Where Dionysus still smiles

Outside the crickets sing their summer songs.
It is songs of dust and all too little rain mixed to the distant beat of a tractor.
Outside it is August in the year of 2022.

But inside.
I found an open door and took it as a silent welcome even though it might just have been the wind who had pushed against the gate, over and over again, until the hinges gave way.
But inside.

It is 1960 and the past cools my temples.
It is 1960 and the calendar still counts the days of the year,
every year since,
and loops the present perfect tense without acknowledging the crickets chancing songs outside.

It is 1960
and Dionysus lifts his glass as if to show me that time doesn’t matter
and that present, past or future doesn’t matter
as long as there is wine to harvest and orchards to plant and as long as one does caress the seeds to sleep in long winter’s hours.

Times have changed I try to tell Dionysus but he won’t hear a word of that.
He won’t hear about people having forgotten to listen to the crickets’ worried songs.
He won’t hear about people having forgotten to caress seeds to sleep.
He just smiles his crooked smile.

I already know, he says as I turn to leave the vine vault, as I leave 1960 and as I step back into the outside.

The grapes are ripe, three, four weeks earlier than expected.

ListenListenListen the crickets chant as night falls.

Neujahrsmüdigkeit in den Mundwinklen.

Neujahr in Scherben am Karlsplatz,
ein zackiger Sektflötenabgesang auf 2021.

In der Innenstadt gibt es Glück zu kaufen, schweinrosa.
Die guten Vorsätze können an Hufeisen gebunden werden. Oder an Rauchfangkehrer.
Vorsatz:

• Auf Hoffnung hoffen.
• ?
• Ein Vorsatz reicht.

Rotweiß-rotweiß-rote Schräglage.
Es war einmal ein Licht,
tschak, finster.

Schon am Tag nach Weihnachten
sind wir Last Christmas überdrüssig,
schon am Tag nach Silvester
schmeckt der Punsch nur noch
nach eingefärbtem Zuckerwasser.
Schade, finde ich. Wham geht doch immer.

Sterne bleiben an meinen Sohlen kleben.
Ich streife sie ab und sie glimmen auf, sobald sie die Morgensonne erfasst.

Oslo // Stein und støv.

Am Rande des freischwebenden Paars sitzen Vögel,

sie spiegeln sich im polierten Material,

es spiegelt sich die Sonne und

es spiegelt sich der Himmel.

Ich spiegle mich, bin aber zu weit weg, um mich selbst erkennen zu können.

Anders im Vigelandpark; der Stein schluckt alle Reflektionen in seiner weißen, sonnenerhitzten Ewigkeit. Mein Schatten berührt die Steinriesinnen, streicht über ihre weichen Gesichter und Bäuche und dann finde ich selbst meinen Platz zwischen ihnen.

Wie ein Junges bewacht, wieder einmal auf die eigene Vergänglichkeit gestoßen, aber sie tut gut, die Vergänglichkeit.

Alles andere wäre nicht zu ertragen.

From the inside, I am blinded

I came across a refuge dressed in turquoise tiles and dripping letters whilst debris grinded about the better times.

Tranquility, I thought, but it was a fallacy for the walls were talking to me.

Outside I found the replica of a forest right in a window’s joint.

And that is the cruelty of it all; time is unforgiving.

Let’s drown together

„You have to see the sunrise over Venice“, I was told. But there were clouds in sky.

But all in all, you don’t need a Palazzo –

…and you don’t need the view from the Campanile di San Marco

…or canary birds on balconies,

you don’t need a sweeter sound than laundry drying in the wind

or a more spectacular smell then the remains of the Mercati di Rialto

if you just walk the remote lanes of the city, getting sooner or later inevitably lost.

Basic Patterns of Derangement

More attachment to a city
in its autumn heart I find not only the twilit cold
one could expect
at the end of October
but layered structures that seem to exist in the strangest places.

Walking Oslo once again I wish for more
eyes to notice
more
hands to feel
more
memory to not forget.

Take my rainy mind

As I walked through a friend’s garden,
I noticed autumn’s vanguard.

Funny, I thought.

There doesn’t seem to be anything more beautiful –

than September Rain on a goldfish pond

than rain coated tomatoes (that won’t get red any more)

than a tiny pool bordered by hibiscus petals

than sturdy blossoms awaiting the end of the year.

Try the pondering mind.

I would spend 3000 ₩ on a pack of rice chips to feed the seagulls
and I would have their screams accompany me down the beach.

I would walk across to have a look on the other side (and maybe I would stay there.)

I would wait for the sun to set just to see the magnolia at nightfall (between burial mounds, it is death and short term life, as always.)

And I would be a Koi in cold pond water.

Tripping over a frozen day.

Sometimes when you take the road leading south
even in March
there is snow instead of yellow cornelia blossoms.

But you just have to zip up your spring jacket
and wrap your scarf around your neck for a second time.

Maybe tomorrow
there again
will be
sun.

Probably it is all in your head.

The sun was out in the midmorning and I hope he found something interesting (probably a bug.)

I hope he will have someone to wrap his arms around when his heart gets heavy.

I hope everybody found their shoes again (or at least came to a mutual exchange)

and that he had a great day after all.

I hope they really liked the sound of flags in March wind

and that their next lives are going to be so much better.

I hope that he had all the right tools to fix what needed mending.

I hope we remember love.
I really do.