3 haiku
Like a mountain wind,
you carry down flakes of light
from a snowy peak.
Immortal truth rests
calm beneath a dome of blue,
like your soul, pure white.
You bring not winter,
but the rites of spring. Stunned, I
bloom in pink delight.
(for Francois)
How fragile we are
A fly wrapped to rot in a spider´s web,
a lone wolf in the woods howls in pain.
The darkness indifferent to dawn´s approach,
a lost soul gives up, goes insane.
The coasts erode into faceless seas,
the winds chase a lost refrain.
And next door a shivering child hugs itself
on a bed of tear stains and shame.
Then machines collide and metals screech
and we remember to dance in the rain.
When our palaces fall when the earth revolts,
what we´ll save is a pic in a frame.
(for Francois)
Inspiration
(blank verse sonnet)
You know, I haven´t been a city person
all my life. The most enchanted woods
were mine when I was young, and everything,
the murmur of a brook, the mighty roots
and ancient rocks were miracles to me.
I don´t think that a painting can surpass
the loveliness of silver-blue-green lichen
on a piece of bark. Art is just art.
And yet - what if I´d met, one day, a fairy
from my books, a lady clad in leaves,
with autumn in her hair, her face all veiled
in soft October light ... She might have said,
amongst the whispers of the trees, "My child,
when you´ve grown up, do not forget, and write."
A few words
A frail little snail on a dustbin lid
under purple twigs of woe
was almost crushed,
the most precious of shells,
by a misprinted pile of poetry.
Place your words with utter care,
they might soak up the trail
of a snail in the rain on a plastic lid,
on an autumn morning,
grey and bare,
and what else
could have moved me so?
The One in Block Guilty
who never tried to flee.
I watched the others
being caught again
and punished,
arms in chains pulled up
so they could only sit and stare
while I could lie at least,
bury my face
and on warm arms
dream of the sun.
The wardens liked me,
so I thought,
as after all I was obedient
and kept my dignity,
I shuddered when another one
was dragged towards his cell again,
over the stone floors
foamy lips spit curses,
madness echoed off the walls,
and in my nose the rotten smell
of sweat and pride.
I waited, all politeness,
smiling patiently,
for years.
When they came to eat my heart,
they didn´t need a key to get into my cell.
The Model
Fair as paper, fragile, rests my skin.
Tender darkness lingers, frames me,
landscape I of milk and cream.
Be the wind that brushes o´er my valleys,
swelling breeze to stir me deep within.
Let your limbs and mouth and searching fingers
cover me and draw me from my dream.
All these endless hours when I sit in silence
and your eyes burn deep into my secret self,
eyes that are as far away as desert islands,
and you leave me then to dry upon a shelf.
Don´t you know I long to be your canvas,
wish you´d smear your essence over me;
only once please see me as a woman
and the medium to drink your ecstasy.
Andersen remembered
She shouldn´t have left the sea. The blue green
realm of silent beauty ceased to be her home
when she laid eyes on him. If she had known
he´d never love her back, if she had felt the keen
cruel silver blades cutting her feet, felt them before
she gave up floating on the moon-lit waves,
weightlessly and singing to the stars above ...
If wiser ones had told her that she should adore
herself and not the prince who didn´t see her love,
as blind as she was dumb, deaf to her silent sighs
that tuned her dance for him, would it have changed
a thing? I suffered as a child because she chose
this torture; yet the traces of my nightly cries
just dried upon the pages, and as a woman I rose
to join the little mermaid´s desperate dance.
Not made for this world
You had to take my hand in yours,
your graceful fingers cool around
a shy and chubby touch that begged
not to let go and knew you would.
The dark green house stood there
and like a prison waited patiently,
but still the road was long and lit
by tales, your beautiful bronze voice
sent fairies up into the morning sun.
And when the last word bloomed
into a kiss to say goodbye, I only
wished you didn´t have to leave me
in the cold where stories ended
and the world began. My tears said
that I liked to be alone and there,
in there, were others, all around
and no escape, I needed quietness
and they were loud and cheerful,
carefree, brutal, healthy, not like me.
I learnt to see through people there.
I learnt to hear but to pretend
it didn´t hurt me what they said.
I played with xylophone and triangle
and loved the sounds our friendship
wove around me to feel halfway safe.
But peace only returned with you,
by midday, scented warmth your arms,
my troubled face against your belly,
Mami, Mami, take me home.
Why they call this a children´s garden,
which sounds like paradise, I do not know.
Solution
To swallow dust, to follow shapeless
dunes, to wander where no shadows
dwell and heat and cold
never caress each other´s lifeless limbs
is all that´s left.
To crawl on hands and knees
and belly finally when feet are burnt,
and if it´s just an inch per day,
to crawl or turn to stone.
For riddled with too many questions,
two blinded circles stare
over the grains that won´t combine,
eyes of the sphinx,
a lion´s strength that lost the fight.
As if a single tear of mercy
wouldn´t have brought back
the twilight rest, the shade of palms again,
where sanity was safety´s child,
oasis turned to sand.
I dreamt of an English garden
transfigured by the dawn,
where the moonlight slept in the hedges
and shadows wrote on the lawn.
Roses of untamed beauty
stood guard of their secrets within,
but seduced with the blush of coyness
and a red full of nightly sin.
An aeolian harp was singing
in the arms of a mighty tree,
its beads wove through the twilight,
and the oak whispered "Come to me".
I saw that a word was embodied
in each bead that glistened like dew,
and as a wind from the sea caressed them,
he chose and combined them anew.
Enchanted I followed and rested
in the strength of the oak, on the grass,
and its ancient roots knew it all,
so I wept as the hours did pass.
But the harp sang over my sorrows,
and the sunlight shone through the words,
while the roses in soothing perfume
balmed long forgotten hurts.
How I wished I could stay in this garden
till I knew all the flowers by name,
explore it to the farthest corner
and give its beauty a frame.
For nobody seemed to live there,
no walls encircled its shine,
it was wild and free, but lay lonely,
and when I thought so the harp said
"Be mine".
A response
You asked me why I´m never tired.
Know, I was tired nearly all my life.
To sleep if I must live. Feel nothing.
Lay dormant through the seasons,
a sleeping beauty who felt ugly.
Worthless. The thorns piercing my skin.
It wasn´t you who woke me, saved me,
my sabre-arméd prince. It was the pain.
The thorn hedge sneering at my screams,
no answer, just the pain, the terror when
I saw my skin ripped, bleeding
as I struggled free. To live if I must live,
some start. The rest is learning how to walk,
a childhood task on adult feet.
You asked me why I´m never tired,
well, I was tired long enough. Discovering
the thorn hedge in your eyes, your pain,
the marks it left, like writing on your skin,
I know you are the one who´ll kiss my scars.
To love as I can live, a gift, I now can see.
One night stand
her eyes blinded by dew drops.
Tired feet wish the poisoned trap
of an inviting smile could be stepped
over like puddles, avoided with the grace
of a dancer experienced in the swirl
of life. This bitter irony, she knows
how to keep her shoes clean,
but her heart is a littered path
to be trampled on.
Earthlights
dreaming of milky passages to distant galaxies,
while silver followers in watchful contemplation make
your face their memory with every move.
Now as I see you rest in nightly colours clad,
I wonder if eternity might spread her wings,
will-o-the-wisped into your presence fly
and guard the golden shine there of my love and me.
Dark splinters
Anger chewed like fingernails between my teeth,
down to the flesh right till it hurts and bleeds,
and spat upon the page, leaving a trail of hate.
Darkness fills my lungs and makes my demons
dance around what´s left of bonfires of the past,
I´m breathing smoke over these words from hell.
It could be warm, this flame, and light the night,
it should not burn my hand that needs to write,
maybe tomorrow there´ll be time for life again.
