Toy on Target

1 

Dropping 

toys 

instead of bombs 

for the Festival of the Children 

that 

said the market researchers

will doubtlessly

make an impression 

It has made

a great

impression

on the whole world 

2 

If the aeroplane

had dropped the toys 

a fortnight ago 

and only now the bombs 

my two children

thanks to your kindness

would have had something to play with

for those two weeks

 

 (On the day of the Vietnamese ‘Festival of the Children’ US bombers dropped toys, even on villages where shortly before children had been killed by their bombs)

Thank you to Roland Rance for sending this poem .  

 

A Jew to Zionist Fighters,

 

What do you actually want?
Do you really want to outdo
those who trod you down
a generation ago
into your own blood
and into your own excrement
Do you want to pass on the old torture
to others now
in all its bloody and dirty detail
with all the brutal delight of torturers
as suffered by your fathers?
Do you really want to be the new Gestapo
the new Wehrmacht
the new SA and SS
and turn the Palestinians
into the new Jews?
Well then I too want,
having fifty years ago
myself been tormented for being a Jewboy
by your tormentors,
to be a new Jew with these new Jews
you are making of the Palestinians
And I want to help lead them as a free people
into their own land of Palestine
from whence you have driven them or in which you plague them
you apprentices of the Swastika
you fools and changelings of history
whose Star of David on your flags
turns every quicker
into that damned symbol with its four feet
that you just do not want to see
but whose path you are following today

 

1988

 

 

 

What It Is (Was es ist)

It is madness
says reason
It is what it is
says love

It is unhappiness
says caution
It is nothing but pain
says fear
It has no future
says insight
It is what it is
says love

It is ridiculous
says pride
It is foolish
says caution
It is impossible
says experience
It is what it is
says love.

 

 

 

 

Bush with Heart-shaped Leaves (Strauch mit herzfِrmingen Blنttern)

 

Warm summer rain:
When a heavy drop falls
the whole leaf quivers.
So my heart quivers
each time your name falls on it.

 

 

 

But (Aber)

 

At first I fell in love
with the brightness of your eyes
with your laugh
with your joy in life

Now I love your weeping too
and your fear of life
and the helplessness
in your eyes

But I will help you
with your fear
for my joy in life
is still the brightness of your eyes

 

 

1986

 

Without You (Ohne dich)

 

Not nothing
without you
but not the same

Not nothing
without you
but perhaps less

Not nothing
but less
and less

Perhaps not nothing
without you
but not much more

 

 

Cancellation

 

Being able to breathe out
one's unhappiness

breathe out deeply
so that one can
breathe in again

And perhaps also being able to speak
one's unhappiness
in words
in real words
which are coherent
and make sense
and which one can
understand oneself
and which perhaps
someone else can understand
or could understand

And being able to try

That again would
almost be
happiness

 

 

 

 

An Attempt

 

I have attempted
- while working -
to try
thinking of my work
and not of you

And I am happy
that the attempt
did not succeed.

 

 

 

Perhaps

 

Remembering
that is
perhaps
the most painful way
of forgetting
and perhaps
the kindest way
of easing
this pain