Where You Are When You Are  

1

The poem that would like to go to a party

looks at itself on the paper and asks:

So is this all? Through the wall comes the sound

of a bass, on the neighbour’s balcony the

smokers are crowding together, down the staircase are

staggering the twosomes, high on hormones,

why is it that I evening after evening keep

looking fixedly, without stopping, almost

forever at the sky, measuring

the pulse of the universe, the stardust on

the eyebrows of night-time mirages? Just stop

weaving me into verses; rather,

fold me into a paper airplane

and launch me out the window.

2

The poem that shuns the light

shrinks away from the paper, like a still

sleepy child shrinks from cold clothes.

It hesitates on the tip of a tongue, loiters

into remote chambers of consciousness, while

I try to convince it, carefully

urge it: Drop into a word,

a nest full of voiced consonants and

sibilants; with expert hands you will be

kneaded into shape, so that you will

parade down the verses like a

mannequin on a fashion runway.

Say goodbye to the chattering heart

and move on out of me. Perhaps

I shall be somebody else tomorrow and

you will stay in the dark.

3

The poem that has deceived me right

from the very beginning arrives

dressed all in black in order to

worm its way into a vein that has moved

to the dark side. I take it by

the elbow and lead it onto the

the dance-floor of paper, where I shall

from time to time carefully twirl it into

a rhyme, so that I do not ruffle

the metaphors of the serious lady.

But she suddenly strikes up a

different rhythm. Before I know

what is happening, she is leading and I

match my step to other syllables.