EDUARD SCHMIDT-ZORNER

EDUARD

SCHMIDT ZORNER

Drowning

To the ocean of tears

we add every day

with cold-heartedness,

people drown in a sea of sadness.

We look into the magic mirror

cannot comprehend our human error.

One foot nailed to the ground

revolving around the pivot point

of our existence.

Sinking, losing myself, in your eyes,

almost drown in your love,

that's what I'd liked to have done -

we promised ourselves togetherness,

but ended in utter loneliness.

I perished out of stupidity

and drown now in your tears,

because I didn't return your love.

And left you,

so stupid so, so selfish, so inconsiderate,

we could be endless absorbed in our love.

I bathed in the green pond of illusion

and self-deception.

My face under the rescuing water surface

I breathe in water,

see the daylight but it doesn't perceive

and rescue me - I drown…

Water spirits surround me.

Water is like amniotic fluid

which keeps you protected

but is an untamed element, unrestrained.

My hands try to grab hold.

But time runs through the fingers like sand,

sprinkles salt into forgotten wounds.

I break the breath from my lips,

tear a little dream out of my sleep.

The beating of my heart might betray me.

We are not us, just a coincidence,

an accident, a missed excuse.

A broken branch here and there.

I could leave the senseless path

Or, while turning back, making up my mind,

I see the world collapsing

and everything finds a soothing end.

Evening stillness

Cursed land,

where once the cart

with the witch rolled along

the sunken ravine

a stone hanging from her neck,

while a wedge of wild ducks

quacked over the forest plane

Damp humidity lies furrow-wide,

birds lost their voice

bells are hoarse from ringing.

The wind –a scythe of frost

cuts the rusty reeds.

It snows black wings

from a dark-grey crow-sky.

A wall of ice-cold white -

No spring in sight.

A halfmoon of tin plate

blinks on the black backdrop

at half power.

The chain of hills already fell to sleep

and dreams of the other half,

the waiting crescent.

Time Dissolving

Tarmac covered with day,

anonymous shadows in disarray,

melodies of mute steps,

their path lost,

in the depths of time.

Do not forget

her greeting you waited for,

on asphalted roads

with receding minutes.

Yesterday lies beyond the wall

bricks with hardened mortar,

give little leeway

for a clock face, whose arms whittle away.

You see time vanish.

Traces end in the plastering.

Search in vain the rubble

of broken stones.

The time, disdain,

forgets to ask questions.

Calendars exercise perceptions

for the day after tomorrow

new days grow on lanterns at dawn,

extinguishing like dying candles.

In the gutter traces of cold sweat.

I pick my day to pieces:

Flower oracle, plucking petals.

In the foliage of past years:

a forgotten autumn in tears.

In an opened calendar, I search for you

find you in the echo of old songs.

I show your name to the river waves,

your face to the quicksand.

I dip my fingers into clouds,

clenched fists into storms.

I dug the soil where I found your footprint

kissed the stone, which you touched.

Volatile division of time,

carillon figures perform a round dance,

a chime sounds twelve, the door closes,

the curtain falls.

World In Fire

Red sun, pale moon,

black stars, omen of doom.

Storm tossed world,

times in a waft of mist, hurled.

Banshees washing blood-stained clothes

when people die in battles.

Under kettles… burning embers,

smouldering bonfire of nature, which remembers

lost empathy.

On the swords, dried blood, portending evil,

harvest eaten by weevil, dour, ugly warriors.

A red coloured horizon in frantic fire.

Wood heaped for an eternal pyre.

Moving times of wrath

choking the throat, in temper,

clenching a rough fist full of resentment,

drowning in blind anger.

Searching a hand, which is offering liberation,

shelter and happiness

in the bleak empty times of loneliness,

which fill me with sorrow and horror,

which deny a horizon, a tomorrow,

blocking our paths in a brazen way,

preventing us to climb to heights,

to the light of day.

So that a beam strikes us and lights up our life

lifts us out of the darkness, a sharp knife

to cut the strings,

weaving eternal ropes around us.

Vanity

Castles in the air and no key

wings but unable to fly.

Wedge of birds crossing the sea

writing meaningless words on a cheerless sky

no longer will I dream

under shady linden trees

of velvety nights of love,

this breeze

of warming light above.

Freed from branches

and forgotten by the tree

like a leaf

I vanish with the wind

dream - fall - luckless

on cold, wet ground

where I find the friends again,

the other leaves,

who sang with me the songs of spring,

We lie dispersed on sandy soil,

to die a colourful death,

autumn paint marked each of us

to tell the winter

that we are

messengers,

when we, as humus,

play our part again.

EDUARD SCHMIDT-ZORNER

EDUARD SCHMIDT-ZORNER is a translator and writer of poetry, haibun, haiku and short stories. He writes haibun, tanka, haiku and poetry in four languages: English, French, Spanish and German and holds workshops on Japanese and Chinese style poetry and prose. Member of four writer groups in Ireland and lives in County Kerry, Ireland, for more than 25 years and is a proud Irish citizen, born in Germany. Published in 72 anthologies, literary journals and broadsheets in UK, Ireland, Canada and USA. He worked 40 years as international sales manager. Writes also under his pen name: Eadbhard McGowan