Men didn't get me
with their gob talk
about heaven

on earth they're willing to give me -
higher than I consider to be possible
they'll make me fly

She rather holds a broomstick
between her legs, they laughed
among each other till it wasn't so funny

with their gob talk
about heaven
on earth they're fighting each other for -

the earth they're fighting each other for
because it isn't good enough
for masters who are afraid

to serve
but I can swim
even under gob ice

Do you know where you are going to?
Do you like the things that life is showing you?

the way it is, today
my own life today
softly singing on

my way to the next
crossing in the park
knowing where I'm going

left or right, always
back to friends
with whom I'm happy

Even if I don't participate
with the neighbours, all of Brussels
Berlin, Beyrouth, and Beijing

I still participate
but otherwise, living
close to myself

"viewless" today's
life, softly singing
on my way

This street in wonderland
a lane of pink clouds
must be the end

of the normal world, happiness
begins here and over there
must be the gate

but I don't want to go there yet
Let me walk slowly and enjoy
trees full of pink cakes

Let me fly away
from pain and nausea
from the holy trinity

of my thoughts, my
organs and the rest, my
despair, grief, and fear

of the unbearable
Let me walk in the clouds
Let the blossoms keep raining

It is a beautiful autumn day
the park splendidly strewn

with spiny balls, they proliferate
everywhere, I can't watch it

The bad news attacks
I withdraw inside

the walls, close the gates
Leave me alone, let me fight

the facts on my worldwide desktop
as the days go by and I am uncertainly

taking steps in the dance to the final party
letting my I flow in, slowly

exhaling It to be whole, it goes
naturally, it goes by naturally

but now a pill and then
I'll eat and know that outside is inside

- a beautiful day

Dredged up, laid to dry
between walls of fire and villagers

watch, dogs lick their lips
Now it's up to me

to be brave
to know whom to trust

not wanting to avenge
anything, not to be an offender

Now it's up to me
whether I want to delay

the inevitable, against better judgment
hoping for a saviour so I won't

have to dare the impossible
Now it's up to me

to dare
to die

If not the facts do count
not even the people
but money and power

under the banner of freedom
equality or faith
weigh heavily in the pockets

of the senators
and treason is the slogan
for each of them

who would want to protest time after time
when is repeated
that Carthage must be destroyed

     then wise words fail
     even from the mouth of the most gifted speaker -
     and who then can be the leader

     of the democratic revolution?

The birthday over
watched a short film
dozing, unable to sleep
Wake up with pain
Jaws, head mostly

Holding my breath

Where is the hospital here?
How you will leave there
you want to know in advance to know
what you want
what the facts are

You count
the symptoms
incomplete
so turn around
Breathe until it is light

Get up exhausted
dizzy on the edge
of the bed, feel
no pain, there
between the shoulder blades

Back then I had to get used
to myself, who I was
in my mother's videos

now to your voice, to you
lifelike smiling as if
you are in the other room

back from the story
in which I stayed behind
It is so definitely over

even if you and me together
would hear and see again
what it was like

and just as little would understand
that you really have existed
there and then

You can endure it
but you won't get used to it
you won't get used to it

There's nothing to eat on the kitchen counter
of Charles Frank Watchman
born here in this town

and deceased last winter
We polish the cover
of his tomb in our kitchen

There is not a scratch on it
The coffin in which he lay
have we traded for

nothing, bacon and beans
Times are changing
but inequality is not

no matter how many marches
we walk to the Great Golden
White, Pink, or Blue House

Between the hard facts I look
for a passage
The sun blinds me
delivers me to the wind

Come, sweet fay of the sea
around misty Avalon, come
then I will be fine
which I never doubt

except at night
when I would like to rest
and sweat fears, tired, so tired
but too vigorous to give up

so I put on nice clothes
to go out and celebrate
to reinvent myself
and connect with the world

I am a farmer at sea
60 sheep, 100 pigs
geese and ducks on departure

These are frugal rations
with the stew, army bread and beans
No need to slaughter

The beasts just die
so there is always meat
for the cook and the officers

high above my smelly stable
where I haul in the buckets from the sea
and scrub the shit through the scuppers

In the bunks, it is worse
There is the world of the below deck
of sweat, exhaust gases, and the rasping sick

where you sink asleep in a pit
full of poo and pee, gasp for air
and throw up brown tar

Content with each step
that overcomes the tongs
of don't and the knives of do

move, I walk
more and more outside
the lines of society

in my own circlet
There's danger tinkling
in my long breath

of slowly living
step by step
I pour more and more

honey in the tea
but I refuse to flee
in the powdery snow of the night

In soil that I have not chosen
in no one's shadow
all myself

I watch and hear the neighbours
I can't get any closer

My branches reach
ever stronger, ever further
Children climb in them

They laugh and kiss
themselves a future

In soil that I have not chosen
in no one's shadow
I become rough and wrinkled

In heat, snow and storm
branches break and die

They reach ever
thinner and shorter
Nests blow away

to new trees
For new loves

People avoid me
I'm on a list
and get mail, at home
you are not safe
it says, what are you still
     doing here, do you
     need help packing?

I get a call:
Look outside
we are at your door

with enough boxes
Count your days and watch
your children, stupid quail
it is over
with wet-my-lips
     and it does not help
     to play dead
     Mau-mau, maybe
     God sends an angel
     of insight
     and compassion

When the sirens blast I never know
immediately that it's the test
of the first Monday

My head goes crazy
I'm wrongly
tuned

Just like you
I am cautious
of imaginary dangers

far from my neighbourhood
and in the dark future
such as the global death

of oceans and people
Beware, it comes close
it flies

into my street, in league
with missed opportunities
and the uproar

of my achievements
But then I think: oh, right
it is twelve o'clock again

I'm really going to do better

Were there demons in her mind
since she settled on the fifth
in that attic at the quay
where a car has been coupé?

Sebastian and Isabel were living there
until they vanished somewhere
in the jungle of Peru
and no one has a clue

Now this woman on the blanket: why?
Some neighbours watch and so do I
One of them is pointing where she stood
thus I understand the dented hood

When the ambulance is driving away
the officers can write their résumé
they only must research the motive
and whether there's a relative

What went wrong across the street?
Didn't anybody see her need
standing there, the city at her feet?

I'm stuck, how did I get here?

How do I get out, who will help me
accompany me, if need be just
in the spirit, to the Golden Gate
with free birds in the glimpse
of the light between its doors?

Who feels my love tugging
at the nets that connect us?

Who will wash the hard crusts
from my body, kiss my wounds
into flowers as the most beautiful
dress I ever wore, who will
put his hand in my blood

as a heart?

We didn't need anything
we just bumped against each other
and lay together, if so, a nest
of friends, who know to find each other
no matter how far we've flown out

Become angels, who would have thought!

Our soul connection
so familiar at first sight
at each reunion - forever young
is my chicken heart then, my skin
of flesh and blood, forever young

our spirit - but oddly
detached are our wings
our cheeks and the air kisses
that escape my lips
or have transcended them

Our body has a head full
of officials for problems
Efficiently and with integrity
they follow the procedures
implemented in our brains
that warn of side effects
hormone storms, agonising
tissues and neoplasm nooks

They are our brethren, keepers
against unused reserves and
calcification, guardian angels
made of providence
Problems come to light
in time in the routine
which unites our forces
to our best reason

Please fold like a pillow
in my back, shape your body softly
to mine, then the pain will sink

down in it, in the embrace
of your affection, you may caress me
lightly over my shoulder, that's all

I can give you if you promise
not to move, I can't cope with more
my open flower remains closed

Sometimes it burns from cramping pain
sometimes from desire, always delicate
everything is delicate inside

too delicate for wild passion
nectar kisses, heavenly sweat
and total satisfaction

Across the road was the land
homesteads mixed farming
in acid air are the animals
clearing their throat, safe

behind the teeth of the dog
each of them servient
to a higher order
only the rooster didn't know that

I grew up at that fringe of the city
and in my absence the farms
have grown to giants
which have eaten the landscape

but they don't have an appetite
for hills and gorges, winding roads
choke them, so they leave
the Hinterland alive

Familiar were the winds
that shaped me in their wide world

my branches towards the same side
reaching over the edge

yielding to the pressure, proudly
my own posture

Iron water has hardened me
and captured the pattern
of my life in the bones
and in the veins
of my slanted balance

I make elastic jumps
which would break my fragility
without the precision of manure
on hour and time, from time to time
disrupted by my zest for life

I don't live in a greenhouse, but
in the winds of the world

Looking into the light
of the golden mirror, I eat
all the comfort that's in the house

Kissing is no help
crying only after sleeping
from exhaustion, disappointed

but it is no different
than expected, than it was
during the siege

Wanting to live
remains the watchword
After a cold shower

putting on my make-up
getting my courage together
A new day, golden light of the sun

Feathers, falling
from the wings of the dark
angel, falling, losing height
over the foggy graveyard
- the fields with stakes and stones

Men had to kill
boys were frightened heroes
hunger and disease did the rest

Life is scrawny, the chests
of the girls are too flat
for the babies in their bellies

Between the frail black feathers
they arrange flowers of past times
- the flowers of future times

With every colour they dream
of the veiled sun
and wish it back

It's quicksand, tricky
but there are no beasts
that gouge out my eyes
to tear me apart alive

nor is there any tide
no flood that drowns me
I'm just stuck
as in concrete, the sand

has hardened, yes
if there were tourists
I would wave at them
in their photos, but

there is nobody

I don't even feel anymore
how cold my legs are
I think of peat bogs
eating humans and animals

and I think of passers-by
who come to my aid
before I start to hallucinate
and dry out, waiting

Don't touch me, I strike
fire from my unshed tears
for the tentacles in my belly
I scorch every hand
(including mine)

Don't touch me, my skin
is tight around the old wounds
hardened to an abrasive armour
against what nobody should do
(and yet it happened)

Don't touch me, my belly
does not tolerate any pressure
on the serous membrane around
the spines on the wounds of lust
(of men for me)

Don't touch me, I cry
out the invasive past
from my body for new
cells that know nothing
(virginally)

It depends
on how I focus
Usually, I don't see anything

but the almost standstill
of slow shifts
or the to and fro

of shootings that I can't track -
life, in the city
and within me, active

even when I am passive -
metabolism and cell renewal
invisible but perceptible like the fight

for my existence and that
of the bacteria that struck me
as a long-awaited home

It is not cosy
in my bodyhome, sweating
on the bed, I stretch out wide

to an X
(value unknown)
to cool down

but there is no wind
and the air is damp
with sorrow for my fate

and with fear that this is the last
I am able to sustain, that
thereafter, it will be too bad

(I'm not sure what –
  then again it is too dark
  then the light shines too bright)

I want space and breath
to fight, I am a fighter
in my head and my belly

I am surrounded there
constricted and suffocated
There is plenty of air

Why not for me?
I bear the stings
and the cramping

for the danger –
the gong rings
(for a new round)

We see each other as heroes
and that helps, yes, I too
can be wise and skillful
in handling the energy of life

realizing that heroes too
are tired after their tours de force
– the life-size warding off
not-living

My parents started it
I sensed their fears
and discovered step by step
more and more for myself

what is unsafe
Sometimes I wait in a corner
for what might happen
encapsulating with love and down

what imposes itself
inside and outside of me
I let it go, let it flow on
I'm balancing in the force field

I want to be healthy
not anaesthetize anything and yet
live a carefree life as if
we always wake up again

Suddenly it was different
the toggles turned over
and I was picked up

I brace myself, fallen through
something, a membrane
between order and overpower

Carry me away, I want heavens
of pastel and gray after the outings
in my room and in the hallway
not a dropped ceiling

Back home, in the light
of my own windows
between the plants, the pillar
and the post of pain

thinly covered with anxious dreams
in which I don't want to be snowed under
no matter how tight the ties squeeze

In pyjamas I suffer myself
clamping my cup in my hands
I won't let go

I want to live without the ready-to-wears
of my former identities, I don't want to
be a former colleague, not a patient

with a rare disease
of the most severe category
rescued in the hospital mill

I want to live without the pity
that compassionate eyes attribute to me
I am still who I was

With a new decoration --
my hidden life line
with a curve

around my belly button:
here I am
Reborn

My birth eye is blind
to the scar around it
my decoration

the life-size secant line
my fingers see
and my eyes feel

I taste the activities
of my organs, I taste
new flavours in my mouth

More identities are added
then get off, new clothes
that are one size smaller

and experiences as a friend
student, teacher, and fellow sufferer
that are one size extra

I bathe in abundance, so much
help and renewed contacts
because of who I am

I live, I make webtrips
my thoughts run around
and often stand still

in slow movements
around the centre
behind my belly button

Look, do you see it's me?
Don't mind the poppies
don't mind my skin, my head

without hair, okay, you may
see the earrings, they're winking
to the desirable gold

that you only know tied up
tight above unadorned ears
It was only loose at home

I tried lipstick
and became invincible
a robot woman full of energy

The pain does not count, I'm alive
experience after experience
a different person

The pain does count, I like
to live, take all
chances, give

anything for it
as long as it goes, as long
as I can, as long

as my energy flows love

Not the war makes the warrior
but his peace
with the ending

     My gates are open
     energy is flowing in
     my face shines from it

     I live, I don't distract you
     with golden hair, I am
     life, bald and unadorned

Not: I survive with hope
but with inner peace
with the ending

     I don't leave me
     I don't withdraw
     in pain and sorrow

     I let life flow in and out
     I'm standing in the light
     in which we find each other

I am not here as a sick person
but in my hard-fought peace
with the ending

     My chest breathes up and down
     my dear body hurts
     I radiate it

     With hot water I wash
     off flakes and sighs
     and I stretch out, cautiously

Living a bad life
of being wronged
and still wanting to live
- even without hope

Endure the misery
support fellow sufferers
and occasionally enjoy
the surroundings

and a story of the luxury
to have enough despite
the fumbling and the bungling
that always crosses people

My guilty life
of powerlessness, not letting
my family go short, and soon
consuming more than necessary

Also nearby, there are people suffering
and dying nearby, and I live, I want
to make the best of it
and hope for better

We repeat stories
that call us beautiful, courageous
or good, complicit only
to our humanity

Space, ease, myself
breathing, feeling the stitches
under my ribs and the poison
in my body, in my head

Not thinking about that
Every day a friend
who cares
about her own interests

No curiosity, patronising
and consolation, only
an embrace and
being spoiled a bit

Awake, not dreaming
in my sleep, walking around
in the colours of the world
and eating roasted peanuts

in the park, the park
always a park
a forest, a dike or a beach
and otherwise my balcony

PAN-PAN   Come closer
without secondary objects
of illness and dying

Do not waste time
read my face
not my unusual skull

The sun shines, I breathe just like you
Feel free to touch me, I am
not a shadow behind the threshold
of memories

We can be together these hours
without the fatal snake venom
overgrowing our relationship

There is so much
that I want to hear from you and
that you don't know of me

Be as carnal as you can be
Answer my body language
caress the painful spots and
put your soul in me for a moment

In bed I don't imagine
to be a warrior, I lie back
and let the disaster year occur

the inconveniences of my body
when waking up at night
and when it's time

to pee, to wash, to shake
up the pillows and to drink
something to start

the day, the light
that shifts through the room
and the visitors, the friends

who love me, just happy
to be with me, almost carefree
about my fate, just being themselves

as good fairies, strong fairies
of flesh and blood like me
in the survival game

I press weakly the hand
upon my hand, it's the last
thing it comes down to

Between pain and numbness
there are faces
at my bedside
and memories

still understandable
but accompanied by chances
that dropped out, and mistakes
unsatisfactorily explicable

They change over time
also the fondest, with sex
the feast and the beauty
of my body

charming and fertile
holy by nature
Hold me, touch me
keep seeing who I am

He drove me to the sea
I make small steps
barefoot

Barefoot steps in the cold
sand, I do my best
I don't lie down

The toes of my feet
comes towards me
Next to his steps

We have done this
before, nothing wrong
The wind was always blowing

salt into my hair
foam into my words
playing hide and seek

inside my head, and the seagulls
squawk shrilly through it
I get lost in language

differences and bad
connections, and still
he does not notice

I cry with misery, inside
I collapse, again, again
I have to fire myself
to hold on

Time is short and goes so fast
but I have to go to bed
to lie down with my tiger
and get up with it

Homely chatter in the kitchen
the soup is already smelling and
I know there are candles burning
If only I could sleep

I shiver when I put back the blanket
I'll move the bed to the winter side
My tiger stays in bed
and rolls over again

The dry tears contract
my skin, come on, out
there are blackberries and
smell, smell the fresh bread

I pull myself together
caress the stiff parts
and wrap up myself nicely
as the tiger I've been

My body does not know
I have my birthday, it doesn't know yet
what will be working today, and what not

It tingles. It hurts.
Where do I get the strength from?
the Force, the Force

Scatterbrain, are you awake
here on the edge of the bed
what do you think, can I get up?

Hello Missy Kittypee
why don't you say anything, come
and sing a song for me?

Let the phone lie over there
I know I am kind
if I'm fit without pain

I welcome you, my house is green
plants everywhere, fruit and cookies
Let us celebrate life

I want to smell the earth
I want to feel the rain
that releases the scent of the earth
from the cracks in the land

I welcome you, in beautiful clothes
cheerful if possible, happy
that you are there

Open the window to the gardens
let the pleasure substances in --
the pollen of the world
that finds soil everywhere

I welcome you, please help me
since this is all, help me
then I'll be able to face it

Who can I ask
to go with me
behind me on a single track

of false hope, genuine hope
against my better judgement
on the way for too few

meagre minutes to celebrate together
but still time that I don't want to miss
even if it does not offer what I wish?

The little trod paths
will be as well a dead-end
as the short way into the mists

that stun you and increasingly
take the view of the mountains
the balding mountains away

I don't want to stand still, I walk around
looking out for a new path
a magical path of life

that I, stumbling and slipping
over the sharp stones if need be
want to clear where it is not

Is my belly weightless, standing
in the world on straight legs
quietly digesting
without pressure from above?

Is there a curve under my navel
do you want to expose me there
contact with the centre
of my life?

Is your belly warm, is there a bright fire
burning, does it flare, is it smouldering
or are the outlying areas freezing
and char the lobes
in your brainpan?

Belly on belly, eye to eye
breath with breath, peace
by peace, arms around
our hearts, love in our eyes
sealed with kisses

The blue butterflies live
on honey from the magic world
of changes -

the rain and shine
and the wing beats
of all the bodies

with more or less happiness
suffered injuries and tears
for unwelcome outcomes

I massage my aching belly
full of vampire moths
As long as I live

blue butterflies will
fly up from the womb
of my affection

Three wands
One is not finished yet
the gold is melted, but
the magic has not yet been found

The airy one is available
on call, to numb the pain
and the living one, made of wood
lies on my bedside table

as a hold with dying
before I pass away
The stories are told
my horses stand in front of the sea

I hesitate about the spell
and I am in doubt to let go
of the reins of my will
leaving the world to others

The waters break, they
flush around my bare feet
from the ankles to my vagina
they flow into me and out of me

You see it everywhere: stones
burnt black with bones
a barbecue in the fire
of angry men

Sometimes dies one nobody
speaks about it what do you do
if the truth is too painful
if you even want to guess?

You don't run into soot stones
you keep back
or poke them curious
if there's anything underneath

I wasn't there
but for sure, I'm not crazy
so maybe she was -
thinking to be human

like us

Fall over when I want
to squat with a cat
Well, then lie down

and be a warm bed for her
Give everything a slight twist like that
and take measures

hand grips in the bathroom
reduce my wishes
embrace chance

think: I have been lucky
with my body, with the peace
of friends, in the street and at school

and keep longing
for skin and sun
keep listening

to birds, rain and maqamat
though there is sadness sloshing
in my stomach and pissing in my head

Flush the rest
plans, days with green poo
and fruitless menstruations

They have seen too much:
the chest, the outside
of the secret, because a secret

has no outside
only by definition
a concealed content

Even though it didn't interest them
even though they didn't look at it
but were dancing, it is too much

If nothing would be done
it will end in stories
about a chest and nothing

that was palpable, no Force
that creates and destroys and
no sacred silence

So the priests do have to
surprise the witnesses in their sleep
in the dead of night

with a a hand on their mouth
and a quick slit in their throat
everywhere in the field

red spots of providence

We know the images
know what war is
but the bunkers are empty
Our sky is soft

We know the people
with passing paces they walk
home in a spiny skin
cautiously over the sandpaper

of the hurry of their lives
They take a subscription
to series and the hospital
which is always cheap

We know the paths
beyond the musty acid air
of fresh building rubble
they bend

through muddy fields full
of fellow-sufferers in luxury cardboard boxes
and pathetic stray dogs
bur our sky is soft

the world is not here
under the red sheet
of mama's bed
on a holiday