english
What profits (♀)
Early up, out and about,
look over the water,
sniff at coffee beans,
paint your toenails,
go to the hairdresser,
and otherwise: tears, hot-water bottles and rebirth.
Somewhat helpful:
talk about it lots,
change your GP,
pull up your stockings,
finish off those chocolate Nicholasses from the year before,
and according to your whim these parting words: And please
never phone me again.
Not at all helpful:
encouraging words,
power shopping,
camomile tea, fennel tea, green tea,
least of all: your firm resolution
to flirt with complete strangers.
In the end, however, maybe
everything is of some profit,
though paltry
and only for a while.
What profits (♂)
Put on your finest suit,
think of some truly horrific fate,
draw up a list,
take a running jump,
don’t get out of the sun
and otherwise: keep silent, with the right kind of people.
Somewhat helpful:
don’t shave,
don’t read the newspaper,
listen to loud music,
let others cook for you,
and according to your whim tell a beautiful woman: Sorry,
simply haven’t got the time.
Not at all helpful:
to stay in bed,
avoid the gargle,
take up a hobby or
look for a colour-coordinated pocket square,
least of all: no hard feelings,
just grope them.
Ultimately nothing
profits.
Closing balance
There finally remain but smallish things
and smallish words, a gesture, a half-look,
the memories of mishaps that life brings
or of a friend too early brought to book,
nothing remains but that grey bathing strand
without a setting sun, there just remain
a train you missed, a broken window pane,
a hand-carved animal from some strange land,
that shell for you which once a girl had found,
there finally remains … And all that blurred
and mediocre, however much your mind
might wangle it – just save yourself the blather,
don’t make the mess of life still more absurd!
For that was it. There will not be another.
Wild rhubarb
Wild rhubarb,
its leaves as large as shields,
tightly packed at the roadside,
the phalanx of the victors,
tautly funnelled, deep green pride,
not the slightest gap,
not a patch of ground unroofed
Wild rhubarb,
man-high right next to tarred tracks through the jungle,
at loggerheads, unrelenting thirst
so that not a single raindrop be lost,
not a single nettle on the ground,
least of all a daisy,
a marsh-marigold or dandelion
could survive here
amongst all the rank erectness of those stalks
Wild rhubarb,
the stems beneath engorged with water,
you almost feel like bending over and –
better not. In the shade of the leaves
in all likelihood there’s a bloodbath under way,
the stems are crackling and
sap drips heavily into those thirsty throats