BUILDING BRIDGES
POEMS BY
FRANK JOUSSEN
EDITED By
AVVARI
SHOWRAIAH
To be
published by IDEAS,
A Selection At Random
Dis/orient/ation
discovery:
discussions at home
discontinuing my career
diseases threatening
disagreement till take off
caught in mid-air: on my way
to the bazaars of the airports and the stations,
the mazes of overpopulated streets
and alien customs everyone´s
too polite to explain,
the East becomes a maelstrom
of confusing images, sounds, smells
but without it I´d be lost
orient - orienteering - orientation
for my self: who am I
on this helpless, hapless planet
and can I finally belong, be of use?
- Mum, Dad, nothing´s
to be taken for granted, not anywhere! -
The Raised
Dhoti
the woman with child
looked down at me
from her balcony
as I was smoking,
unabashed,
in the street
watching an old man
with a walking stick
who kept on raising his dhoti
then lowering it again
very carefully, decently
to cool off a little bit
on his way to some
unknown destination
a Camel filters in my mouth
and a white cap to cool
my face and shade my view
I started musing
how beneficial it would be
if one could raise
the old man´s standard
of living
just as high as he was raising
his dhoti
and if one could lower
the birth rate of
only to the same degree
as he was lowering it again
then I looked up at
the sari Madonna again
- maybe it´s not
all that simple.
after some time
you can´t concentrate
on people anymore
the edges of white dhotis
and red saris blur
till you have to
switch over
to your automatic pilot
equipped with all instinctive senses
trying to find your way
through the grave-looking masses
or quite deliberately
following the cow
on its unblocked path
where it´s met by
all its Shiva splendour
and passes right through
the begging philosophers
and blind technocrats
smeared with blood-red henna
and powdered ashes
of cow dung
to see once again
the myths that all
paths came from
in prehistoric times.
Playing with Fire
- where do you buy
your wood? -
asks my
I don´t buy it
I chop it myself
but how strange
come to think of it
these chunks look
even in the element
they´re destined for
some twisting then falling
others hissing or moaning
unexpectedly -
have they not lain
cut and drying
for years?
that one in the middle
casting a Gothic glow
on everyone around
grinning at us
with row after row
of shining black teeth
even in death
you can tell them apart
the earliest
burnt to dancing flames
the latest
broken and blackened
but persisting
giant index fingers
strewn upon the stage
of the open fireplace.
I am night –
giver of peace and quiet
but I am not
myself tonight.
My head aches – crisscrossed
by mutated mosquitoes
that send lightnings
through my veins
which tear up my belly
and wake up the children
pursuing their dreams
of happiness there.
My ears hurt – pierced by noise
to mock my tranquility
with explosions
that turn my darkened homes
into illuminated graves.
My feet are shaken
by man-made earthquakes.
They´re raiding – robbing me
of everything that I am
till I go to pieces which
fall
down to
reveal
the debris
that
the world
and I
have become.
war´s impossible –
no human wipes out owners
of words and of dreams
as if he was a cold sponge
devoid of humane feelings.
you wear your clothes so gracefully
like a princess or a queen
your silk black hair with jasmine garland´s
one of the prettiest things I´ve ever seen
your husband in his lungi spits
and sits idly on the ground
he tells lewd jokes and
while he´s bullying you around
when you pray for good karma
and the right to choose
you will say your next life
should be a lungi one
whereas I´d opt for the sari
if I had nothing to lose
stand up and fight for the rights
I have not yet won.
(On visiting the
All your life you fought for
the freedom of forgiveness –
in the solitude of your brain cells,
the lianas of colonial law,
the worldwide waves of
your fasting and your speeches,
and the elementary spinning
of the never-ending wheel.
Your people trusted you
to find it and to give it.
The poet called you
Mahatma; he was right:
For if all the rest
has already made sense,
which is usually the crucial
point of no biographical return,
one true gesture at the end
- the folding of your hands
in the face of foul murder -
can sum it all up,
without any famous last words.
The End of
the Warriors
The warriors of the world
had a meeting late last night
'it
was an emergency call'
the kamikaze pilots let fly on
TV
and their harakiri generals
agreed
'let´s
bury our weapons on the beaches'
an imposing ex-PM decreed
'from
now on we´ll play on the landings,
the sandy hills of a
and conquer only with
Baedeckers and cigars'
alas, our leaders and their
hackers
soon had their island in their
net
showering it with bombs smarter than
the bums who´d made them
with 'shock and awe,' only more
is more.
EPILOGUE
To end up on a more personal note - this one´s for you, Shouri and Bruno:
Peace Poem
"Not to believe in the
possibility
of permanent peace
is to disbelieve in the
Godliness
of human nature."
(Mahatma Gandhi)
I know a man living here in
who goes to work and sustains his family
does everything a decent man should do
like me and you but does something else too.
Wherever two of his dear fellow men fight
he says "for the love of Christ this isn´t right"
if you wish to make the world a better place
befriend your foe to improve the human race.
I know a man in a small Indian town
who won´t let the ideals of Gandhiji down,
he´s built a house to get kids off the street
and we talk of peace whenever we meet.
Talking and living for peace is what they do
as true Christians they talk to Muslims and Jews,
they work together with Buddhists and Hindus
and if we join them they´ll bring peace to us too.
©FRANK JOUSSEN