Through the forests, over mountains
and seas we travel, the roads
are free

What is special, we take
along the way, in long caravans
Along the markets

along coasts and ravines
through steppes, through storms
and robbers

What is good for the neighbours
is even better for us
It is prosperity

Free passage, free trade
are worth wars to us
We laugh

at power and land, which are
expensive to defend and yet
get lost

Pete Heyn looks at me thoughtfully
his goatee shows a long tongue

maybe for me
my hindsight knowledge

of his fame, the silver
booty and the ministries

of marine, commerce and colonies
which finance prosperity

with things others believe
they need, we trade them

for trunks full of money and if
it stinks it is washed

at the bank around the corner
Persistent stains are brought

to the Switzerland of Zwingli
and Calvin, this way the world gets better

with marine ropes and canvas
with hemp! with hemp!

the profits will be big
we win the silver fleet!

Since the taming of the horse
     the beginning
     of globalization
     the long-distance trade, the saddlebags

     those multi-functional trunks
     carried by someone else's legs
     which go out into the world
     with bronze, wheat and rope

     and with a flush for the drudge -
     in the tent, amidst the incense
     of the hempseed or the resin
     of the flowers in power

cannabis indulges itself and is bred
from weed into the daily medicine
that mutates the human blood trunks
into servants who run for it

We live in the side compartments
of a suitcase on the way

that exchanges our flesh and blood
for pepper and cinnamon

sometimes also sleeping pods, but
only the captain knows about that

     The ship has a big belly
     it is a hungry waterwolf

     and we, in this realm of the dead
     hope to be saved

     spit out on land
     like Jonah by the whale

We do our job, for the shipping line
fixed costs of wages and compensations

often paid to the parents
who lost us to the sea

and to the widows
who could not count on us

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

I entered the display case
of people educators
subsidizing snobs
the multirich and companies

among tourists and inhabitants
who want to be seen
in the museum café and
with sophisticated pastry lard
the conversation with careless clauses

they quote from an authority
whom nobody has to understand
to get the intention
of the praised artists

The shop was crowded
Spotlights on show-pieces
fancy coffee table books
and chic presents
for the season and the next holidays

Especially the past
is on sale, postcards
of the attractions
and sights of the city

interchangeable
like the collections
which graduated stylists
cast in international moulds
to magnets for visitors