SIMPLE POEM
happiness once came into the yard
and the yard was ever so happy
then happiness came into the room
and the room was ever so happy
lastly happiness came into the larder
and the shed and the barn as well
clothes found some space in a suitcase
and then it was time to go
QUESTION OF LIFE
If people are only anti,
it’s no-go for the pro side.
And yet we have clouds
and light from both sides.
Mean thoughts inside me
no bloom, no stem.
Blood might well curdle
just for them.
So much is given to us –
and still we are perplexed.
To see what is alive.
Is that too much to expect?
***
We make, make up for our life
a huge people-packed wall.
Not even the tall can reach over.
When a stone has fallen outwards,
making way for a gap as it goes,
whoever chanced to see out
has spoken of la vie en rose.
Meanwhile he too is seen through
and there is no place for feeling distraught.
A secret is now the only life he knows,
being himself through and through is his lot.
MORNING
In the black night I see a white songbird,
sometimes it enters my heart unheard.
It pecks the heavy stone from my heart,
that’s when I feel the No-Name Bird.
In the black night I see a white song-ship,
the bird holds the ship from on high.
Sometimes the ship glides into my eye-sea.
That’s when it opens the No-Name Sky.
In the black night I see white candlelight,
and bird and ship have flown from my mind.
And in the light a white breath appears,
black night and candle are blown aside.
***
wishing is the kingdom of heaven
and getting is the state border
a long slanting beam of light
of this our earthly Eden
***
In the long grass in a great calm a tiny man
listens to the flow of time and eyes the clouds.
Summer is great, the sky is bright, all is still there,
but already in another calm —–
Utterly other. And he notices: in the grass lies a man
like a dark dot or a comma in a picture of time.
***
A tiny regret
that not every notion
translates to another tongue.
This sets many thoughts in motion.
Everything enters everyone’s head,
everything fits every tongue.
If only it came more quickly to mind.
It will, it will, in its own time.
