One and Four

ONE
it's a classic: two strangers
kissing in an elevator
in a hotel at the end of the world
TWO
they devour each other
the night is dark and silent,
it tastes of beer and gin tonic
THREE
and smells of cigarettes and sweat
tropic heat has left stains on their skins
(doors open)
FOUR
(doors close)
their hands begin to map out the territory
silence, heavy breath
Nigeria's hot.
THREE
her breasts: so soft, so unbearably tempting
he rubs himself against her naked legs
lust growing
TWO
she's tempted, for a moment,
to follow the river, to float and climb mountain tops
but the look on his face:
a hunter's smug self-satisfaction
a hint of white trash arrogance
drunk with power
(doors open)
ONE
he thought he had her
but already in the doorway
she refuses to be owned, if only for a night
(doors close)
he pushes the 4 on the panel
and rides up again, left with a trace of her,
with a memory of something too strong to conquer,
too wild to possess
he's confused
(doors open)
FOUR
and retreats to his own darkness
(doors close).

Running

At the end of a summer’s day

She put on her running shoes

And left home

With no destination

Only long nourished bitterness

It was the rage that made her run

She left her furious footprints

On the streets of her beloved city

A marathon of madness.

She knew that the town

Would never offer freedom

Only the relief of exhaustion,

 the peace of fatigue.

She also knew that they all came

to settle in the comfort of running

to savor speed,

to get drunk on velocity.

Ever since that summer’s day

She has been running

imprinting the blacktop with her fury

wondering how many stories

are right beneath her feet

of people who just keep on running.

philosophy

a ray of light, a darkened sun,

the full moon, a distant star

it’s a long gone but ubiquitous method

of abstract story-telling

an addiction:

cocaine, coffee, chocolate,

it’s art:

the fraud of 3D on a single surface,

the freedom beyond the frame.

it’s the ocean of thought

in the shallowness of language

it’s Dolby surround, a sound thinker’s love.

it’s a perspective:

looking forward to the past,

remembering the future

trusting the moment

the pleasure and pain of travelling

a land far far away

yet inside

your very soul.

A certain rebellion

Today, my pen decided to take a rest.
It was 5 past 10 pm.
He refused to be further instrumentalized
and denied his service.
I looked around, uncertain of what to do next.

Nothing
might be the answer,
as it is to all questions.
What can I do about him?
What can I do about me?
What can I do to help him?
To get out of this story?
To get away from it all?
To change? To be who I really am?
Nothing.

Today, my pen decided to take a rest.
It was 5 past 10 pm.

Contrabajeando (To Luciano)

Me gusta tu sonido:
A pitch-perfect flying carpet
heavy grooves on which we dance
with the lightness of clouds
losing their breath on a windy day in march.
Your greatest strength
is the steadiness of the horizon,
the substance to our sound.

Yet you depend on us:
on fluency, transparency, airiness.
We make you glow in the dark,
you embrace our heights with warmth
from inside your wooden corpus,
from your body filled with air, wakened by strings:
A litttle energy turns into bliss of the purest kind.
Me gusta tu sonido.

A child of our times

She is a child of our times

A reluctant reader of poems longer than twelve lines

She knows next to nothing

Only that she can find it online

She doesn’t count the time in chimes

But in the seconds it takes her phone

To tell her which way to go

She wonders where all this leads to

And if the world will ever make sense

She is, after all, a child of our times.

Antwort

„Es gibt Tage, an denen ist die Sehnsucht zu groß.

Dann möchte ich die Berge zwischen dir und mir

Voller Glauben ins Meer werfen

Und die Abgründe zwischen uns

Mit einem Kreuz voller Nägel überbrücken

Darüber zu dir rennen und mich in deine Arme werfen

Und dir endlich sagen, was du schon lange ahnst:

Dass ich dich liebe.

Es gibt Tage, an denen möchte ich, dass du mich siehst

Nicht so, wie du mich erdenkst, wenn du

aus Spuren meiner Existenz ein Bild zusammenkratzt,

was mir nicht im Geringsten gerecht wird,

sondern dass du mein zeitloses Panorama,

meine Unergründlichkeit, Unendlichkeit meinen Kern,

erspürst und erkennst, was du schon lange ahnst:

Dass ich dich liebe.

Es gibt Tage, an denen möchte ich Lichtjahre verflüssigen

Um die Zeit, bis wir uns wiedersehen, abzukürzen

Weil die Spannung, die dich zerbricht, auch mich zerreißt,

obwohl der Krieg längst von mir gewonnen ist,

und du, der du jetzt am Ende bist, in einer neuen Zeit

an den Anfang gesetzt werden wirst

und endlich ergreifen wirst, was du schon lange ahnst:

Dass ich dich liebe.“