The years fly by fast,

so the better you can see --


what the changes are.

From the river, forest everywhere
with yellow knights, turkey tails
and white-bearded trees

Sometimes there is a silence
and I hear the treecreeper
here and there a stone

which is described
on the map of this area
a map that is not a map

but a summary
of intersections, bridges
and solitary trees

Tonight I will rest
in an easy chair
that important invention

after the folding chair, the tilting chair
the swivel chair and the wheelchair
luckily I'm whole inside

not shaken in a coach
with suspension
fit for a rest day

for considerations
about my journey and the world
accepts the outcome

Life passes quickly,

I hear the wasted time bark --


like dogs in the night.

'Do you know where you are going to?
Do you like the things that life is showing you?'

the way it is, today
my own life today
softly singing on

my way to the next
crossing in the park
knowing where I'm going

left or right, always
back to friends
with whom I'm happy

Even if I don't participate
with the neighbours, all of Brussels
Berlin, Beyrouth, and Beijing

I still participate
but otherwise, living
close to myself

indoors "viewless"
today's life, softly
singing on my way

You're getting older,

tomorrow is not at all --


the day that would come.

The canal is green today
grey in the evening twilight
the precolour of winter

Running engines, winter coats and
heat lamps, little red spots
on the skin of the city

We want to vibrate
not repose with the supplies
We bring light and green into our homes

into the insides
of our existence
an eager feeling

no boredom, no tardy time
no long fixed hours
in the low sun's sidelight

We make plans in autumn
we clean up in spring
we repose in summer

Complementary to the season
we feel that we are alive
An eager feeling

The fulfillment of a wish
is a brief happiness, a happy
ending, when you die after it
or get started, with something new
a next phase or a next step

For a lasting Happy End, the hereafter
has been invented, and the consolation
one derives from descendants
with the thought that later, some day
everything will be fine

Till you're going to understand
that life seems pointless
because everything goes on
without general happiness ahead

but that we can also do without
the high of an illusion and go along
with the stream and its dynamics
that never close anything

Wherever I stay,

the trees from home keep growing --


growing in my heart.

Well, people die, and

then we are sad for a while --


till the sun returns.

Writers do not write

to live, they write in the hope --


of learning to die.