He reads the newspaper
from end to end, at night
under a lamppost in the park

I say to myself
about myself

I read the newspaper, I also
said to the officers in their car
though I'm listening more

to the rustling and the sounds
of the city, the reports
are not that interesting

Yes, I'm better off here

Among the children
on their toes, leaning
forward on the wall
(never a daredevil
to climb on top of it)
I am shaking again
from a freight train

At first my parents sent
someone with me when
I, straight after school
and at the weekend
(far too often, they thought)
spend hours looking
from this bridge near the station

I recognise the old and new
models blindly, by their sound
the vibration of the viaduct
the Doppler effect, and their smell
no matter how hard the wind blows
From here you can go out
into the wide world

The yellow glow scares me
Already this afternoon, when things got blurry
yet I seemed to be awake for a second
from the pain in my belly

It shouldn't be, I don't want it
My belly must be safe
for the baby, hopefully
it will soon be over

here, in my own bed
oh, what is happening?
I gotta get out, close the curtain
against that dreadful moon

All is well, the doctor said
but I couldn't get up
and not thank him
I just lay there

Guy smiled and the doctor shove
something into me, not as nice and sweet
as I am used to with Guy
not even in my wildest dreams

Not dinner time yet, on bed
I am drawing you, your back
the book and the red candle
the almost empty mirror image

We've seen enough
of the city today and no longer
immediately jump on each other
even though we're on vacation

I love you equally profound -
looking, drawing and feeling
how absently totally present
you are, your bare shoulder

which I caress with my eyes
your full attention
for the story and for me
as soon as you put the book down

It's something from years
elusively there
even if we don't pay attention to it
or if it's absent for a while

I wander along the stores
which make the pitch dark less scary
although you never know who may pop up

and that would not be Prince Charming
who can break through his spell
with my love, so that instantly
the shop window is a marriage bed
with sky blue curtains

and we get an enema because
of the spurning the chewable tablets
to let go of the past
and to seal our future
only dressed in a crown

with the red plug in his butt
and the green one in mine
The girls from my work
escort us to the bed
which we mount under applause

Their hands lay us down
and rub us up
for the grand finale

She bends over, her buttocks on show
while she puts her shoes away
She never looks through the window

I never can make contact with her
across the street and expose
me and my desire

It is hot, it's blowing so hot
through the city that I would leave
space in between us, caress her

only lightly, not lie against her
and first put out the light
or close the curtains, with a chink

by the window, happy to lie
awake from the heat, next to her
close to her body

I imagine how I am sitting here
seen from the bridge, with the dark room
behind me, from which the hand
of a ghost could loom for a moment

to give me, out of sight, a push
so that I'll be smashed, like dictators
have it done to opponents
I sometimes dream of it

that I eliminate them and their successors
to take away the repression, I
as an unknown super woman
of humanity

It should happen on a large scale
all in one fell swoop, finally an omnipotence
that nobody can escape
Yes, if that, yes if, if

It's still early, no customers
nobody on the way to work
everything like yesterday
the fire hydrant always ready
and night rounds against theft

Here you do your shopping
here you go to the barber
here your friends live
this is your view, your street
your neighborhood, your home

where you can sleep quietly
without scary dreams
life is very good
in order here, with neighbours
who know you all

I would die here
or go crazy, unless
I was living with you -
nothing else to do
than being with you every night

On the photo you don't see
that the water stands still
and you can think

that the sea has almost taken
the land and the house
will soon drift away

A person just has to take
other points of view
to find out something

and to keep living in the world
not in appearances, not in set
pieces of one's own fantasy

empty, unless actors populate them
of whom you no longer know after a while
whether they are acquaintances of you

but your own images nestle
in your head, they fit exactly
whereas the world is uncomfortable

Hours alone, living small
in a hotel room
without dying

going crazy or
staying behind
alone forever

like hell and purgatory
in the evening
on the stage

I do miss my children here
beside me on the bed, my love
my life without drama

without the decisive end
from which the audience wants to learn
to understand what life is

My dear, my dear
and I are bored
he is surfing

the internet and I practise
not to disturb him
fingerings in the air

I will go away, move
and he? frets himself
looking for a way out

slowly the night falls
silently I close the piano
if only I could help him

foot by foot four passes
to behind his chair, gently
I touch him, caress

an arm, he puts the screen away
and leans back, lets me
wrap my arms around him

quietly he lays his hands on mine
if only he had tears, words
if need be, passionate kisses

A little hill in the landscape
these slate roofs of the farm
under the high back and the round buttock
along the Old Country Road

Do you have to be an urbanite like me
to make the chimney smoke
and merge the images
into my own naked body

on a sheepskin in front of the fireplace
waiting for the caresses of my husband
or a lover - is that just holiday romance
or does it really happen here?

I experience it in passing -
an invisible participation
in other people's life, expressed
in my dos and don'ts

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?

We've said nothing for a while
it's quiet, the sail is tight
Swell, nothing wrong
a clear day, light blue
as far I can see

And yet we all stare
at the bell buoy, alarmingly
the sound flies away
No birds, cirrus clouds
Storm coming

The war seems to be far away
There are vague tidings
about mobilization
Will it be everyone for themselves
or is there a winning plan?

The window is up
trains thundering along
blow fresher air inside

Time would stand still here
if there was no light driving across the room
we go

I put away the folders
pull down the window
and the blinds

Peter is thinking
without saying a word
he turns off the light

and closes up
See you
tomorrow

To have something to do
the attendant brushes up the pumps
In the forest it is already dark

Here it remains light, open
if you wait a few minutes
until he is out of bed

But that is no longer the case at night
The villagers refuel during the day
and long-distance traffic drives past

The economy keeps moving
The country, everyone, lives thanks
to the network (the concrete one)

and it may take some time
before it will be automated
Then occasionally someone will come

to spray the pumps clean
the fly spots will remain
and waxing will no longer be done

In an armchair at the hotel reception
I am practising my lines
outside there's a thunderstorm
the rain rattles each time
the doors open

Repeating sentences
in between, watching
the public theatre
of the beautiful outside
of the elderly couple

sipping a drink
and waiting impatiently for a taxi
talking about friends and acquaintances
in whom they recognize the inner sides
of the characters from the play

The lights are always on in the villa
with the black awnings and in
the rooms of the rear building
where you never see anyone

The tourists coming here, must be
a cover, it is a quiet hotel
Sometimes someone plays the piano -
a clear tension in the night

The whole situation makes me think
of acts that I know from films
and wish to experience
only that way:

a beautiful man who desires me
with whom I can do everything, veiled
in the middle, surrounded by lust
and pleasure as a second skin

In the morning sun, on the bed
at the wide open window
I breathe-in the world and
my breath into the world

I no longer feel love
from him, only his worries
he doesn't want to talk, life
is flowing past us

he is a good man
yet I will leave
for a new home
empty but light and spacious

Your cloths are already dry
but I just let them flap
so at least something is happening
in this deserted place

You just sit there watching
taking a dip every now and then
Afterwards you carefully dab
the short hairs on your skull

I liked you better in the bar
although you were bragging
about your house and the beach
all to yourself

You showed your brown chest
I wanted to lie on it
and work on my tan a little
so nice by the sea

No, you are not social
the day is still long
and there is nothing here
to cook a good meal

He is late, as usual
It's his car, he decides
when we go home
At least, if he does come

And after the party he will say: Come
it was a nice evening, wasn't it?
but if he absolutely needs to
I'll let him, I'll let him

come until he screams
for mercy - nobody can hear it
The wind will blow, the grass will wave
and I will turn around to sleep

I love him, I know why
and he should be able to do better
I am worth it, and he too
If I only could teach him

The morning sunlight
on our face, our house
of brownstones, the promise
of the future that we chose

It is really starting now, we will
walk along the channeled stream
and the children will play
under the pines on the hill

Here we want to root
broadly and deeply
until the sun sets

We have unpacked our stuff
the cards with congratulations
next to the vase with tulips

the bed open
the house inaugurated

Out of fashion, out-dated
there's no help for it, so let me be
unattractive, rejected
because I show myself so conspicuously
and attract attention needlessly

That's how I'm seen. I am seen
and the whispering amuses me
although nobody talks to me

And you let me wait again
until the reception calls
that you are there

So I just sit here
looking out the window
I am used to it, there is nothing to see
at the back of the hotel
and it is getting dark

You always were impatient
My make-up took too long for you
and you sat angry in the car

but if I behaved exactly
the way you had conceived
you could really be sweet

On the way
I ended up in a no man's house
in no-man's time and no man's land

The bed is queen-
size, enough place
for a king, if he

is good for more
than sleeping, than having sex
for more than once

In the empty hotel room
the window is a command
to look outside

Narrow ornamental curtains
always a view, always
being exposed

It is strange, nobody is living
in this beautiful place, here
I would like to live

Squeaking wheels
in the hallway, a clicking door
and it's quiet. What kind

of person may that be?
Shall I start to unpack
my suitcase anyway?

A second, a stain flies over
the wall, a seagull

the evening is brewing and I
lie in my shirt on the bed

and read Plato, the allegory
of the prisoners in the cave

I hear my husband, close quickly
the book and turn around

with my back to him
I pretend that I'm asleep. He comes

and sits next to me, unpleasantly
warm against me

My buttocks are exposed
but he takes no notice of that

Grandma is bored, she waits
for my wedding and perhaps
she fantasises that I'm getting pregnant

How would it have been
with grandfather and her in bed?
We don't talk about that

just about the afternoons
in the sun, gaining some
colour for the summer

She would have liked that, but
at that time people thought differently
Anyway, bikinis did not yet exist

So much has changed, she reads it
to me from the magazine
and I laugh at her astonishment

She is old, her hair as white
as the walls in this sun, lovely
Lu does not have to come yet

Along the curtain, the caress
of the wind that embraces me

in the middle of the sun window
of the floor of the room

my feet on the carpet
reach deep into the earth

my heat salutes the heat
my breath kisses the wind

      I pull the bed into the sunlight
      and cradle me in well-being

      stretched out and opened wide
      I glide into the world

He is gone, I wish he came back
Would he, perhaps, now happen to
have come here to this movie?

That I turn around and he is there
alone, like me, and now
we know how it works

we might make more of it

if he, if he
wants so and seizes this opportunity
before the gong goes, and

if I, if I
dare to look behind
now it is still a break

Only the radio is still here
the movers left
my house, an interplace now
a pause in the street

There, the inner garden
squirrels and tall trees
Standing at the window, warmth
on my face, in my clothes

The room is nicer now
swept, a sunny emptiness
with a windowsill of music
that I will take with me, in a little while

On a swivel chair, I look around
the time capsule of my head
flies and devises stories

of memories and images
that pass, I travel
to my birth country

It does not exist, never
it has existed, it is a soup

of ingredients picked life-
long at my feet, cooked
in the pan of my skull

      The fresh soup now
      from my birth country
      tastes different, really

      I see it
      at the plants and the varieties