Please do write us a poem

that gets us through the week

A poem in which there’s always something to nibble on

already on Monday and still on Friday

A poem that even on Saturday

during Match of the Day 

blows your mind more than all that tiki-taka

A poem that on Sunday

easily replaces any Mass in Church

This is

where the poem begins

And this is

where the sea fog begins

in which the poem begins

to disappear

This is

definitely the most beautiful

part of the poem

(Too bad one cannot read it

for that damned sea fog!)

This is

where the poem reappears

And this is

where it ends

Is poetry

a continent

or is it more like an ocean?

Are there more written

or more unwritten poems?

How much does it cost

to produce

a poem?

Which poem

says more about its author:

his first one or his last?

How many poems per month

does an average

family of four need

to make ends meet?

Should a poem contain

everything

that is found in the newspaper

or everything

that is not found in the newspaper?

Which words

have never ever

appeared

in a poem?

If one places

a book of poems

on the scales

and it shows 300 grams,

does that indicate

the weight of the paper

or that of the poems?

What is

the opposite

of a poem?

Do poems tend

to be loud

or to be quiet?

How many old poems

fit in a new one?

And how many new poems

fit in an old one?

What is the difference

between a poem with a title

and a poem without a title,

discounting the fact

that one has a title

and the other has none?

Where does one find

the “best before date”

on a poem?

Is it possible

to extend the durability

of a poem

before its time runs out?

Can poems

bring the dead back to life?

Does a poem

have more or fewer lives

than a cat,

and how many lives

does a poem about cats have?

Can one get oneself

vaccinated

against poems?

What in the world

will poems lead us to?

What possibilities are there

to completely forget

a poem

that one had to learn by heart?

How can poems

defend themselves

against being caged

inside anthologies?

What requirements

does a poem have to meet

in order to become

a favourite poem?

Can poems about flowers

multiply

by self-pollination

or do they always need

a poem about bees?

Does a love poem

have to be good in bed?

Which love poems

are better:

the pre-coital

or the post-coital ones?

Are love poems

bound to one person

or are they transferable?

When, at the very latest,

must a short poem stop

if it doesn’t want to risk

being mistaken

for a long poem?

Can poems

be produced artificially?

How many poems

can one read, at most,

if one still has to drive?

How can poems

be prevented?

Can a poem sense it

if it’s brushed

by the mantle

of literary history?

Should poems

be provided

with the foot-note

“please delete what does not apply”?

May poems

refuse to give evidence?

Should one throw poems

to the drowning?

What do memorable poems

remember?

Do political poems

represent

the interests

of apolitical poems?

How good must a poem be

in order to be forbidden?

Do poems evaporate

if one leaves the book

lying open for too long?

Is earth

the only planet

where poems

are to be found?

Should poems

be deployed

in areas of crisis?

Has the supply

of poems

for the population

been secured?

In case of emergency

are there any reserves of poems

and for how long

would they last?

How long

can a human being

survive

without poems?

I feel sorry

for the man in the red jacket

who has been longing for a blue jacket

for the past twenty years

but each time buys himself a new red one instead.

I feel sorry

for the winter

that will never live to see the summer.

I feel sorry

for the little children

in whom adulthood

already lurks.

I feel sorry

for the words in vain

because they will always remain in vain.

I feel sorry

for the radio signal

filling gaps between programmes

which is put on the air

only so that everyone can hear

there’s nothing to be heard.

I feel sorry

for the question

whose answer everybody — and I mean everybody

claims to know.

I feel sorry

for the dungeon

that has to hold out

down there for centuries

without even having been convicted.

I feel sorry

for the barber’s apprentice

who of all things

has to accidentally

cut the throat

of his boss’s best customer.

I feel sorry

for the preacher

who just can’t remember

the word AMEN

and so is doomed to continue talking

until judgement day.

I feel sorry

for the pursuer of happiness

who without knowing it

has long since found happiness

and doesn’t have the slightest clue

that it has even started to run out.

I feel sorry

for the echo

that for once

would love to have the first word.

I feel sorry

for the punch line

that always hangs on the end.

I feel sorry

for the second mitten

of the one-armed man.

I feel sorry

for the hamster

in the wheel,

for the goldfish

in the bowl

and for the man

in the barrel —

I feel sorry

for the pig in the cold cut.

I feel sorry

for the serious situation

which everybody mistakes

for a game.

I feel sorry

for the fashion

which happens to be nothing

but a passing fashion.

I feel sorry

for the future

that with every passing second

shrinks

only to add to the size of the past.

I feel sorry

for Berlin.

I feel sorry

for the bathroom mirror

that clearly shows its horror

when I look into it

in the morning.

I feel sorry

for the limits

that will always

have to remain within limits.

I feel sorry

for the pea

on which the princess tosses and turns.

I feel sorry

for the legs

that go all the way up

but then can’t go a step further.

I feel sorry

for the first one

who goes over board

and for the last one

who misses the boat.

I feel sorry

for the woman who runs the gallery — 

for whom every single vernissage

turns into a finissage right away.

I feel sorry

for the window

through which everyone looks in

but no one looks out.

I feel sorry

for the dead writers

because they always

have to fill in

for the living.

I feel sorry

for the stare

that goes into emptiness

and for the free kick

that misses the goal.

I feel sorry

for the ascetic

whose pillows

are filled with lead.

I feel sorry

for the parallel lines

because there’s no way

to prevent their collision in infinity.

I feel sorry

for Tom Sawyer

who never had the joy

of having children

with his blood brother Huckleberry Finn.

I feel sorry

for this poem.

A certain Blunk, who has made a name for himself as a professional thief

of handbags, finds himself, on the occasion of one of his assaults,

confronted with eighty-two-year-old Elisabeth Schröder, whose

handbag he intends to snatch by applying the usual quick, powerful,

jerking motion.

Now, what frequently happens in this situation is that elderly ladies, out

of sheer fright, forget to release their grip, and thus are pulled to the

ground, whereupon they invariably acquire a fracture of the upper part

of a thigh bone before they finally let go of the strap and the robber, who

runs away.

Completely different, however, is the case with eighty-two-year-old

Elisabeth Schröder. It doesn’t even occur to her to let go of the handbag.

Therefore, as a consequence, Blunk is compelled to drag the old lady

behind him, through the bushes, diagonally across the extensive lawns

of the park, yes, through the entire inner city, straight into a commuter

bus and right out again, for hours on end, until Blunk, who is really

quite a strong and athletic young man, can barely continue due to

exhaustion, and so finally has to come to a standstill, right in the middle

of the street.

This, of course, is the moment that eighty-two-year-old Elisabeth

Schröder has just been waiting for. In a jiffy, she bounces back to her

feet, and now it’s her turn to drag the horrified Blunk behind her for so

long until she can’t anymore and then it’s his turn again.

This has been going on for three years now and everyone thinks that

there’s something sweet cooking between the pair of them.

Two long-distance swimmers, completely independently of each other,

set out to cross the Atlantic, one of them from America to Europe, the

other from Europe to America, without the usual publicity hassle and

without the seemingly unavoidable accompanying life-boats.

Late one night, the weather was mild, the sea was calm, and it just so

happened that both swimmers, who had by then reached the latitude of

the Azores, crashed head-on with such magnitude that for a little while

they entirely lost their sense of orientation.

After swimming around each other in small circles, in a total daze, and

heroically withstanding this painful interruption, they decided to

continue their watery journey, firmly believing in their ability to reach

the goal they had each set for themselves.

Inconceivable was their disappointment, when each of them, at their

journey’s end, immediately after setting foot on the supposed other

continent, had to realize that they had—obviously as a consequence of

their oceanic collision and the ensuing short-term loss of orientation—

actually swam on in the direction opposite to that which was originally

intended, and thus—instead of reaching the scheduled destination—

had returned to their respective starting-points.

It has been reported, that both swimmers, out of sheer desperation,

have, completely independently of each other, drowned themselves the

very same day.

“Is it true,” someone asks, “that regardless of what one asks you, one always receives a wrong answer?”

“That’s right!” says Koslowski.

“Yes,” says Koslowski, “that’s correct. I talk to myself. But I don’t listen.”

Koslowski says that when he was a child, for quite a while he thought that the term ‘beheading’ described a situation in which the delinquent for the purpose of being deterred had a second, identical head fixed upon
his shoulders. And even today he asks himself whether this method for certain contemporaries would be a punishment far worse than the traditional one.

Koslowski swears, “cross my heart and hope to die”, that many years ago he personally met Huckleberry Finn.

“But he is merely a literary character!” someone protests.

“So am I.” says Koslowski.

Koslowski describes how several years ago he had seriously considered becoming a journalist, precisely
because of the countless unanswered questions that the world holds in store for us humans. However,
already in the middle of his first interview when he couldn’t think of any more questions, it became crystal
clear to him: No, better not!

“A tree of knowledge,” Koslowski once said, “certainly never existed. Because otherwise those two people
would have immediately used it to hang themselves.”

Koslowski relates how when he was a child, he once lost the key to his parents’ house and was severely
scolded for that mishap. Ironically, the substitute key which he was compelled to wear from that moment
on, tied around his neck with a red ribbon visible to all— turned out to be the only thing that was left after
his parents had lost their house in the war.

While travelling through a region that he had always considered to be absolute nothingness, Koslowski was
truly surprised for a moment when he glimpsed a fairly pleasant landscape worthy of his attention.
However, already after a second glance, according to Koslowski, he could see through the Potemkinesque character of this so-

called landscape. Namely, if for once one overlooks the usual, all too common decorative elements such as meadows, mountains, beaches, cliffs, rivers, fields, forests, waterfalls— what remains is indeed nothing but nothingness.

“Years ago,” says Koslowski, “once after an unfortunate fall down the staircase, when I was close to death, a feeling of cosy, furry warmth overcame me in my unconscious state, and I knew right away that now this
famous film would soon be shown in which the person who is actually already dead sees his entire life again rapidly unfold before him. I braced myself for the worst. Unfortunately, the only thing they showed were commercials.”

“The snows of yesteryear,” Koslowski once said, “are the tips of tomorrow’s icebergs.”

On platform 6 at the Central Station Koslowski notices a gentleman with light luggage who steps off the
train and quickly moves towards another gentleman who has no luggage. “Obviously old friends,” Koslowski
thinks because now the  gentleman without luggage rushes towards the gentleman with luggage. It’s only
when they bump into each other with considerable momentum in the middle of the platform that Koslowski suspects that the two gentlemen are not at all old friends. Although it may well happen that old friends on a platform at the railway station do bump into each other with great momentum.

For years, says Koslowski, he has tried to find the path to his own self, but along the way constantly met
such interesting people that now he seriously has to ask himself what the devil he would really do with his
own self. After all, he knows himself since he was born, and once there, Koslowski says, we would most
probably sit completely bored with one another.

“Looking at pure statistics,” says Koslowski, “as a non-smoker, I could smoke for approximately seven more
years than a smoker.”

When it is announced that each citizen can officially file a claim to get reimbursed for the full amount of 

time wasted from his or her lifetime while waiting at railway stations as well as at tram and bus stops, 

Koslowski also decides to take advantage of this service and makes several attempts to join the rapidly
growing queue in front of the office in charge of wasted time verification and reimbursement. After many
days when it is finally his turn, and he indeed benefits from his claim, he realises that the amount of time he
is reimbursed with equals the amount that he had used while filing his claim and waiting in the queue. His
nerves fairly wrecked but nonetheless now at least equipped with a balanced time account, Koslowski
crosses the street and patiently waits for his bus.

As ‘a child of his time’, he, Koslowski, has also personally experienced the problem of a split personality
within himself, but was always able to come out of it— as the odd man out, the laughing third, so to speak.

Just as Koslowski is awakened for the umpteenth time from his favourite dream, in which a marble plaque
with his name and date of birth chiselled in is attached to the outer wall of the house he lives in, he hears, to
his amazement, someone drilling outside on the wall.

“What are you doing there?” Koslowski calls out from the window.

“I have the assignment to fasten a notice that especially concerns you, since you are an inhabitant of this
house.” the worker answers.

“You’re quite right there,” Koslowski says, audibly proud. “I’ll be right down with a bottle of sparkling wine,
to celebrate.” 

Whereupon the worker is quite puzzled as he screws on the sign: BUILDING IN RUINOUS STATE. ACUTE
DANGER OF COLLAPSING.

Since when is he walking with the help of a stick? Koslowski is asked by a visibly surprised acquaintance.
“Your question is founded on an incorrect observation,” Koslowski snarls back, “or do you really want to
claim that it lies in the nature of a stick to walk around the neighbourhood? It isn’t me walking with the
help of a stick — it’s the stick walking with my help.”

“In old age,” Koslowski says, “there are many things that one no longer does in the way one would have
done earlier if one had