Montag, Juli 07, 2014

Where are the plural pronouns?

the grass has grown too long on the meadow where I used to lie. It lost the prickly stiffness of grass mowed during hot summer weeks and like a giant green carpet it cushions my fall as I am wrestled to my knees by the silken June breeze. Tell me again why there's nobody left in the world. Where are the cars that swoosh from east to west in the background? Where's the hum that fortifies each and every heartbeat thundering in my ears? Where are the plural pronouns that governed my voice and the name that tied my tongue for countless hours? I tried to hold on to my field of vision: swaying green stripes on electric blue - and the slim chance to see that marvelous apricot shade again if I kept very still.

--

Writing poetry is easy:
there are letters and words,
short lines
like steps on hot asphalt,
the rhythm of a drunkard
swaying to a silent symphony
or stumbling
over invisible steps.

You can write and write
about skies and stars
while you're preoccupied
with eyes and scars
and smiles and skin that are off limits,
and that one name that doesn't rhyme,
don't mention all of that, then spin it,
cut it into verses and lines -
that's it, you wrote a little song
about a warm night's starry ceiling
about the one for which you long
and what you thought you were concealing...


In the back of my head The words are fading from my favourite songs, because nobody sings them.

Sommerschnappschuss

Du hast zwei Schuhe und doch kein Paar. So wie wir beide auch zwei sind. Zwei. Dabei könnte es das doch sein: Deine Haut klebt von der Mischung aus Salz, Sonnenmilch und Schweiß und schimmert golden in der Nachmittagssonne. Was denkst du?
Dass wir beide nicht tanzen können ist nicht von Belang, denn auf dem heißen Asphalt geht das fast von allein.

Es zieht uns fort, dieses Leben, zieht uns mit sich - dich gen Süden und mich weit, weit Richtung Nordwest... wer aber wird zurückkommen, um die Gräber unserer Eltern zu pflegen?