Sternschnuppennacht

Catch a falling Star and put it in your pocket!





Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee;
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear
No where
Lives a woman true, and fair.

Wünsche für die Sommerzeit

Ich wünsche dir
bunte Sommerfarben
ins Gewebe deiner Tage,
dass du graue Zeiten bestehen kannst,
ohne in Hoffnungslosigkeit zu versinken.

Ich wünsche dir
Helle Töne der Heiterkeit
in die Melodie deines Lebens,
Befreiung zu Leichtigkeit und Tanz
ohne fliehen zu müssen
vor den Niederungen.

Ich wünsche dir
guten Boden unter deine Füße,
deine Wurzeln hineinzusenken
und genügend Halt zu finden,
um nicht heimatlos zu bleiben
auf dieser Erde.

Antje Sabine Naegeli

Poems 2009

Mein Begleiter durch das Jahr 2009: der Alhambra Poetry Calendar.
Ich genieße es sehr, auf diese Weise zumindest jeden Tag ein Gedicht zu lesen, einen kurzen Sprachrausch, eine kleine Klangoase... und die englische Sprache ist noch viel reichhaltiger und spannender als die deutsche. Der eine oder andere Text wird seinen Weg in den Narrenturm finden, wie z.B. dieser hier:

Snow

by George Bilgere

A heavy snow, and men my age
all over the city
are having heart attacks in their driveways,

dropping their nice new shovels
with the ergonomic handles
that finally did them no good.

Gray-headed men who meant no harm,
who abided by the rules and worked hard
for modest rewards, are slipping

softly from their mortgages,
falling out of their marriages.
How gracefully they swoon—

that lovely, old-fashioned word—
from dinner parties, grandkids,
vacations in Florida.

They should have known better
than to shovel snow at their age.
If only they'd heeded

the sensible advice of their wives
and hired a snow-removal service.
But there's more to life

than merely being sensible. Sometimes
a man must take up his shovel
and head out alone into the snow.

My Last Erotic Poem

by Lorna Crozier

Who wants to hear about
two old farts getting it on
in the back seat of a Buick,
in the garden shed among vermiculite,
in the kitchen where we should be drinking
ovaltine and saying no? Who wants to hear
about 26 years of screwing,
our once-not-unattractive flesh
now loose as unbaked pizza dough
hangirrg between two hands before it's tossed?

Who wants to hear about two old lovers
slapping together like water hitting mud,
hair where there shouldn't be
and little where there should,
my bunioned foot sliding
up your bony calf, your calloused hands
sinking in the quickslide of my belly,
our faithless bums crepitous, collapsed?

We have to wear our glasses to see down there!

When you whisper what you want I can't hear,
but do it anyway, and somehow get it right. Face it,
some nights we´d rather eat a Häagen-Dazs ice cream bar
or watch a movie starring Nick Nolte who looks worse than us.
Some nights we´d rather stroke the cats.

Who wants to know when we get it going
we're revved up, like the first time--honest--
like the first time, if only we could remember it,
our old bodies doing what you know
bodies do, worn and beautiful and shameless.

Valentine

by Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
A wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Antique

by Robert Pinsky

I drowned in the fire of having you, I burned
In the river of not having you, we lived
Together for hours in a house of thousand rooms
And we were parted for a thousand years.
Ten minutes ago we raised our children who cover
The earth and have forgotten that we existed

It was not maya, it was not a ladder to perfection,
It was this cold sunlight falling on this warm earth.

When I turned you went to Hell. When your ship
Fled the battle I followed you and lost the world
Without regret but with stormy recriminations.
Someday far down that corridor of horror the future
Someone who buys this picture of you for the frame
At a stall in a dwindled city will study your face
And decide to harbor it for a little while longer
From the waters of anonymity, the acids of breath.

Du musst das Leben nicht verstehen,

dann wird es werden wie ein Fest.
Und lass dir jeden Tag geschehen
so wie ein Kind im Weitergehen von jedem Wehen
sich viele Blüten schenken lässt.

Sie aufzusammeln und zu sparen,
das kommt dem Kind nicht in den Sinn.
Es löst sie leise aus den Haaren,
drin sie so gern gefangen waren,
und hält den lieben jungen Jahren
nach neuen seine Hände hin.


Rainer Maria Rilke

An Average Day for an Average Liar

by Diane Lockward


The average person tells thirteen lies each day.
—Dr. Georgia Witkin

One, on a day much like any other, I awake with alarm
clock blaring, turn to you, and say, "Your face
is no longer imprinted on my heart."

Two, I aim a dart to the groin, say I’ve taken a paramour.

Three, he’s a man who loves
to build things, handles the adze, hammer, and awl—
his muscular arms, laden with 2 x 4’s, an aphrodisiac.

Four, I say he lives under the cover
of the Witness Protection Program, his name a secret.

Five, he smokes a pipe and smells like figs.

Six, I say he’s a gymnast
in bed, master of every position in the Karma Sutra,
knows what a yoni is and brings it to blossom.

Seven, I praise his intellect, list books he’s read—
Remembrance of Things Past and all twelve volumes
of Dance to the Music of Time which you once insisted
could only be done if one were sentenced to life
in prison, no possibility of parole.

Eight, his sense of humor coruscates. He juggles
double-entendres, scorns puns, perceives irony, relishes
repartée, never steals a punch line, cherishes my bon mots.

Nine, he pens novels of Russian proportions, is adored
by the literati, writes poetry, too, his last collection
favorably reviewed by William Logan.

Ten, he’s slender, a man of sartorial splendor,
whose every garment I’ve memorized--his blue jeans,
each turtleneck, tank, and tee, every sock in his drawer,
and his hiking boots in which he does not walk
but strides like a man on a mission.

Eleven, he hates watching sports on tv, prefers to toss
a salad, knows every kind of lettuce.

Twelve, each morning in our special hotel he brings me
one perfect pastry from the pâtisserie. He bites
from one end, I the other, the custard between us sweet
as French kisses, our tongues foraging like bees
in blossoms, our faces plastered with chocolate.

Thirteen, I turn off the lights and recant, swear
I made him up, fingers crossed behind my back.
I produce tears and fall upon your chest,
and confess, and confess, and confess.

The Park Drunk

by Robin Robertson

He opens his eyes to a hard frost,
the morning's soft amnesia of snow.

The thorned stems of gorse
are starred crystal; each bud
like a candied fruit, its yellow
picked out and lit
by the low pulse
of blood-orange
riding in the eastern trees.

What the snow has furred
to silence, uniformity,
frost amplifies, makes singular:
giving every form a sound,
an edge, as if
frost wants to know what
snow tries to forget.

And so he drinks for winter,
for the coming year,
to open all the beautiful tiny doors
in their craquelure of frost;
and he drinks
like the snow falling, trying
to close the biggest door of all.

zum Anhören

Das ist meine Lieblingszeile:

"What the snow has furred
to silence, uniformity,
frost amplifies, makes singular:
giving every form a sound,
an edge, as if
frost wants to know what
snow tries to forget. "

Ist das nicht wunderschön?


"Note, the esoteric term "craquelure" means "network of small cracks" But more substantially, Robertson's brisk and vivid lines remind us, or anyone with jumbled memories from a night of hard drinking, of the attractive busyness of the intoxicated mind, which tries to "open all the beautiful tiny doors" of random, disinhibited thought. The Park Drunk loves his drunkenness, and thinks his perceptions significant. But really, the guy is just sitting around, wasted. The tragic news Robertson delivers is that his Drunk, to protect himself from that truth ("to close the biggest door of all"), would rather stay in his Park forever. " gefunden hier

She's a mean poet

Reading Sarah Palin’s anguished interview with Greta van Susteren of Fox News just after the election, I had an epiphany: Palin is a poet, and a fine one at that. What the philistine media take for incoherence is, in fact, the fruitful ambiguity of verse.

Here she is, in a work I have taken to calling “The Relevance of Africa.” (Not a single word or comma has been changed, but the line breaks are placed where they naturally fall.) In it, Palin blends the energy of free verse with the austerity of a classic 14-line sonnet.

It reads: “And the relevance to me /With that issue, /As we spoke /About Africa and some /Of the countries /There that were /Kind of the people succumbing /To the dictators /And the corruption /Of some collapsed governments /On the /Continent, /The relevance /Was Alaska’s.”

A great poet needs to leave open the door between the conscious and unconscious; Sarah Palin has removed her door from its hinges. A great poet does not self-censor; Sarah Palin seems authentically innocent of what she is saying. She could be the most natural, visionary poet since William Blake.

The talent of a woman who can improvise a perfect 17-syllable haiku live, in front of 30,000 people —

What’s the difference
Between a hockey mom and
A pit bull? Lipstick

— must not be wasted!

aus Prospect

by Julian Gough

The Poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld

Heute widmet sich der Narrenturm, der Rezeption zeitgenössischer Lyrik. Zwei vielversprechende Neuentdeckungen werden in den nächsten Tagen präsentiert. Den Beginn macht der ehemalige Verteidigungsminister der USA Donald Rumsfeld:

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is an accomplished man. Not only is he guiding the war in Iraq, he has been a pilot, a congressman, an ambassador, a businessman, and a civil servant. But few Americans know that he is also a poet.

Until now, the secretary's poetry has found only a small and skeptical audience: the Pentagon press corps. Every day, Rumsfeld regales reporters with his jazzy, impromptu riffs. Few of them seem to appreciate it.

But we should all be listening. Rumsfeld's poetry is paradoxical: It uses playful language to address the most somber subjects: war, terrorism, mortality. Much of it is about indirection and evasion: He never faces his subjects head on but weaves away, letting inversions and repetitions confuse and beguile. His work, with its dedication to the fractured rhythms of the plainspoken vernacular, is reminiscent of William Carlos Williams'. Some readers may find that Rumsfeld's gift for offhand, quotidian pronouncements is as entrancing as Frank O'Hara's.


And so Slate has compiled a collection of Rumsfeld's poems, bringing them to a wider public for the first time. The poems that follow are the exact words of the defense secretary, as taken from the official transcripts on the Defense Department Web site.

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

Glass Box
You know, it's the old glass box at the—
At the gas station,
Where you're using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can't find it.
It's—

And it's all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But—

Some of you are probably too young to remember those—
Those glass boxes,
But—

But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.

—Dec. 6, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

A Confession
Once in a while,
I'm standing here, doing something.
And I think,
"What in the world am I doing here?"
It's a big surprise.

—May 16, 2001, interview with the New York Times

Happenings
You're going to be told lots of things.
You get told things every day that don't happen.

It doesn't seem to bother people, they don't—
It's printed in the press.
The world thinks all these things happen.
They never happened.

Everyone's so eager to get the story
Before in fact the story's there
That the world is constantly being fed
Things that haven't happened.

All I can tell you is,
It hasn't happened.
It's going to happen.

—Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

The Digital Revolution
Oh my goodness gracious,
What you can buy off the Internet
In terms of overhead photography!

A trained ape can know an awful lot
Of what is going on in this world,
Just by punching on his mouse
For a relatively modest cost!

—June 9, 2001, following European trip

The Situation
Things will not be necessarily continuous.
The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous
Ought not to be characterized as a pause.
There will be some things that people will see.
There will be some things that people won't see.
And life goes on.

—Oct. 12, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

Clarity
I think what you'll find,
I think what you'll find is,
Whatever it is we do substantively,
There will be near-perfect clarity
As to what it is.

And it will be known,
And it will be known to the Congress,
And it will be known to you,
Probably before we decide it,
But it will be known.

—Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

By Hart Seely
Posted Wednesday, April 2, 2003, at 1:03 PM ET
im Magazin Slate

Gute-Nachtgedicht für Minkasia

ein kleines fröhliches November-Stück:


Wieder brach er bei dem Nachbarn ein,
und ich hatte Tür und Fenster offen,
meine Augen waren vollgesoffen
wie zwei Schwämme vom Verlassensein.

Dumm verknäulte sich in meinem Mund
Schluchzen, Bitten und verbohrtes Drohen,
während drüben schon die Hühner flohen
samt der Katze und dem alten Hund.

Doch er kam nicht, nahm sich wieder nur
einen, der noch gerne leben wollte,
und die Monduhr, die verrückte, rollte
meine Stunde rasch aus seiner Spur

Bitter trocknen mir die Augen ein,
bitter rinnt der Schlaftrunk durch die Kehle,
bitter bet´ ich für die arme Seele
und zerkaue mein Verlassensein.

Christine Lavant
1956

PSST! Es ist Herbst

Von Hellmuth Opitz

PSST! Es ist Herbst,
Madame.
Die Nacht spielt schon ein
kühles Saxophon.
Der Wind wirbelt durch Ihre
Schulterblätter, wenn Sie Atem
holen gehen in dieser
ausgeknipsten Stadt.
Ich weiß: Die Tür
Ihres Geschlechts ist nur
angelehnt, Madame. Von dort
fällt manchmal ein Spalt
Helligkeit in meine
Tunneltage.
Aber Herz beiseite:
Gehen Sie, Madame, gehen
Sie diesen von spitzen Schuhen
angestachelten Gang, den Takt
des Westens.
Die Nacht spielt schon ein
kühles Saxophon.


Die Accessoires dieser Liebespoesie werden äußerst lässig herbeizitiert. Das betrifft das "kühle Saxophon der Nacht" ebenso wie die "Tunneltage" der Depression. Die Liebesträume des lyrischen Subjekts garniert der Autor mit dezenten erotischen Anspielungen, die auch schon mal einen kalauernden oder obszönen Beiklang haben können; etwa wenn der "Spalt /Helligkeit" in die Grübeleien des Liebenden fällt. Hellmuth Opitz kultiviert eine ebenso spielerische wie ironisch-elegante Liebespoesie - in einem Genre, in dem fast immer Sentimentalität und Süßlichkeit triumphieren, ist das eine literarische Großtat.

Herbst

Oktoberbüsche, kahl und naß,
Verfaulter Nüsse Riß,
Im rauhreifübereisten Gras
Des Nebels kalter Biß.

Wie eine Wabe, ausgeleert,
Die Sonnenblume starrt.
Der Wind, der durch die Dornen fährt,
Klirrt wie ein Messer hart.

Peter Huchel

ikarus

das herz randvoll
mit himmel
als die erde
mein raubvogel
immer größer
und dunkler werdend
mich mitten
im flüchtigen traum
schlug

Doris Runge

Herbst

Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß.
Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren,
und auf den Fluren lass die Winde los.

Befiehl den letzten Früchten voll zu sein;
gib ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage,
dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage
die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein.

Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr.
Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben,
wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben
und wird in den Alleen hin und her
unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Die Kraft der Sehnsucht

Dieses Wochenende bin ich nicht auf der faulen Haut gelegen, sondern habe in einem bibliotherapeutischen Workshop nach Wünschen und Träumen für meine Zukunft geforscht. Sehr zu empfehlen, für alle schreibfreudigen Suchenden, sind alle Seminare von Carmen Unterholzer.

Die Schlussaufgabe war, angeregt vom folgendem Gedicht, eine Utopie, einen subversiven Text zu verfassen. Wer mag es probieren?


Marie Luise Kaschnitz
Frauenfunk

Eines Tages sprech ich im Rundfunk
Gegen Morgen wenn niemand mehr zuhört
Meine gewissen Rezepte

Gießt Milch ins Telefon
Laßt Katzen hecken
In der Geschirrspülmaschine
Zerstampft die Uhren im Waschtrog
Tretet aus Euren Schuhen

Würzt den Pfirsich mit Paprika
Und das Beinfleisch mit Honig

Lehrt eure Kinder das Füchsinneneinmaleins
Dreht die Blätter im Garten auf ihre Silberseite
Beredet euch mit dem Kauz

Wenn es Sommer wird zieht euren Pelz an
Trefft die aus den Bergen kommen
Die Dudelsackpfeifer
Tretet aus Euren Schuhen

Seid nicht so sicher
Daß es Abend wird
Nicht so sicher
Daß Gott euch liebt.

Die gestundete Zeit

Es kommen härtere Tage.
Die auf Widerruf gestundete Zeit
wird sichtbar am Horizont.
Bald mußt du den Schuh schnüren
und die Hunde zurückjagen in die Marschhöfe.
Denn die Eingeweide der Fische
sind kalt geworden im Wind.
Ärmlich brennt das Licht der Lupinen.
Dein Blick spurt im Nebel:
die auf Widerruf gestundete Zeit
wird sichtbar am Horizont.

Drüben versinkt dir die Geliebte im Sand,
er steigt um ihr wehendes Haar,
er fällt ihr ins Wort,
er befiehlt ihr zu schweigen,
er findet sie sterblich
und willig dem Abschied
nach jeder Umarmung.

Sieh dich nicht um.
Schnür deinen Schuh.
Jag die Hunde zurück.
Wirf die Fische ins Meer.
Lösch die Lupinen!

Es kommen härtere Tage.


Ingeborg Bachmann

Italien Tag 5

Urlaubslaune

Sonnenheißes Lichtgeflimmer
Wasserklares Sandgeglimmer
Himmelmeerblau Wolkenschiffe
Regenbogenschimmernd Riffe
Glitzerfische groß und klein
Laue Brisen salzluftrein
Palmenwedel wedeln wiegend
Pelikane schweben fliegend
Möwensegeln Seegekreisch
Muschelknirschen perlmuttweiß
Meerschaumrauschen Windgesang
Meerjungfrauen Haarestang
Morgenröte rosenhell
Abendstimmung milchpastell
Weite Strände zuckermehlig
Und die Laune urlaubseelig


Jutta Kounovsky

Sommer

Ilse Kleberger

Weißt du, wie der Sommer riecht?
Nach Birnen und nach Nelken,
nach Äpfeln und Vergissmeinnicht,
die in der Sonne welken,
nach heißem Sand und kühler See
und nach nassen Badehosen,
nach Wasserball und Sonnenkrem,
nach Straßenstaub und Rosen.

Weißt du, wie der Sommer schmeckt?
Nach gelben Aprikosen
und Walderdbeeren, halb versteckt
zwischen Gras und Moosen,
nach Himbeereis, Vanilleeis
und Eis aus Schokolade,
nach Sauerklee vom Wiesenrand
und Brauselimonade.

Weißt du, wie der Sommer klingt?
Nach einer Flötenwiese,
die durch die Mittagsstille dringt:
Ein Vogel zwitschert leise,
dumpf fällt ein Apfel in das Gras,
der Wind rauscht in den Bäumen.
Ein Kind lacht hell, dann schweigt es schnell und möchte lieber
träumen.