There are nights,
restless, leaden hours
of dripping thoughts
when words miss the mark,
a metaphor doesn’t land well,
the trash bin overflows,
yet you keep scribbling,
revising the revised
as a habitual alternative
to sheep-counting.
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‘War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.’
Carl von Clausewitz, On War
We need children after war—
lots of them—
and so we need mothers and fathers.
…mothers and fathers…
Who would have thought: war—
a dating app,
available on all platforms.
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I don’t like weddings;
I much prefer funerals, if anything.
But I guess that’s the result of being born—
everyone carries at least one curse
in the end. That’s mine.
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I lost sight of my neighbours
as their nest drowned in the linden leaves—
which is nothing unexpected with spring in full swing—
so for now I have to find some other source of entertainment,
or better yet, draw the curtains
so that I don’t become the target of snoopers:
all those flies bouncing off my window.
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Faith is a perishable good with a somewhat intimidating scent
of respectability, a late symbol of our exalted humilitude—
as if café au lait wasn’t enough—and it makes me think
of the last day of the Inquisition and of clerks burning old paperwork
and auctioning off no longer needed instruments of torture
to be repurposed as it fits.
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My object-free life
sometimes needs something more
tangible yet obtuse, so it wouldn’t hurt
when it touches the fettle
that comes with a myriad of attempts,
like all that prying used to:
‘Where are you off to?’
I guess I still need time.
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In a closed game I mostly play myself,
navigating through days with hoary household appliances—
which permits only nontactical positional manoeuvring—
just to keep up with a simple chore list.
And then comes the pressure of Zeitnot,
which makes mistakes more likely,
but in the end, does it really matter whether you win or lose?
After all, the dead are impervious to either fame or shame.
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If life, instead of years, were measured by volumes,
what would mine be like—
reminiscent of À la recherche du temps perdu
or Homo faber. Ein Bericht?
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The frail constitution of conscience,
the assumed brevity of spirit,
and the calculated immodesty of mind,
all curtained with a green palette—
courtesy of a linden bathed in sunlight—
is a simple recipe for disaster
or a poem.
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hidden pilcrow 