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"