2014-08-27

island

in the silver a face so alien
distorted shape of primal horror
casket for a crippled mind

somewhere in the ghostly distance
colors have faded from grey to red
former black glows dull and blue

little life at all to find here
bare existence, harsh and futile
and persistent dreams of home

whenever darkness settles softly
night betrays the edge of vastness
a glimpse beyond my shrunken world

sometimes not the wailing wind
just my thoughts howl in the clouds
across a cold and yearning sky

and rarely silence - bastion, solace -
pervades time to touch horizons
memories and phantom pain

(2014)

2014-08-24

fortress

I hide in a heart that relentlessly ticks,
Outside I can hear faint mechanical clicks,
The pounding of fists and the howl of a clock,
Vibrations in steel, a drill screams in the lock.

This my castle, fortified,
Hidden labyrinthine halls,
This my fortress, sanctified,
Seal the door, ignite the walls!

The secret illusion is starting to crack,
I have to fend off yet another attack,
Cursing the gods while still trying to bind
That silently retracting part of my mind.

I have to witness the fabric of dream
Rapidly falling apart at the seam,
Disruption of the concentrical sketch
By impacts on its invisible edge.

This my castle, fortified,
Hidden labyrinthine halls,
This my fortress, sanctified,
Seal the door, ignite the walls!

(2014)

2014-07-04

white tiles

have you seen my little sister
find her under sterile light
find her in the maze of tiles

one by one to the hangman
methodical and quite hygienic
you must find my little sister

all of us were so scared
one by one to the hangman
we are dangling on hooks now

we waited in the line to the screams
methodical and quite hygienic
my little sister was so scared

find us under sterile light
find us in the maze of tiles
we are dangling on hooks now

(2014)

2014-07-03

petit-bourgeois

so i've heard you cannot fail
others, sure, they're just too weak
life's a fight, you shall prevail
please enjoy your winning streak
you are just another fool
turned into a mindless tool

so i've heard you want to soar
climb the ladder to the top
rise and then excel some more
look at you, cream of the crop
cutting edges, at full throttle
i'm the genie, you're the bottle

so i've heard you've been replaced
like the ones you used to blame
all your efforts gone to waste
no one ever wins this game
surrender to life's lottery
its soul-crushing machinery

(2014)

2014-07-01

status quo

The first time I awoke, I immediately fell asleep again. The second time I was surprised. I cannot remember the third and fourth time.
The fifth time I heard voices. There were three, somehow I was able to distinguish them, the rough, croaking one, the light one and the monotonous one; I did not understand the words, however.
Then I slept again, probably for a very long time, for as I awoke I heard the same voices talking about how long it had taken them to do something they never mentioned, but finally had been completed. I would have asked them if I had been able to and had known what a question was in the first place. That is also why I did not ask myself why I had been unable to comprehend the voices at an earlier time.
The seventh time no one was speaking. For a moment, I believed back then, I heard a loud, alien sound not unlike the monotonous voice, although fleeting and gone faster than I could wonder about it. The rest of this unusually - if I could even call up any usual thing at all for a contrast at this early point in my life - long interval there merely was a playful hissing and humming, alternating in an irregular rhythm not quite entirely non-musical.
The eighth time the voices were back, hushed and mixed with many other unknown voices. The moment would not last long, however, for soon there was talk of a mishap, and all those many voices very rapidly agreed that, indeed, something unintended had happened.

After an unknown time span, during the next round of this weird game, I found everything changed. I felt something, and I remembered many words that would describe this exotic impression. Legs, I felt my legs! And the very thought, too, that anything could be considered mine, it was simultaneously refreshing and frightening. That undescribable feeling of a part of me that suddenly sprung into existence out of nothing!
Another round of sleep, then I felt my arms, too. I realized only now that those, just as my legs, despite being palpably there, did not obey my will at all. How could something so fundamental have slipped my mind - I asked myself - and then how I was suddenly capable of asking in the first place.
Over the course of those two days - although the denotation should be understood not in a temporal sense, but merely as the course of waking and sleeping - the three voices were present, they talked and explained among each other, sometimes they even laughed - a wonderful new experience on my part, too. Mostly they talked about me, but even though I understood the words, I rarely grasped the meaning.
Day eleven, I was happy. It's not as if in hindsight, there might have been any particular reason; I just did. Perhaps it was a delayed gladness about the recently acquired tactile sense in my extremities - and the anticipation of the day I would be able to move them - more likely, however, the feeling was founded in itself and the very ability to experience it.
On the twelfth day I was able to open my eyes, but I could not see much, glaring lights shining directly into them, and bright tiles around their sources. I also questioned why I had legs, arms, eyes and - since the almost very beginning - ears, for as refreshing all those sensual impressions had been, I now felt quite hollow and unfulfilled in a rather undefined way.
Day thirteen dawned, and I spoke. As soon as I woke up the light voice posed a question which I answered truthfully, and the voice appeared content. I still saw above, before, below, behind or next to me the blinding lights and wondered about the very orientation my slowly awakening body had in this space. I wanted to ask the light voice about it, but my mouth did not obey and I remained silent instead. As a result, the last I felt, for the first time and as the last thing before falling asleep again, was fear.
Finally, on the fourteenth day, I saw the voices' tiny owners, two men and a woman, the latter belonging to the light one. I saw them stand before me and realized that I, too, was in an upright position, although held in place by rigid belts which I felt tightened around my body, possibly not to fall over, because - defying repeated efforts to move them - my limbs remained frozen.

On the last day the shakles fell. My body, my arms and my legs, free to move, and move they did, I stepped forward, carefully, slowly, maybe testing whether both ground and legs were sufficiently stable. Satisfied they were I made another step, and another one, I stepped into the light which had blinded me earlier, now it gleamed not among tiles, but bathed in a bright sea of blue.
I turned around, to the right, back to forward and then to the left, thus seeing all three voice owners, as always talking amongst themselves, yet suddenly I found them exhausting, disturbing, almost unpleasant. I stood there, pausing, thinking what I wanted to do with my newly won agility - freedom! - but before those thoughts had had the time to ripen into something akin to intention, I again turned to the right and realized that the movement of my legs was the direct result of the words spoken by the croaking voice.
And thus I walked in a pace regular and slow, effortlessly keeping up with the three voices, following a path, the blue and the light at my left, stone walls, windows and doors at the right, sometimes other people who did not seem to care at all about my presence.
The path ended inside a big building, filled to the brim with people of varying sizes as well as innumerable wooden, metal and even a few glass receptables. The croaking voice had stopped walking besides one of the boxes; the other two voices must have left us in the meantime - without me even realizing - and had gone somewhere else.
The voice pointed towards the box, larger then itself, it spoke a few short words, and then like a stranger, an outside observer, I could watch myself bend down, grasp the box with my fingers and hands, much higher than the head of the voice owner, and finally, following its explanations and walking behind in its newly taken path, I carried it in front of my chest.
Pride! Pride was the new emotion that I feld when I obeyed the voice, when I followed it through a maze of corridors, lights, large and tiny people, until we passed a wall of glass with water and fish behind. This sight, so entirely fresh and at least as alien as once ago the mere possession of my limbs, it filled my mind with many questions, with curiosity, I wanted to stop and marvel at these wonderful beings, how they floated meekly, elegantly, majestically.

But I did not stop. I kept walking behind the croaking voice, no hesitation, that moment of longing for the creatures behind the glass was shorter than the blink of the eye of that person in front of me, and yet infinitely long. When we had just left behind the water held by the glass, only then did I realize that it hadn't been my legs and arms which never obeyed my will, but the very will itself which did not respond to my feelings, and that it had been like this since the very beginning, since that second in which I was surprised for the first time.
Then I was overwhelmed by a feeling of happiness and satisfaction, I felt warm and safe, some might say I loved the voice, this tiny person, as it finally spoke again, the voice like music in my ears.
"Put the box down over there, by the other ones, golem", it croaked, and I believed myself in paradise as I obeyed.

(2012)

2014-05-13

city light

amidst the chaos, the pounding
fractured lay the world and i
untouchable but by the kiss
toxic breeze on a shattered smile

the dawn that never happened
when i died beneath the thunder
the spent piece of a falling moon
young souls trickled away still

the city lights went out in the morning
in fierce love we drowned soon after
and the very sky we inhaled
dressed handsomely in red and death

the heavens parted peacefully
a thousand suns struck graciously
lit streets and homes in harmony
burnt dreams and children equally
burnt dreams and children equally

the pain was terrible and brief
washed away by the blazing storm
and the covenant with a little boy
true heroes sleep clearly every night

(2014)

2014-04-10

things that never

now the colors on the photograph
fading like the memories
rising waves of agony
from grey to grey in circles

now the things that never
and the things that were
forever in this moment
forever in a loop

now more surreal than the past
ghost are dancing on the surface
reaching out into the silence
and the frozen scars beneath

now is all that's left
the last sliver of a me
chained to the unrelenting
to the grim arrow of time

now i ride the sine wave
and the things that never
i don't know the answer
to the things that were

(2014)

2014-04-09

the grave

up there the great oak towers high
her vast crown covers half the sky
through cracks in tiles her sturdy root
feasts lavishly on ancient soot

when sun and water split the stones
the soil has swallowed our bones
the palaces have turned to dust
nothing remains above the crust

the world again is calm and lush
the ruins reigned by tree and brush
a beauty none has ever seen
the final peace is tinted green

like fools we dream of legacy
and cherish what will never be
for all that matters in the end
is who will reconquer this land

(2014)

2014-03-28

last dance

there we found the fine old lady
on the everlasting, ever-changing
on a thin strip at the edge

we found her sleeping in the warmth
bedded in salt and time
time and ground seashells
this white hot burning sensation
bare feet in glorious pain
our hearts hoped so much

she struggled for words
a day and half a song
till manners and sweat
till tired eyes and a smile
lead the river of joy into the ocean

and the roar resounded
and she rose once more
as strong-willed as rusty
old bones creaked in the wind
a last dance for old time's sake

(2014)

2014-03-24

prophecy

like a hawk on the hunt
you will clench the last straw
inaction becomes unthinkable
and you will start to stir

ravenous and empty
furious and sad
you will devour the truth
to emerge changed forever

and at one point
and you will have to murder
oh, destroy you will
complacency at one point
the signs, they are everywhere


like a turtle on its back
you'll squint into the hole
a passage half open
half overgrown with grey

here you will find peace
arise from the dampness
and peek through the glass
the stars forgotten for good

and at one point
and you will have to twist
oh, distort you will
sanity at one point
the signs, they are everywhere


like a moth to the fire
towards inevitable demise
soon engulfed by decay
the ultimate fate of all things

a single tear will fall
then you will sign the truce
between your ceaseless yearning
and the warm embrace of entropy

and at one point
and you will have to break
oh, snap you will
at one point or later
the signs, they are everywhere

(2014)

2014-02-27

the poet and the warrior

You always travel at my side,
In danger you protect my hide,
You are so strong and proud and brave,
When you're around I know I'm safe.

So expertly you wield the quill,
And shape the words with greatest skill,
Companion in the darkest night,
Together we win every fight.

You lived through many bloody wars,
Now justice is your righteous cause,
How many kings did you defy,
All tyrants fear your battle cry.

You are as witful as you're nice,
And always help me with advice,
I cherish everything you say,
Many a word saved our day.

(2014)

2014-02-10

1E

drown out the onslaught
soothing noise for screaming eyes
all words are needles


2014-02-03

maora knows the path

her deepest slumber
on the stairs to the sky
awakened at dawn
of the day called forever

we thirsted for wisdom
for bliss and the stars
never found ourselves
but the great maora provides

wherever she goes
the fabric will yield
touched ever so gently
space, time and mind

we are your guests
on a majestic journey
mere passing fluctuations
the bystanders of eternity

unfold history anew
life and death, over and over
toss us in, maora
make us live all the dreams

the wheel revolves once more
we can but follow
voyages from dust to dust
only maora knows the path

(2013)

2014-01-19

i never touched sirius

as the fusion fire ceases
like a kiss vaguely remembered
gentle metal, torrid sand

magic, do your part
ride the wind and carve a body
from the dust at journey's end

then as sharply as the sun rays
like knives between the parting doors
revelation and despair

i danced with the centauri trio
i felt tau ceti on my skin
but still nothing can compare

that image burned into my soul
the truth as bare as my new feet
i step out onto the loam

faustianly - the trade complete
a worldless life for a lifeless world
barren wasteland, former home

(2013)