In the middle

In the middle

of a life that's as complicated as everyone else's,

struggling for balance, juggling time.

The mantle clock that was my grandfather's

has stopped at 9:20; we haven't had time

to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still,

the chimes don't ring. One day you look out the window,

green summer, the next, and the leaves have already fallen,

and a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown,

our parents gone, it happened so fast. Each day, we must learn

again how to love, between morning's quick coffee

and evening's slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,

mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies

twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between;

his tail is a metronome, 3/4 time. We'll never get there,

Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging

us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,

sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh

of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up

in love, running out of time.

(Barbara Crooker)

Zwischenzeilen

Ich möchte weder in Altem herumwühlen, 

noch Neues heraufbeschwören. 

Ich möchte dich auf meinem neuen Weg wiedersehen, 

dich wieder neu sehen, dich sehen, wie schön du bist. 

Ich möchte neu erfahren, wer du für mich bist, 

auf meinem weiten Feld, das ich nun betreten werde, 

frei von Barrikaden und Tretminen, 

frei sein, für mich sein, allein sein und lieben, was ich begehre. 

Ich möchte mich dir vertraut machen und dich mir, 

mit dir, in deiner Gegenwart sein, in meiner Gegenwart 

nicht gegenwärtig machen, was vergangen ist, 

die Gegenwart genießen, ohne an die Zukunft zu denken. 

Im Hier und Jetzt und leben, da sein, für mich und für dich, 

daß du da bist, für dich und für mich, wenn du willst, 

was ich mir wünsche. 

Ohne zu verlangen, mein Verlangen nach dir ausleben zu dürfen 

und dich zu finden, wenn ich mich sehne. 

(Connor Fairuza Angilotti)

Unterwegs

Heute bin ich

unterwegs

auf Wolken

male mit dem Fuss

den Himmel blau.

Meine Hand

streichelt ein Grau

bis es weiss wird.

Die Kleider

schenke ich dem Abend,

weil ihm die Farbe Schwarz

so gut gefällt.

Leise flüstere ich mit Venus.

Sie lädt mich ein,

heute Nacht

mit ihr gemeinsam

die Sonne zu umkreisen

(Christiane Schwarze)

The winter of listening

No one but me by the fire,

my hands burning

red in the palms while

the night wind carries

everything away outside.

All this petty worry

while the great cloak

of the sky grows dark

and intense

round every living thing.

What is precious

inside us does not

care to be known

by the mind

in ways that diminish

its presence.

What we strive for

in perfection

is not what turns us

into the lit angel

we desire,

what disturbs

and then nourishes

has everything

we need.

What we hate

in ourselves

is what we cannot know

in ourselves but

what is true to the pattern

does not need

to be explained.

Inside everyone

is a great shout of joy

waiting to be born.

Even with the summer

so far off

I feel it grown in me

now and ready

to arrive in the world.

All those years

listening to those

who had

nothing to say.

All those years

forgetting

how everything

has its own voice

to make

itself heard.

All those years

forgetting

how easily

you can belong

to everything

simply by listening.

And the slow

difficulty

of remembering

how everything

is born from

an opposite

and miraculous

otherness.

Silence and winter

has led me to that

otherness.

So let this winter

of listening

be enough

for the new life

I must call my own. 

(David Whyte)

Gedichte lesen

Wer

von einem Gedicht

seine Rettung erwartet

der sollte lieber

lernen

Gedichte zu lesen 

Wer

von einem Gedicht

keine Rettung erwartet

der sollte lieber

lernen

Gedichte zu lesen

(Erich Fried)

Because we spill not only milk 

Knocking it over with an elbow

When we reach to wipe a small face

But also spill seed on soil we thought was fertile but isn't,

And also spill whole lives, and only later see in fading light

How much is gone and we hadn't intended it 

Because we tear not only cloth

Thinking to find a true edge and instead making only a hole

But also tear friendships when we grow

And whole mountainsides because we are so many

And we want to live right where black oaks lived,

Once very quietly and still 

Because we forget not only what we are doing in the kitchen

And have to go back to the room we were in before,

Remember why it was we left

But also forget entire lexicons of joy 

And how we lost ourselves for hours 

Yet all that time were clearly found and held

And also forget the hungry not at our table 

Because we weep not only at jade plants caught in freeze

And precious papers left in rain

But also at legs that no longer walk

Or never did, although from the outside they look like most others

And also weep at words said once as though

They might be rearranged but which

Once loose, refuse to return and we are helpless 

Because we are imperfect and love so

Deeply we will never have enough days,

We need the gift of starting over, beginning 

Again: just this constant good, this

Saving hope.

(Nancy Shaffer)

Spiele das Spiel.

Gefährde die Arbeit noch mehr.

Sei nicht die Hauptperson.

Such die Gegenüberstellung.

Aber sei absichtslos.

Vermeide die Hintergedanken.

Verschweige nichts.

Sei weich und stark.

Sei schlau, lass Dich ein und verachte den Sieg.

Beobachte nicht, prüfe nicht,

sondern sei geistesgegenwärtig bereit für die Zeichen.

Sei erschütterbar.

Zeig Deine Augen,

wink die anderen ins Tiefe,

sorge für den Raum und

betrachte einen jeden in seinem Bild.

Entscheide nur begeistert.

Scheitere ruhig.

Vor allem hab Zeit und nimm Umwege.

Las Dich ablenken.

Mach sozusagen Urlaub.

Überhör keinen Baum und kein Wasser.

Kehr ein, wo Du Lust hast und gönn Dir die Sonne.

Vergiss die Angehörigen, bestärke die Unbekannten,

bück Dich nach Nebensachen,

weich aus in die Menschenleere,

pfeif auf das Schicksalsdrama,

missachte das Unglück,

zerlach den Konflikt.

Beweg Dich in Deinen Eigenfarben,

bis Du im Recht bist und

das Rauschen der Blätter süß wird.

Geh über die Dörfer.

Ich komme Dir nach.

(Peter Handke)

“I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it's true I'm here, and I'm just as strange as you.” 

(Frida Kahlo)

Herbstaugen

Presse dich eng

an den Boden.

Die Erde

riecht noch nach Sommer,

und der Körper

riecht noch nach Liebe.

Aber das Gras

ist schon gelb über dir.

Der Wind ist kalt

und voll Distelsamen.

Und der Traum, der dir nachstellt,

schattenfüssig,

dein Traum

hat Herbstaugen.

(Hilde Domin)

What's left

I used to wait for the flowers,

my pleasure reposed on them.

Now I like plants before they get to the blossom.

Leafy ones – foxgloves, comfrey, delphiniums –

fleshy tiers of strong leaves pushing up

into air grown daily lighter and more sheened

with bright dust like the eyeshadow

that tall young woman in the bookshop wears,

its shimmer and crumble on her white lids.

The washing sways on the line, the sparrows pull

at the heaps of drying weeds that I’ve left around.

Perhaps this is middle age.  Untidy, unfinished,

knowing there’ll never be time now to finish,

liking the plants – their strong lives –

not caring about flowers, sitting in weeds

to write things down, look at things,

watching the sway of shirts on the line,

the cloth filtering light.

I know more or less

how to live through my life now.

But I want to know how to live what’s left

with my eyes open and my hands open;

I want to stand at the door in the rain

listening, sniffing, gaping.

Fearful and joyous,

like an idiot before God.

(Kerrie Hardie )

                                       

 tame birds 

sing of freedom

wild birds fly

November

Erinnerung

Und du wartest, erwartest das Eine,

das dein Leben unendlich vermehrt;

das Mächtige, Ungemeine,

das Erwachen der Steine,

Tiefen, dir zugekehrt.

Es dämmern im Bücherständer

die Bände in Gold und Braun;

und du denkst an durchfahrene Länder,

an Bilder, an die Gewänder

wiederverlorener Fraun.

Und da weisst du auf einmal: das war es.

Du erhebst dich, und vor dir steht

eines vergangenen Jahres

Angst und Gestalt und Gebet.

(R.M. Rilke)

Correction

The burdens of the world

on my back

lighten the world

not a whit while

removing them greatly

decreases my specific

gravity

(A. R. Ammons)

Roots & Wings....

Frau Welt

Ich bin

zur Welt

gekommen

und bin nun

endlich so weit 

laut

zu fragen

wie ich

dazukomme

zu ihr zu kommen 

Sie kommt

und sagt leise:

Du kommst nicht

du bist schon

im Gehen

(Erich Fried)

Now I become myself

Now I become myself. It's taken 

Time, many years and places;

I have been dissolved and shaken,

Worn other people's faces,

Run madly, as if Time were there,

Terribly old, crying a warning,

"Hurry, you will be dead before--"

(What? Before you reach the morning?

Or the end of the poem is clear?

Or love safe in the walled city?)

Now to stand still, to be here,

Feel my own weight and density!

The black shadow on the paper

Is my hand; the shadow of a word

As thought shapes the shaper

Falls heavy on the page, is heard.

All fuses now, falls into place

From wish to action, word to silence,

My work, my love, my time, my face

Gathered into one intense

Gesture of growing like a plant.

As slowly as the ripening fruit

Fertile, detached, and always spent,

Falls but does not exhaust the root,

So all the poem is, can give,

Grows in me to become the song,

Made so and rooted by love.

Now there is time and Time is young.

O, in this single hour I live

All of myself and do not move.

I, the pursued, who madly ran,

Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

    (May Sarton)

es geschehen dinge, die sind wie fragen. 

sekunden vergehen oder jahre, und das leben antwortet.

(alessandro baricco)

Home....

Falkenflug

Und meine Falten künden mir vom Leben,

mein Lachen, festgesetzt um meine Augen.

Und Spuren mancher bittren Stunde

umgeben meinen Mund.

So ist es und ich änder`s nicht.

So will ich leben, ganz wie mich das Leben wollte,

aus einem mir tief ungewussten Grunde.

Und so will ich das Wissen weitergeben,

so zeig ich mich und muss mich nicht verstecken,

vielfältig zeigt sich mein Gesicht.

(Ingrid Olbricht)

Alles was ich hab

I like the way you survive

just keep blowing 

at that pretty blue flame 

that's burning you alive

Self Portrait

It doesn't interest me if there is one God

or many gods.

I want to know if you belong or feel

abandoned.

If you know despair or can see it in others.

I want to know

if you are prepared to live in the world

with its harsh need

to change you. If you can look back

with firm eyes

saying this is where I stand. I want to know

if you know

how to melt into that fierce heat of living

falling toward

the center of your longing. I want to know

if you are willing

to live, day by day, with the consequence of love

and the bitter

unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even

the gods speak of God.

(David Whyte)

Phenomenal woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size 

But when I start to tell them,

They think I'm telling lies.

I say,

It's in the reach of my arms,

The span of my hips, 

The stride of my step, 

The curl of my lips. 

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman, 

That's me.

I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please, 

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees. 

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees. 

I say,

It's the fire in my eyes, 

And the flash of my teeth, 

The swing in my waist, 

And the joy in my feet. 

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Men themselves have wondered 

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can't touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them, 

They say they still can't see. 

I say,

It's in the arch of my back, 

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Now you understand

Just why my head's not bowed. 

I don't shout or jump about

Or have to talk real loud. 

When you see me passing,

It ought to make you proud.

I say,

It's in the click of my heels, 

The bend of my hair, 

The palm of my hand, 

The need for my care. 

'Cause I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

(Maya Angelou)

last november

Nicht für die Welt

Nicht für Gott

Nicht für das Paradies

und nicht für die Menschheit

Nur eine Handvoll Träumer

Keine Illusionisten

Keine Fantasten

sondern einfache Menschen

die plötzlich hier und jetzt

und heute sagen

sich auf die Strasse stellen

und schlicht behaupten:

Mit mir nicht, meine Herren

(Konstantin Wecker)

Gedichte

Was aber finden wir vor,

verurteilt und fremd,

und wonach suchen wir,

trauernd,

in unseren Hoffnungsgedichten,

den empfindsamen Spielen,

Ablichtungen.

So mauern wir Bunker,

zu überleben,

und schreiben uns

frierend

über den Winter.

Gedichte

wie Leuchtfeuer an Land,

wie Botschaften einer anderen Kultur,

Pflugschar,

brechend den Boden,

Gedichte wie Furchen,

in denen Saat aufgeht.

(Wolfgang Bittner)

Your catfish friend

If I were to live my life

in catfish forms

in scaffolds of skin and whiskers

at the bottom of a pond

and you were to come by

one evening

when the moon was shining

down into my dark home

and stand there at the edge

of my affection

and think, "It's beautiful

here by this pond. I wish

somebody loved me,"

I'd love you and be your catfish

friend and drive such lonely

thoughts from your mind

and suddenly you would be

at peace,

and ask yourself, "I wonder

if there are any catfish

in this pond? It seems like

a perfect place for them."

(Richard Brautigan)