Poems

Poet’s work

Grandfather
  advised me:
    Learn a trade

I learned
  to sit at desk
    and condense

No layoff
  from this
    condensery

Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.

my grandfather and home

i

my grandfather used to count the days for return with his fingers
he then used stones to count
not enough
he used the clouds birds people

absence turned out to be too long
thirty six years until he died
for us now it is over seventy years

my grandpa lost his memory
he forgot the numbers the people
he forgot home

ii

i wish i were with you grandpa
i would have taught myself to write you
poems volumes of them and paint our home for you
i would have sewn you from soil
a garment decorated with plants
and trees you had grown
i would have made you
perfume from the oranges
and soap from the skys tears of joy
couldnt think of something purer

iii

i go to the cemetery every day
i look for your grave but in vain
are they sure they buried you
or did you turn into a tree
or perhaps you flew with a bird to the nowhere

iv

i place your photo in an earthenware pot
i water it every monday and thursday at sunset
i was told you used to fast those days
in ramadan i water it every day
for thirty days
or less or more

v

how big do you want our home to be
i can continue to write poems until you are satisfied
if you wish i can annex a neighboring planet or two

vi

for this home i shall not draw boundaries
no punctuation marks

The Fisherman

People arrive by water, unspeaking ones
keeping close to the hulls of the anchored ships,
startling at the bump as they heave to.

                                                    Early summer breathes
soft and low, wafts the curtains, caresses
grass, lightly stirs the hair.
It's sunrise, it is the hour
when nets are lifted, the hour of tremulous light,
its hesitant, uncertain brightening
from house to house as it conjures voids
and visions that abscond - look -
over the trees and beyond the hedges.

A time suspended between what is hidden
and what stands open, when it seems
the real is not inside us, but in some oracle
or miracle about to reveal itself, a time
that dupes men - and any hope it inspires
can be hope only for a sign or wonder.

My mood detaches me, makes me strange
shades by the water's edge
and on the wet sand: I keep watching them
behind those spars and stunted poplar trees.

Forgive me, it is a mark of the human
to search out, as I do, what is close to us,
humble and real, in hidden places -
there and nowhere else. I crane my neck
to follow with anxious eyes the fisherman
who comes over to the breakwater and hauls
from the sea what the sea allows,
a few gifts from its never-ending turmoil.

Manntje, Manntje, Timpe Te,
Buttje, Buttje inne See,
myne Fru de Ilsebill
will nich so, as ik wol will.