68

A house by the sea
forever feels it is a ship
just put ashore.

Every night it traipses
across endless oceans,
ages and spaces.

All around is a drift of stars
deep within weeps a hearth
that no one will light.

As a dog misses its master,
so the house by the sea
pines for its captain.

9

The scalpel and the metronome
on my father’s piano
kept silence between them,
when I was a child.

Only now, given time,
have I started to hear,
to heed
their strange tales.

They trim time to a sliver.

15

When the fear of death looms large
so that all flight is futile,
we make haste to meet it.

We hurl ourselves into the abyss,
head for the gas oven,
make for the mirror.
Each to our own.

Fear is the gravest
gravitation.

33

Middle-aged and overweight
depressive alcoholic
wishes to buy some rope.

It can be flax,
or better yet hemp,
reasonable price preferred.

He is of black and briny bent,
long trained in the art of knotting
in methodical despair, all alone
he tars his boat and mends the sails.

Water is already gushing
from the gates of heaven.

74

All that is is utterable
in another language
that we forget at birth.

The odd word still comes to mind –
as we stroll by the sea perhaps
without a thought, without a care,
without a single cent …

The stones speak it slowly
without the slightest accent.

76

I lingered long by the sea
idly combing the beach
for this and for that.

Back home I emptied out my bag:
seven stones and a single
birdshitty poem.

35

There are three in the cave:
man, woman and sword.
All else is only shadow play.

Did I mention fire?
Fire was and is
forever future, the great hereafter
in cave, crypt and script.

A primal rite binds words –
rhythm magic,
hum and hymn in sync
after the world –

for the world.

62

Tomorrow is the light of all things.

Folding the world up as well as out
flipping the pages, reading the stars,
forgetting the thought
that bore its origins.

It runs rings in the blood
and is still to be written on water.

69

Go on then, sun,
take my spring-shy body,
which has frozen with time –
ever since you crossed
the tropic and were lost.

There is nothing new here –
winter wolves and summer gnats –
and a drowned sailor`s bride
who mindlessly wanders
the watery rim of the world.

77

The lively expression of life flows on
no fits and starts, no flights of fancy,
free and infinitely faceted
unruffled and full of force.

The art lies in deciding
where on earth art starts.
Wave readers still run the risk
of losing the ocean.

79

With a view to living more clearly,
I plumb the very depths
of language and dream,
hoping to hit upon
a revelation unveiled.

Whatever the case,
the secret is the same:
to catch so as to
release.

90

Stark and scant is the nordic light.
Sledges are heavy-shadow drawn,
owls and wolves keep watch.
The Word grinds between teeth.

I don’t know, I can’t cope here,
I freeze in the grip of history.
All borders are binding,
each story is sealed.

What I am talking about is
the dustmote dance
in the fathomless sun.

(Translated by Miriam McIlfatrick.)