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

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

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

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

There's a woman lying in the street. Why?
Some neighbours watch and so do I
One of them is pointing: there she stood
and then I understand the dented hood

Were there demons in her mind
which have settled up there on the fifth
where Sebastian and Isabel lived
until they vanished
in the jungle of Peru
and no one has a clue

Then, the beeping of the coots
What chain of incidents did precede?
Didn't anybody see her need
standing there, the city at her feet?

My reflecting fearsome brain
is expecting tears from pain
for dying is defeat, an imperfection
denying its deceitful counter-question:

Do you succeed to meet the challenge?
You too do need to keep your balance
between success and rotten muck
the scene of stress from modern luck

where envious wealth must pay the price
of precious health that's jeopardised!

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

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

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

Sometimes my hope
for peace on earth is brewing
Then I fear a fire or worse
rotting and the uncertainty
what will grow from it

Then today's life is everything
the only thing that matters
though it is difficult for me
to be unpretentious
in being grateful

for my opportunities
to help those in need
the duty which I do
humbly in the black
armour of my faith

The people who are not chosen
for the afterlife have a hard time
There is no mercy
that can ease their lives
no love that brings hope

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

I want to go to the underworld
but I'm stuck in this dark depot
still the servant who pours the wine

No chance, that someone will drop the vase
and take the loss: sweep up the fragments
as irreparable for the rubbish dump

so that at last my spirit can be a shadow
among the shadows, in silence
equals among each other

everyone keeps quiet, the stories of heroic
deeds no longer matter
neither my past, the loss

of the battle, of my weapons
and my honour, enslaved
my wife also taken away

undressed on display and
sold for the household
and sexual services

I too had to pose naked
for the famous pot painter
who robbed me of my soul

A trunk full of coins, countless
too many to use them in some way
We dispose of them properly

by putting them away for later
in a safe place, buried
under the ash in the middle of our town

We have enough, with the cattle
the pans and the women
who we capture across the border

The men, we trade
for jewelry and silver
that way we get rid of them

without having to kill
or to fear a rebellion
After all, life is hard enough already

I am empty, not a person anymore
Not dead yet
Worse
Cast out

They shun death
and the evil spirits
that I carry with me
and might release

Not welcome anywhere
Nobody visiting me
I have to pay
for my husband's fate

He must be
dissatisfied
with me, a worthless possession
to him, to his family

Nobody loves me
They will send me away
If I don't work hard enough
Or bring them bad luck

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

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

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

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

After the ritual you were healthy
but the medicine
made you burn again
Do you feel nauseous?

If only you had listened to me
He can't help it either
he needs those ice pops
against the ulcers in his mouth

Don't forget to buy batteries
and tomorrow you have to do it
like me, especially the bathroom
and don't put anything exactly in its place

then it will be clear
that you have cleaned
Oh this misery
all the noise

wet bedding
high deposit
and your family
isn't helping

The vernacular calls
for control, no surprises
Customs and property protected
privileges defended: prosperity

It's a street race
of unintended consequences
Everyone spurts along
the back rope

It seemed to be good ideas
moving plants
channeling rain
taming animals into cattle

but one thing to another
there is no end to it
and we ourselves must
also be modified -

not humans anymore
but people, not standing
in the way of the people:
a true democracy

To understand ourselves is
to understand our paradoxes -
that it is all real
consistent and sincere
without inner contradiction

Our youth lasts longer
we are fertile for longer
so we live longer
the earth becomes crowded
the silver tsunami reduces prosperity
and we contend with a lack of space

We fight for interventions
to prevent
pregnancies and overpopulation
and we believe less and less
in the fairy tale of the desire
to have children

Immortality lures
us to recombinant
techniques to recreate
ourselves in our image
and likeness

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

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