Outside is the earth, the life
of lungs, hearts and legs
Outside we experience the wonder
of everything around us
Outside we live the wonder
of who we are

Within is heaven, the creative soul
of our life together
Within we unfold
and we give the best
Within we are open
to what the world offers

Open, I let
the outside in and
the inside out
like a stream
Open, I receive
and I give myself

Men are cautious
they rather spurn their chances

than to rely on their noses, but
they can be seduced to take a little bite

if you insist and
have not gotten sick from it yourself

Indeed, it started
with the famous apple, a fig

After the first one he too wanted more
We learned

to look through the foliage
to remember where the trees are

and how to get there, to smell
where the fruit is ripe

We got up earlier than the others
and left in the moonlight

to be the first just a little further away
and get the prize

We grew in our head
and became human

No one lives for himself
we sing at funerals
We live for each other, the others
live for us and work for us

except the stewards
who accumulate wealth
because they want to believe
that this is best, and because

no one can comprehend
that the creation from nothing
is all, the universe with the earth
and mankind as the servant

of the crop, first in Eden
then outside it, and after that
the second expulsion, from the city
where they worked together

expelled to all regions
to praise God world-wide
with agriculture, as if the earth
wouldn't be good enough without it

Lilith was just like him -
from the clay, not as docile
as me; she left him

She prefers to roam
the world, seducing
men in the evening and robbing

families of their babies
so say the malicious tongues
that blacken everyone

who does not fit in their rules
It's true that she lives in trees
like a snake, I saw her once

at least, I think it was she
who praised me for my brain
and showed me the ripe fruits

With Adam I got two children
rib from his ribs, blood of my blood
The third was later made up

by the false tongues
that whitewash everything
that does not fit in their rules

Young people are poor thinkers
You must first feed them

on the fruits of that one
special tree of knowledge

of what is useful and detrimental
before they know anything

and once they get that
they understand

that it is the way it has to be
if one doesn't want to remain a paradise child

for whom everything must be ready
in a world without dangers

What is detrimental to that, is good
for humanity, although it is a pity

that many adults do not continue to eat
the fruits of that tree

It's a wrong story
a local story of wif and wiffor
that has overgrown the world
Only in the East

were wifs and men
spared from the cultural lie
that wif is a hole
in man's chest

continually costing him a rib
poor man, first drawn out
of the clay by God
then by seven horses

I step out of his fantasy
of wo-man, the dream image
a wif has to play
to be watched, not seen

a mann-equin
a bit of fairy, a bit of whore
sometimes a muse to his soul
and the mother of his children

No one paid attention

till the water poured over
the mountain ridge into the lake
It was raining all summer
a dense gray aerial

sea shed
as a world ocean
over the earth, a thick skin
of beating wood came flooding
up, do not mind the animals

Do not look for people
you knów
the old world
still bubbles up a bit
from the drowned trees

The water stretches
and tautens a flat mirror
under the sky and the rainbow
My boat floats
until it gets stranded

Adam mapped it out
in the sand: the river
flows to the middle

of the day, opposite
are the mountains, steady
in place

although they seem to float
like clouds on which the wind
has no hold

We followed the river
Life became harder
with worries about the children

and the grandchildren
I wouldn't have wanted to miss it
Only Abel, oh Abel

who was so prideful
to believe thoughtlessly
that he knew better

Good boy Abel
didn't sleep at home
considering himself better

He preferred to stay alone
with the animals in the field
and the dogs as guards

because everything had to be like then
in Paradise, that region
of the stories

he always asked for again

He wanted to know everything about our lives
the wandering about, the berries
nuts, goats and cows

And he had a trick
to make white smoke
With that he mocked his brother

He blamed also Adam and me
for Cain's need for comfort
He taunted him, provoked him

Little children eat
from the tree of life
They have not yet heard
that there are other trees

but as soon as they find out
they want to taste those fruits
carefully, if necessary be strong
and swallow it with a wry face

They switch to the new
diet and come to realise
that life is not forever
and not as carefree as it seemed

You always have to choose
between useful and detrimental
have to create a world
like God did

because you want and can do it
because you know and figure out
how to do it, smarter
than the smartest animal

When it has to do with God
it always gets complicated
because reason
does not give in easily
and wants to keep its logic

seeking every beginning, thinking
from a perfect creation
to the known world
with strong propensities
for self-indulgence and curiosity

For the sake of morality
God created the immaturity
of human impatience
and being unreasonable
to become reasonable

Adam and Eve were the first
children to become adults and
realise that life is not so perfect
with diseases, ageing and death
And it disappointed them

Changing one's name
after a scandal, it works
with time

Cain could do everything
he made tools
grew beans and grasses
with edible seeds and
built a house of loam

He created what he invented
but who still wants to know now?
His name has been black-washed

so the grandchildren just
had to deny him, no
their grandfather was Seth
the only real
son of Adam and Eve

who dug little canals
and made bedsteads
who created what he invented

The oldest sons count
as patriarchs from Adam
Seth and Enos to Methuselah

Cain is a different story
from a time when there were more people
more women to get married

It is the story of the sacrifice
that was rejected
as if God did not exist

so that Cain lost his faith
and mourned for that
and God was sorry

so He forbade to kill him
and other unbelievers
you shall not kill a human being

Moses chiseled in two stones
which he smashed immediately
to teach the people a lesson

with the seething murder
of 3000 men, the blood sticks
to the priests forever

but they had every right
because God wanted
to do it Himself

We know the story
of the great flood
as punishment from God

It was once only
He has promised, He gives
other punishments since then

and like Job and Franz K
believers believe
they are always guilty

and should be happy
that they're alive and
that God does not crush them

Yet God doesn't need servants
but people
do need each other

With faith, that is
the only thing
they can be guilty of

Abel is made of cardboard, a décor
piece for the firstborn
He doesn't speak, he follows

and is killed
to give Cain, the progenitor
of men, a reason to go

out into the wide world
That is what man was created for:
the earth must be tilled

to feed each of us
She is our first mother
she must not bleed

for our deeds, if we
rape her nature
we will perish

very real, not as characters
in someone else's story
then, there will be no other

Being silent was best
Ham is strong and he threatened me
with a fatal accident
Then there was a child

Oh, my dear husband
the tireless
naturalist of the fermented juice
of sweet grapes

His old age has been tarnished
by that made-up anecdote
which hid the rapes
under a moment of shamelessness

But the punishment betrays it
anyway, the eternal curse
from the first scream
of the baby, innocent

Canaan, my youngest son
His generations to generation
subjugated and squeezed to death
in the purple lowlands

Were the rain and the flood
a punishment for Eve
and our frank reason, that does
not always do the right thing?

Or are we using that reason
just too little, like when
my husband was lenient with our son
and got angry with the baby?

What had come over him? He is old
and worried about the world
since the disaster, where all eight of us
have been spared

Let us just forget his words
just lead a good life
and found a city of peace
as the center of the whole world

With a seething hand, heaven shattered
the new city and the huge tower
The Hanging Gardens flew up

Chambers became airplanes
and carpets with set tables
landed far away in the long sea

A heavy rain
of rooms formed, with a splash
a sky-high mountain crest

The people from the Tower
spread out in fifty languages
fighting for borders

In reverse time, our world would
fly up in a nutshell, clot
together and land in Babel

Heaven would open
and the miracle would happen
that everyone understands the other

People are abusing and disputing
and this was not foreseen -
an unwanted consequence
of their autonomy

Of course God can change his mind

Away with creation
away with the parting of the waters
in heaven and on earth:
a flood, and over the bygones!

One more time: different plan!
Come on, a new beginning
a salvation and the acceptance
that there just is evil

in man, but softened
by the new progenitor
who promises to behave well
towards the earth and the people

and to be careful of them

A wild goat lived in his heart
dreaming of paradise
so he decided to go there
and it was larger than imagined

For weeks, he looked
for the most beautiful place
to live, until one day
he approached the border, a wall

of mountains, and their weight filled
his legs, he could go no further
and stayed where he was
without answer

when his son asked if this
was it, the best, and they
of all people the happiest
here in paradise

I feel Grandpa's soul in me

shrinking of desire
for land, not fields
but my own pastures
No longer being expelled
by the farmer's sons

with their dogs, mice
and bugs in the beds
for their sick and their sore backs
from plowing and planting
weeding, harvesting and grinding the grain

I have gone further
than my father, with my herd
on the way to uninhabited pastures
but I did not find them, nowhere
was the land of my dreams

Only the desert is free

It was already there, unnoticed
until I started to pay attention

and now it comes in at full
strength during the ceremony

I'm melting before a wall
of a sky high blazing fire

am no longer a body myself
but flowing vibrations of heat

a glowing spirit growing
as if I'm spreading arms to wings

falling backwards a gently
waving bed catches

me, it eats the flames
and covers me with gold

It was already there
my third eye

hidden entrance
for secrets and primal energy

opening for the eternal
light from me

O sweet promise! I am childless
yet blessed forever
and threatened with eradication
of my descendants
if they become disobedient
and keep their foreskin

In the darkest nights
of my doubts, I lie down
on a warm stone under the stars
to see how innumerable many
people will be born

I dream of one great nation
though my son is a wild ass
fighting against all
and all are fighting against him

Along the road stands an angel
with wild hair and a mouth full
of astonishment, an angel of stone:

mother, you stayed behind
you've seen too much
of the carbon black sky

The ground shook at night, the door
rattled with angry neighbours. Go away!
father cried. What do you want?

My daughters? Shall I send them?
They are still virgins. He called us
but quickly quickly we left the city

that was stoned then
We no longer have friends
Next year we would get married

Cheers to
paradise
my dad
his dream

Cheers to
the hills
and the asylum
during the famine

Cheers to
my beautiful wife
our children and
the distant future

Your blessings
are mine
forever
amen

God's wisdom is above all
above the impossible, above time
and the sigh of the ages
in which man exists, it is
contained in everything as miracles

in day and night, stars and planets
in donkey, bull, ostrich and vulture
the hippopotamus and the mighty crocodile
the unimaginably many ways
the animals live

and in every drop of water, dew
hoarfrost, rain, hail, snow and ice
No man can comprehend that
nor his own presence
and the course of his life

so tiny in God's hand
who needs not direct anything
for his wisdom automatically
creates - also misfortune
and the evil of men

Dead my heart is still bleeding
there in the burning sun
the knife, the shiny knife

in my hand and then
the gloss of his blood
for God's sake, what did I do

there on that mountain

I sold my soul to the devil
for prosperity, my nations numerous
as the stars, but not blessed

through my fault, through my grievous fault
my wife died of sorrow
I buried her in a cave

near our tents and the city
that is named after the covenant
my madness

forgive me God
forgive me Sara
forgive me my son

It should have ended otherwise
With a supplement, a happy end
Now I can only imagine
that there is more than sacrifices
and smoke for God
for us the meat
because it's a holiday
and then we eat meat

Here I am
we said, God first
and then I
to my son
I made the sacrifice
I performed the deed
with my word
Here I am

No angel to be seen

Dad is crazy, little brother too, to some extend
but the oldest and I are just normal
itinerants like grandpa Terach
from the stories, men

no paupers
like other ibrim

We don't need gods
we are not farmers, no musers
who want to become that
dreaming of land of their own

believing in the Force
of their desire

El Shaddai, Almighty God
dad calls it, little brother fought with it
and they made a deal: total respect
for the Force, land for them

Instead of using their brains
they believe, blindly

It was an exciting secret
people alluded to it
especially outside the family

but also guests dared to
mention it with all due respect
yes, if that hadn't happened then
there on that mountain...

But I couldn't tell it my children
I wanted to be a good father, saying
that their grandfather regretted his plan
and untied his son again

because because
an angel appeared
an angel of God

but I found that too complicated
so the second time I left the regret
only the angel remained

The deed was too horrible
no father would do such a thing
no god would ask such a thing

and if he should ask it
he wouldn't allow it
if he is the true god

The boy had to stay alive
happily ever after, the oldest
patriarch of all

With his half-brother Ishmael
he was given a place
between the great names

of his father and the twins
Esau and Jacob, the youngest half-brothers
who could pass for his sons

Furthermore, we don't know
anything about him, his short life
he was still a child

there on that mountain

They recorded four hundred
shekels of silver
our grave was precious
even before we were buried

because we are important
in the stories of our nations
but what do they know about it?

They conceal my daughters
call my sons by the name
of the countries around us

everything under the sky
they give a place
as if they were God

but their bones become brittle as well
dust like we in this cave
my wives and children

except the first one, my most loved
his ashes blew away
there on that mountain

Temple officials have the land
They made it great, but now they let it
fall, into pieces of their own; my friends
are way too expensive friends

Out of caution father gave me
away after my nursing years
to Egypt, the temple in the delta

and when the dynasty seemed lost
because the Ethiopians advanced
the priests thought they were smart
in appointing me as the army commander

But I took the sacred birds
with me in baskets, in the desert
they bit the vipers at our feet to death

We surprised the enemy in his sleep
hit him in its naked flanks
and have won; the temple
cobras arise again

Expats, migrant workers, people
who are stuck and continue to dream
of a free life as shepherds and cattle lords
in their own land of grassy meadows
milk and honey (the old promise)

The young men long
for the beautiful girls
of the north
while they do the work here
in the delta, where they feel only at home

in the stories
of the ancient god who created the world
with thoughts from his heart, living
words from his mouth, the Potter
who molded man

stories
that knead their souls, giving some light
when it is dark in their hearts
full of old ashes, in which still glows
the fire of the Destroyer

Goodbye little sister, you are the prettiest
No one will ever be more beautiful
You put on a brave face
You leave us the tears

Goodbye brother, I haven't been a high priest
since father abolished the gods
and now that he has been murdered
heaven rests

completely on you, as he wished
you'll be the king of the River
You'll make the Sun shine bright, like I
will make it shine on the coast

where I will bring back the people
of grandfather, goodbye dear Mum
You will lead the family
You are strong, you are the wisest

of us all, we children
of the Light that shines all over
the earth, and the darkness
has not understood

We left at the right time
the future was open
relatives welcomed us

They shared the loot
and everyone knew for sure
who led them: the Destroyer
from their smarting past

So I go up the mountain
and I stay away for a long time
to make something tangible
as a gift from their god

I tell them
that He has shown Himself to me
as a light, brighter than the sun
blinding to anyone who would look

the Supreme Being
of which I am the high priest
with a half-name in the service
of the half-believers whom I lead

because better to endure
than an open wound
is a half-truth

In years of hunger
we workers on the land
long for a good sign

to return
to a free existence
and it has come

Thunder and darkness
The high lords mock
That is what happens!

They let us go
without cattle, we laugh
in their face and stay

supposedly
We secretly pack
go through the villages at night

kill a child in every house
and point with the blood knives
at the gold and silver

as our wages for years
After a quick meal, we leave
a long caravan of wagons and cattle

We make it to the Sea of Reeds
before the army comes and
it begins to hail real stones

Doubters start to moan

You have to do a liberation
and you must be lucky, like us
moving away under the sign, the plume
of smoke, a pillar of fire in the night
we got hopelessly stuck

between the army and the dividing sea
we became scared, didn't want to die
and walked on, the water was low
it almost fell dry – ahead, forward
to the other side

At dawn the chariots came
after us, down the steep bank
with horsemen and lancers, elated
to have caught up with us and eager
to murder and rape

but to our amazement the water took them
by surprise, a tidal wave, fast
and higher than ever, engulfed them
Mirjam took the drum
the women danced and sang

Ulu ulu ulu ulu
we live! we live!
we escaped!
after all these years
we did it!

Joseph's bones rattled for joy

Miracles are a miraculous belief
in a higher power, fed by the leaders
for the good of the people

There are still eyewitnesses here
ignorant of the truth
of other witnesses

honest people who also
survived the disaster
of the volcanic eruption

that buried Knossos and
destroyed the fleet, but
their voices do not reach far

outside the harbour towns
not into the country
where shepherds roam

and peasants kneel
sacrificing to the gods
of their grandparents and believing

in their own grand stories, clever
combinations of old events
and precious memories

half-truths, healed
by omitting parts, accrediting some
and by diverting attention

It is the tradition, sanctified
by the master illusionist
who the leaders collectively are

To graze the lifestock I move
from oasis to oasis, lugging

a huge hourglass, a tower
on wheels, and I count

grain after grain
until the time runs out, I count

down my despondency:
what shall I have achieved

as an old man? Only that I myself
am an hourglass in the desert

with grains of happiness: family
some friends and the beauty

of the starry sky, a cup
of clear water, a safe night

and sometimes the godsend
of a quail or some honey

This year's caravans tell
   that the Great Queen is buried
   with great honour, oh, mama
   without me

This year's caravans tell
   that the Sun King is ill
   his wife too, and people whisper

   that the gods are punishing them
   that they are just humans
   that everyone knows what comes

   of inbreeding, oh little brother
   oh my dear sister, hard
   is your destiny, the Sun is too high

   too far from our family, here as well
   in the middle country where I got
   stuck with the returnees

This year's caravans tell
   that the Sun has been bannished
   from the name of the king

   that he is pale and feverish, with a club
   foot and the backbone of a snake
   pushing itself forward with a stick

   My nephew – I don't know you, people say
   that you are as beautiful as Nefertiti was –
   I pray heaven to take pity on you

This year's caravans tell
   that the queen-widow only
   has her grandfather to marry her

   The king of the north doesn't answer
   her letter, her request for a man next to her
   on the throne that cannot be saved

Remember only the good, repeat it
day after day, all your life
Always make a new start, do it
thoroughly, forget old thoughts
get out of their way to save yourself

Kill them if there is no other way
Your sons, brothers and neighbours
kill them and leave them
for vultures and hyenas
It has to be that way

Not out of cruelty, not out of blood thirst
but because what they believe does not exist
so their lives don't matter
Your dagger does not judge them
but it executes the Words

Read them, read them aloud
Sow fear and obedience
Expecting
eternal punishment
is wisdom! insight!

With stories we make a nation
out of separate villages, we clench the years
together to a proof of divine power:

the crossing of the border river
the access town with trumpet blasts
destroyed forever, the country cleaned
from high to low, in one sweep
like a dinner plate

With stories I justify
myself and the past afterwards
plans for the future included

Daily, words bind us
together to a nation state
If we were silent, that would be the end
also if we would dare
to tell the truth

of the people who lived here before us

Great Grandgrandma, why
did you leave the waterland?
Wasn't there enough space

for your cattle, between the full fields?
What dreams did you have? Mine
are thin, like translucent down

My bed is hard, I drag
water and firewood
and the men can't help but

raid, unrest is boiling
in the blood of my sons
If only they come home unscathed

with a gram of gold for the danger
of the promise of the land
from which hunger drove you away

The shine of their swords
clotted, thick walls conquered
cities and kings, who knows

they were bushes, caves
and huts, village heads, the loot
some cattle and a few girls

No land of cows and tulips
where the grass is always green and sweet
the honey of the young years

when you lived in paradise

It is a fact, not a favour, to be born
outside a ghetto, wasteland or slum town:

no one should reprove me
for not having cultivated the field myself
not having paved the roads and eating fruit
from trees that I have not planted

It is a fact, no a fault, to be born
inside a ghetto, wasteland or slum town:

no one should reprove me
for having come here
on roads that I haven't paved
to work in other people's fields

and to eat the fruit
of trees that I have not planted