"But" can be such a negative word, but not in this poem ...
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
"Without You" is a quite common title, but this poem captures the ambiguity we feel about someone so beautifully ...
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" is what I encourage my patients to do ...
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
But "Perhaps" is their way to cope ...
Remembering
that is
perhaps
the most painful way
of forgetting
and perhaps
the kindest way
of easing
this pain
I have often been asked why I love poetry so much, and "One Hour" does explain it all ...
I have spent one hour
correcting
a poem that I have written
One hour
That means: In this time
1400 small children died of starvation
because every 2½ seconds
one child under five starves to death
in our world
Also for one hour
the arms race continued
and 62 million eight hundred thousand dollars
were spent in this one hour
for the protection of various powers
from each other
for the military spendings of the world
at the moment amount to
550 billion dollars per year
Our country also
contributes its mite
The question arises
if it still makes sense
to write poems
with the way things are
It maybe true
that some poems are about
military spendings and war
and starving children
But others are about
love and aging and
meadows and trees and mountains
and also about poems and pictures
If it wasn't also for
all these other things
then nobody really cares
about children and peace either anymore.
