Who knows

Who knows where time goes when she’s gone

What love is when she dawns

Or death when he comes to get what is his

Who knows why music sometimes comes alive

How simple words cut throats like knives

Why treacherous handshakes start a war

Who knows how clouds look before they’re born

Why your young hands look old and worn

Why some men love small children more than justice

Who knows why you never give me enough room

What flowers think when they want to bloom

why the opium of some kills a thousand innocents

All those questions remain unanswered

Yet, are they all asked in vain?

One simple question lingers:

If we knew it, would we change?

This is it

What else do we live for

But to love and find truth

And leave before the lies dawn,

To walk barefoot on Leaves of Grass

Lose patience with the ever smiling sun

Not frown at the children in our yards

And embrace the aged, the rocks on which we stand

Tell me, what else is there?

Is it fame? Or money?

Even music fades.

What else do we live for

But to let our naked souls

Confess when darkness falls

Swim in seas of insecurities

Dive in the desert of broken desire

Not let our pens lie down to rest

Or close the books of our fathers

Tell me, what else is there?

Is it science? Or progress?

Even poetry fades.

What else do we live for

But to taste hope on Sunday mornings

try to walk on water, bathe in sinking sands,

Breathe the rage of a summer storm

And smell the earth after the rain has gone

Strive for knowledge, balance it

in the palms of our hands

With faith we don’t know yet

Tell me, what else is there?

This is it: a moment’s bliss.

Don’t cross out lines, don’t miss

To move the frontier to the west

To conquer your heart’s wilderness

Knit your mistakes into the text

Don’t fear the paths not paved yet

Nor the pain at the end of the road

Because this is it, no more no less:

A brief second of happiness.

Sehnsucht

Sehnsucht
ist ein scheußliches Monster
das dich am hellichten Tag überfällt
dich zum willenlosen Sklaven seiner
willkürlichen Phantastereien macht
und dich mit seinem todbringenden
Atem zu ersticken versucht.
Du gehst zugrunde-
mit einem Lächeln im Gesicht.

Syllable

Sometimes life feels like a voiceless consonant:
You obstruct the air and wonder why you can't breathe.
That friend of yours has become
a militant interdental fricative
and the music that's supposed to cheer you up
sounds like an arbitrary row of stridents.
Your thoughts behave like glottal stops: hardly important!
Or are just as non-existent as a postalveolar nasal.

Suddenly, you get kissed by a vowel
or fly high
make a tour through the sky
with a diphtong and realize:
all you're longing for
is life as a sensible
wise and meaningful
syllable.

Rain

"You and me
that's not gonna be
a good idea." you said and smiled.

I left the room and it started to rain
the street that I'm on is a street paved with pain.

And you feel the rain
burning holes in your clothes,
your skin, your flesh, your bones,
your heart
until everything you once were
is scattered on the path
you once walked
to find home.

Marshmellow

My most beloved Marshmellow
Your soft and white skin
has trapped my thoughts
I enjoy your softness
while piercing your
substanceless being

You consist of sweetness
that turns into poison
as soon as I digest
You create a soulless,
short and sweet high,
that disappears with daylight.

Cheap pleasure
is what you were made for
and no expectation
for deep and juicy conversation
should be exerted on your
weak and pillowy existence.

Plagiarism

I hope that one day
when you attend the funeral of what could have been love
your  façade crumbles down.

I felt good
when I imagined this blue-and-yellow future
between rhythm, rhyme and whatever rumbles in your ear

But your dramatic lack of enlightement
has broken, not braked the storm
and its talkative eye emptied so soon.

You could have been my hero
I would have been your home, your castle
As sure as he can raise the dead
you could simply take place by my side
and tell me the next line.

Well, cowboy, that angel's mark is gone
I'm only somebody you should have known
but I will not return.

What's left in the end?
It's to wonder that I can take your words to express my thoughts
and that there is no such thing as

plagiarism.

Invitation

Not long ago
I decided to become my own home:
I will not depend on circumstances but be at home
in who I am

Here's a lot of space
right in the corner of my heart
you'll find the most wonderful places on earth
walk in, sit down

If you have pictures
I have rooms with high empty walls
and corridors that long to be filled with the sound
of your soft slippers

Don't worry
it's home, it's not the prison you're afraid of
I need to tell you this one thing: I would love
to have you around

I  long to see
your hand let go of the handle
of your old and shabby suitcase and tell you:
Welcome home.

My mind these days

Every now and then my mind gets lost in the library.
A library provides enough books, ideas and dark corners
to think of, at least, a dozen dirty academic adventures.
Odysseus might find what he's looking for after all,
Chomsky could come across some very basic
syntactic constructions, think of subject movement,
verb raising, dig deep in unknown functional categories,
Postcolonial Theory could revise its standing
on matters of submission and queer studies...
well, well, we don't have to go into that.
I often feel like I lose my mind, these days.
But at least I know where to look for it.

Doch oder doch nicht

Doch, doch, ich vermisse dich
dein verschlafenes, liebes Gesicht
Deine Verrücktheit, deine Zuversicht
ich vermisse deine schnellen Augen
die mich ohne Weiteres der Fassung berauben
und mir doch Grund gaben an die Liebe zu glauben
(wie kitschig. viel zu kitschig.)
Mir fehlen deine Hände
die so leicht, so sanft und so behende
in meinem Leben brachten eine Wende
und dein unglaublicher Humor
dem selbst ich auf ewig Gefolgschaft schwor.
(wie pathetisch. viel zu pathetisch.)

Aber mir fehlt nicht dein fehlender Mut
egal was deine Liebe mit meiner Seele tut
und auch nicht dein Getrieben-Sein
dein unermüdliches nach Aufmerksamkeit schreien.
Mir fehlt nicht dein ständiges Lügen
(ich kann mich auch alleine gut betrügen)
und ich vermisse nicht deine Inkonsequenz
die Geschwindigkeit, mit der du durch dein Leben rennst.
Nur manchmal wünsch ich mir etwas von deiner Fähigkeit zu verdrängen
Jetzt zum Beispiel.

Doch, doch, ich vermisse dich
dein verschlafenes, liebes Gesicht
Deine Verrücktheit, deine Zuversicht.
Aber mehr ist es dann doch nicht.

Pyromaniac (Prose Poem)

The tension of the moment before lips first meet
electricity as visible as the growing desire in your eyes
the air as heavy as an old Spanish red wine
the arousing thought that I don’t love you, that this is just a game. 
This is no fantasy- this is real: 
tenderness turning into warm brutality, 
thoughts exploding, you try to burn me down. Darkness.

The tension of the moment before two people part
the electrical line as dead as my broken dreams
the air as heavy as sulphuric tears
the horrifying thought that I don’t love you, that this is just a game. 
This is no fantasy- this is real: 
Brutal touches brushed away, your breath has left burn marks on my skin: 
Of the explosion I only remember the feeling of being burnt to ashes.

Daylight like water, pouring rain refreshes life, I won’t lose the faith in fire that produces heat without destruction. Out of the ashes I rise to see the future: Pheonix.