Girl, do stand still for a while, please

It’s the wind, I’m rocking in the wind

Hear! Hear!

Please look, my branches move in the wind

There's no need to fancy yourself, please

I don’t fancy anything!

You do, you are being very tall

Sometimes I’m rather tall indeed

High winds blow on high hills, did you feel it?

It sang in my ears. Ssssssss...

That's beautiful. Please do again

Ssssssss... Help! The wind broke me!

Girl, I hear cracks in the wind. Is that you?

Help!

Girl, what are you doing, please?

The wind quakes me

Please do!

Nowadays it is quiet next-door
The son coaches the junior football team
and does the shopping
father is with the archery club

I was in bed and couldn't do anything
when the girl next-door cried out
It was the night of the club
father wouldn't be home until late

She moved a few months later

Sometimes I see her totter
on stiff legs wide apart
in which her scream grew rigid
She avoids people

Again I can't do anything
When I see her brother
I don’t know how to punish
and help him

You, because you are here
you must know me
help me

You see, I am disconcerted
all sorts of things
do not fit

I have no drive, no fancy
I have hair on my chin
and spots on my shirt

There is buzz, there are
tiring odds and ends
my body is broken

I dream fragments
I have no overview
help me

You can't go on like that
you really have to take action
yes, that's what I've said

and

don't wait till Friday
go to the doctor right tomorrow
I think that's the best

yes

you didn't wait
not even till the next day
thinking that's the best

and then

you hang and hovered
between life and death
a man, no child

The job you went to do

You couldn't go on like that
you really had to take action
yes, that's what you've done

That mix of best wishes
admiration and pity -
fermenting and bubbling in me

as soon as I see her
My stomach and throat are churning
They deform my humanity

Her eyes shoot
faster than my thoughts
her head reaches around the corner

to the sun, a rock is lying lazy
in her lower back
Shaking knees

One leg swings
around the other
feet behind each other

Her arms cry
to heaven and wring
out my powerlessness

The black sun in me cries
the you of before and now wet
from love and breathlessness

Another day
to start again
how can I possibly bear that?

Another night
the doom, the hushed up verdict
the black sun around me

sucking me out and making me
flap in the wind to have me
flown away empty

Failed after all, and
still the whisper at home
the sweet words everywhere

I dared, here I am
I came for the sun, surfaced
from the depths of the sea, away

from addy, our twinsomeness
my unfulfilled talents and work
that does not suit me

Here I am, almost
because the hatch does not open
I become short of breath

in the sarcophagus
of my double-skin submarine

close under the light
on the water surface
of your concerned eyes

I can see the sun, feel it
in my blood, it warms
my dreams and gives them colour

Sometimes I'm nostalgic
for frost flowers and a hot water bottle
old winter fantasies

to pictures of the parvis
our house full of aunties
the garden full of apples

a basket full of nuts
always something to celebrate
then, but for now

that is much too far away
now it is empty
behind the pictures

I could take with me
Missing the barren land
the wonder of the gardens

missing the unpacked smells
of the market and the passion
missing the songs of my youth

wiped and overwritten
I lead a new life
in my emigrated hand

Brunch with colleagues
Work is for later
One has to do so much

     has to live slowly
     with slow thoughts
     in soporific time

Anyway to bed on time
Not he, he stays up
The screen keeps him

     I turn around again and look
     ahead of me into the dark
     What was that quarrel?

Patience, a lot of patience
also with myself, dreaming
that I toil through sucking silt

     Inside the pillow hammers
     the breath of underwater animals
     I am lonely here

I see people fall back
from coercion and convenience
into old, simple patterns

in which they seem to be stuck
and I wonder if I am free myself
-- no dependent master

of delusive ideals
no nit-picking slave
of self-interest

and no outsider either
who devises difficult possibilities
-- plans and patterns

that jam everything
but I'm failing to scream
My chest explodes, I wake up

and I think of you, should I
have ought to want to kiss you?
Shall I do things differently from now on

and no longer make a story
of the loose encounters
in which I didn't dare to be free?

My metabolism stagnates
and then there is even more awaiting
Then there is much to wish for

My tail goes limp
I no longer jump
and no longer feast
on the wonders

I become malnourished
my skin is coming loose
My friend gets worried
as he caresses me

My thoughts, too, are thinning out
Into ghosts, into a horror
of how it may end

And through it all: the bombs
on waterworks and hospitals
There are many alarm signals
and no shelters

Every day I put little
stones in my blood
to slow myself down
to what people consider normal

but they have no idea
of the wings I had
the happiness and celebration
that life can be

There is so much to enjoy
when I am light with
open pores and a spacious
body, every cell vibrating

to caresses and music
the finest flavours and sunniest
colours, everything is a miracle
and I shine day and night

Under the night filter
I lie awake
in hibernation

the blossoms on my skin
dusky grey, luckily
I think that, still can think

something, that's all
and the itching continues
to plague me in my head

where I can't reach it
I can only wait
until it is dissolved

and I feel again
like having cake, luckily
I can bake it myself

when I have the energy
and my thoughts
find the words again

Wanting to enjoy
everything, forever
wanting and having
to celebrate, I sing
your name

A procession
In the past it was with goats
the billy goats, satyrs, people
who celebrate, I sing
your name

You are not there
Your sighs are not
in my arms, and no
liberating laugh, I sing
your name

Hoping for a miracle
that I don't believe in
an extension, being able

to do what ordinary people do
on ordinary days, eat
and not be sad

Getting stronger, restoring
myself, no longer needing
the names of my diseases

Only my nose is healthy
puts me in my own stink
smells where it's going

Pigeons coo more plaintively
cawing jackdaws scratch in me
Missy turns around me

The city is full of life
rushing past the ruins
which still know who they were

Alone, alone, one is alone
too much, wasting time
longingly, I want

no people passing by
no boring vicissitudes
no daily uselessness

but interest
in my existence, in me
Yes, I do

want to live, to love
and to care and pass on
everything

that should not be lost
Yes, that's how it should be
Yet there's nothing that should be

and that's why
one has to be alone
alone too much

A tail of something
that swam here, the beginning
of welling blood

I spy with my little eye
Streaks and something alive
A faltering world

Or am I looking too quickly?
Past it, over it?
Am I even looking?

It would take an unliveable
number of years
to be aware of what I perceive

I lack the overview
to select what's important
and I wonder why

the unimportant should be
important to me now
Or am I just slower?

Over there, the factories are starting up
All night long they hummed
as the clock ran toward day

Now they buzz, I feel
the furniture vibrate and
sniff for suspicious smells

Lamps are burning
beneath the red lights
for air traffic

It's been a long time since
I've been in a landscape
without plastic and metal

I don't want to die here
Where can I go
to live?

I never knew it
would be this way
with children, all well and good
but I just can't have a rest

and my husband only half
participates, he gives flowers
on Valentine's Day, so
I need a little help
and take another one
of those pills from the drawer

That's my little buster
it helps me
on a busy day

I order another portion
so I can have two now
The house is a mess
and dinner isn't ready yet
but with my little buster
I can manage

It's not easy
to be a happy family
Tomorrow will be the same, but
with my little buster, I can manage

It goes up and down for me
I embrace life and let it go

because it has no future
I crossed off impossibilities
and little concrete remained

But love
For myself, my desire
to live, the people

around me, yes, even for
time and again, their clumsiness

And I don't want to miss any of it
Except when I feel a little better
and get annoyed again

at road users and so on
who act substandard, which is
an unnecessary impoverishment

Yes, it goes up and down
for me, since I have cancer

He likes to talk, elaborating
on monsters and nymphs
the chatter
of a weakling
who got drunk
in hostels and brothels

He is even proud
of his tanned skin
and his grey hair
no longer the man
I have been waiting for

Should I have taken the risk
of order in the house, a successor
he would try to murder
just as he has seen the heroes do?

If only it were over, but
I don't want to die, all that remains
for me is acquiescence, or bitterness

about my lonely life, now
with a traumatised man

who lives forever in a distant war

.. and the living is not easy
But you keep that hidden

The children are tired and whimper
They don't want to be disadvantaged

And you have to keep them obedient
And always be there for the men

In public, you have to beam
Then they are cheerful, warm, and gallant

You must not say anything that would
force your husband to take action

Sometimes you explode, screaming
you scare the children

with reproaches you wouldn't
have wanted to even think

That is how the days crumble
And you learn to live with it

This in between the operations
is, in my opinion, what it is about
Your right words from time to time
in a bed of soft energy
in which I feel safe:

you are allowed to know
everything about me
but for now
it is too complicated
a beautiful mystery

you call me
My father is great
but he does not see me
I have to make me small
roll up in myself

Say something
do something
but don't touch me
the eyes in your hands
may not read me now

because what you think
is not right, too beautiful
is your image of me
as if I am someone else
even if that is true

Never I wanted to tolerate anything from anyone
exept from myself, I preferred

to be lazy and if I ever once did
help a bit really everyone was amazed

and looking at me -- I already see the time
approaching no one does remember that

Ice-cold I snubbed my parents
at all times I was quarrelling

at our home there always seemed something to be
the matter and every time I was angry

with myself, while nobody was angry with me
what was even more difficult for me

then I wished to be left alone
and full of misery I sat down and cried --

the entire earth is a vale of tears
that a girl has to endure virtuously

by being beautiful every new day again
like a flower that makes people happy

Loneliness, that want
that I had misunderstood:
it is not a feeling

but a tendency
that I may have
despite my good life

It is so elusive
how important I am
to the sweet people

who are important to me
but living their own lives
are absent to me

in the evening, the night and
when the day begins and
I am alone with my ideal

how it could be
with always the breath of
a loved one close to me

Maybe this ideal has
become my tendency
to wait and see

to acquiesce and yet
to keep longing -
invisibly lonely

Rainy days mud
my garden, the golden root is rotting

my wishing well spills over
I am spent

flaccid roads to the city
get me nowhere, no one wants

to pay for that, the world stands still
my little son is sleepwalking around me

by touch, cow and calf look
at me and frown, sighing

vapours muffled by the fine droplets
of rainy tears on the globes of my eyes

the sachets of water in which the world
always is upside down

a violet hangs and thinks:

mud will become waterproof
slate, eventually

There are ships sailing at sea
yet none is taking me
but the thought
'will I keep on waiting?'

The party is crowded, my table is not
Again nobody waits on my glances
which are waving and jumping
help help help

Last night, I dreamt again
that city and country were flooded
Ships went down overcrowded
Help Help Help

Are there ears for my voice
or am I stuck in emptiness?
Will I keep on
keep on waiting?

Bends between mossy boulders
Poor reception in the clouds
on the mountains, they recede and close
behind me, keep my thoughts

trapped on the road
No views, not stopping
for a pee, driving quietly
Standing still is dangerous, perhaps

I'm going to cross a pass to the sun
Still a thought
out of the fog of my feelings
I miss the sun

Bits of Nostalgia on the radio
with a lot of noisy
Would it help to cry

once that is safe?

The postcard, growing yellow
for so long

No contact
I don't have an address
to do anything about it

Besides, said in thoughts
my words are silting up
with caution

We only share the wind
that covers us

with sand from South
pollen from East, rain from West
and from North the cold comes

Then I pull a sweater
over my heart, stroke
with my fingers

on my one belly
thinking of your hands

When it is quiet, outside
only a light commercial
for pleasures of the big city
inside everything gray

the smell of the dog
just me
walking around
as if I'm not at home

but explore what
there is to see of the people
who live here: nothing
special, though there is

one tidy room
with an empty cupboard
and on the bedspread a cuddly toy
soft under my hand

then it grows still
in me, I am
not looking for anything, there's nothing
I'd wish to hope for

Today, on the heath, I walked
out of my habits

I looked back and saw anger and
powerlessness hiding behind them

A fear that I couldn't recognise
looked away, feelings

stirred within me
They pounded for help

Please, do not return
to your habits

Mama
what I tell you
what I don't tell anyone else

what has happened
what cannot be explained
what we better leave as it is

I have no idea
how it can be otherwise
whether it should be otherwise

mama
we're having a good time
we can talk, talk

about something else
polish our words
let them glide lightly

along the scraping walls
around the discomfort
listening half

inventing the rest ourselves
then it will go
isn't that how it goes?

Those secrets, mama
we don't need to know them
out loud, you know

I miss the long walks
the long evenings together
the boredom of before

We haven't made any gold
and are sitting in the stench
of 50 buckets of urine

Trophies surround us
from the seven-locked cabinet
as a battery around our happiness

Tonight we borrow luxury
for a debt to the future
and we drink to bygone days

We stuff gnawed bones
into our nostrils like jewellery
and eat comfort cake with whipped cream

The party is drawing to a close
the mattresses are ready
for after the drinks bath

Everything is oh so interesting, we talk
louder and louder, listen how superbly
we imitate animal sounds

On week-days, in the evenings, I pass
windows of people who know nothing:
the couple who've been kissing for ten days
and waiting people everywhere
Nowhere I find the grand beauty
I want to live for

I walk around to share my melancholy
memories of my plans and yours
We're having a good time
with pretended complacency
and we dedicate ourselves
to the sweet doing nothing

We chat and are distracted
After the first birds
I feel sad and incompetent
for the days in the bright light
the decay of our lives outside
the magic world of the night

Follow your gaze
to a love hotel
that does not yet know love

Smell your temper
Yes, I want you, I want you
in the lap of my desire

Arrange your locks around
my love, let them sway
on waves of pleasure

Wrap your thoughts
around my finger, let them
lick my skin

Cry for the festoons
we've known, kiss
the heart on which stranded

I don't want to write flowery
about the discomfort of his life
and the success of his plans
to end it
It's terrible
It doesn't deel right to me

For me, it should have gone differently
Together, somehow
I sometimes recognise him
in a passer-by who escapes me
Even if I jump at him right away
and give him a kiss, it isn't him

If only a kiss had been enough
to make him light enough
and if only kisses could be enough
to make me light again