Poetry

LITERARY PROGRAMME

any country
that claims to be absolute
I will resist

any party
that claims to be absolute
I will resist

any religion
that claims to be absolute
I will resist

all those who strive for power
just to achieve power
I will resist

with my actions
with my words

Vienna, 18.3.1987
Translated by Hilde Spiel

EXPUNGE

expunge

the words
the images

going home
into nothingness

Vienna, 28.6.1980
Translated by Herbert Kuhner

POETRY

sitting there and thinking
writing a poem

while others die
due to disease and starvation

due to war and violence
due to indifference

sitting there and thinking
writing a poem

while day after day
the forest burns

the climate changes
the world is poisoned

sitting there and thinking
writing a poem

placing word after word
constructing a system

day after day
trying to stay alive

living in language
living in a poem

Wien/Vienna, 17.3.1991
Translated by Herbert Kuhner

RETROSPECTIVE

at the time
there was this tree
and this white house
with its blue windows
and our reflection
in the blind panes
names erased
long ago
suddenly were there again
the signs
carved into the brown wood
the thinking
the unknown dead
and the mourning
for those never to be seen again

Wien/Vienna, 3.2.1976
Tranlsated by Herbert Kuhner

AGAIN AND AGAIN

again and again
I ask myself how it was
again and again
I ask myself how it was
being extinguished
again and again
I attempt to comprehend
but nothing can bring you back
I feel hatred for your murderers
grief and despair
about your destruction
Vienna, 14.2.1976
Translated by Annemarie Susanne Nowak

SO WE DO NOT DIE OUT

so we do not die out
in memory

we are buried
in a white shell
made of you and me and us

the wind carries us away
and throws us on land

seven hills are a grave
for our hope

the sky is resurrection
corn flowers and wheat ears
are symbols of mourning

and an empty hand
is a beggar’s cup
for this life

Vienna, 8.11.1976
Translated by Herbert Kuhner

THE MATZO ISLAND

Vienna’s second district
Taborstraße Tandelmarkt
from time to time I go there
park my car in a courtyard
look up the walls and think
this is where they stood
silently in the cold
with their bundles
ready to be transported
not knowing whereto
delivered up to power
awaiting transportation
then the trains heading
right up to death’s door
and then right through it
an endless line of people
countless victims piles of bodies
and then nothing but ash
Vienna’s second district
Praterstraße Heinestraße
Tandelmarkt Matzo Island
everything expunged
vanished into nothing
gone forever
the windows are blind
the walls are mute
cars drive by
and I sadly go my way
the days are not as they were
they are stained with blood
horror has turned to stone

Vienna, 29.9.1987
Translated by Herbert Kuhner

NIGHT OF BROKEN GLASS

brown brood
in a night of red

the synagogues
burn

the Nazi hordes
beat and plunder

glass
breaks

as do
human rights

the mob
curses the Jews

violence reigns
everywhere

and years later
no one is to blame

and no one
was ever there

and no one
can still remember

Vienna, 15.3.1989
Translated by Herbert Kuhner

MAUTHAUSEN 1967

Mauthausen
splendid pearl
in Strudengau

I still tremble
when I drive through
in the heat
of a summer trip

Mauthausen
now a health resort
due to its mild climate
due to its lovely environs
due to its well-kept center
due to its well-run restaurants
a growing town
with a monument
as a tourist attraction

But I can still
sense
the sweet smell

MAUTHAUSEN

Vienna, 3.2.1976
Translated by Herbert Kuhner

MAUTHAUSEN 1987

I go into
the KZ

I walk
across the square

I enter
one of the barracks

I go down
the stairs of death

and go back
up again

I stand
in the forecourt of death

I grasp the handle
for the hanging

I inspect the gas lines
for the gassing

I open a window
and see the sky

Haslach, 12.10.1987
After a visit of the former KZ Mauthausen
Translated by Annemarie Susanne Nowak

THERESIENSTADT
(A photograph)

across the meadow
the path to the end

grey in grey the parc
the church two houses

a person in the corner
motionsless shadow

bordered by trees
the glimpse to the sky

lifelessness I think
everything as if it’s dead

the word Theresienstadt
I say suddenly loud

to myself and wait
as if an echo would come back

Vienna, 16.5.1999
Translated by James A. Ritchie

LET US LEAVE

let us leave
these died-out spaces
these empty ruins
the flickering white field
of lies
let us stop
hatred violence and death
and wait no longer
for what time brings
to live a life
to die a death
let us do away

with legends
of genocide
as historical process
of development
let us all carry
life where
there no longer is any

Vienna, 1.2.1976
Translated by Herbert Kuhner

AFTER AUSCHWITZ

after Auschwitz
one cannot write
poetry anymore
said Theodor Adorno Wiesengrund

but what’s the use
of this rejection of life
for the extinguished the dead

what’s the effect of
silencing and remaining silent
and the attitude of renunciation
for the future of mankind

isn’t it better
to talk about it again and again
also with a poem
that the danger continues to exist

isn‘t it better
to bear witness again and again
for each time to come
and to remind to be alert

so that Auschwitz
isn’t consigned to history
becoming a mere historical case

to talk about Auschwitz must mean
to give voice to the reality
of mankind

and to admit
that nothing is anymore
and nothing will ever be again
as it was before Auschwitz

Vienna, 3.2.1975
Translated by Annemarie Susanne Nowak

AUSCHWITZ

to examine all the words
on the things

on the spectacles
on the shoes
on the cut off hair

on the brown suitcases
with the names

painful pictures
documents of horror

the stacked up
cans of cyclone-B

the broken doll
in the glass case

the long rows
in the latrine hut

the iron tools
in the crematories

to examine all the words
on reality

red roses bloom
in Auschwitz

and the sky
is blue 

Auschwitz, 20.6.1999
Translated by James A. Ritchie/A.S.Nowak

WARSAW GHETTO

A stone
from my heart
I lay on the monument.

How can one speak
with millions of dead
I ask myself.

The church bells
strike midday.

The lime trees bloom,
it smells of jasmine.

For Germans only –
I read silently

on a white enamel plate
in the museum.

A stone I lay
on the black marble

as a sign
of mourning memory.

Warsaw, 15.6.1999
Translated by James A. Ritchie/A. S. Nowak

LOVE POEM

I want to
share with you

the words
the silence

the water
the sky

the warmness
the coldness

the evening
the night

the flowers
the light

Vienna, 3.5.1980
Translated by Annemarie Susanne Nowak

LOVE POEM

I promise
I will not
search for you

I promise
I will not
think of you

I promise
I will not
mourn for you

I promise
I will not
remember you

Vienna, 23./30.1.1981
Translated by Annemarie Susanne Nowak

LOVE POEM

into the sky
into the clouds

into the sound
of the sea

into the silence
of the night

into the green
of the meadows

into the vastness
of the fields

I write
that I love you

For Annemarie Susanne Nowak
Vienna, 25.6.1981
Transalated by Annemarie Susanne Nowak

LOVE POEM

sadness
written in your hair

words
hidden in your hand

a smile
that makes me tremble

a sense of being there
as if you had left

and a trace
of love and death

Vienna, 30.11.1986
Translated by Herbert Kuhner

LOVE POEM

when you said
the summer
is over

the shadow
of your face
fell on me

outside the seagulls
were already flying

and my heart
began to freeze
in the cold

who will be here
for me in spring

I thought to myself
when the magnolias
bloom in their splendor

Vienna, 21.3.1990
Translated by Herbert Kuhner

LOVE POEM

in one of your dreams
I want to live on

in your white breath
on a winter’s night

in one of your steps
when you walk our ways

in that silence in the room
when you listen to music

in a red blossom of a flower
before your window

for a while I want
to live on in you

after my death

For Annemarie Susanne Nowak
Vienna, 24.8.1999
Translated by Annemarie Susanne Nowak

EVENING BY THE SEA

a seagull flies
over the sea

dark clouds
afar on the horizon

green is the tree
in front of my window

I think back
to earlier years

finding myself again
in memory

but as if I were
a stranger therein

Lanterna near Porec in Istria, 31.8.1999
Translation: Annemarie Susanne Nowak

EVENING IN VENICE

black gondolas
loving couples

reflections
dancing wildly

church domes
evening light

your red lips
on a glass

my train will leave
in one hour

Venice, Easter 1978
Translation: Annemarie Susanne Nowak

RILA MONASTERY

three candles
I have lit
before the icon of Madonna

one for my father
one for my mother
one for my brothers and sisters

then I stayed
in the church for a while
without a prayer

for I thought
this silence is good
it satisfies everyone

the living
and the dead

Rila Monastery in Bulgaria, 2.11.1991
Translation: A. S. Nowak/J. A. Ritchie

IN A CAFÉ IN PRAGUE

the unknown face of an old man
behind a white framed window
on a photograph
in a café in Prague
looking at me inquiringly
and curiously

outside the evening
fades away grey-blue
in the last light
people go hastyly or wearyly
somewhere
a girl standing at the tram stop

suddenly I think of
a distant spring
a bygone love

in a newspaper I see
a picture of people
in basement vaults
and I know
there is still war in Chechenya

Prague, 14.1.2000
Translation: Annemarie Susanne Nowak

IRISH SCENERY

a picture
as in a dream

black water
right through the green

beyond the bank
an abandoned house

a red houseboat
crossing the canal

motionless standing
a white horse

a train audible
far in the distance

on the stones
the last light

soon it will be night
also inside me

Monasterevin/Ireland, 26.7.1999
Translation: Annemarie Susanne Nowak

IRISH GRAVEYARD

a green stone
I take with me
from your grave

Margaret Nash
born 1926
died 1995

brown is the earth
brown is the grass

grey are the stones
of the graves all around

the wind waves
over the hills

and all is bright
in the morning light

Monasterevin/Ireland, 27.7.1999
Translation: Annemarie Susanne Nowak

TARA HILL

over the green
hills I wander

over the graves
from a distant age

under me lies
the wide open land

under me lie
the bones of the dead

they rest here
for thousands of years
in their stone graves

hill by hill I cross
grave by grave I climb

everything is silent
only in the trees
the rustling wind

Dublin, 8.8.1999
Translation: James A. Ritchie

ST. PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL

in the dark of the cathedral
the voices are lost

in the spotlight
I look upon a grave

with my fingers
I touch the stone

I read the Latin figures
I am silent in silence

step by step I carefully
go on the flagstones

on my way
into uncertainty

Remembering Dublin 1999
Vienna, 18.8.1999
Translation: James A. Ritchie

DUBLIN WALKS

up the river
along the walls

water and stones
heaven and light

house fronts
and backyards

here and there
also closed doors

the look across
to the other bank

a green dome
glows from afar

a steeple marks
my direction and goal

buses
drive past

to terminals
some where

without longing
I wander through

deserted districts
unknown area

deeper and deeper I walk
into this evening

into the glowing red
lighted night

Dublin, 2.8.1999
Translation: Susanne Nowak

PANORAMA ST. PETERSBURG

from the colonnades
of the St. Isaac’s Cathedral
the fantastic panorama
of the magnificent city
there is the Eremitage
with my forefinger
I point out in the distance
a girl’s smile
bewitches me for a while
then I think of the dead
hundreds of thousands starved
in the encircled city
Leningrad then in the winter of 1941/42
I hear the thunder of the cannons
of the Aurora in October 1917
suddenly music from somewhere
the sun now illuminating
a stripe of sky on the horizon
the sea of houses glowing in the evening red
a dome shining golden in the light
so bright that it hurts my eyes
the pain maintains the memory
I suddenly say aloud
the sound of a ship’s siren
New York comes to my mind the harbour scenery
our walk in winter the seagulls
who am I what am I doing here and what for
I see the Russian colonel before me
reciting Rilke-sonnets in 1946
in the hall of my parent’s house
once more my gaze over the panorama
of the city the churches palaces the parks
then I go down the steps again
I step once more in front of the picture of the Madonna
light the flame of a candle maybe
to shine for me in the dark of the night

St. Petersburg, 8.10.1994
Translation: James A. Ritchie

IMPRESSIONS OF LONDON

black beauties
at bus stops

white covered tables
in good restaurants

homeless people wrapped
in dirty blankets

beneath the doorways
of luxury stores

shopping in the supermarket
people rushing by

the smooth evening light
on a marble statue

church bells ring
turret clocks strike

red buses drive
to the outskirts

tube trains clatter
and are stuffed full

in parks the birds
sing until nightfall

London, 9.2.2002
Translation: James A. Ritchie/ Annemarie S. Nowak

BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH

between heaven
and earth

the horizon
no-man’s-land

between heaven
and earth

terror
genocide

between heaven
and earth

the bird’s flight
the bird’s cry

between heaven
and earth

the border
of freedom

between heaven
and earth

clouds
rain

coldness
snow

Vienna, 29.6.1980
Translated by Herbert Kuhner

SECLUDED

from afar
the fading
voice

the last song
from a distance

the lamp’s
last light

the shadow
of the falling snow

our house

Vienna 1980
Translated by Herbert Kuhner

RETURN

returned
into silence

to the edge
of shadows

where emptiness
gives you space

where time
doesn‘t know you

where the truth
will find you

Vienna, 6.10.1986
Translation: Annemarie Susanne Nowak

CONCLUSION

you feel the dust
of passed years
in your lungs

delusive hope
has made you blind

also no longing more
you ascertain calmly

the rustling coloured leaves
on a sunny day in autumn

remind you of something
but you don’t know of what

you know you need
no refuge anymore
this certainty is good

Vienna, 7.7.1996
Translation: James A. Ritchie/A:S. Nowak

PREPARING FOR WINTER

the sun blinded me
but the rain cooled my eyes

the summer has gone
soon the seagulls will come

winter brings the cold and death
and love is long past

Vienna 1980
Translated by Herbert Kuhner

DESERTED HOUSE

noone lives here anymore
the house is deserted

I go through the rooms
memory still exists

dried flowers here
there a broken picture

and still on the hook
the old hat of my father

mother’s prayerbook
the cane a rosary

my brother’s violin
a closed piano

the dusty shoes
the old kitchen clock

a wardrobe is open
a moth flies out

the telephone is cut off
the line already dead for long

Haslach, 16.4.1983 / Vienna, 18.2.1997
Translation:
J.A.Ritchie/A.S. Nowak

RETREAT

I have come
into silence now

into a landscape
between heaven
and brown earth

suddenly it seems
as if I still heard
the sound of the bells

from the high steeples
of the stone church

as if I would find here
what I looked for

something that was before me
something that will still be
after me

Kloster Glendalough,
Wicklow Mountains
Dublin, 6.8.1999
Translation:

Annemarie Susanne Nowak

WITHDRAWING

withdrawing
with the elongating
shadows

withdrawing
into sadness
into hope

withdrawing
into silence

wiping out the traces
being undiscoverable

the day is beautiful
death is near

Vienna, 22.5.1973
Tranlsation:
Annemarie Susanne Nowak

THE LAST LIGHT

the last light
as the language
of the trees

as message
of the sky

black blue
the shadows
of night

you hear
this silence

you hear
your breath

you hear
your heartbeat

as a sign
of time

Hagenbrunn, 25.11.1984
Translated by Herbert Kuhner

but you say
everything will be all right
and I believe you
since I prefer
to believe in miracles
rather than banal reality
but you say the nights are white
and I reply no
these nights are red
so red and you are mistaken
they are red from moon-blood
and the suffering of all those
who have been tortured and killed
but you say it will be spring one day
I know that for sure
everything is as it was
since time immemorial
that gives you certainty
but I say yes that could be
but not hope and courage not
faith deliverance from despair
do smell the air you say
it smells of linden blossoms
listen to the wind
the rustling of the leaves
all is hope
I and you and we
touch my hair and my skin
feel the summer in my heart
this mild magnificent summer
that is here for you
smell the scent of my body
and think of love and joy and desire
but I say think of the moon-blood
always remember it
the night in front of your eyes
just before going blind
when hope deserts or betrays you
then there is no joy no love no desire
look so many people are only shadows
and in every language of the world
the watchword is muerte smrt or death not hope
even then you say
love is the only hope left
even then in the pitch black darkness of night

Helsinki, 12.5.1996 / Vienna, 30.7.1996
Translated by Herbert Kuhner

ARRIVING IN LIGHT

One should arrive
somewhere, I say;
somewhere.

Maybe on the other side
of the dark water.
And arrive in the light.

White ash falls
silently on me –
like oblivion.

The game of blind man’s buff
no more, I say,
that game no more!

You say: I am here.
I say: I am there.
Where should I go?

I observed bird’s flights
in the evening down by the river.
This maze of life.

Rowanberries glow
in the late evening light.
Always only wandering.

I listen to the evenness
of my steps
on the way
into no-man’s-land.

My dark reflection
in the water.

The boat waits
on the other shore.

Everything is green
here in the countryside.

Only a house
glows red from afar.

And a cry breaks
inside of me.

Oulu/Kosto 1998
Translation: J.A. Ritchie/A.S.Nowak

AFTER MY DEATH

Where will I be
if you call my name?
Will you call to me?
Will I hear you?

Where will I be
if you call my name?
Will there be me?
If so, where and how?

Perhaps I’ll be
minuscule particles
in the infinity
of the universe,
lacking space and time.

Perhaps I’ll be
in the fluttering
of a seagull’s wings
above the sea
or in a blackbird’s cry,
in the last glimmer of dusk.

Where will I be, I ask,
if you are looking for me; where?

Maybe in the scent of a flower,
or as a trace in the sand;
or as a trace in the snow.

Perhaps I’ll be in the flicker
of a burning candle;
or in your sigh,
or in the lack of response.

Translation: Annemarie Susanne Nowak

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