Poppy
Between the remains of the burnt down
factory buildings that finally belong to
the wind and the adolescent taggers
here where my parents plagued each other
years-long from shift to shift and the
beauty of my mother sank into a
metal locker here grows with shy
condescension as one knows it
from young girls and mirrored in
bottle shards a stalk of red poppy
* * * * *
Sundays
On Sundays the game
with the ball in the dark
corner of the yard where
rusted out tools
lay and my father once
stepped on a nail I found
the bloody shoe under a
lawn chair strange
ship with pain-sails there
it had run aground
with his language
that no one understood
* * * * *
The Hülsenbeck Children
Philipp Otto Runger, 1805/06
The Hülsenbeck children
those were children who
loved each other one often met them
in the garden the youngest sitting
in a tiny wagon pulled
by the siblings but
how was that did they ever
reach the house the table with the
supper father and mother the
sunflowers stood high
that summer we searched in
ponds in graves they remained
vanished in the house the parents
withered so it goes
* * * * *
Rembetika for Cavafy
On your beautiful young men who
sometimes visited your grave
dust falls today they are naked
as you like it best and
pluck at themselves bored
evening light seeps through the
shutters their lovers are coming
from the harbor antique sailors who
love on the floorboards and in the
room a scent of diesel and
ocean what is your hand doing old
poet just now their kisses
pain you in this dirty
city their goodbyes their
muscles the motor coaches droning
like an empty poem