Petermichael von Bawey
You closed the door behind you
And joy and pleasure departed with you.
Yet you left an image of your bright and starry eyes
And I dreamed what if in the darkness of the night
You were to return and I wake to your lucid light.
Knowing I shall not hold you fast tonight
I gazed out of the window into the amber night
And searched for your face among the falling leaves
Gathered by November’s chilly breeze.
And I thought of your cold feet.
Let them bring you back to me again!
And I shall warm them
As we eat raspberries out of season
And love out of reason.
Lightly, lightly in the wetness
Love gently comes.
I hear you as rain mildly falling
Your dark eyes softly calling.
Once her words flushed my blood
Come flood on my soft plains…she wrote…
I will rain dance and be your priestess
I will be your shaman, your blood fare,
And be your… mistress.
Passion once so tightly bound
In the attic the note now found.
Intimacy with Nature and Machine
An owl screeches
A clock stops
A woman dies
All in one nocturnal plight.
That’s life! —The way it could have been.
The way it perhaps was, or should have been.
Without us knowing it, really.
Without us sensing it, actually.
Blinded by another, or the other.
By too much, or by too little that came our way.
That was it!
Or is it?
Oh, another song for me…
Another song, let’s hear it!
Song of days gone by, song of days to come…
Song of living, song of loving, song of dying.
*Sung melodically to the popular ol’ tune of
“Razzmatazz I’ve got that ol’ Muskrat by his musky arse.”
Fuer-niemand-und-nichts-warten.
Warten, im Abendschatten
vor Schranken.
Vielleicht ja, vielleicht nein
beissende Frage.
Im Zweifel ob sich mit Blick, mit Gefuehl
die Schranken ueberschreiten lassen.
Fuer-jemand-und-etwas-warten.
Warten, im Schattendasein
auf Empfindungen,
mit alldem, was darin Spiel hat,
auch ohne (Wissen).
Erwartungen
im Liebesschatten
vor Schranken.
Die Wa(h)re Liebe im Sinne der Philosophen
Wer kennt die wa(h)re Liebe und ihren Preis?
Nur eine Nutte weiss,
dass zugleich sie
Ware und Verkaeuferin ist.
Deswegen ist sie das Kantsche Ding-an-Sich:
sie kennt nicht nur wer sie ist
sondern auch ihren Preis.
It is unreasonable
Says reason.
It is what it is
Says love.
It is misfortune
Says calculation.
It is nothing but pain
Says fear.
It is hopeless
Says insight.
It is what it is
Says love.
It is foolish
Says pride.
It is careless
Says care.
It is impossible
Says experience.
It is what it is
Says love.
* Freely translated from the German of torn and musty notes found by the
writer in a seedy East Berlin underground bar
Every evening she is at the window,
Looking out,
Broken-hearted because she is leaving in a while,
Yet she made up her mind, this is the last tea, the last laugh,
Before he can hear her shoes,
Lightly pounding the hall way,
The door firmly slamming shut.
So it's that bad, he thought,
No redemption in the morning's light,
All gone like evening shadows,
Swallowed by the darkness of the Night.
Laughter and tea, now silence and tears.
All faded, dispersed by fears,
A brief flicker left,
Of a once sparkling light.