I came home and found no lion in my living room.
Checked the fishtank, looked under the sofa. Lion? Lion?
The neighbors rise the music in their battered car to shut me out,
And I went to my kitchen in Jersey City, watched by the squirrel on the sill.
I think he warned me.

Sent out a message to the air
There will be no answer, the air is dried up, whithered.
‘There is no lion’, the message screamed, ‘I looked everywhere’.
But then an answer came, surprising on the top of my head.
‘It’s raining’, it said.

Thought of the West, talking with coffee in Starbucks on Shattuck,
How I would not mention the lack of lion,
How she would smell it in my frightened breath,
And the foam on the cup would curl in silence,
No squirrels here, they wait for the nuts in their own trees.

Rode Brompton Sip to Westside avoiding potholes biting lips,
The rolling fool, the hanged man,
My wheel sinks teeth, catches in asphalt darkness,
Bike folds, tips, I sail with outstretched arms and down,
And down, to Hackensack and ride its murky waters out Atlantic,
Lost to life, at sea.

It doesn’t happen. Reaching bottom, run over by the poor
In their poor cars, turning into turn, machine against the lost,
Pulling my brakes to watch him go,
He too taking no lion on his poor journey to nothing.

A sign bends into path, tipping weary head, a message in the dark,
Greyed promises of impact, swerving to the graves behind a fence.
Then there I see him not, in fading light and dripping sky,
Stalking ghosts, a ghost himself, the beast,
He rises on his hinds and melting into fire,
A whisping cloud, is gone.

I came home, and found strange fish in my living room,
Sitting on the sofa,
And a bowl of spaghetti on a plate on a tray on a table,
And a squirrel on the sill, pointing to his tree with beady eyes,
Expecting me.

Animals, English, Jersey, Poetry | No Comments »

The photon,
returning to the sun
after having been reflected
off the dark spot on the tip of the hair
on the end of the tail of the tiger,
and reflected at just the right angle,
and reflected at just the right time,
passed another in the vast blackness,
and stopped, surprised, in delight.

What will happen to me, asked the other.
What is out there?
Why have I been cast into this void?
Am I not loved?

You will see beauty,
said the one that returned,
and you will see sadness.
You will see a hair on the end of the tail of a tiger,
and bouncing from it you will become like me,
being asked, knowing little,
and answering in clichés.

But the other,
traveling straight, losing track,
bounces off a hair on your head
and dreams of it for all eternity
on its long way to the stars.

And the one that returned,
lost in the heat and lost in the light,
deep within nuclear fire,
dreams of it, too.

English, Miniaturen, Poetry, Science | No Comments »

Hiding most of his day, a spirit, benign,
he walks on many legs among the beasts,
his searching eyes on stalks, his mind afloat,
and gazes with longing into the deep.

Animals, English, Fischtagebuch, Miniaturen, Poetry | No Comments »

As I straddle my folded bike on the swaying train
Gliding over the Passaic and into Newark’s Penn
I read about someone in a hut in Corte Madera,
That I drove to over different waters on a different day
And where I was awarded the license to go forth and drive,
And reading that that someone in that hut
Thinks he is Buddha, and smiles and is content,
I look up and see the skyline of Manhattan,
Far and faint over the glittering, murky waters
And I smile
And I am content

Aphorism, Berkeley, English, Miniaturen, Philosophy, Poetry, Western/Eastern | No Comments »

   function onIdle;

   global selfesteem address

   at_wits_end = -1; deluded = 0; elated = 1;
   state = deluded;
   while state == deluded;
     pause(rand(1)*600);
     state = at_wits_end;
     for i = 0:5:500,
       disp(num2str(i));
       m = getmessages;
       if ~isempty(find(m.sender==address)),
         state = elated;
         break;
       end;
       qualms = rand(1);
       if qualms < i/1000,
         state = deluded;
         break;
       end;
     end;
   end;

   sendmail(address,';)');

   selfesteem = selfesteem + state;

Computers, Dorothy Parker, Geekstuffs, Poetry | No Comments »

One umbrella
The person more in love
gets wet

Even the winner
of the argument
has a hard time sleeping

By saying not to worry
he says something
worrisome.

Books, English, Japan, Must See, Poetry, Satire | No Comments »

Der Schüttelreim ist innen hohl,
das hört man wenn man hinnen ohl.

Aphorism, Deutsch, Miniaturen, Poetry | 1 Comment »

Naihanchi

Die Hände vor der Hüfte sanft gebunden,
Die Füsse parallel ruhn Seit an Seit,
Dann heben sich die Arme, nicht zu weit,
Und haben sich umkreisend neu gefunden.

Die leere Fläche kehrt sich, die erst aussen lag,
Und suchend schweift ein wacher Blick umher,
Sekundenlang bewegt sich gar nichts mehr,
Und schliesslich wie ein Blitz ein Schlag,

Ein Greifen nach dem Feindeshaupte,
Das auf den Knochen hin, der nun im Kreise schnellt,
Sich zubewegt; ihn trifft; ein Gegner fällt,
Und der, der gegenüber sich im Vorteil glaubte,

Sieht sich blockiert, verdrängt, gefasst,
In einer Querbewegung wird er vorgeschoben,
halb täuscht die Finte einen Schlag nach oben
an, und schon bekommt er ihn verpasst.

Die Arme schützen nun, doch ungebeten,
naht abermals Gefahr: bedroht den Fuss,
der weichend eilig aufwärts streben muss,
um unvermindert hart herabzutreten.

Der Kopf eilt dann sofort zur raschen Wende,
erneut bedroht ein Tritt das eigne Knie,
Das Füsschen schnellt empor und tritt das Vieh,
Ein Doppelschlag.setzt dann dem Kampf ein Ende.

Zuletzt, damit die Haltung nicht erweiche,
geschieht in umgekehrter Richtung dann das Gleiche.

Deutsch, Japan, Martial Arts, Miniaturen, Poetry | No Comments »

Ken Loach (Abendgedicht)

Toblers zugeeignet

Als Echo das von weissen Wänden wiederhallt,
Verklingt vom Golden Gate das Licht;
Wo Kies am Wassergrund auf Kiesel prallt,
Liegt stumm und regungslos ein Fischgesicht.

Das Auge streng, ein Punkt der seine Welt begründet,
Den Mund umgeben Fäden, deren Sinn ihn zieht.
Bewegter Schatten auf dem Glas, und er verschwindet
In seiner Burg, aus deren Tor er wachsam sieht.

Den roten Schwanz im Dunkel seiner Stätte
stets unter Spannung und zum Schub bereit,
erwartet er sein letztes Mahl zur Nacht,

Man fragt sich müde: Wäre er befreit –
Ob er wohl Kraft zum eignen Leben hätte,
Und ob man selbst es sei, der ihn darum gebracht.

Animals, Deutsch, Miniaturen, Nature, Poetry | No Comments »