We have ordered musicians
but can we pay them?
Give them some tea

     Listen, the trees are falling
     Lovely, the sound of axes
     cutting down the orchard

     The times are changing
     Play! I want to celebrate!
     You can leave after that

I don't know, I want to go
Why have we grown so old?
I remember everybody

was happy, without knowing
why, didn't we discuss it
time after time! It is over

We'll die anyway
while life goes on
as if we have never lived

More computers
more working robots
more non-working people

there is so much reluctance
and creative resistance
against delay repeating

time-consuming tasks
and enough intractability
to care nothing

for the way it simply goes
that's just the way it goes
nowadays how else

could we expect prosperity
what we do not expect
because we simply fear

computers
working robots
non-working people

Laborious
new socks

Not to pinch
my ankles
I lift up and cut
round after round
the border elastic
Carefully
Not the thread
From shirts, I unpick
the name labels, also that
invisible one that
would chafe
my neck
the loop (out of date)
and the three folded
information labels - factory-tailored
clothing has advantages

but it isn't ready
to be worn

He's doing the things
that stick in our mouths
He throws away the trash

which isn't his, because
the permits are no good
and he is not afraid

for the police, not afraid
for shambles, hospital
and scars, not afraid

to feel the depth
of a fall and then
sparking from short circuits

his head blowing
to pieces in milliseconds
and that's it

The permits are no good
and he's doing the things
that stick in our mouths

My sister has tried it by halves
first pleasuring one, then the other

king and getting nothing in return
no, away with the pope
if there is no other way
I will be the matriarch of the country

He has beaten his son to death unborn
It is his furious blood

that is fighting mine
Damn that seamstress
but praise my husband
even though he wants to get rid of me

He is dear to me and I am innocent
I will be the matriarch of the country

Charles was the first
King of Spain
a Belgian

from the waterland
of Bruges and Ghent
Mechlin Leuven Brussels

the atria and the ventricles
the heart of Europe
2.1

Charles spoke French
German to his horse
and Italian with women

later also Spanish
to God and the Spaniards
but he preferred to be at home

in the middle of the stream
of the culture, the new
Blessed Empire

Our back is a wood without paths
great-great-grandfather's sixty oak trees
planted on his wedding day when
the house was ready, the house

in which the plans were made
to demolish it
and the trees

can pay for it

Everything new, no past anymore
that we can touch, but
young planting without shade
over the eighth generation

Our back: no wood, no garden
a hole filled with tall grass
in which sixty twigs hide

Inside the house too, there is light everywhere

I took the girl with me to Lexington
At the bus station we ate peacefully
a snack from the vending machine

and I bought her a ticket
for the 11-hour ride to Chicago
Maybe I saved her
sixteen years old, hitchhiking

on a dark Kentucky road
going to say hello to her grandma
she said, and I still worry about her

I can do it because I think
that I can do better
then another, I better

not think about that
because the need is high
and the opinions are stuck

Filters take the light away
I have to laugh at them
until we are exposed again
to our common sense
and can start again
to enforce
a better world
on the people
who do not trust me

The others will follow
until everything will crash again
and the laughter silenced

will choose someone again
who says he can do better
what no one achieved yet

High in the mountains
the giants sleep on the roofs
no one sees them
we dream them

when we are young
and folded in ourselves
making great plans
for the world we know

we are already on our way
just landed here
for a while, to grow
on our sky canopy bed

until we wake up
as heroes who put right
what has been made amiss
by the little people

I cut a hole to find a hole
water is flowing out
of the concrete, I cut into it
until I'm spent and then

I cut further, a larger hole
in the concrete, sorry dear neighbours
sorry for your ceiling too
but it's leaking and I can cry from it

that I can't put my finger in it
everything is arranged so well
with pipes and working faucets
which I, unfortunately, have to close now

it's a problem for all of us
I don't give up, I don't want to
be the owner of a leak
the dikes must be closed

High-level meeting
The king was bound to it
The reputation of the country

is attacked, and defended
with the greatest philosopher:
are the unbelievers inferior?

Should we convert them
with cannons and forced labour
and be rewarded for that?

Or are we robbing and killing
civilized people to damnation
of ourselves, an indelible debt?

The opinions remain
divided, the king is powerless
He cannot make a decision

The sages split up
Praying, they purify their souls
from what they didn't say

Maybe because of my big heart
that is nevertheless afraid
of everything that could go wrong

and often does not offer room
for what I need, does not make space
for what I wish for

Or to bridge the distance
from my high legs and long neck
to you, and not to look down on you

with armed love
to soothe an unmet need
half-heartedly

Maybe I just imagine
what you do and say to me
maybe we want the same

maybe, under the skin, you too
are a giraffe, maybe we can
just be giraffes

The representative wants my wishes
to fulfill them if possible, but first
he will solve my problems

by adding rules
that pack everything tightly
until it is easy to handle

for clean hands
He cares for me, with an office
full of official love

and occasionally with decrees
from the big chair
until they are spent

and he has to balance
in height, speaking policy
with his head in the clouds

that cover up where it goes wrong
that cover up the emptiness of the sky
and keep the chair high

The staff members are the worst
they only do their job half way
spying on the chief
and each other, to blow with
the wind when it turns

They take care
of their career, what is good
for them is called good
for the cause, they hold on
and will spoil everything

Even if it's just hearsay
a good story is indestructible
It steals what you want to have
and you black-wash everyone who contradicts
to appear white yourself

while you are the first to cry
Stop thief!
with a passing side note
which amplifies the rumours
by contradicting them

Underwear day indoors
screaming for fresh air
bored with my rooms
lying on the couch
after another shower

I needed to clean up
The house would be chock-full
with everything I ever had
Not so much the plants
in the street that I saved

the cat food or the mountain
of medicine, just the usual stuff:
piles of clothes, that one denim jacket
from the photo, my diving suit
grandpa's tools and a bed

I put it on the sidewalk
and after a day I took the remains
away to a pass-on shop
where I left with bags full
I left with bags full

An exploded world
inside out
unfaltering

the water swallowed up
and the crust an asphalt sea
a dead sea, wasteland

where no cattle can graze
and everyone starves
is a horror dream

of one and a half hours
in the cinema hall
Outside we rely

on nuclear bombs and smart solutions
for a humane environment
because there is no growth

in placenta earth