The Sound of the Machine

THE SOUND OF THE MACHINE

In the corner of this
room with a view
on a turbulent world

from a faded picture
god dressed in a harlequins dress
is staring into the semidarkness

a river unceasingly pouring
its tristesse into this world
is flowing past the everburning pyres,
gates to another world

every day again the homeless
fight over the leftovers of those
who always look at you
with their hired smiles

sad tunes from a tango bar
in downtown Buenos Aires
on a Monday morning
reverbarate through the subway station

the monotonous sound
of this ever running machine
cannot be turned off

Ganges

GANGES

from the train station
there is a maze of narrow alleys
taking you down to the Ganges

where summer’s breath
mixed with the grey film
hanging over the city
whispers life is a ghost

in the shelters of the homeless
veiled widows endure their lives in
a frightening state of
solitude

the ghats of the city crowded by people
waiting for that moment
their existence gets carried away by
the everlasting monotony of the river

Land’s End

LAND’S END

There we stood at Land’s End’s rugged landscape
Staring at the sea we tried to imagine the world behind the horizon
Overlooking the dawn of another eventless day,
the light of day was getting brighter and brighter
Only the world around us remained blurred and void as ever
All those people and their strangeness seemed to be so far away
And when the rain finally settled in,
sadness was the only coat to our chaotic souls
But still we were feeling great somehow

Melancholia

MELANCHOLIA

in those sudden moments of Melancholia
just like rivers start to flow
without knowing their estuary
thoughts start digging up shadows of the past

drifting away on such a journey
every second another train is departing
to those far away places
hideaways from daily worries

movies keep on playing
on the screen of the mind
some in black and white
some in the brightest of colors

this scenic road of memories
leading through narrow serpentine curves
across steep ocean cliffs
going nowhere

those voices of the past
full of apathy towards the future
reaching out like lonely sounds
in the silence of a cold winter night

waking up in reality again
we usually retrieve ourselves
queuing again in the rows of normality

surrounded by the run of
humanity and its pursuits
carrying on as usual

Mansardenzimmer

MANSARDENZIMMER

Late at night after the last ill tidings on Deutschlandfunk
Were thrown up into the dreariness of every day life

In this room with its small attic window
Gazing into the emptiness of the starry firmament
Amidst a huge collection of weird music
Black and white images of war bulletins
Flickered indifferently on a small TV screen

The psychosis and solitude of this shelter
Slowly disintegrating life into disorder

Shelter on the Hill

SHELTER ON THE HILL

 Isolated shelter on the hill,

solidly built to stand cold Atlantic breeze

Berlin

BERLIN

Alone standing wall,

which sad stories you want to tell us?

Looking so utterly lonely,

pale and melancholic you are

River

Three o’ clock in the morning

Breathing slow but alive

 

No language, no sound,

Just night and the darkness around

 

Through the stillness of the void

only rhymes the pouring rain

 

And every time I struggle with nothingness

I ponder how, 

far away from here,

my river flows

 

Had no time to choose

to sit at her banks

 

and understand the clarity

beyond her slow and dark stream

Places – Some deeper thoughts

Today I would like to pick in again on the introduction of one of my earlier posts about re-visiting places.

In that post I focused on the fact that if you re-visit places somehow you are confronted with an earlier snapshot of your life, but that as a matter of fact life is a constant process of change.

The question I did not put at the moment is what did actually change? Probably the answer that comes straight away to the mind now is ‘me’. But who or what actually is ‘me’? Is ‘me’ really that what we think that it is?

Train

 

TRAIN

With its mechanical cruelty the train

is rushing forward through the deepest night.

it only stops at stations to make people

board and unboard into new life situations.

 

dusty streets directed passengers to the station,

melancholic thoughts lay like dust on the brain.

 

having parted from places and persons

they might never see again in their lives,

and having turned situations of their stay

into memories they will cling to, surpress or just forget,

people lie down on their allocated berths

snoozing through this transit in time and place

 

the world being in grip of the all covering spell of darkness,

outside the horizons of unknown places are invisible.

the destinies of unknown people living along

the carefully planned tracks of this well scheduled train

remain untold and unfolded and nobody cares.

 

the ticket collector validating this journey,

is a confirmation that on this train there is no return.

the blanket spread out on the berth offers an illusion

of warmth conflicting with the cold inside the mind.

 

as the night grows older a silence takes grip of this train,

but the persisting noise of unfinished thoughts is driving insane.

when the mind is in despair it is good to know somebody is awake,

but that particular night it is good all passengers are deep asleep.

 

tiredness is fighting against the objection of the mind

to end this day and start a new one.

everybody on this train has his destination,

but I do not want to have one.