To graze the livestock 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!

There is a dozen groups
condemned to one another, yet
they prefer to remain separate
crying for space, free
space that is not there

The leaders organise order
They dress up uncles with turbans
and with the authority to speak
and surround them with cousins
who lend force to new laws

which they recite, repeat
and enforce
with a dagger in their belt
with ropes and with sacks
for everyone's offering

Everyone is equal before the law
so everyone must participate
and believe, know no better
than to have the right
to the promised land

To kill someone
face to face is difficult
You must be blind
then you can do it
for the comrades next to you

Those were hard times
Some went across the border
and found work there, a new life

Later they returned
with tall stories
and everyone wanted to believe

to have been there himself - in hindsight
a whole people seemed to have
come back from the desert

The grandchildren don't know better
than that they are special
with such ancestors and the blessing

upon them - wherever
the stories came from
now they are theirs

their very own history
once and for all
their assured future

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

like in 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

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

With stories we build 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

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

They have seen too much:
the chest, the outside
of the secret, because a secret

has no outside
only by definition
a concealed content

Even though it didn't interest them
even though they didn't look at it
but were dancing, it is too much

If nothing would be done
it will end in stories
about a chest and nothing

that was palpable, no Force
that creates and destroys and
no sacred silence

So the priests do have to
surprise the witnesses in their sleep
in the dead of night

with a a hand on their mouth
and a quick slit in their throat
everywhere in the field

red spots of providence

When people pray, they pray
for rains of righteousness
dewing from the high heavens

that quench their desire
and redeem their souls
in the midst of life

from which they suffer
reaching for an angel
of comfort and encouragement

a helping hand
even if it can only help
to help others together

and to greet the flowers
that shoot up where it was not possible
and to greet the flowers
that shoot up where it was not possible

Once again God has compassion
with the people, and with all their cattle

Here I stand, the prophet
of the doom that doesn't come

the prophet of a god who doesn't want
to be defined

by unbelievers
their fault and punishment

Cain, Sodom, Nineveh
the itinerant men

with women who desire
a home with a garden

Their fault, their fault
the most grievous fault

of their judgment, the crosses
of their actions and their looking away

A fault which you cannot sell
for some money, nor for a truth

with a salvation and comfort
for those with whom God is pleased

They are rigid men who believe
that the past is important
They get little gifts
to sacrifice at the feasts
and to tell stories

which they dress up
for the people who pay
That's how it goes

What is common, must be special
what is powerful, almighty
what is good or bad luck, providence
They don't like unpredictable hazards
so they bundle the forces

of fate to one great Force
so incomprehensibly great
that there is no name for it

A name is just a name
too small, and too tempting
to call it
and to believe in a callable Force
instead of listening

In an inverted world
people boldly give names
to the Nameless

Prosperity with obedience:
is that the plan for man?
A family following the father
like the fathers their father?

Or is it a covenant
of uncircumcised love?
One heart, living
flesh and blood?

One heart, one blood
of man and woman
that draws a red line
not to be trespassed

Let's come together
in one heart!
Let's celebrate life
in one song!

There are two Hells
outside the walls
yonder at the source

Children went through fire
for their parents there, knowing and afraid
not to be able to make it to the end

sacrificed as the most precious
that a person can give
to his kinglike god

And on the field of blood at the narrowness
the insurgents fought
themselves to death for their new king

clinging
to the first rays of the sun
while the light in their eyes was fading

and their blood embittered
the water from the spring
for everyone who knew

The old failure is dragged up
by a fanatic who wants to try
again, in glowing words

he tells the dream
as a promise, a duty
yes, that is our culture

to live worry-free and worry
telling stories
like in the blank ages

without prophets who want to
be consistent and threatening
with hell and damnation

sell a sacred promise
of peace and health
for compliance

What we think we have
we would lose
if we don't give it up

Then rather give us a king
or a general, rather anything
then wait for the hereafter

Strangely enough there are rules
Really, strangely enough
people are so unreasonable

as to think
that laws are necessary (don't steal
don't kill, fulfill contracts)

while it is so simple:
we live and we do
not live alone, so

what you do not want
to undergo, don't do that
to anyone else

That is the way
of the truthful, the unrecorded
truth and the unrecorded

life
It is all
the only

prayer, your security
and duty, the only rule
of love and reason

I inhale the old scent, the holiness
of incense and curtains, mysteriously
soft candlelight and behind it the promise

of strength, miracles and happiness

Brick by brick, canvas by canvas
we restored the House, for eight days
it continued to burn, the oil

of strength, miracles and happiness

This is what we fought for
have been defeated for, year after year
this is what we won for, with seven arms

of strength, miracles and happiness

It started with ox house donkey
In the barn of the large house
The room was full of family

It was warm, with mum
and the aunts who know all
about childbirth, the men also

stayed up and drank to the new
king, his little bed with lambskin
in a manger was next to me

After Passover in the capital
we had to leave, the news
of our son was buzzing around

people came to warn:
Ox house camel, the alphabet, door
to open and to close

hand that reaps the fruits, eye that sees
and mouth that speaks the truth
My heart that knows the concealed

breath of the breathing, spirit
over the waters, the words
it once started with

Thank God no one knows his name
it's all bad enough

The made-up stories, silly
fantasies that cheat

with time, the spotlight
of planets on Bethlehem

the king's village, the comet
and the arrival of three scholars

the people having something
to talk about again, and the tyrant

who has all the boys killed
How could he have lived

with only girls his age
as the sole survivor

and everyone's hope
of revenge and freedom

without a name, just with the title
of a predecessor, the doom
of old dreams?

It's a serious matter
men on the river discussing
and tasting the revolution

The cavalry comes
to arrest the saint
and imprisons him far away

There is a party in that fort
it's the king's birthday
a girl is dancing

She warms up the men
with her naked belly
and has to do a wish

She does not know what to do
and seeks protection with her mother
who asks the head of the saint

Apart from his body, it is
handed over at night
to his followers who sing

of revolution and stand upright
without the foot of the king
in their backs

The winter is over, the men want action
like rams without ewes and without a shepherd
By the fishing lake, I promise to be their king

It takes a fortune, rows of carts
bring bread and fish every day
the campaign begins, we march
through the outer regions

On the Mount of Anointment near the capital
we camp under the olive trees
The saint pours a golden crown of oil
over my head, it is my best birthday

I address the men: It is near!
And my enemies, who do not want me
bring them here and slay them before me!

On the eve of the battle
people sing on the hills
outside the city wall
because victory is at hand

We must follow the promise
we must free ourselves
we must and therefore may
shed blood

Two generations later
it is only a vague story
The pockets of resistance have been
destroyed, the mass graves overgrown

Only the losers don't forget
One party looks back with a grudge
and puts a curse on the other
which sublimates the defeat

into a paradox
because those who have God
on their side can only win -
in His sublime reality

Fighting is moaning and pulling
swords from the corpses, wet
sandals, red feet washed
in blood, and that it takes hours

to clean the square and the palace
at night and still
be chased out of the city

Fighting is turning odds
not giving up, but coming up
with a ruse, a wooden horse
a Münchhausen or a tunnel

entering the closed city
of the king with hundreds
through the shaft to the water castle

Fighting is attacking again
and again, shouting, hewing
and clawing as lions
over growing mountains

of the dead, because It Is At Hand
even though we withdraw
It Is At Hand as long as we live

What's in the stars
up there in the night sky above
the city wall and the screams

of the warriors in the square?
Here it is quiet, we fall asleep
but my love hears the dagger men

coming and he calls us awake: Near!
the surrender of the city is near!
The Lion embraces him dearly

before the horsemen surround him
mutilate him and take him away
The warriors flee, fight

themselves to death in the neck
at the well. It was near, it's over
I no longer have a home

only hiding places in the night

My love, what will they do to you
where are you, where is the judgment
that will free you?

Quickly, he runs down the stairs
to the budding rose bush
at the gate of the barracks

He cuts a bed of shoots
around his sandals and braids
– careful for the thorns –
a wreath of twigs

for the captive king
He will feel this crown
We'll hit it in his skull

Then we'll finish him
Maybe that will teach them
and we'll finally get rid of them

If you call the beginning of the universe
Creator, Father of the world, even then
it remains far away, you would need
if possible, a connection

a Holy Spirit, no wonder
it was invented, fortunately
there was already the theologic
of the resurrection from the dead

not yet granted to us humans
but which has been promised
to the believers, who hope
that it is possible, just

because it must have happened that way
that He already is with our Father
the Creator, to whom He in all
his divinity naturally says Papa

Just in time, order has been restored
but it has cost me many soldiers
What a night, the men are exhausted
They hope and wish it's over
but the day breaks, now

the execution, the exhibition
of the king and his commanders
What a sight he is
in his expensive clothes
with a diagonal bandage

around his head as a royal crown
stumbling through the narrow streets
Today the cheers are mine, with the wailing
of the women and the elderly
the horror on everyone's face:

What have they done? Is it really him?

It's almost impossible to get through
He hardly barely see
doesn't even know he's walking

Under the heavy royal clothes
his back lies open, even worse
than his face with the wound

where an ear has been struck off
A living dead, for ever
holy for his Striving

Men push forward, they attack
the platoon with a lot of noise. No chance
Only a few soldiers are killed

At the Skull Pit, the women watch
the king's lashing
his broken nose against the wood

the deep gashes in his back
in plain sight: a man
you can't call him anymore

The soldiers curse him and
the other two for the slaughter
They cast dice for his gold-

embroidered robe and his shirt
even though it is stiff clotted red
His cloak they tear into pieces

for the winners of fate
Quite soon, he suffocates
His father comes to get him

No glowing storm from the desert
no seething wrath from heaven
no dawn in the east

only the mighty army
that kills us as rebels
and throws us with the bones

of criminals and losers in the pit
Has anyone prayed and begged
to spare a few righteous people?

Is the city spared for those few?
We who have escaped take shelter
in our right, where we weep
and honour the dead

whose trust has been betrayed. Why?
I cannot sleep, I breathe questions
but don't hear any answers

I listen, listen to me as well
be merciful and answer me
look for me as I am looking for You

do not hide, do not reject me
help me, do not turn me down
do not leave me, abide with me

It is so quiet outside, never again
will he stand in the loggia, never again
will he look at me, never again

never again will he touch me

I could not sleep, I returned
at the first light to wash and embalm him
his spirit was gone

he was no longer where he lay
and I knelt, embraced his body
and wept the cold cloths wet

His arms were strong as pillars
with bare hands
he could tear a lion to pieces

all the women loved him, they had no rest
walked down the streets and squares
always passing his house

They tossed and dreamed
of his black hair
they grabbed him and did not let go

they wanted to lie in his shadow, put his head
between their breasts, eat honey from his hand
and introduce him to their mother

but he chose me, all night
we made love in the open air
in the sweet scents of pomegranates

The winter and the rains were over
shrubs and trees were blossoming
and birds sang all over the country

It is finished
We embalmed him, relieved
to wrap him up and
to see him in our mind
again as he was

Here with him
in the memorial room
of our lives with him
he is close, we feel
his presence

and run outside in fear
even before he is laid
in the grave, the body
is ready in the hall
he himself is no longer there

She was the princess who became queen
when she washed him with expensive ointment
on his birthday and thus consecrated him
as king together with the high priest

They entered the city, the rebels
among the pilgrims for the festival week
an entry for the royal couple
a coup that would fail

Of course, she was the first
to return to his grave
from which scared schemers
had removed his body

Of course, she was the first
to see him again in a vision
and the first to want to believe
that the kingdom was still near after all

Of course, she was the first
to proclaim this
the Good News
of hope that gives life

I can't celebrate today

Have You Yourself laid Your hands
on the king and burdened him
with our sins?

Delivered up to soldiers
he is sacrificed to whom else
but Yourself, so he must be alive

even though he lies in a tomb

May he be the first to reside
in a whole new world
still empty like the desert
where the scapegoat is free?

May now already be the Day

of Mercies, a new mystery
a new faith, according to laws
that are secret to me

but still are somehow implied
in our unsuccessful endeavour
in Your Name, Your holy Name

which I am unworthy to pronounce?

A rebel or a promise?
Our eldest son failed
we do have to keep silent about him

Another hard lesson
the bosses of the soldiers
are our bosses

We will have to concede
no longer believe
that it will ever be all right

that there will ever be a House
indestructible, with in the corner
a rejected stone

We will not build that house
but perhaps we will become rich
enough to buy the weapons

with which we can conquer the land
as ruthless as the tribes
led by Joshua

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

Often it was their happy piety
sometimes their excessive caution
or the cheeky look in their eyes
I knew where to find them

as if I could smell them
the confessers, simmering
at the cauldron in their small homes
I filled the dungeons with them

They don't want to accept the facts
and prefer to fantasize
about a divine intervention
They are superstitious and rebellious

I know the laws better than they do
and I acted as a free man
without burden or consultation
With warrants and soldiers

Until I heard clearly: Stop.
It's me. Don't go any further.
Listen. And do as I say.
Please send someone else

I replied
I couldn't see anymore
what I should, what should I
do, in God's name?

Confidently, I hunted down
mentally ill people
It was an epidemic
of credulity

in the empty promise
of a place in heaven
and a heaven on earth
I placed them in quarantine

but they were stubborn
and that gnawed at my zeal
It darkened the light
in my head, so that I fell

The sun spun, clenched
in the hand that pointed at me

to go and risk my life
with my nicest words

After my fall
I no longer knew the truth
of my book learning

After that fall
I fled forward blindly
to find light
in my ignorance

After the fall
of my convictions
I am now convinced
that I am small

with the great commission
to proclaim the great revelation
to everyone

He was young and fanatical
he risked his life
to be king

not like his father
in name only
on the border

but in David's house
to make the old stories
come true again

with the united Force
of the faithful, the votaries
and the dagger-men, to

saturate the streets of the city
the plains of the shepherds
and the fields of the farmers

with faith
no longer banished
within private houses

and thoughts, but piety
in the country, I know them
their kind won't give up in ages

There is little time, I still want
to tell my story
not what happened to me

the physical blows
the fear in my breath
and the self-doubt

but the crushing
the invisible
fire that was suddenly there

the insight, the love and the care
for me and everyone
who lacked it

that allows refugees and displaced people
to wade dry through the sea, the river
and rescues drowning people

that keeps the dead alive
because reality exists
as we think it does

How I misjudged
the truth
I believed, I believed

I knew after years
of study and sharpening
on everyday practice

In retrospect it seems so logical
that the commandments do not only
apply to the chosen ones

The Force is
greater than everything
for all people

Since the corpse has been stolen
that vain desecration that sought
to prevent the consecration

there are witnesses that he is
still among us, we too are mortal
but we'll live forever

It's a command from above
otherwise I wouldn't take
the trouble, because life is short
and I want to enjoy it

without fear, without despair
and without wishes, so
I must, I may and I can
believe in a happy end

And: there are a few witnesses
who know what they saw
which we repeat among ourselves
as factual truth

It makes our concerns and worries
unimportant and puts our actions
into perspective, ultimately
God is incomprehensible

People believe, but doubt
more and more, they look for support
in each other, in discussions

about the old promise
and the new one
that does not come true

Few of them, of us
are left
We keep a low profile

keep our meetings
private so that we can speak
freely and do not cause offence

We sing the songs
recite old letters
and summarise it all

in new words
which we write down to pass them on
It's still possible, the last days
are still ongoing

In Ephesus, people once said
that as believers they must
love one another

and that has become
the core of Christianity -
detached

from Jewish history, and
without realising that a person
must first love himself

before he is capable
of being of service, of helping
neighbours, and giving them more

than good advice and more
than the prospect that there
will eventually be justice

For peace on earth, more is needed

than a cheek: accepted

laws and enforcers

Only now, at night, can I kneel
on the Rock of Willingness
in white clothes, the wrong clothes

open and exposed under the stars
no incense and no curtains
It's the holy day, where are You?

And where were You then? Shrouded in a calm
during the storm, behind the heavenly armies
that have not come?

Where was the radiant cloud
to wreathe Thy king?
Did Enoch and Elijah watch?

I wail at the wall
like a child asking in vain
for food or alms, forgive me

Your mercy includes all people
who gave their naked lives, but
You do not answer, You don't pay attention to me

And yet: Help me, help us, do us justice
let us be Thy most beautiful jewel again
let Thy light shine from my face

As a child I believed
in God and eternal life
but the adults were doubting

They believe and hope -
in full awareness
of their shortcomings -

and they pray
to be truthful -
from time to time afraid

that their good deeds are not
diamonds in God's omniscience
but stains of hypocrisy

on their finest clothes
for the royal wedding feast
to which they are bidden

like wanderers, without merit
anxious whether God will cover
their souls in grace in time

The elders justify
their inner knowing
They must indeed split
when they disagree

about the temptations
which always present themselves
as the true way

They never shout
They know how it works
and let others conclude
who is being falsely accused

They bless and encourage
their supporters to receive
insights themselves

placed directly in their minds
by a spiritual light
or a rushing wind
that everyone feels

If I hadn't already
rotted in this swamp
with my last bit of hope
that despite everything
God is still with me
I would turn

and howl in misery
They twist my words
and my life to make
a success out of failure
There is nothing left
of His power, His royal rule

There are no zealots anymore
exterminated everywhere
or worshipping the murdered
king as a Golden Calf
There is no future
for humility anymore

Where? Is there room?
Are there wells
to use or to dig?
Where can I live, shall I
not be blown sand?

Where are you free
from other people's laws
that protect their order
with police actions
and specimils?

Laws that give the colonists
everything and take away everything
from those who do not yield for them
Laws that arm them
and brand me as a terrorist

Laws by which everything
can be condemned
as hostile, and which have even
erased the name King
from the Civil Registry

The envoy was summoned
with friends and refugees
agitators it was said, and
banished from the country
so he went

and started writing
letters, which we update
pasting suitable fragments
into our argument
for encouragement

He would agree
The world has changed
so we twist his words
to reflect the shine
of his authority on our

unwavering word and deed
like heavily loaded soldiers
drive their two-pointed stakes in a circle
around the camp in the evening
prepared to give their lives