Next ten stanzas of Deutschland Sommer 2008

XXI

Interpret
loneliness
and obsession
with greed
as a father
fails
to flee
poverty.

The patrimony
places form
against
a strategy
of lifelong
worthlessness.


XXII

Paulus
born
during Prussia's
rise
serves
culture's norms.


Cannibalism
exists
in shining ranks
as winter
falls
like wolves
on dying sheep.


XXIII

As Scholl's father,
Paulus creates
the white rose.
His fear
flings
the three hundred thousand
to their fate
and emboldened students
say what others dare not.

Personal fear
subjected to madness
threads
the string
of heresy.

What did he fear?
Frozen steppes,
Russian camps,
or a madman's rage.
Did he imagine
the blade falling
onto children's necks?

XXIV

He defended
beyond human limit.
Weakness
caused him
to wait
as dying men
scraped
flesh
from bones.

XXV

Fear brings bravery,
as a man screams
and pounds his fist
against fist.

XXVI

Childhood traumas
birth
these men
of the present,
who obsess
over
the hidden past.


XXVII


He defends order
in a chaotic rant,
the other
stands
ordered
in chaos.

Severed heads
shine
and spurt
blood,
as leaflets fall
from Liberators.

XXVIII

Constructed dreams
stand
as long
as dreamers sleep.

Awake the dreamer
with the real.

XXIX

Madness protects
the most fearful
in an ordered
amber.

XXX

The guillotine
severs
light from dark,
shuts the eyes,
and stills all thoughts.

Sharpened
and efficient
it falls
like entropy,
as the discarded corpse
begins the journey
anew.

Next Ten Paragraphs---Deutschland Sommer 2008

XI

Can I not release
the arrow from the composite bow
and drive the iron shaft
deep into the stag’s
crimson flesh?

XII

Drinking weissen Bier
mixed with lemonade
on Zurich’s boulevard,
I feel the girl’s brown hand
on my back
pushing me north
toward Suttgart’s
valley and Freud’s
dark tunnel.

XIII

Wolves run in the Schwarzwald.
While time ticks away,
wolf-girls in Dirndls
dance down wind
of the lone wolf.

XIV

A cannibal sees only edible parts;
wolf-girls seek status in the pack.
Will the ordered
share the same plane with daemons?

XV

Do not seek the cannibal’s
soul in his eyes.
He sees only flesh
and tastes only blood.

XVI

The Paulus effect
defines the fact
that honorable men
receive lies from weak men
humbled by the reality
of their lives.

Business
corrupts us
and wolf-girls
bind us,
as ravens
stay our hand.

XVII

The snail slides
along the frozen edge
of the fennel’s
leaf as the funicular
flees the flatland.

Wolf-girls follow
the scent of the raven’s wing
and light a candle
in Montmartre.

XVIII

The brightest persona
hides the darkest shadow.

XIX

From Dali
he stole the snail
and from Jung
he followed the raven
to the wolf’s door.

He lived alone
in a world
growing darker.

XX

Deutschland soured
the madness
in his blood.

He left the cannibal
hungering for more,
as the wolf-girl
descended
into his shadow’s
ruthless
solitude.

Deutschland Sommer 2008

I just returned from Germany, where I had a burst of poetical energy. The result is a very long poem, influenced by my eternal fascination with the theme of order verses chaos. Here is the first ten parts.

Deutschland Sommer 2008

to Detlef

I

In a moment of doing,
the anxiety
of not doing
arrests
a dangerous
and restless sigh.

II

Chaos balances
a guilty respite
beneath lacquered trees,
forged out of gray
stones
on an estate
in Frankfurt.

Porsches parked
placidly
under linden trees
await the patrons
of the sculpture garden.

Deutschland defeats Portugal
in a solid press
against the goal,
unexpected by the Latins
with their vibrant stance.

Turkey awaits their turn.

III

Dynamic chaos
as quality
espouses darkness,
while a static embrace
affects the old regime
years before the Chancellor.

Bismarck creates a social order,
which challenges the Victorians.

IV

The white rose stands
against the stones
of the Mariensplatz,
while rain
falls on Bogenhausen
greening the oily boots
with slime.

The waitress in the dirndl
howls like a wolf
and for the first time
the sign of the wolf-girl
appears as a sigil
in the sky.

V

The city of the white rose
awaits the return
of Celan’s bane
and Grass
twists
history’s verdict
with slick
refusals.

VI

Balance
as theme
resides
in most dreams;
its images
speak real
words
in existence’s fantasy.

VII

Parker Posey
told me
in a dream
to read Pirsig’s Lila
and I did,
thus the flow
from the center
toward the surface
forces me to ford
the unconscious
stream
that wets
my leg.

VIII

The museum
featured the myth
of Marsyas,
an old theme,
that reminds me
the puer
reeks of dynamic
quality,
while the Senex
sinks
into static mud
and stinks like
a sty
before it hardens
into rock
that forms
the base for all launches
into primal space.

IX

Static quality
traps wolf-girls
in a singular,
sinister madness.

Dynamic quality
points
like an iron-tipped
arrow
shot forward
into the hollow blackness
of the universe.

X

To proceed forward
we must grasp
dangerous toys
like a child.