As part of World Poetry Day 2021, some more English poems have been composed, using Pexels graphics to create visual poetics.
Life is not a construct
Our life is not a construct, but relationship
And relationships can be authentic or false
And therefore we are also responsible for them
For those with whom we live and for those
Who are assigned to us by disposition.
Nothing is predetermined and there is no fate
But there is what suits into the fabric of our life:
We are interwoven with the world, interwovenness
That makes up who we are and who we become.
We can deny this and concoct all sorts of things
But what does not fit, does not match
And what does not exist outside of ourselves
That cannot intertwine with us either.
For only real relationships are sustainable,
For life is not a construct, but organic.
* * *
Faith
Some people think faith is the opposite of knowledge.
Some people think faith is just a feeling.
But in fact faith is an expression of relationship,
A relationship between the heavenly and a person,
And so it’s an expression of conscious living.
It is important to live truthfully,
To live in harmony with feeling and thinking.
Natural science has its place there,
And so does emotional feeling, but:
If there is no relationship, it is not yet faith.
It’s only a mental construct then,
No matter how clever or educated you are
Or how extreme your feelings:
That’s not something that can hold.
It’s tempting for smart people
To think they can reason the world.
It’s tempting for emotional people
To put feelings above everything.
But life is not a construct, it’s relationship.
And where there is no relationship,
There is neither authentic life nor faith.
* * *
Idiocracy
From my earliest youth, I could do nothing
With thinking in terms of duality.
I have never understood how one can be
So primitive as to sort people into binaries
When human beings are such colorful and
Diverse personalities with stories and
A depth in Character far beyond that.
People do not see what is around them,
But only what does not require them
To really deal with the complexity
In our cosmos. After all, it’s too easy:
Black and white, male and female, good and evil.
If that is not enough, we simply make new drawers.
Duality: the older I get, the more it disgusts me
How foolish this is. And yet, in this Society,
Only the simple-minded proliferate everywhere,
And maybe it’s necessary,
To be so primitive if one wants to multiply,
For otherwise it is difficult to bear the fact
That wisdom is constantly dwindling
And only stupidity is growing.
* * *
Endings and Beginnings
I don’t know where this is going to end,
I really don’t know.
I honestly don’t know where it might end –
And No, I don’t even know when it should end.
Maybe tonight…
Everything ends at some point,
Yes, everything has an end.
You have your time – and so do I.
The end is perhaps inevitable,
But it is the beginnings
That give our lives their magic.
So let’s try summer morning dew,
Sun glistening in the droplets,
A fresh breeze over the green,
Where the foxes still play, in the dawn
When early the blackbird sings.
It sings for us too, if we ask.
Let us be Magical beginnings, so that
The power of renewal can transform us.
Let us carefully watch the rising sun,
Let us enjoy the heat of June, the noon.
Let us dance through midsummer days.
And finally, when the full evening comes,
After a great and empowering summer,
Someday, we can say that we have lived,
Truly, eternally.
* * *
The Seven Deadly Sins of Nowadays
I. Ignorance … the dark twin sister of tolerance confering
The soul-cold attitude of simply blanking out problems and conflicts,
Letting them ferment – until they get out of hand
And can finally hardly be solved.
II. Hopelessness … making no longer tread even quite obvious bridges
To a better future because of a denial of sense and meaning
And strives towards nothingness.
III. Imaginelessness … prevents new paths and bridges into the future
From being built at all – It takes away people’s dreams and reduces them
To animals or automatons. TINA applies: There Is No Alternative…
IV. Memorylessness … helps to forget everything and everyone –
Those who have no past are not interested in the future,
And without experience one does not need and cannot learn
From mistakes. And the treadmill greets us daily…
V. Disloyalty … owes no one anything
And dissolves the social network by ruining mutual trust.
VI. Brazenness … destroys a society from within
By replacing consideration, justice and solidarity
With a policy of fait accompli where only lived egoism scores.
VII. Fanaticism … has the wondrous gift of turning every ideal,
However noble, into its worst opposite and makes anyone
Completely immune to reason and compassion.
* * *
Starlight Blessings
Above all I love these nights,
Moments in tender starlight,
When dreams and hope unify
And the heavenly silence resounds
All over it – the universe:
Myriads of stars, sparkling melodies
Surrounding all over me,
So many angels guarding us
From the etherial world, our shelter,
Covering the firmament with eternal joy,
A majestic magic upon everything,
While the noble world slumbers.
Only who is dark in heart
Must fear the night, as you know.
But those who light up themselves
In heavenly calm, listening,
Cannot be frightened by silence.
For demons come only from within,
Not from celestial creation.
And those who enjoy the nocturnal hours
Draw blessings for all their days long.
* * *
