WINTER IN LATE APRIL

 Chill evening begets

winter in the

gray, late April,

rebirth of a

white landscape,

a dreary mirror

for the mind's angst -

to melt away

in the starless dark.

28.04.2021

APRIL DIORAMA

The wind arises

in this diorama

of an autumnal landscape, 

bends bare birch branches

under a milk-white sky of clouds;

silences the birds

which sang Spring

in this April desolation;

departs, the bleak land

gloomy in the dusk.

26.-28.04.2021

SUNRISE IN THE EVENING

'Sunrise' at

eight in the evening;

after twelve hours of gloom,

one-fifth of Sol above

a mass of violet clouds,

under the now dark buds

on the branches

of a solitary linden tree.

27.04.2021

GAIUS CORNELIUS GALLUS(c.70-26 BCE)

You should not have been so eager

to wash away the shame of ambition

with death's bitter remedy,

as one pentameter and nine lines 'of inferior quality'

now stand as your legacy;

after all, time more merciless than Octavian

has wrought its punishment,

and left these as your poetic monument. 

You should have put words down

and sought Octavian's forgiveness

through flattery and praise,

and your too audacious ambition

would have been forgiven, if not forgotten,

and, perhaps, your poetry would

have stood time like a lesser Sphinx,

and would be remembered,

not your death in disgrace.

14.10.2015-21.05.2021

IN BLEAK APRIL

The landscape a frozen diorama in the autumnal gloom

of a dim afternoon, the wind stilled, birds silenced,

and I, stuck behind this window looking out,

glued and painted by the untiring hands of years

which created this moment of April desolation

like apes write Shakespeare's collected works.

When shall the sluggish time move its dials

to the moment when other trees than these

stand bare and dark over disturbed soil,

on some bleak day when in uncounted

dimensions Juliet and Romeo live

happily in consummated love,

and Hamlet sits crowned on the throne?

26.04.2021

NEFER 2

 The lack of news is telling on its own,

or so our fearful mind tells itself -

news delayed can only be bad.

Yet we hope in the face of these whispers, yearn

for a message crushing our fears, yet dread

the sound announcing the arrival of a message,

those seconds between the knowledge

we have the answer and reading it.

Everything is possible in those seconds,

and all is set after them, forever.

26.04.2021

WAITING FOR THAT WHICH BEFORE THE WINTER FLEW

 Hope is a migratory bird,

long lost in its sojourn

to southern lands.

Here in the spring,

waiting for its arrival

in vain,

when it surely lies

dead in some distant place,

stuck in a net it couldn't escape.

26.04.2021

IN LATE APRIL

In this cold, dim mid-day land

the only sings of Spring

are the buds on the linden tree,

palest green against the gray

of the overcast sky.

26.04.2021

FROM THE VOID YOU CAME, TO THE VOID YOU SHALL RETURN

Do remember, you human

being, that nothing

that you do in this span of

time we call life

has any meaning

after your brain

has thought its last thought,

after your heart

has beaten its last beat.

From the void

you came, and the void

is the end

of you and all your doings.

Your name is

not written on water,

what you create

is not sandcastles on a beach

washed away by the high tide.

No, you

and everything you built,

everything you achieved,

everything you believed

you would leave behind

was nothingness

built on void.

25.04.2021 

THE FOAM ATOP THE EXISTENCE'S OCEAN

Let us, briefly, think not of the foam

atop the existence's ocean, the foam

which our media wants us to observe endlessly;

none of the fascists which it promotes,

the thick athletes and their sponsors,

the idiots in the game and 'Reality TV' shows,

the cardboard celebrities through which

the media tells us to live our lives;

no, let's look at the Mediterranean's mass graves

in the blue, the people drowned in our name,

let's look at Brazil and India, at the

endless graves and pyres, in which

the handiwork of the world order

build on ignorance's foam can be seen,

these human sacrifices by the same powers

whose local heralds grinning from the screens

are giving us the fascists,

the thick athletes and their sponsors,

the idiots and the celebrities,

sucking the oxygen from our brains,

telling us that we need our own

Bolsonaro, Modi and Trump,

repeating from one vast mouth their gospel

that we need to hate the weak

and kneel and grovel before

the famous and the rich and the malignant -

this inbred media that hides from us

the breaking of the world

so that wealth can coalescence

into standing, stinking pools

even in our flaking little horror of a land.

25.04.2021

APRIL MALADY

Landscape frozen on the threshold of light

awaits the Sun breaking through the clouds' gray,

solitary drops keep falling from the eaves

through pallid air in the long afternoon silence.

Yet the unconquerable Sun fails before the wall

of the overcast sky, and suddenly the rain starts

again; a hard, insistent shower; the wind rises

and bends the trees in their dark and pale

colours to its puppetry, briefly, and then,

it's over again, only droplets from the eaves

and the branches falling, wind becalmed

in the gray of the long April afternoon,

as the sluggish tide of wan light from the Sun fails

to give the autumnal land a spring of rebirth.

25.04.2021

ALL THE VICTIMS

 At some point, one needs

to understand that enough is enough,

and that a spiral wreaking suffering

must come to an end.

It can't go on,

the injuries and deaths,

until all have been swept

away and only oneself remains.

The master of

the innocents' suffering,

all the pain and fear and sorrow,

architect of a slow armageddon.

All who trusted

and loved, their lifes and bodies

wrecked, taken from them

by utter incompetence.

Not malice,

just utter, total inability

to see, to think, to act

destroys them all.

10.04.2021

TARA

Fear grips the mind

after another innocent

suffers for the horrible

mistake of a man

who refuses to see,

refuses to see

what is right before him,

and refuses to think,

refuses to think about

what he sees,

and refuses,

refuses to act correctly.

When does it end?

Oh no, he doesn't

want to hurt them -

but hurt he does,

and he hurts them

far, far more

than many who

with clear thinking

seeks to torment.

How many horrible

mistakes can one

unthinking man

inflinct on the innocents?

When does it end?

09.04.2021

AFTER THE PASSING OF THE PRINCE CONSORT

When it comes to kings and priests,

I'm with Denis Diderot;

never lament the passing of a prince

until it's time to rejoice

for the going of the last,

his laurel held on the neck

picked from the final

priest's belly.

09.04.2021

PRINCE PHILIP IS DEAD, AT 99

Finally, flesh

is cold,

the thoughts

have ceased,

and all the years

are ash and dust,

and the bell

is tolling not

only for the

devoured dead,

it chimes too

for the coming

death of the

crowned head,

as mortality

dawns in red

dusk, shedding

the outer skin

between privilege

of a century,

and the waiting,

hungering void.

09.04.2021

EVENTIDE

The Sun bloated, orange-red

sinks behind the crest

of the treeline turning black;

the evening soundless,

this day of crisp light

didn't bring back birdsong,

silenced by three days

of snowfall and rain,

leaving the breezeless

April landscape

a lifeless painting

being covered by

the grime of

the descending night.

08.04.2021

YOU WERE SO FULL OF LIFE WHEN YOU CAME BACK IN THE MID-AFTERNOON

how frail

the greatest of men

I knew

you my father

were on that

terrible night

stolen of life

by me

who didn't rise up

and wake you

who didn't listen

what you said

who sent you

to your death

with a glass

of water &

a magnesium tablet

27.06.2017-08.04.2021

DIM REFLECTIONS

It was the spring the day before yesterday,

sunshine, birdsong, and a fly

hovering against a windowpane.

It was the winter yesterday,

endless fall of snow in a

grim, gray land.

It's the autumn today,

rain falls on patches of snow,

disinterring fallen, brown leaves.

Each day the landscape

makes itself anew,

and us its dim reflections.

07.04.2021

THE GODDESS AND THE BEAST

astronaut Sam

untouchable in her heavenly abode

watching us

too small to be seen

an Earth without humans

a goddess in space

to gain that lithe figure

wrapped around me

that short hair in my fingers

to be one floating

hands on smooth skin

cold nipples against chest

i would be that visitor

who on return

from goddess' embrace

ages a thousand years

floats as dust

back to her

so sorry Sam

but men are men

we are the weaker sex

base beasts

without control

we would burn with wax wings

reaching for you

our beautiful smiling 

goddess in heaven

08.02.2015-06.04.2021

LIKE PALE LIGHT IN SHALLOW WATER

 Like pale light

in shallow water

reaching the

ice-moulded pebbles,

sorrow enters

the remaining days

of life, illuminating

them - as time

wavers.

12.05.2010-06.04.2021

NEFER

  It seems we
will never be free of fear

of loss, until that final day

erases all fear with the world.

Until that moment, when

 the world is taken from

us, this fear of loss of beloved

ones, cherished ones,

has our mind and

heart in the grasp

of its iron-hard fists,

tightening its hold

until that concluding day,

when the world passes away

with all the fear

which being alive

holds.

03.04.2021

JUST BEYOND GRASP

 Here, on this bleak,

far shore of a life,

still reading the poems

of the Chinese masters

dust for a millennia, still

feeling that a veil, between

this transient existence

and some permanent state

of being / non-being

beyond, has been pierced

by their sharp words, carved

and flung into time

as poems, reaching

past mere meaning

towards essence.

03.04.2021

APRIL

The sun breaks through the clouds,

briefly; bright light floods

a resurrected spring landscape,

then the tide turns, colour

drains from the landscape,

leaving a lifeless husk

of a dead autumn

dug from winter's grave.

03.04.2021

CHRONIC INFLAMMATION OF THE SKIN

the weary sun of a

long august evening

a distant cold globe

yet trickles of sweat run

across the bloated frame

and the tingling in

limbs heralds

the old torture

of inflammated skin

for hours to come

under the distant cold globe

of long august evening's

weary sun

10.08.2015-03.04.2021

IN THE FIRST LIGHT OF THE SPRING

A long walk with the dogs

to the village centre

in the bright evening light,

lost between the landscape

in its first moment of spring,

and the memories it evokes,

the pain of which makes

the churning mind

try to change the past,

chart a different path

around the shoals of life

to this same moment -

the old useless quest, ending

only at our own oblivion -

which takes us from the living

moment, and fetters us

to the dead moments surviving

only in memories reshaped

by tragedies of our doing;

taking this cool, crisp

April landscape of light

which should be a balm,

and with each painful

thought hammering

it into one more link

in the long chain which

binds and dooms us.

01.04.2021

UNDER AN AZURE SKY, THE SPRING

In two days the Sun

has erased the winter

from the yard; the buried

autumn lies bare in the dead grass,

the brown leaves laid atop it.

I regret the lost three springs,

the memories never carved

beside those in which,

on days like this,

you sit in the sunlight

on the porch of the sauna,

and I regret the four autumns

that have shed fallen

leaves on your grave.

31.03.2021

SOMETHING UNNOTICED

 Here we are, at

what must be the end -

and yet,

somehow,

at times,

it still feels

like something

would be ready to begin:

A bud, unnoticed,

ready to bloom.

31.03.2021

THE ILLUSION OF HOPE

I

 Remember:

From the beginning,

there is no hope

in this life,

only

the illusion

of hope.

II

Illusion of hope

is what will

carve

the deepest

wounds

across our

brief existences.

26.03.2021

BEFORE THE WALLS OF TROY

Admit it, human being: In the fight

we call life, you are, at best,

Hector facing Achilles,

your fate pre-ordained;

you can only prolong the struggle,

not emerge triumphant.

Blocking the descending blade

one more time is what destiny can grant you -

and the next thrust, or the one after,

will strike through,

and your blood shall stain

the sand, as crowing Achilles

will be the last sight in your dimming eyes.

Your broken body shall be dragged

behind the chariot of time

to crush all hope from the minds

of your loved ones,

and then will be heard

heavy steps in the tower staircase

going up, and the final cries

of your beloved Astyanax.

26.03.2021

IN A TAVERN NEAR PARIS IN THE YEAR 1463

Where are the snows of yesteryear,

you ask, son of Montcorbier -

or was it Loges? I forget.

If I would be a learned man,

talented with the arts,

like you, priest-to-be,

I would point to the rain

hammering on the roof,

but, being heavily

rooted on the earth, not

one of the learned denizens

of your university,

gazing at the clouds, 

I will just throw a coin

on the table, and say that

they used the snows of yesteryear

to dilute the wine

served in this tavern;

you will soon be pissing

them on the alley mud -

and keep that knife

in its sheath;

a man can escape the gallows

'only' twice.

24.03.2021

PEOPLE LIKE US

We can't erase

our past mistakes,

unmake our errors.

That is not

in our power.

We can only

make new errors,

new mistakes

for others to

suffer from.

24.03.2021

WHEN I'M DEAD

 When I'm dead,

don't say

"He is in a better place now."

I shall not be anywhere

except in your memories.

When I'm dead,

don't say

"He is in peace now."

I would prefer excruciating pain

to non-being.

When I'm dead,

just say:
"He loved life,

he feared death,

and death erased him."

24.03.2021

ONE HEART STOPPING

What is a single death,

but the end

of the entire universe? 

24.03.2021

FOR DEATH IS INVINCIBLE

 Perhaps,

when you read these

words, these sentences,

this poem weaved out of them,

I will be dead and gone,

and only my words,

only my sentences,

only my poem

will speak to you.

It matters not.

My poem,

as mortal as myself,

set to die a death

as total as my own,

will speak to you,

you will speak to it,

and a bridge

will reach from this

moment of writing

to the moment

of reading.

A wormhole of words

through time.

It won't conquer death,

for death is invincible,

yet it will push back

death's triumph

for the moment

of reading,

will hid a fragment

of the sentences

in your mind,

refugee from my

act of writing.

It will die

when you cease

to be,

it will be dead and gone

when your mind

is with mine

in the cool dust.

For death

is invincible.

21.03.2021

DEATH TRIUMPHANT

Once dead, 

we shall not

be resurrected.

Yet, something

of us lives on

in those

who remember us,

and although life renewed

is denied,

we shall die again

with the death

of each one

who knew us.

Thus death

triumphs over us

until

there is none

to hold a slice of

our life in

themselves.

21.03.2021

FACING THE TRUTH ABOUT OURSELVES

Sometimes, without touching

them, we become Hell

for the people we truly

love the most;

we would die for them,

and yet, we

drive them

to their deaths.

20.03.2021

FOOLISH, FATAL WORDS AVENGED IN THE PASSING OF TIME

Feeling mortal today,

but having failed others

this is a fight I can face

with stubborness:

Bring it own.

31.03.2015

COSMIC ENTROPY: THE MILKY WAY

A spiral of stars

spinning, spinning

in the void,

becoming the void.

23.06.2013-16.03.2021

THERE ARE SECRETS BEYOND THE LAST BREATH

There are secrets

beyond the last breath,

unknown to those

whose beating heart

hides the siren voices beyond flesh;

beyond the chains of blood and bone,

beings older than life itself,

wounds carved across

the fabric of all matter

in the torment of the birthing universe,

call for the dying;

in the silence of the

stilled heart, brain starved

out of oxygen, their voices grow

into a thundering call, as they await,

hungering, these gaping maws

ripped into cosmos, luring

with what could wait beyond,

those intelligences who are fading

back to the non-sentient cosmos.

Paradise and Hell await,

they promise and remind

that all who shall not pass

through their galaxies-wide

mouths shall cease

to be in this universe of death.

There are secrets beyond the last breath,

yes, and lies;

as the people in white

step aside from my death bed

and shake their heads

to unheard questions,

and I let myself go, fleeing

in an aeon-long flight

to the calling voices,

I know, in my existence

beyond flesh and bone,

that no Paradise can wait

in what lies beyond

the patient maws.

I have lived, and know,

as all humans will,

that all hope betrays,

that fear carries truth,

and what has slashed rifts

through this universe

of disappointment

surely must be worse.

Yet I go, desperate, for

near-eternity of flight

in the cold wastes between stars,

is existence, as well, even

if at the end we will be

devoured in Hell.

13.-15.03.2021

GRAVEYARD AT WINTER

A candle flickers in the darkness

of the graveyard,

a light like life

amid the long lines of death in stone

with names and dates

reminding the living

that all that begins will end.

A candle flickers in the darkness

of the graveyard,

a light like all these lives

that danced

in the cold gloom of years,

and faced the the darkness which,

unlike this night, shall not end.

13.03.2021

ON THE GRAVEYARD

 One more ghastly mistake,

a desecration,

and the blood on the snow

beside the broken glass & cross

being own

is a scant consolation.

This is how they suffered & died,

well-meaning mistakes

breaking lives

like the cross and the glass

on the headstone

shattered.

13.03.2021

THE DIE HAS BEEN CAST

In the end, the gods abandon

even themselves;

so who are you, mere mortal,

to complain

the fate that they have cast

over your life,

turning their grim gaze away,

even as the dice

still kept rolling across the years?

Now, it's still -

seek solace in the clarity of the end,

in the iron

certainty of your defeat.

12.03.2021

ONE DARKNESS

1

 In March the evenings

are already long;

at six it's not yet dark -

except inside

human abode & mind.

2

Outside trees become

black paper-cuts on

the gray-white background

of snow and cloud,

birch, pine and fir

mingle darkly in the gloom,

with wind moving their branches

weave the black

cloth of night

3

In March the evenings

are already long;

yet at half past six

the black trees merge

into one darkness.

12.03.2021