Miracle-workers

need their tools.

Those are denied

for them, by the genocidaires

and those who stand

and gaze at

the slaughter 

and allow it all.

They say something

should be done

and they act -

to keep the slaughter going

on and say there is nothing

else they could do.

14.-15.-18.07.2026

THE GUILTY

The taiga burns, smoke

reaches over the Great Lakes

from Ontario,

envelopes the city.

Through smoke

the Sun blazes malevolently,

a cyclopean eye on the sky

in your photograph.

There are people

responsible for this.

Few if any of them will be inhaling

the smoke from the burning forests.

It's not their villages

that burn either,

beyond the wide waters.

It's always others paying the price.

They will gaze at bright,

benevolent Sun

from the windows

of their corporate jets,

high above the smoke,

like gods above the fires

separate, uncaring,

unconnected to humanity.

18.07.2026

WHAT DO THE PEOPLE UP ON THE SUNDECK CARE?

A morning

and I have been up

sixteen hours

not fixing

what is

broken

but shouting

yelling

that our

shared boat

Earth

is leaking

from bullet-holes

beyond counting

and water in

in the bilge

is bloody,

but what

do the people

up on the sundeck

care?

14.07.2026

ON THE SHORE OF THE BALTIC SEA

As seas go, it's not much.

It has been a mere lake

several times.

But today you could believe,

watching the open sea,

bereft of islands,

as it sends wave

after wave

to break at the rocks

of the shore

that it goes on and on,

expanding

beyond the knowledge

on the maps,

beyond the curvature of the Earth.

As seas go, it's not much.

But it evokes imagination

and imagination breaks its bonds,

the bonds of the sea,

the sea that breaks your own bonds,

briefly, as you stand on its shore,

gazing at the horizon

that sends wave after wave

to break at your feet

as life sends

you over the expanse of years

to break on an unknown shore.

13.07.2026

GOING TO SWIM AT HALF PAST NINE ON A JULY EVENING

Diving into dark water

at long July sunset,

surfacing

swimming

where the spear

of the sun ends,

into calm,

serene waters

of the mind.

13.07.2026

AS LONG AS THEY FLOW

Love comes 

with broken wings,

a stricken fowl

brought down from the sky.

Mend the wings

and up it goes,

up in the air whirling,

vanishing in the sun.

Lust comes 

earthbound, flightless 

one from birth;

wings evolution's stumps

it won't ride the swift currents

of the air, vanishing in the sun -

it will ride the currents 

of the blood as long as they flow.

12.07.2026

LEDA III

A god swims into your life

all arrogant, divine beauty,

to create a legend,

leaving a wake of white feathers

to float away with the streaming

waters, 

            time flowing

towards the catastrophes

begetted

               from your own,

a path covered with eggshells

to the tumbling walls,

altars stained with blood,

history being made,

and women to be raped

and enslaved, 

                        sacrificed

in every meaning of the word

by men with plumages

on their helmets.

12.07.2026

KING'S CHAPEL, BOSTON

In neat, arranged rows

given order by a later era,

the headstones guide

the visitors past their worn

names and underneath

the moving feet lie

separated, scattered the bones

of that other town of wood

and brick and rare stone,

not the stone and concrete

and glass of this later city,

city marooned in a nation

living its own witch-hunts.

02.-12.07.2026

SOUNDSCAPE

I'm awake after a day of sleeping,

rain comes down fast and hard,

a landscape made by sound

into a watery realm

even before I step into the window,

open it and put out my hand

to feel the raindrops

on my palm.

04.07.2026

AS I LAY IN BED, LISTENING

Rain in late morning

mere sound

to senses yet

my mind makes

a landscape out of that sound,

dark green

and watery,

expanding

into memories.

02.-05.07.2026