words &ash will find their way– even without map, scribbled by a chinese waiter on a napkin

.

the birds in front the window chat//casually
leaned against a pillar, smoking cigarettes

& flap their wings against the rain

there are multilayered facettes to the everyday
touch ‘em
tender with your thumb, breathe in&
take a pen—

there’s a scent to every scene
like the painting that i finished last week
which smells heavily of coffee

“will it fade?”

“i cannot promise” i write
“if you buy it, it’s a risk–“
it always is

— the raw and unplugged
that i fall for– genuine

like a woman in the evening
her face cleaned of all make up
red spots, little veins,
uneven– beauty
in the small bumps on her skin
zooming in

i stand in the garden in my jammies, sieving ash
from last night’s barbecue
which will go into a tupperware, from there
into a painting
or a poem

or just fall
onto the raven’s nose
&make him sneeze
or smile

or both

.

today at dVerse we’re writing about or in the style of the poets that inspire us i love the poetry of charles bukowski and bob hicok – my fav poet though and the one who taught me a lot about seeing the specialness & magic of the everyday is my good friend and fellow poet brian miller… so i just wrote about the everyday… or so… smiles

cops &robbers& –all in between

i’m from thin walls in a worker’s suburb,
a lawn between appartment blocks that morphs
quick as lightning into seas, a lake,
spaceship or deserted moonscape,
campingground & university for cloudshapes

i’m of branches like a cradle
arms and legs, scratched
heavy storms passed,
of a nearby highway where we climb
illuminated signs at night,

i am from stolen fruits,
potatoes we roast in open fires on construction grounds
smell of fresh cement and steeldust in our nose

i’m from a white dress
messed up on the first day

i am endless bikerides to the river
where we play robinson&friday
between chemical drainage and shards,
rescue helper
to a million earthworms

counter of the dots on ladybugs// y’ar highness? please,
is it age you carry sprinkled on your back?
(picture this ina sophisticated english dialect)
most of us survived them

some years at least

.

where you’re from? is mary’s question for us at dVerse today…

dear 5 liter bucket of “sahara” colored paint,

i slept in the desert once,
a ragged bedouin tent

the night
has thousand voices, sand
between its toes
and greasy eggs for breakfast
as the sun washes her face
in dew
in hidden streams
in thoughtfulness

i bought the bucket at the DIY
for 7 Euros/half price,
not exactly top notch quality
more mudflat,
slush, left in a city
when a flood hits

still it makes me think of venice
&i paint hues of english-red
bright on her cheeks

&maybe this is more a letter about comradeship
one third’s
the fear of losing it
one third wide
wide open space
the rest
i haven’t figured out yet,

i remember lying in that tent,
the distant howl of coyotes,
rustling movement
in the sand next to my ear,
a million stars pinned to the firmament

&each
a story/ in a story/ in a voice
i miss

so desperately

.

wrote this to Abhra´s “write a letter” prompt – and linking up with OLN at dVerse…

there’s probably no decent number for this call

i’m not yet there, the dust of roads
i’ve been,
of fear, the scaffolds way too brittle that they’d hold
my fall,

a step forward,
three back, crashing through the net
life knots with rough hands
the base

shakes dangerously

in search of water for this plant

my first guitar, pen, brush
a million firsts
&craShes.

the machine’s hum as i sew my first pants
&the seams are paths into a land

i haven’t seen yet
thrill
i want invent//create
give birth with cooking spoon&paint,
needle&thread,
a chord, a smile,
a single word–

&i don’t aim
for being perfect
i don’t aim (laLa)
for fame

just wanna be

the brave inventor of a melody
in verse, or tune, or shades, in you
that creeps under your breath
&makes you

wanna dance to

.

vocation is the theme for today’s poetics at dVerse…

high-pressure cleaner//we just call them kärcher//that’s successful branding isn’t it?

.

the easter bunny on my desk
is headless
someone asks

“if there were no consequences
–how would you want to live?”

a space for dreams

uncensored yet
of what is possible

there’s no such thing as neutral ground
&it takes bravery
to allow the mind to–

i stop in the middle of a thought
the size of africa– beyond–
windows&paths that lead like rivers in-
to something huge&beautiful

my colleague leans on the counter,
talks about italian cars,
and i get only half of it//because it’s foreign
and he’s talking fast

“&if he’s late?” he asks, caTching his breath

“he won’t” i smile
“he wears two watches”
filling in the blanks//t( )cK T( )cK

as if that is a guarantee
to get
the signs of time
//correctly

.

for oln at dVerse

the beauty of not breaking when the storm slams rocks into your face

in the grocery aisle i stare into his eyes
all words have fled
except for
“let me hug you”
&i do
“–i’m sorry”

someone with a pallet truck
circles cornflakes boxes round the corner,
we stand in his way, sidDestep//sidE
i let him talk “she wanted to//was ready&–“ the art
of letting go what we can’t hold,
i envy those

that mastered
peace, a weird, wild beauty that in death–

“sorry” a blond-bleached woman
navigates a fully loaded trolley through the narrow we create,
a stumbling block, an obstacle

when i talked to a friend in that restaurant a few months back
“i’m doing good again”
today i heard that cancer hit her for the third time “f–“

&i swim//belly up
dig deeper diving

for the roots of a large tree
which stabilize his lean
into the wind, a home
to bugs, a bird, a spider net
&me,

sap on my lips, cheek pressed
against his chest
small dots of hope that spread
a beauty different from

what i have learned yet

.

over at dVerse Mary has us write beauty other than physical..

as of today you could wrap the earth 7 times in plastic

tree houses/by me..

 

i’m a/game inside a game,
carrying sacks of black ore on my back,
“you want straw or sheep for it?”
“oh,

i want verbs” i say–

a thief– by nature,
steal ’em from opossums, treehousesteps&roo bags
from the guy on mainstreet who leans heavily forward
&pees against the bus stop sign
ssshhhzzhhh
i buy curd soap
“60 cents”
“thanks”

to exchange my shower gel, shampoo&
scrub-me-clean-cream

yesterday i learned
they contain microplastic

itsy-bitsy balls that aptly slip
through every filter in the sewage plant
board a motor bike&drift through mile-long pipes
into the sea,

guess what?

mr. fish
mistakes ’em for his main dish

i steal verbs but doN’t
stEaL future from my kids,
have them eat plastic meals,
foil the size of spain
spanned over vegetable fields
swallowing the landscape

“you got wood?
i barter them for four-legged chicken with six wings
barbarian you think?
come one– just profitably smart

a falcon hits
&throws me from the horse

“excusez-moi–”

then looks at me with big, brown eyes,

guiltily chirping.

.

verbs, verbs, verbs… it’s all about verbs at dVerse today… the more, the better -ha – and i saw this report on tv about plastic and that it is not so harmless as they want us make believe…ugh.. frightening… and i really bought curd soap…it is great – ha… &i like the smell.. honestly…smiles

the island’s shape’s constantly shifting

boy with a bird cage.. finally managed to paint him…

 

wind on the islands’s different—
&
i dunno where to start

a city’s lung
its smoke and grit
the birdcage boy with sad eyes
touched
something in me,

forgotten beach,
my hair in thousand knots
i’ll fly, then board a train– so easy
rent a bike

he’s carried in a storm,
an image of an image in a dream
&i get lost
between x’s
of unsovled equations
in the streets

fata morgana’s are not only born from heat
they’re daughters of the wind,
shift/ed sand
trying to find a/way into the eyes, ears, nose

&pile to castles where rapunzel, dwarves&knights
i ever met live happily as flat mates,
playing chess

on sunday evenings
the wind dictates the game
shaking pawns&queen

“it might be freezing cold” a colleague says
“&it could rain all day”

it could be everything
i think

&let him have his way
biting my ears with ice-cold lips

“i’m unpredictable” he whisp/ers
tender in a way&yet uprooting trees
within me

he’s blind in many ways
sees more

the movement of his lips
whips sand against my skin

with puffed up cheeks
he licks my feet
then throws himself
back out//

into the ocean

.

for dVerse where Grace’s yet unnamed guesthost 😉 has us write wind…

boy with a bird cage

i don’t see him,
swallowed

almost in a shade,
a blueprint in a wrinkled corner of–

a woman cycling down the street, with a bag of groceries
her little boy wraps both arms round her hips
she sings for him

sings along the squeeks of trams, horns and the city’s gritty teeth
slalom- ing around pedestrians and parked cars
her thick coat a red flag

whispering of care and dreams and freedom as
berlin wildly slings limbs around my ankles — legs,
tousles my hair with windworn tongue

a tincage swings on his arm

i cannot say
if the bird’s still in it
nothing in his eyes
hints– though

i feel him as he stands
silent.
sigh

across the street
diffusing lights

throw the strangest shades
upon me

.

for OLN at dVerse… last poem from my berlin trip last week…smiles

i wish i knew what the guide told the old man in a wheelchair in arabic

a confession’s in the way you break//
from things
or in the search
for new//born //shades//
——————-a scent or language
just how far you dare to—

at the Paul Gauguin exhibit yesterday
thousands of visitors
ooohhhhs&ahhhhhs
echoing from white state of the art walls,
clean
so stylish “see–
is that the one they sold for 300 Million US Dollar to Qatar?”

&he sits in his hut
sick//penniless
a nip of arsenic– a quick gulp– survives
useless though how hard he tries

no one buys
his paintings

art’s NoT steRiLe
packed in bite-sized morsels,
tasteful, chic for our tongue
to lustful lick its—

you can’t hang it
on a wall inside a palace
&forget his bent shape
when he heard his child is dead
how good he got
with lying to himself//the drinking

i know none of this
as i bow over a canvas too big
for this room, tough to handle,
&around me sand, paint, brushes, mason’s trowel in my hand
there’s hardly space to move
sticky, sweat

builds on my forehead
as i switch on the hot-air gun//pszzhhhhzz
almost vomit as the scent spreads
blistering the paint

because i’ve heard//or seen&feeL

a milligrain–

————–of something

.

over at dVerse Anthony has us write confession