An Epitaph

He - like you -

was nothing.

11.01.2017

Lost in the Landscape

A harsh gale blows through

the black-white land,

black branches dance up and down

naked, the snow long fallen.

I walk, what else?

From one point to another

in space and time,

an afternoon walk,

a life among biting winds and snow

to erase all tracks

after erasing the cause.

11.01.2017

Sometimes we need a Year Zero,

to guillotine the memories

and blow up the relics of bygone eras

of our lives;

let them collapse to dust

so that we can escape,

a hacksaw in one hand,

leg-irons cut from our feet,

for a brief dash to freedom.

11.01.2017

Afternoon pause

resting under snow

the town in January

a silence

of people in black

a rare car slowly

appearing disappearing

a slice of the sun

in the horizon

reflected on a mirror

tousled hair

a contented face

edging on middle-age

this life

that has become silence

between emotions

appearing disappearing

on the mirror

caress of the Sun

04.01.2017

The Grave of John O'Hara(1905-1970)

Writing his own epitaph

only ensured rebukes

left as final words on him;

you would have to be

Julius Caesar to be remembered

based on your own words.

He - a writer from Spoon River,

now dust begging respect.

02.01.2017

That Hideous Sight

The success of an author's career is based
and written in her or his face

in our times; or lack of it,

to remember Thomas Pynchon. He must have a very ordinary face,

a working class face - the face of a car mechanic

or a factory worker. Something

out of place, not fit to adorn

the back-covers of his novels.

We all know that an author of novels like his

must look like the professor

of a small town New England college with a fine pedigree

going back to Ralph Waldo Emerson's circle.

Ashamed, perhaps only after an intervention by a publisher

at the beginning of his long career,

Pynchon hides his features like a turtle inside its shell

to let his work live without the connection to a visage

that would drag them down with it.

He must often be mistaken for a retired plumber,

electrician or a train driver by cardigan wearing people

carrying his volumes in their hands

to read among falling autumn leaves

caressed by sunlight from a major Indie film.

How wise to hide, how disappointed we must be

the day we see his low-class features posthumously

revealed to the world, how disdainfully

people will turn away from new editions featuring

his face, that less than mediocre face,

that will makes us feel like we are
carrying dirt by connection,

unwashed, smelling of sweat,

seeking solace from the editions in which his

grim features have not been printed,

those unsoiled messengers of pure art

disconnected from an aesthetically unworthy author

more Hephaestus than Apollo.

01.01.2017

A firefly in the cosmic night

There is no death,

no 'great mystery',

there is life and there is consciousness

and there is an absence of consciousness.

There is the primal Nothing before the universe,

a state of unbeing,

and there is a state of unbeing

from which the consciousness emerges

from and subsumes into.

We are not.

We are.

We are not.

28.10.2016

Response to a poet wanting someone to remember us

There is no need for someone to remember us,

the land itself will remember us,

the rocks rich in fossils before us

and then the mass extinction

where abundance becomes scarcity.

Somewhere along there,

the last of us.

10.10.2016

when you read this

i was never intended for these things

so how could i have been good in this

yet i stepped in when i should have stayed out

stayed out and walked away

not to find myself now

with a bow and an empty quiver

standing before you

my Saint Sebastian

each arrow a word launched in error

each arrow sank deep into your flesh

when I tried to be Cupid and Wilhelm Tell

my beautiful martyr

21.09.2016

santoka(1882-1940)

poor old drunk

running away

into liquor

long roads

poems

scattered along the way

to that final night

when death blossomed

20.09.2016

William Hope Hodgson(1877-1918)

It's April

in Ypres.

Transfixed,

he hears the song

of the

arriving shell.

17.09.2016

The landscape moulded itself around you

in your vision,

in reality

you mould yourself into the landscape

but in the end

only the landscape remains.

12.09.2016

Tom Piccirilli(1965-2015)

God Bless America!

9/11!

Greatest Nation in the History of the World!

But when it comes the time

there's a brain tumour the size of a tennis ball

in your head,

it's time for your relatives to beg money

so that you could be treated

in the Greatest Country In The World....

One Edgar, four Bram Stoker Awards

and still you were just another

miserable poor bastard

stuck in a system

where making money on extending your life,

extending your death

was the real horror,

a vampire feeding on you

for every coin you had

and for every coin your friends and fans came up with.

"Give it all to us!" the vampire

demanded, and so

a little bit of life

was bought with much cash

and your death prolonged;

money bought you a twilight existence of pain

chained to the system

like a chattel slave, a goddamn

factory animal existing to make a profit

out of your own suffering for medical companies,

insurance companies, politicians.

It was the real horror

which caught you in its clawed limbs

and never let you go.

They sacrificed you on an altar for greed.

Manifest Destiny!

USA! USA! USA!

12.10.2016

The mist that remains

Now ghost among ghosts you linger

in silence among the graves,

among the whispers of the life

from whose cocoon you emerged in death.

The flesh and the blood another memory,

beyond the rebirth

shattered fragments form themselves

into visions of doubt and dream.

You once left footprints on sandy shores,

the low tide of life went and the high tide of death came,

and in place of footprints you draw

a vision of life from beyond death.

They come to your grave,

to that stone that hides

what time has not taken

and adore it with flowers and candles.

A cold wind, a falling leaf,

you wonder if you loved those flowers,

if you looked at candles on dark evenings

and saw what you can't see now.

08.09.2016

Of Lead Pellets and Iron Oxide Particles in the Autumn

Chilly morning, old coffee warmed

in the microwave, tired as

usual, a rusty leaf thrown to the ground

from its heights. The cloud

mass without features, milky white,

the coffee tastes bad, hot liquid

traveling down the throat

I think about the millions of magnetite

particles in our brains, how

we came to this, our brains

like Kashmiri faces after protests,

scarred, changing what and

who we are, our industrial civilization

living in us in our

post-industrial existence, 

like those eyeless children of

Kashmir and their comrades in

Palestine. The outside world

is blind, now the prisoner

like a ruler of old is blinded

to make the usurper safe.

A leaf, on the ground, yellow

beside brown. My feet are

now always cold, in this

world ruled by people

with hearts as cold as those

dug from chests on morgues.

Lead and iron.

07.09.2016

ISRAEL KILLED HADI(12)

Israel killed Hadi(12) in besieged Gaza Strip on August 26th 2014

Repeat after me:

Israel killed Hadi(12) in Palestine's besieged Gaza on August 26th 2014.

Israel killed Hadi's(12) brother in Palestine's besieged Gaza on August 26th 2014.

Israel killed Hadi's(12) father in Palestine's besieged Gaza on August 26th 2014.

Israel killed Hadi(12).

Israel doesn't 'want peace'.

Israel killed Hadi(12).

Israel killed Hadi(12).

Israel has no right 'to defend itself'.

Israel killed Hadi(12).

Israel killed Hadi(12).

Israel has no right to exist.

Israel killed Hadi(12).

Israel killed Hadi(12).

Hadi is dead.

He looks at us from a photo, suspicious eyes under his dark-brown hair.

Suspicious towards the world that would allow Israel to kill him.

To kill his brother. To kill his father.

Suspicious towards future that would arrive,

not bringing long life,

not bringing old age

but death at age 12,

killed by Israel,

killed by the world.

Israel killed Hadi(12).
World killed Hadi(12).

Repeat.

2014-26.08.2016

Existence written on the space-time foam

The illusion

the illusion

the illusion of being alive

of living

of existing

the illusion

the illusion

the illusion of being alive

of living

of existing

the pain and fear

multiplied

by the fear

of not being alive

of being dead

a corpse

a cadaver

of not existing

being cut off from existence

thrown into a trash bin

somewhere out

of time and space and matter

all the pain

and fear

for an illusion

an illusion

an illusion of life

an illusion of existence

an illusion of living

an illusion of an illusion ending

an illusion

an illusion

an illusion ending

25.08.2016

The past is now a knife in the stomach

being twisted as

blood fills mouth

there is nothing to be done

but feel the blade burning cold

erupting the belly

feel the pain

remember

remember

25.08.2016

Philip Larkin(1922-1985)

He looked like a racist librarian

Vomited by Oxbridge

Obsessed with pornography

And that he was

A hoarder of filth

Behind a facade

Of a Poet

Building tunnels through his hate

An Englishman's Englishman of

Misogynism and prejudice

Bald little man

So little little man

22.08.2016

Time, being an illusion trapping our consciousness,

disallows us to realize the greater cage

where we, like goldfish in a bowl,

are kept, sentience adrift between existence

and non-existence, trying to keep it all coherent

when everything is but an album of photos

thrown at the floor, from the first cry

to the last sob.

21.08.2016

Weldon Kees(1914-1955)

The ocean takes care of all the problems

but at the last moments -

...always regret.

The deep blue with its strong currents

fought

for the paler blue for its winds,

air.

The tender grip

of ocean

never gives up.

21.08.2016

The refugees from the Nazis and us

The refugees of the past

are (always) dealt with more compassion,

understanding and warmth

than those of today,

in rubber dinghies sailing the Mediterranean blue,

shivering in tent camps' limbo.

Feeling close to those who have died long ago,

their graves tended with some care,

distancing us from the bodies

the waves push on the beaches,

the unwanted from the sea's embrace;

fooling ourselves thinking that back then,

with those other refugees,

we would have acted differently.

20.08.2016

Aaron Sorkin wants to sell something to me

A smile of honest eagerness on your lips

is not becoming for a man of wealth and fame

those eyes wanting to please

whoever would buy your craft and touch

devoid of the cold lack of emotion

all real men of substance and property carry

signal hoi polloi of G.I. bills in your family tree

make you look like Jim Carrey

playing Hollywood screenwriter

19.08.2016

The death of Joseph Roth(1894-1939)

An escape for a man who knew what was coming

from the building project of Hell on Earth

to the silence at the cemetery

where words flow on headstones

like the life-ending liquids once did

when a grave of your own

was to become something cherished

as mass graves' bloomed with rot

To die then was to be lucky

when the arteries of the world erupted

pouring fountains of blood

clouds of ash from ovens

where no bread was ever made

19.08.2016

A call of liberty to pirates

A mega yacht

should always be

a death sentence.

Walking the plank

to ocean blue

with a fake captain's hat

a billionaire's fate.

Slipping into the waves

sleek hulls

and less sleek captains

of finance.

19.08.2016

Let's embrace class hate,

let's fight a class war

One rich man

with a broken neck

and a stilled heart

is worth

ten living ones.

19.08.2016

The death of the famous, the wealthy,

the powerful, the moths basking in the flame

of celebrity -

all these are to be rejoiced,

taken with gratitude and cherished

as sources of endless joy.

19.08.2016

DIE JUNGE FRANZ

Hugo von Hofmannsthal(1874-1929)

Fate reserved him

an end worthy of his pen:

A child of his loins

quieting their own heart

brought him

the silence of the Earth

resting heavily

upon his unmoving bosom.

(Praise to be to the privileged

who not only end their own privilege,

without a hope of resurrection,

but their fathers' as well.)

19.08.2016-17.03.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

Abu Nuwas(c. 760 - before 816)

Wine and beautiful faces,

long nights spent entertaining those

from whose hands coins dropped

on a poet's palm,

witty lines to lighten up

the crowd in a tavern and a palace,

witty lines to remember

when the poet's path

diverted to jail.

In the end, shadows closing in

hid the the fate

like arrows hid al-Amin

under the waves.

18.08.2016

Patrick White(1912-1990)

A flourishing deciduous tree, splendid

in the sunshine of the late afternoon

and just before sunset,

at the evening when all is calm.

A tree whose bright foliage

protected you from the rain

on an early autumn day

when you rested your weary back

against its bark.

A tree under a blue sky

which carried no seed,

never had a sapling growing

beside it. A tree

which was the beginning and the end.

When the leaves fell the last time

no spring ever brought them back.

17.08.2016

It matters not

The dead we carry with us,

their lives flickering in our memories and thoughts;

those that could come waver on the precipice of existence

- phantoms pleading us

to give them life and blood to flow inside veins

through our days.

The past and the future connect in us,

the past before us and after us,

the future before us and after us,

and whether we are dead, living or yet unborn

matters not, for

for time all points are the same.

10.08.2016

Stuck above an abyss

narrow enough so

that you might leap over it,

if you have no courage to jump

you can always fall.

In the end, in the great scheme

of life

it makes no difference.

10.08.2016

Something in the human nature

All those pillar saints shitting

and pissing from their high pedestals

down to the crowds waiting for the miracles

and nobody thought them any less holy

07.08.2016

Sun wrapped in the branches of an alder,

tenderly;

the sky a blue sea flapping the cloudy bays,

and I hanging from the green grass

above the abyss,

as the world spirals around.

07.08.2016

Stealing bikes from little girls

who dare to cross the chain to the Jewish side of the Jim Crow line,

shooting young boys going through a hole in an Apartheid fence

to pick herbs from his family's land for his mother,

killing young siblings feeding their pet pigeon on the roof of their home -

this is the Israel that "is a beacon of freedom shining its light in the entire world",

"the only democracy in the Middle East", Israel

"which shares our Western values".

I have had shit at the bottom of my boots

that have had more value than Israel.

07.08.2016

While listening to Giovanni Bononcini's(1670-1747) 'Il trionfo di Camilla'(1696),
with a libretto by Nicola Francesco Haym(1678-1729),
half past four post meridiem on August 1st 2016

Some rain, some coffee with cheese and salad,

droplets running down the window pane,

old coffee with a bitter taste,

the bitter taste of a darkening afternoon,

all those far-sailing clouds

giving birth to these misguided tears.

01.08.2016

WEARING OUR FACES

Some unoriginal thoughts about humans' mortality, after Wisława Szymborska.

The past is a graveyard,

and tomorrow's grave-diggers

are born today,

wearing the faces of the long dead,

the atoms in their bodies

recycled from rebirth to rebirth.

01.08.2016-17.03.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

The Christians have one way

from the baptismal font,

out through the church doors

and on to the path through

the graveyard to their open grave.

Pity them.

The same church bells ring

for their birth, their death.

Pity them.

01.08.2016

The End

The Doors are praising murder,

but then what is more 'American' than murder?

Murder is the essence of 'America'.

If you take it away, all else crumbles

without its foundation of blood, bones

and the hunger to kill.

They are nothing without rivers of blood.

Behind the facades, it's all they know.

All they want.

06.07.2016

GOD IS DEAD

To Yves Bonnefoy(1923-2016)

God is dead.

Dead like an unborn being only can be.

A clean death.

No giant carcass rotting in open.

No maggots or bone worms feeding.

Just this huge gorge

through the Occidental civilization

marking where it fell,

shattering as it shattered.

The dust in our eyes

is divine ash.

04.07.2016-17.03.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

Geoffrey Hill(1932-2016) in the The Serpentine Gallery Poetry Marathon 2009

The dead man reads his poem on the screen,

alive on the year my mother died;

now dead, waiting for a burial,

the dead man reads his poem

in the past, in the now.

It's tortured speech, the lines,

the sentences becoming separated,

the connection between them lost;

each set free, each abandoned,

each pushed out there in the world,

in that moment, in this moment.

Each flickering, dying down.

Words escaping lips

to what could be eternity,

words escaping a living corpse

to life, immortality, postponement of

annihilation surely. Desperate words

thrown out at the world,

like grappling hooks

to save what can be saved,

pulling out parts of the living, dead man

to that moment around him,

to this recording, to my screen,

to my ears and mind

escaping from death, the words,

the final moment to come that came...

Escaping, shards of a man

waiting for his funeral.

04.07.2016

On the death of Geoffrey Hill(1932-2016)

He died suddenly, without pain or dread,

his wife said.

Without dread because he expected to live,

we can assume, but

without pain? Only he knew.

All is written. All is over.

Now only the words, the books remain.

The body lays in cold freezer.

The man and mind are no more.

The words liberated

from their creator.

02.07.2016