asleep

the forest, asleep
while i walk, while i take
a photo of trees covered
with frozen december dew

a single hour of sun rays
could wake the birds,
could melt the frost
and churn the sky to blue

back home, a line in a printed
interview, stating that i'm
someone else altogether, yet
somehow missed to be that one.

ich bin eigentlich ganz anders
aber ich bin nie dazu gekommen

folding away the newspaper i try
to imagine the tree who gave
its life for this line to be printed,
to be rooted in black on white.
.

solstice

it's winter solstice today. from tomorrow on, the days will grow longer again. how i miss the light. sunrise today was quarter past eight, with sunset arriving at half past four. which filled the day with 8 hours of light and 16 hours of darkness.

may the light return to the world and bring peace~

a definition of time

the exhibition consisted of 560 photos, all placed in one room, sorted in four fields: existence, relationship, desire and time. she went there on a tuesday afternoon, while the sky was a blurry white. the one photo that touched her most was black and white, named "time - a leather raft on the yellow river". she wanted to take a photo of it, but in this room of photography, taking photos was not allowed. so she just wrote down the words.
outside, the sky had turned to colour by the time she walked out of the one room again. on impulse, she tried a revolving door that belonged to the first floor. it lead to an inside square, then on to a stairway. up on the roof terrace, there was a chair, placed as if waiting for someone to visit it in the chill of December. time is a sole chair in front of a blue sky, she said, and went to get her jacket.

found wisdom

Zen Blogger’s Manifesto

Do not follow in the footsteps of others,
seek what they sought and make your own footsteps.

Write not for others, as there are too many.
Write for yourself, as there is only one.

Subtract before you add.
Listen more than you speak.

Give more than you take.
Make but do not measure.

If you want to change the world,
love someone.

From sellsius via gaping void via small ponderings.

soft tags

monday morning. downstairs, there are new windows. installed to keep out the cold. some of them come with a structured surface, to also keep views out. what i didn't know: depending on the outside light, they also induce light effects, like these twin cubes of light on a pastel ground. upstairs, on my computer, there are new windows, too. the new version of the Internet Explorer is installed. it comes with more fonds, bringing out more of the personality of websites.

and since this morning, there's a third row of windows: NoTellMotel will feature a series of poems this week that i wrote in summer: rag tag crush & co. there will be one new poem per day, Monday to Friday, the page is: NoTellMotel. the first poem is "rag tag". which made me finally look up "tag" in a dictionary, and find that it's a word of 32 meanings. i love words like that. tag tag. and for the trigonometry of the list, and the week, a 33th meaning: in German, Tag means: day.

footprints of mars

• hardball :: soft touch
• sleepless :: in seattle
• graduation :: rise to the task
• presents :: pasts
• toe :: footprint
• lotion :: skin
• snicker :: mars
• eve :: adam
• investment :: $
• pain :: killer

- unconscious mutterings, week 202

frameless

sunday came and went, leaving her longing for the freshness of snow skies, for the way clouds can come and curl, can cover the now in a frameless blanket. one day, she said, and went to bed, to return to the dream she had while staying on the island of fire, this dream about flying.

- Photo Friday, challenge "freshness"

recent publications

my recent publications include a stairway encounter, two neuronal poems, structures that peace & an experimental essay on borders :

Harlequin - a stairway encounter, to be found between anticipation and apparitions in juked

rave & 359 degrees - two neuronal poems, included in a virtual void

Structures that Peace - a reflection, online in the"Knowledge and Growth" issue of Sage of Consciousness

Defining Lines - an experimental essay on borders, featured in dogmatika

the extended version of this list is up here: list of publications

stillness

stillness is the green tune
of a singular palm tree
growing like a poem
out of silent stone

- Photo Friday, challenge "Stillness"

light

Scientifically seen,
light is nothing but
an electromagnetic radiation
with a wavelength
that is visible
to the human eye.

- Photo Friday, challenge "light"

parallel lines

It was sunny, too warm for the end of October. The perfect day to cut the hedges and trees in the garden. I put on the working gloves, and all went well for the first hour: cutting the hegde, cutting the withered summer flowers. Then I started to cut the rosehip bush. I knew that it would be better to put on a long sleeved working shirt for this one, but somehow I just kept cutting. And of course, just some minutes later, one of its thorny twigs scratched across my bare left forearm, as if to say "so there."
The scratch wasn't deep, it didn't even start to bleed, but it was long, ending at my wrist, running almost parallel to the vein that is visible there through the skin. So even when I put on a long sleeved pullover, it looked like I tried to cut my wrist in the way that would do most harm.

- anovelinayear, task 3: I want you to think about a time in your life when you had an accident, then I want you to write an account of that accident. Just tell me what happened, without embellishment or analysis.

delve

time moves in circles
of 12 hours and months

listen to the minutes
fall through the sky

when the hands of time
delve into the next hour

- Thursday Challenge, theme: "time"
.

the first of the eleventh

a medley in red
marking the first November
in roofs and in leafs

snow to come they say
floating in with arctic air
to turn red to white

tell us this ain't true
plead the young yellow flowers
with the northern winds
.

this journey called a novel

novels are journeys, for the writer and for the reader. good novels are journeys that remain, that keep on moving. they are like magic. that’s what i want to create: a journey that encompasses moments, thoughts, scenes that otherwise would be lost, or wouldn’t have come into existence.
also, on a more down to earth note, novels are the form of fictional writing that are opening the doors to another level, one of being read, being taken serious, being able to earn ones living by writing. which is the level i want to reach.

- anovelinayear, task 2: I want you to tell me why you want to write a novel - not why you want to be a writer, but why, specifically, a novelist. This time, avoid the temptation to be clever or funny. Sit quietly for a minute and think about it, and be simple and honest.

blues

october twigs letting go
of curled red leaves
under a great blue sky,
the remains of summer
falling to the pavement

where a man in green jacket
and green trousers waits,
he brushes them together
in piles and wraps them up
in huge blue plastik bags

to be carried away
to be turned to earth
in the communale
compost farm

- Thursday Challenge, theme: "autumn"

i am

The day after my eighth birthday, my father told me that I am old enough to climb a mountain now.
"I am," I started to answer, then stopped, searching for the right words.
"See, I knew it," he said to my mother, unaware of the fact that I hadn't really finished my sentence.

- anovelinayear, task 1: Take up a notebook and pen, and write one sentence, beginning with the words, "The day after my eighth birthday, my father told me..." Write more than a sentence if you like but just one sentence is fine.

free falling

the radio was playing Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Free Falling, when the phone rang, once, then twice. on the third ring, i picked it up. in that very moment, one of the red petals in the blue vase decided that this would be a good time to let go, and sailed down, landing in a new form of itself, its core still in the centre.
"wow," i said.
"hello?", the phone answered.

- Photo Friday, challenge "accidentally"

sunrise in a box

costume :: helloween

beg :: ger

hottie :: cooler

celebrity :: star

saturday :: sunrise

buckle :: up

doorbell :: gong

rude :: box

absence :: out

hyper :: media

- Unconscious Mutterings, week 195

innocence

innocence is a petal
opening in October

beyond the security
of a green fence

that guards this place
called summer

- Photo Friday, challenge "innocence"

tides

a house built on sand. that was the first thing they saw of the bay of pollentia. a house, about to drift away into the ocean. in all the years that followed, they looked for it when they reached the bay, expecting it to be gone. but in all those years, the house surprised them by keeping its balance, there, in the sand, in between the shells, in between the coming and going of tides.

- Photo Friday, challenge "destruction"

breathe forward

weeks :: time

cough :: cougar

jail :: wall

produced :: grown

? :: !

stapler :: box

next :: forward

oxygen :: breathe

musical :: tune

- Unconscious Mutterings, Week 193

in the hour of dusk

leaving genua
in the hour of dusk
with the lights
floating by
like a river
into darkness
waiting for the night
to rise

- Thursday Challenge, theme: "dark"

thin

in tune with the theme of photo friday and the dew haiku, a spider was weaving its web in the garden yesterday. this morning, it sparkled with dew drops, held by those thin web strings, looking like a microcosmos of star drop constellations, there, in the backyard.

this dew drop world
may be a dew drop
but still...

- Photo Friday, challenge "thin"

lunar light

they had been there all day, but it was in the night, on the way back from the restaurant called Arlequin, that they were alone at the beach. "the moon," she said, and pointed at the reflection on the water that moved in waves. they walked with it, with this reflection, and she was amazed how it moved with them, how it stayed by their side.
"it's what light does," he said, and painted the moon for her in the sand, and the sun, to explain the reflection.
that was what she remembered, the next day. the sand moon, and the sand sun. and the riddle of the reflected lunar light that moved with them.

- Thursday Challenge, theme: "light"

tsuyo

this week i am working on a language project that includes poems in other tongues. that's how i found this poem, and came to translate it. then i thought, it expresses its meaning even when you don't understand the words. that's how i was drawn to it.

Tsuyo-no-yo wa
tsuyu-no-yo nagara
sari nagara
- Issa, Japan
.

anger

anger has an ugly face
void of colours
stuck to black on white
it sits under the naked feet
of the known world
waiting to bite

- Photo Friday, challenge "anger"

how to improve one’s life

it's one of the days again. i am struggling with a short story. theme: utopia. deadline: next week. i did some complex maths, and came to the conclusion that if i had written it last month, it would be done already.

to solve the problem, i followed a link in a friend's mail. clicked a page further and.. was taken to an article on how to write a novel (of all themes. and here i sit, fussing about a short story ;-). the best line, as so often, was in the comments:

Like many, if not all, things in life, routine is a key to success. Physical exercise, work performance, diet, bonding with friends and family, even entertainment; routine is the key to succeeding in these things. Of course, it is easy for me to write that and very hard for me to do it. Another key is to quit reading about how to improve one's life and simply improve it.

here the link, it's part of the Moleskin-page: Advice on Novel Writing, and How to Improve your Life in General. and here, the original link that took me to Moleskin: I am having a wonderful love affair with Diana

and because it's one of those days, blogger only agreed to upload the line-image on third try. maybe because it's three lines.

snow dark red

1. Bell :: snow
2. Abuse :: dark
3. Relief :: sigh
4. List :: dots
5. Concern :: to whoever it may
6. Absolute :: beginners
7. Cling :: finger
8. Dump :: fall
9. Terminate :: three
10. Wine :: red

- Unconscious Mutterings, week 190

girl tuesday

she sat there, at the metro station Malostranska, the one in between Vlatava and Hradschin, between palais gardens and euro hot dogs. sat there in front of the key that was wrapped in the wall, looking like a version of me in another life, of me grown up in this other place, in this city named Prague.

seeing the photo now, i still wished i had asked her for the name of the book she was reading, there in the tuesday morning sun, while the world floated by, and for a second came to a halt, and focused on her turning the page, and me taking the photo.

- Photo Friday, challenge: "Girl"

mirage

she hadn't seen them
when she took the picture
had focused on the singular petal
lying there on the steps
that lead from earth to water
in three levels

it was only back home
when she looked at the moment
again on the wider screen
that they appeared
from the depth of the pool
like a mirage

first she read them
as a reflection
a string of clouds
hazy and orange
but the longer she looked
the closer they came
into reality

sometimes spam

friday morning,
an unseen moon
announcing fall

while a saint
in my mail
advices that

'text is best
stored reduced
in purpose
plain files'

sometimes spam
is word punk art.

easy

yesterday was such a strange day. after the days of jazzy motion, i suddenly was out of the flow, just when i came across the idea to write a poem every morning for the remaining days of September and felt, it would be just fitting after the posts i already had made in oil on copper in the last days.

but would you guess it: the moment i planned to capture them, the words faded. yesterday really turned in one of the days when you have all kind of things and ideas in mind, and whatever you start doesn’t want to work out. not even the simple poem you thought you scribble in 5 minutes, and that calls you back again and again, and so you find yourself, fussing over 12 lines of a poem ad absurdum. changing and changing and changing it, and ending back at square one.

to add to it, my horoscope stated “what it all means” for the title of the day. which felt double odd, as it was a day of questions rather than of answers. in a black moment of humour, i attached the line to the poem that didn't want to fall into place. but then, maybe it wasn't supposed to. for what it did, at the end of the day, made me browse the "how to be creative" pages. and there it was, the line that felt like an explanation of what the day meant.

"Being good at anything is like figure skating- the definition of being good at it is being able to make it look easy. But it never is easy. Ever."

so i put the alarm early today. and wrote the poem of this day with the first cup of tea. on the way to the bakery, the thought followed that instead of just posting the poems here, i could send them out. look for a fitting e-zine for each of them. which adds the task of checking zines and writing submission mails to the plan. but then, why make it easy, anyway.

what it all means

shine then fog then sun
rising and setting
in the pass of two tea hours
as if it was
one pair of days
entwined in each other

sliding behind the skies
carrying the first
of the falling leafs
and the last
of the newborn
sunflowers

(this poem is part of a poetry project that joined on a walk in my topography, a place i reached through waking up late. the simple difficult plan: "Start with anything—whatever happens, and write one every day.” )

one

one drop of water
falling into blue
creates perfect
centric waves

why can't we
be like water
when we fall
down
.

indigo

it was one of those days
when she needed to hear
some motion music
in matching volume

she tried tori amos,
then terence trent d’arby
then macy gray
in various levels

finally she reached the bottom
of the stack of cds
and there it was,
unheard for too long,

the album of indigo
this cd her sister
had given her once,
years ago

and that now,
in one swift turn,
filled the room
with this peculiar

very right,
very deep,
very pointed
subversity

marrakesh

coloured shadows
irradiated by marrakesh lamps
are sole reflections of hazy ghosts
on distant day trips

- Photo Friday, challenge: "Bright"

the one place

home:

the one place
with features getting clearer
the further you are
away from it

the one place
where the flowers
of your childhood are
still blossoming

- Thursday Challenge, theme: "home"

invisible star

1. true love :: forever and a day
2. age :: just a number
3. stern :: star. smile. this is a translation.
4. elastic :: bungee
5. rustic :: shining
6. enhance :: your heart
7. inherit :: gifts of the past
8. devious :: obvious
9. scapegoat :: invisible man

- Unconscious Mutterings, Week 188

beyond

have you ever been touched
by the latitude of clouds,
he asked, there, in this place
beyond stone borders

- September 2006, San Bernardino Passage

things

caressing the green of a leaf
watching the motion of sky
listening to the wind in the window:

the things you do
before and after
the things to be done

circle

inside the Kampa museum
next to the Vlatava
a view through a window
that reshapes the outside

- Photo Friday, challenge: "Circle"

skyline skype slate

the new hu
of mode bravery

is a three word poem
between icelandic
sun flower clarity

in a sudoku mirror
named spam poetry

fire outside

"what do you like to do," he asked.
"start a fire with you," she answered.
he smiled, and went to gather wood.

- Thursday Challenge, theme: "Hot"

sky tuesday

1. Cruel :: Joke
2. Jive :: Rave
3. Weak :: Tuesday
4. Understand :: Me
5. Bum :: Honey
6. Stairs :: Rooms
7. Tone :: Sky Notes
8. Quickly :: Just a Moment
9. Moment :: .. Coincidence :-)
10. Beating :: Heart

- Unconscious Mutterings, Week 185

inspire

my favorite source for inspiration is - the little moments. the butterfly in the yard. the brush of thought that was lined in a conversation. my passion is - the invisible magic of life, i guess. my fear is - to run out of words and colours. and on the other hand, to run away from my own words and colours. my favorite thing about creating - is the spaces inspiration opens. and the connections those spaces induce.

- Inspire me Thursday, Open Challenge "Inspiration - Creation"

lux

an overcast morning,
but the sun rose just there,
in the only stripe of sky.

four

between wave cafés
and fifth avenue boutiques
a silent street lamp

reflecting on dusk
and all those people walking
in four directions

- Photo Friday, Challenge: "Four"

yellow transfusion

1. Kim :: Wilde
2. Designate :: Signature
3. Liner :: Curve
4. Weed :: Rose
5. Infusion :: Transfusion
6. Nutritious :: Yellow
7. Favorites :: Dreams
8. Transform :: Change
9. 42 :: Things
10. Sunday afternoon :: Sun

- Unconsicous Mutterings, Week 184

phonetic flow

underneath an art deco lantern
a doorway from the past
leading to Anenská
and Dvorákovo

two corners further, on a rose bench
with view to the Vlatava, to the Hradcany,
the Czech advice to 'neck tou plavat',
to just let it flow

still i wish those streets could talk,
could converse their cobblestone tales
of white nights and black days
of times coming and going

- Inspire me Thursday, challenge: black and white

the colour of clouds

"tell me the colour of clouds," her teacher said.
"white," she answered.
her teacher smiled, and pointed towards the window.
that's how she learned to see.

- Thursday Challenge, theme: "Sky"

strelizia

"it is exotic," i explained to her. "it's blue-orange, and it looks a bit like a parrot"
to my surprise, she caught the picture.
"i know what you mean. i bought them once on the Canary Islands.”
“that’s the one” i said, all excited.
“there even might be a photo of me, holding the flowers," she added. "they had those special wrappings, to survive the flight."
“and .. what is the name?”
“that indeed is a good question," she answered.
so we kept talking, about pizza express deliveries and the possible meanings of luck. she told me about the feeling she had, to leave, and how it had started to rain hard ten minutes later, a rain that turned to fog later. i told her about a photo of Japanese Jizos, sent by a friend from Canada, and the way it matched certain Pages of the Mind.
“Strelizien,” she said, when i finished the sentence.
“Strelizien?” i asked, wondering what she was referring to.
“the name of the flower,” she explained, solving both riddles in one go.

portrait of a landcsape

every thing needs a name. even the format of photographs. in German, it's 'Hochkant' and 'Querformat'. an odd pair of words, as they can't be put the other way round, there is no 'Querkant', and no 'Hochformat'.
in English, the corresponding words are 'portrait' and 'landscape'. a quite philosophical terminology, as they almost invite to explore portraits of landscapes. like this one: the road to Tramuntana, on a day of clouds.

- Photo Friday, challenge: "Portrait"

red orange blue

i thought i wouldn't have it any more, but there it was, at the bottom of a drawer, the blue box with the wax sticks. Wachsmalstifte, they are called in German. made with real bee wax. maybe that's why their colours seem to stick and flow at the same time. even the camera picked up on it, i just had to play with the focus while taking the picture.

- Inspire me Thursday, Challenge: "Child's Play"

tryangle

1. Requirements :: have to
2. Pizza :: triangle
3. Dating :: telltale
4. Issue :: seven
5. Sharp :: knife
6. Distinguish :: subside
7. Remote :: control
8. Felony :: cat
9. Exercise :: breathe
10. Choose :: try

- Unconscious Mutterings, Week 181

common

common: shared equally by two or more, or relating to the community as a whole; widespread; occuring frequently or habitually; most widely known; having no special status

on Mondays, we used to go to the koki, the communale cinema. we sat on the bridge, and then took the glasses inside the old building with the new red seats. row 7, seat 6 and 5. that's were we usually sat, and watched films that had no special status in the huge movie palaces, those films about common people in places that are uncommon to us.

- Photo Friday, challenge: "Common"

within

Makeshift we are
Our two senses

Random neural firing
Light upon light

Within / Without
Of day thought time

On a lighter note:
Can you draw eternity
refreshingly?

~

written 2005,
just refound in a file

175 West

It was the day of twin towns.

We left St. Petersburg in the morning, then rode the long bridge across Tampa Bay, towards Naples. All this, in a white cabriolet, with some rock station playing the Billboard Charts up and down. In between interstate crossings, a sign appeared. BayWalk The Pier Tropicana Field Bradenton, it said, and we wouldn't stop to take a photo or to check the map, there, on the road.

- Inspire me Thursday, challenge: "Numeral Art"

full moon day lily

there's a day lily in my garden that never blossomed. last week, i noticed there was a bud growing. and on Tuesday, the day of full moon, it happened: the day lily decided this would be her day. and thus showed her true colour, for one day: crimson red.
the next morning, the flower was curled and whithered. i am still not sure what is more remarkable: the beauty of the flower, or the ease with which this lily creates such beauty and lets it go the other day.

- Photo Friday, July 2006, challenge: "Remarkable"

ticket to truth

1. Face it :: fear light truth
2. Healthy :: air colour space
3. Cartoon :: toon town
4. Device :: wheel advice
5. Raider :: rider sweeper chocolate bar
6. Closer :: kiss
7. Admission :: ticket
8. Culture :: humanity
9. Stakes :: high
10. Heartbroken :: crying

- Unconscious Mutterings, Week 179

timelines

tourmalet, this huge old mountain of the pyrenees, carrying the memories of the tour de france right on the surface of its one street. today they bikers cross it again, reminding me of the day i was there, taking this photo, in September 2003. there was rain in the morning. later the clouds were moving like in slow trance between steep slopes.

osiris

about 1500 before Christ, somewhere in Egypt, an artist engraved hieroglyphs into a black stone panel dedicated to a God. a couple of hundred years later, said stone panel went on an exhibition. or rather: a duplicate of it. i still remember how i stood in front of this panel, amazed, studying the symbols. eventually i opened my tiny travel diary, and wrote down the name of the God: Osiris. then i did something i hadn't done since i was a child: i smoothed the paper onto the panel, and brushed it with the pencil. with every move, more of the symbols appeared.

this is a photo of the page, the engraved symbols now transformed to bits and bytes, and moved to a coloured background.

- Inspire me Thursday, challenge: "image transfer"

summer

summer is the pink
flox kiss
of a peacock eye
butterfly

(flox is the name of the pink flower. they also come in white. and in German, the name of this butterfly is 'Pfauenauge' - 'peacock eye' - in reference to the pattern on his wings. i hoped the butterfly would open them, like he did before i brought my camera. he wouldn't. but the waiting was worth it - it made me remember to switch the focus button to close-up.)

- Photo Friday, July 2006, challenge: "summer"

happiness is..

this swift sensation
of being one with
a fleeting moment

~

happiness. it also once was the theme of the Mississippi Review - the happiness issue. which made me go on a search for happiness, and come back with a poem that made it in the issue, it's online here: what it is, what it isn't is.

these are my favourite lines of it:

it is being small and successful says strategy
it is dragon shaped says sendit
it is a serious problem says dennis
it is easier than you might think says suntimes
it is not the easiest thing to find says chennai

also, it is finding the matching photo for Friday.

- Photo Friday, July 2006, challenge: "happiness is.."

the magic of reality

Monday noon and i stopped by at Inspire me Thursday.
"This week, your challenge is to create a piece of art that focuses on body parts," Thursday said.

which made me remembered that Monday in May, when i went to see the magic of reality in 70 paintings. one of them, a city scene. there were so many people, still i wanted to take a photo of this painting, and ended with a woman stepping into it. first i thought of erasing the photo on the digicam, but then it felt, this really is the far more interesting scene, with the woman in black passing the blue city.

so i put together the photo page, submitted it to Thursday, then browsed some of the links. stumbled upon waking up late, and within, upon leaf feet, and unconscious mutterings:

"That :: thing, place, known."
"All about :: that, love, open."

the mutterings, they took me to lunanina. "love as if your heart isn't fragile," luna said. and i suddenly just knew i had to start this blog. even the name was already there, in the last line of nova mesta.

"Blog :: oil on copper, dream on day"

- Inspire me Thursday, challenge: "body parts"

nove mesto

dusk floating from the Vlatava
white swallows circle old towers,
the present and the past

nove mesto to charles bridge:
tomorrow is another street
oil on copper, dream on day

- Prague, June 2006

solstice

summer solstice
strawberry days

beck's green lemon
soccer glasses

the world but a ball
bouncing on clover grass

while a blue dragonfly
circles me & a daydream

underneath a swaying
yellow parasol

- Solstice, June 2006

ninetyfive

on the way to town
an edding message
on an iron fence

the things that remain:
names and dates
petals in time

- Esslingen, June 2006

spring

grey brown ground
stones and sticks
turning touching
yellow dots of life

calling the bee
hidden in a bulb
can you hear
the hum?

- Spring, March 2006

technology

a crane once was part of a factory. lifting goods of up to 7,5 tons from one place to another. now the factory is gone, yet its building remained, and with it, the crane. it doesn't have to carry goods anymore, though. it just can be there, up in the air.

on the way to the room that once might have been the home of workbenches and that now is home of yoga classes, there is a row of three windows that open to the crane. it makes me smile, just by being there, a memory of the past, built before i even was born. sometimes i imagine it shifts in the night, moving through memories the bricks still hold.

- Photo Friday, March 2006, challenge: "Technology"