To Delia Part 1-12 (a Longpoem)

To Delia -1-

You got a name

baby-girl six weeks old

and how sweetly clumsy

your three-year old brother boy

calls your name and caresses you

All do smile

make faces

noises

voices

do not recognize

keep far out of sight

oblivious

that there is...

That there is a skeleton

growing inside of you

and inside of him

That there is a skeleton

inside of us all

waiting inside of us all

that-will-not-vanish

by nature

so quickly

Bones, bones...oh wonder

mountains of bones

where all life and world rests upon

where all this tenderness nestles and snuggles up to

bones that carry around all soft possibilities

Tongues and fingers

and here I am too

constantly

but so close already....seems the question

oh where

where...is my skeleton?

To Delia-2-

Pale and sweet little one

you can hold your head now and gaze

and in a few years you

will be able to say:

I spent my first year on the edge of

a large strawberry field overlooking the lake!

We don´t know what to think or say...

they are really nice people, I swear...

It´s a phenomenon

even our generation helplessly wonders about

like it was and still is in warfare

like it happened around genocides

around death-sentence

now: all around the blind-spot Ecocide

They-are-really-nice-people!

They spray every week

every week they come and spray:

Fungicide onto the blossoming strawberry rows

Herbicide between them:

all dies down inbetween hours...

the writing on their containers pure cynicism: “Basta”

This is 2021...and they are really nice people

and I guess they say they are just doing their job

and down there the lake collecting it all

and here you lie in your cradle

Somewhere we know for sure

it is not about doing your job anymore: taht's over

and we would not even dare to steal some

of these beautiful humble strawberries

they will sell in the colorful farmers-market soon...

Earth will do what is necessary in time

lovingly bound and entangled we are

we will have to live or die by her decisions

Are you the generation, Love?

Are you the ones dismanteling the weapons?

Carrying light into that strange dark corridor?

To Delia -3-

I just heard you weep to the morning

through the wall and the folds of linen and time

that´s allright...hello morning, it is all breath

and what a moist warm spring-morning it is

after many dry days: it tastes like a flaming wet kiss

You were chewing on my thumb yesterday

your mother said: teeth might come

And then some tomorrows when I turn

towards the age of an elder

and you towards what could be called maturity

I might say:

“When I was your age I started hitch-hiking

and an eager hitch-hiker I was til I turned fourty”

And you might ask:

“Hitch-hiking...what do you mean?”

And I would say:

“Hitching a ride, thumbing a lift!

Stopping cars on the roadside for a shared ride

by waving an outstretched thumb in the air!”

And you might ask:

“What? You mean you would try to stop strangers?

Get into a car of people you did not know at all?

Without being checked or identified or any protection?”

“Jep!

I was not a Kerouac or a Snyder if you recognize these names

but somepoint I realized it still definitely was

one of the great real adventures of my generation....

When you were born it got extinct I daresay:

the so-called Pandemic, that dominates time which I now call Now

but it was in a coma and half-dead already then

Ireland was my first major journey

I was shocked when I hit the first motorway gas-station:

there was a queue of backpackers holding up signs already!

So I had coffee with a bald trucker, I was eighteen

I camped in South-London in a building-site

with an injured South-African tramp

walked through London for eight hours

to hitch towards Wales

Got rides by doctors and mothers and fish-lorries

and a nun driving back to the cloister from a Rock-concert

I got invited in Irelands´west for lunch and dinner

and for a night in the barn

slept in abandoned houses and

got drenched by Irish rain on the road and in my fucked up tent

I met the drooling Sea and I was alive

Way back home

I stopped a truck near Amsterdam

asking the driver for his destination he said: Moskow

I hitched through New Zealand

in House-trucks, with sheep on Pick-ups

ended up with happily stoned Maori in Trailer-homes

and in the fortress of a sect called "Kingdom of God"

that predicted that fate had guided me to be one of them chosen

All up Scandinavia

and all the way down again to southern Spain

Pensionists, farmers, nurses, lawyers

once: a marriage-caravan...the newly-weds stopping for me

ten decorated cars horning in the queue

Not to forget riding with

John Balu "The Woodsman" Holdson for weeks

through Red-Rock and Bear Country in his ages old

Volkswagen Bus to a Rainbow Gathering high up in New Mexico

It still was one of the great adventures:

maximum presence: anything possible...

potentially now or eventually never

half a mile down the road or a thousand on a string

you never knew

confidence...rightous attitude...naive faith

So, well yes

it might be hard to imagine

but I got into cars with complete strangers

sticking out a thumb, asking where they go

hopping in gratefully

never sure where to end up eventually

like a cricket

No assurance or insurance

no tracing or tracking, scan or fingerprint

just human interaction

life

anonymity cracked up through helpfulness

and grateful conversation

spurring the real adventure present existence

conciousness

itself

To Delia -4-

Asleep in your cradle

you sleep towards all that growth there is

you are native

native to this world

you will be called any sort of native once.....

Just had a visit by my 16-year old god-child

she is referred to as a digital native

handling it great though in my eyes

asking me if I had a pen or some sanding paper

if I have flour for baking and if not: a bicicle

I remember when

I came down Mount Aubrig after three days

entering a store with my backpack saying:

“Hello, I need a Cell-phone...”

And the guy said:

“Ah I see, you need a new phone....”

And I replied:

“Actually, imagine me being a stone-age nomad

I do need, I´m afraid...a phone at all”

I was coming down from the wild world then

realizing that I was about to fall

through a new mesh of communication

becoming an obstacle for others

Now people hold their prolonged brain

the Smart-phone

towards whatever there is:

Stars

Plants

Peaks

The voices of the Birds

The topography of this World

Themselves

for identification

and say: see!...as they had always known...

and just got confirmed...

“So how without Smart-phones...”

you might ask, whatever “native” you´d be called once

“did you manage life and make appointments then?”

Hope I will remember saying:

“Reliable agreements and....

actually I guess we were really smart!”

To Delia -5-

Oh what a little fledgling you are

just dry...fuzz on your soft skull

Your mother just bread a dozen little chicks

under a lamp, in a breeder

21 days sharp then:

out of shell from egg-white, yolk and warmth:

beautiful refined curious life!

Oh wonder

how can bone and beak and feather

tongue and eye come into being like this?

Yolk, White, Warmth...and:

Magic!

They chirp in a box beside the room

where you sleep with your parents

The room beside their fragile lifes

Where you breed your dotted little dream-eggs

where you breed your thick-shelled ancestral eggs

and where you breed already

the inevitable egg-like idea

of giving life yourself

As everything is born out of the Woman

and has been

in an unbroken line

To Delia-6-

You did not enjoy

sitting on my lap today

shy you were and cried

we had not seen for a week or so

I said: “Guess it's the beard...”

What nonsense....

Before you were born

I only saw pregnant women all around

since you are

I only see women with babies and buggies

an obvious one, right?

But what it is that really triggers is

that utterly naive fascination again

oh glossy and stylish and polished society

oh uptight and stealthy and brave society

that the origin of all you little fellows

all around and round that globe

behind all that sweet talk and colors

all these gadgets and worries and agendas

Is sex

is wild or clumsy, plump or passionate

but always down-to earth organic and archaic sex

and I all too often...and naive....

can hardly believe that fact:

Naked, oh yes, naked human sex

skin-tight, moist and transpirant

organic...out of mind

archaic...moaning-sweating....

hopefully lovely and sweet too

but: sex!

Yes this wild root...

covered by countless artificial flowers

the wild root...old and bittersweet!

Covered by a maple leaf?

What nonsense...like the beard-thing

that root...reaching-darting back down into the Earth

back...towards the beginning of time...

To Delia-7-

You sit by yourself now

You surf on your belly

on the summer-lawn

so eager, so eager to grab a blade of grass

to move another inch towards the world

bless you

Memory is a lovely bitter-sweet brew

and for some reason

as you wriggle your slow way over the lawn

I remember Steven

Steven was a man, fourty of age

blond and bearded

that I worked with

down Southern Spain in

the foothills of the Sierra Nevada at

a run down Adobe-shacks horse-farm

Rebuilding was the task

we were some kind of random volunteers

scratched together by the claws of fate

to deal with what there is

which...happens a lot...I tell you

Steven had no skills in anything

considering his hands

he was English and even

while living in Spain for a decade

had not achieved decent Spanish at all

He'd been a Groupier in a Casino in Malaga

ten years in Expat-circles

His wife had thrown him out

he came with nothing than a tennis-bag

and not a lot in it

Whiskey...some clothes and this:

a "Tamagotchi"

Well a Tamagotchi you must know...

is or was once a little simple electronic game device

it resembled a baby-animal and

it's rudimentary graphic showed its state of being

you were supposed to mend it with attention

feed it, give him water and such

it would make noises and if you don't look after it

it dies

We shared questioning doubtful looks

when we saw Steven sit in the shade

on these blazing late afternoons

fumbling around on this little thing

or getting it out after dinner with a cigarette

For long I did not dare asking

but time came when I said:

"Damn,... Steven what to hell are you doing with this thing?"

and he said:

"I have a boy you know

he is seven years old and disabled

he cannot speak yet, or never most likely

I cannot see him

his mother does not let me

this thing reminds me regularly

to think of him and send him love

when I hold it in my hand

I hold his..."

To Delia -8-

You grow teeth

teeth grow out of you

two lower milk teeth sweet smile

A lot you smile

melting us like butter in adoration

you know about love

You do know nothing

about the human capacity

of terror and bliss

of torture and treason

homicide and ecocide

of vendetta and suicide

or

do you?

Your brother allready lives

the sweet essence of play

with his body, with his daily growing voice

the magic wand of the imagination

talking-singing-shouting his mysterious world

passionately into existence

What is playing?

...we asked ourselves...

uncommitted...self-chosen...versus necessity....

creative free-willing activity?

Actually

when we are well-slept, fed and warm

it is the gift we've got, Dear!

Music and Play!

To Delia -9-

I'd like to discribe you my morning-sky!

Is it MY....morning sky?

Guess so: This paper-cut horizon...

The Linth-vale only implying a hint of

the deep crevice between the Eastern ranges of

that long craggy spine of the Churfirsten peaks

and the vast ancient tectonic skull of Sardona

ice moss lichen silence

then a croak then a long breath

Down beyond the grey and crying mirror

of the lake

beyond the radiant praying darting maple tree

you might try climbing once

behind which

our sun will flood these lands again

in an hour: our eyes and hungry bodies

Again again

Now

the vale is some pastel orange filled cup

under mild azure allready starless endlessness

some graphite blurry stripes of cloud

like on rough hand-made paper

and you are still asleep

Breathing beyond this wall I lean against

on my bed all calm

as this sky is ever changing

just as I am and you are with every sweet breath

Your task is growth

my task has turned and spiralled many times

under this magnificent sky

and my heart is pounding for this beauty

so wildly against...towards that wall

which wall?

1. hope it does not wake you...

knocking on your magnificent dream-sky

You hatch - I soar

Butterflies as Dragons do

we do not pass the baton at once

all

merges

To Delia-10-

When I looked over to say good-bye

you were already taking your first nap

your Daddy still in underwear

tired and colorless his face was

he is giving his best

you must have kept him busy last night

I did not even see your tucked-in face...

...and left

down to and along that lake

the gray, the blue, the glistening rippled eye

it's late summer odors

all there: water

the shady coast-like atlantic smells

the moist pine and cypress mediteranean depth

the tide-pool and beach-like Northern Sea heaviness

Life and Death

in my nostrils

But don't picture it wrong

all along that shore: a bike-ride through this carbon-dream

this carbon-fueled dream

manifested by a species

us

turning the vital flesh and fluids

of the one planet

into fuel and mortar and plastic and conveniences

to shape this dream

and dump the leftovers right into its face

theft and shame

You will tell your birth-year 2020 little human

people will raise brows:

oh...the year when the great devide began...

Turning my two wheels towards the mountains

weekend-roads crammed:

Sportscars, Cabriolets, Motorbikes, Oldtimers

Campervans, Trikes, American Vintage Limousines

Theft and shame

violence it is

this is 2021 oh dear Earth, oh little child

we all know the course of things

We all know the course of things my Dear

you will have rightful questions

and we will be the ones, maybe the first ones

that just cannot shrug and say: we did not know....

To Delia-11-

How excitedly the sparrows chatter

as the curtain of this stage lifts again

for another performance

called “From dusk til dawn and on”

“Christmas!” they yell

all over this globe today and come dressed

for a peculiar set of habits and rituals performed

well YOU little sparrow will see...

...you got your first ticket really

you just turned one

and happily clumsily walk and fall now

showing your seven random teeth

One

Guess you will be stunned and bewildered

about what will happen to you

around your wider circles of family

I strongly guess....The ONE...

would be so too

The One

whose word reached Patagonia, Mexico, Alaska

whose birth and death is passionately celebrated

in the Philipines, in South Africa, Ireland and Russia

wars and crusades in his name

expulsion and epidemics aftermath

Now a beard, a jolly hat, a tree and some reindeer

at least

Well I won't see the glow in your eyes dear

I am not your family but: no worries

Pagan of some sort I had my time round Equinoxe

One Earth, Father Sun, a fat Moon

Honor to that One, not oblivious I am to the word

but what shame and loss the spiritual history of the North

got erased so meticulous entirely in his name

The magpies chased away the sparrows now

I'll go spend the day with those and devote myself

to uncorrupted attention

maybe maybe the magic bells jingle for me

To Delia-12-

Delia....there's one last thing...

oh so little you are

but I have to tell you here

and now

as it is the time of the longest nights

and the time between the feasts

of Christmas and New Years

I have to name it blunt and sharp

there are Concentration Camps out there

Yes my Dear it's true:

our kin built Concentration Camps

well hidden, well disguised, yes, for it:

to feed us and to clothe the rich

They call it intensive livestock farming

but you would not believe what they do

for the flesh, liver, milk, eggs, feather and pelt

of the dear

Chicken, Ducks, Geese and Turkey

the poor

Cows, Sheep, Swines and Rabbits

the unfortunate

Minks, Foxes, Racoons, Chinchillas, Dogs

...that are gassed and electrified and clubbed to death

Bless their Clans

and the ones of

Brother Salmon

of Trout and Carp, of Tilapia and Crayfish

fed on soy and artificial meal

Diseases spread

I do not know if you will ever read all this

I would hope you can hardly believe

that

IT WAS LIKE THAT

but my bleeding heart has to tell

my furious spirit deems it right

even the term I used

but who knows what terms you will be used to...

....you were born in the year of the Virus....

When 14 Million interned Minks

were clubbed to death

for the potential sake of one species