A woman with a gun
Driven out. Cast out
by her neighbours

because she was killed internally
and could feel nothing
but pain and disgust

and because they too can
no longer believe who she was
at home, in the paradise

before the arrival of the men
who use you cruelly
until they discard you

and impale the broomstick
grandma's cane, their bayonet
or a bullet in you

The woman with the gun
wants to sleep again, to feel
the warmth of the sun again

She wants to defend
a new paradise, being awake
from the nightmare

of inhumanity
and free herself from the cage
of her broken body

Paradise is paved, everywhere
you can park in front of the door now
Pink walls and plastic flowers:
places where people like to be

Isn't it a shame that only afterwards
you open your eyes for what you had?
Paradise is paved, everywhere
you can park in front of the door now

All trees are saved, come, have a look
in the greenhouses of the museum!
It is not expensive to see them all
and you get bees and butterflies too!

There are greenhouses everywhere, no spots
on the apples, they won't even get brown
But last night the door slammed shut
and my beloved left in a big taxi

Here are people living
in wet boxes
and I don't cry
I am not campaigning
for an allocation in the budget

I feel alone
just like the others
in their houses and clean clothes
who already have so much to do
and who walk by embarrassed

with a friendly greeting
that cuts off a conversation
before it can begin
and who forget this quickly
before it becomes a problem

Sometimes we give money
What else can you do
but ponder your sin-
ful needs and spend
what you have got after that

They have reached the South Paradise
the land of their dream
where life is good
But they are new ones

they don't know yet
of the gnats, the stable flies
and the high water over the fields
those long months

in which they'll be forced to drudge
cutting or baking stones
for the Great House
They know nothing

of the families in their huts
who died from measles and smallpox
nothing of the hunger
through hail and locusts

Everyone is welcome
within the invisible walls
on the fast legs
of armed horsemen

We wanted to go to the real paradise
out of the delusive dream
But we were loose

like the sand of the desert
and we couldn't go there
It was already occupied

We should have to fight
have to kill
people like us

So we are forged
into blood brothers, one people
of chosen under the eye

of a god with daggers
in the hands of his servants
under the paradise flag

that liberated us
from forced labour for the rich
who don't speak our language

We make detours
that walk over bodies
until we'll live there

The giant that stopped me
was a wall on the bank
of the big river, far
beyond the palaces

where servants like angels
provided a heaven on earth
for princes and princesses and always

there were naked sages before the gate
begging to warn the people
that they shouldn't have any illusions

There was a small hatch in the wall
which opened for an old hand a moment
giving me an ordinary pebble

It was a stone from paradise
on the other side of the wall
It was smooth. What to do with it?

I am just such a stone, polished
by life and in the future
falling to dust, pity us

stones from paradise
on this side of the wall
where the kings suffer in seclusion
from boredom and the trouble
to keep it that way

Only now that I come back here
I see it as a paradise, this green land
the flowers, the golden grain
all the riches I thought to be normal

Now, the familiar overwhelms
my new eyes, filling me
with nostalgia even before
I think about leaving

Or will I stay for the rest
of my life, knowing very well
that it is soulheart work
to sleep together

wolf people and sheep people
cow, bear, and snake people
It is heartwork in paradise
for enough straw for everyone

I passed on the stories
of my life at the table
That's how Muhammad learned to talk

and to long for the Young Age
of peace and justice -
a future we dream

more beautiful than reality
but still far away. Certain
are only the greed

and the hard work
until you get ill
and prepare

to leave
for Jazira in the north
where paradise awaits

The movie palace is charity
for fans and old people
helping them pass the time
I watch and I learn
the lines from Mama Capra

about the great beauty
of the dream of the senses
Giulietta is sent away
from the market, with her
homemade goat cheeses

At home in her little paradise
the former bed of the brook
now my daydream in the corner
at the entrance of the hall
bees are buzzing around

Would I rather play?
See myself?
In a hundred roles larger than life?