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Contemporary International Poetry
9903:45
Peter Horn

                                                                    for Antje Krog


Beer soup produces a certain character,
or stinging nettles as cheap spinach.
Maybe that's the reason why I
mistrust people in BMWs
and regular guys with bulges
under their armpits.

On the steps my son sat
with his father's face in his hands
covered in blood, and he cried:
"Daddy, talk to me!"

The production of literature
is an obsessional neurosis
of poets who sometimes break their neck
contemplating the astonishing discovery
that the sun is rectangular
a slit between two snow clouds.

Cut-off hands floating in ether
ears nailed as trophies against the wall
bodies held by their ankles
floating three stories above the cement
in the court yard: and they play
catch me my foot.

Sometimes you scream
because you cannot stand reality any longer
and then you sit down and vomit your anger
onto clean sheets of white paper.

No poetry should come forth from this.
May my hand fall off if I write this.