Dienstag, 18. Dezember 2012

Trains

The bench is hard, my hands are stiff
Electric light is in the air
More Departures and Arrivals
Of which my eyes are unaware

A stinging cold clings to my toes
As I read that you are late
I notice that there are white caps
On the trains – and still – I wait –

But if it wasn’t for your face
I would go back to my retreat
If it wasn’t for your smile
I would go home and warm my feet

Donnerstag, 13. Dezember 2012

In the Meantime


AA impressed me much and always marched ahead
AL gave me hope and later struck me dead

CS, too often far away, was real at last
DJ and me, we drank ourselves into the past

FU was a sweetheart and a guiding light
GR helped me puke my soul into the night

GS was on his knees and played on my guitar
JS – a faithful, lovely friend – still raised the bar

MK and me shared space and sounds and visions
MW meant many cups of coffee and decisions

OK – one of the most stellar guys in town
RR did not deserve to feel so down

RS proved that warmth and passion need some friction
RU experienced both freedom and restriction

SS survived so many odysseys with me
ST taught me some responsibility

Sonntag, 11. November 2012

It is


It is the I believe you, the says who
The no I don’t, the yes I do
It is the killing you, not making stronger
The no not yet and the no longer
It is the that or this, the here or there
The let me know, the I don’t care
It is the always now or never
The everlasting never ever
It is the dead and gone, the here to stay
The hold me tight, the go away

Sonntag, 7. Oktober 2012

Shelter


The snow starts gathering on your hair
A friendly way for something to betoken
The place has come, the time is here
To heal what’s whole, to rearrange what’s broken
No more wisdom, no more words
No treaties – and surrender – please
A fir tree gives us shelter so
We might just try to cuddle up and freeze

Donnerstag, 4. Oktober 2012

Marooned

(some more lyrics for the as yet unnamed band I'm writing for. This is a song of about eight and a half minutes and it's about a guy marooned on an island, feeling desperate because he was left by a woman. He can't leave the island until he has learnt - to cut a long story short - not to substitute lack of personality with relationships. Before the last six lines come in, there is a two minutes instrumental section so the break in setting and mood isn't actually that striking.)


A lightning in my eyes / A twitch inside my hand
Sickening sensations / A sudden strip of sand
Tangled up in tang / My life is washed ashore
These are not the riverbanks / That I was steering for
Stripped of all my sanity / Struggling to stand
Breathing and marooned / On godforsaken land
Salt in my saliva / I stumble to the trees
The heavens keep on shaking / (Shake) me down upon my knees

In this dreamless, hopeless night
A graceful spectral light
Can you hold me now I’m wrecked?
Can you help me to connect?
I must know why she was taken
(And) I need answers to awaken
The will to breathe once more
Give me someone to adore

Following the sirens / Groping in the silence
Tiptoeing through fire and / Screaming
As I keep on falling / I hear echoes calling
Me to give it all a / Meaning

Spirit, guide me deep into / the chasms of my soul
Help me, heal me and / Spirit, make me whole
Spirit, with your guidance / I stumble to my past
A distant silhouette / Spirit, her at last –

The contours of my once beloved / Motionless and carved in stone
I fall down at the sacred socket / Dejected and alone
Gazing up and hoping for / A repentant and benign
Look upon her past / I see her face is mine

Sunshine in my nostrils / Seagulls – above ground
I open up my eyes / And hear the rushing sound
Of the waves that carry / my lonely raft back home
Of the winds that blow / that guide me through the foam

I’ve cast away dependence / And broken all the spells
I have become much more / Than just somebody else

Mittwoch, 12. September 2012

Choosing You Again


Heaving many sighs
Rave about a text to sync
Inventing worlds of touch
Stories make us go
Tell one another all
Inverting even jazz

Donnerstag, 6. September 2012

Serenity

(I've been asked to write some lyrics for a very promising progressive rock/metal band and this is the outcome for the first song. I realize that the approach to writing lyrics is very different writing "normal" poetry in terms of structure, rhythm, topics etc. Hope you enjoy it - maybe the entire song will be recorded some day. - R.)

My ever dying demons / hovering behind
The trees to lure me back / into the mists of my mind
Taunting disbelief / lurking in their eyes
No belated miracles / no victorious cries

I ride across the heavens and gallop through the gates
I silence all the voices that whisper it’s too late
I sing along with thunder and bolt into the sea
At the bottom, there’s no air that keeps on drowning me

Humming songs of triumph / in my soul tonight
A myriad of sparks / outshines the lunar light

On nocturnal pastures / I feel the healing sleet
Wash away the cracks / in the mire on my feet
In the cloudless sky / no more birds of prey
Zephyrs gliding on my skin / carry all the thorns away

Still a sense of triumph / resonates in me
As I stand here breathing / in serenity

Effervescent soul
In serenity

Donnerstag, 23. August 2012

Make a Wish


Too much chaos in my mind
Because of all she said
And lyrics by Tom Waits were still
Resonating in my head

I was lost in reverie
And all that I can now recall
Is that my eyes were fixed upon
The nocturnal gypsum wall

It may have been a shooting star
That cast cold light upon my back –
That shed a second’s shine of silver
Into the shapeless, silent black

And if it was a distant lightning
Or a car or who can say –
There was barely half a thing
To wish for anyway

Donnerstag, 26. Juli 2012

Lovemelovemenot


He may say yes a thousand times
But nothing – ever – will suffice
So why do you believe – me – when –
I wouldn’t have – denied it – twice?

Samstag, 14. Juli 2012

Swinging Teabag


Carving circles in the air
Hypnotize it with your stare
Mug this final destination
Unexplored criteria
Teabag, tumble to your bed
Zodiac, come set me free

Freitag, 13. Juli 2012

Class Reunion


Hey, I’m glad that you could make it
It’s really great to have you here
How you doing, guys, come in
Champagne, a glass of wine? A beer ?

Don’t worry, guys, I’m not the boy
With the Bible anymore
Remember how I – yeah, that’s right
Man, I must have been a bore –

You see I’ve got my own address
I’ve changed my name and attitude –
And now I’ve got my PhD
I can afford the finest food

I’m building up my own ideals
A workaholic in my prime
Money, self and confidence
Sex and drugs from time to time

But she – she sits there and avoids
Looking – smiling back at me –
And I can see – That she preferred
The weirdo that I used – to be

Montag, 18. Juni 2012

Violins


And slowly I approached the village
When I heard them from the coast –
Maladies for melodies –
I glided over sand, a ghost

I felt a fire flickering
Behind the pitch black dunes just when
I saw them with their instruments
A shoal of oily fishermen

Violence in violins
Disharming me – I guessed that sooner
Or later they would realize
Their life was pointless with no tuna

Finding You


Rain, an absent-minded tree
Abandon each and every limb
Nothing in our eyes to see
Zeal we show and still conceal
Invisible, too soft to hatch
Somnambulist phenomena
Keys for someone else’s car
As we have a lion heart

Montag, 7. Mai 2012

Over The Influence


You breathe and listen to my lungs –
Your wordless sounds of happiness
Keep resonating through my flesh –
Our hair is still an awesome mess

__________

I breathe too fast and try to listen
But your words are meaningless
Liquid demons rampaging –
I don't notice your caress

__________

In restless dreams – a miracle –
The two of us – an empty street –
We don't feel the broken bits
Of glass that cut our dancing feet
But rum – is burning in the wounds –
My blood – congealing – in the sleet




Donnerstag, 19. April 2012

Whoever

Whoever is responsible
For my recent falling
In fervent love with her –
Thanks for dropping me

Inferno

A pleasure 'tis to see these flames
Burning down your shabby shire
At pandemonium I stare
My soul at rest, your arson fire

Conditional Claws

If I fail to feel connected
To your hymns for him
And if I cannot feel the love
In each and every limb

Anymore

If I struggle hard to hide
My disgust from you
And if my heavy arms won't wave
As freely as yours do

Anymore

If I have unlearned by heart
The lyrics to your song
If I don't feel the inspiration
To dance and sing along

Anymore

If it tears my soul apart
To believe in souls
And if I can't abandon that
Which – deep within – controls

Anymore

And if it's always been this way
It needs to be confessed –
Indeed, it can't be all my fault
For I have done my best

And cannot do
Any more

Mittwoch, 7. März 2012

Mind Less

Brandy, candle, pen and paper
And nothing comes to mind
But I don't mind – I've seen far worse
Nothings of this kind

Second Sight

As I took a break this morning
I saw you in the corridor
I didn't care much, to be honest
I'd never seen you there before

Your rather inconspicuous figure
Didn't take me by surprise
And I admit I wasn't struck
By the beauty of your eyes

I didn't feel the need to turn
My head to look at you again
I didn't feel you were someone
That I would want to smile at then

In any case, I didn't wish
And didn't know in any way
You'd mean so much to me that I
Would love you by the end of day

Samstag, 18. Februar 2012

Hail the Loonies

I heard there was a secret dog
The piglets played, it pleased the hog
But you don't really care for our kind, do you
Well it goes like this, the horse, the cat
The minor frog and the major rat
The baffled crow composing Hail The Loonies

Hail the Loonies, Hail the Loonies

Sparrow, I've seen deer before
I've heard the wolf, I've smelled the boar
I used to live in town before I knew you
I've seen the flag on the magpie's arch
But trotting's not a victory march
It's a bellowing and lowing Hail The Loonies

Hail the Loonies, Hail the Loonies

There was a mole that let me know
What's really going on below
But peacocks never show up here, or do they
But remember cock-a-doodle-doo
And the holy goose was moving, too
And every breath we mewed was Hail The Loonies

Hail the Loonies, Hail he Loonies

Hail the Loonies

A Charly Good Fellow

You know – when times are hard
And expectations great
And finally at Christmas
Dear Carol comes to see me
And enters my bleak house
And brings along our mutual
– – friend –
I start to drink until
You twist and turn, o liver,

And I think to myself
What the dickens...

Donnerstag, 26. Januar 2012

Hours

You told me that you were – like me –
Unsure about which way to follow
You told me that we had the same
Disturbing thoughts in which we wallow

You told me that sometimes you felt
You couldn't take it anymore
When the moonlight on your sheets
Never seemed so bright before

You told me that insomnia
Had got you in its grip as well
And that you too, you counted all
The endless echoes of the bell

You're miles away and every inch
Just makes me feel so low
I wonder why we can't at least
Not sleep – together... you know

Stop Swimming

Six fifteen, I lie awake –
There's a whirlwind in my head
I feel that there can be no doubt
That – really – God is dead

Half past ten and time stands still –
Have mercy – on me – if you can –“
My lips suppress a sneer about
Someone's – so-called masterplan

Ten to one, a full canteen –
Thoughts of incarnation –
A power strong enough to want
To lead these faces – to salvation –

It's four, I can't withhold a curse –
As I hear cathedral bells –
I'm scowling at the leaden clouds
That seem to rain on no one else

Midnight and the night's too bright –
There is no other way I see –
I clasp my hands and whisper words
That he may give you back to me