Tuesday, 26 January 2021

Three Poems by Eadbhard McGowan/Eduard Schmidt-Zorner


Eternal circle

 

sun rises

soon again

soon rises

sun

again

a day

starts new

again

a day starts

we rise

from sleep

early then

from bed

we rise

like sun

and day

awake

until dusk

begins

to close

the door

to set the sun

again



Time void

 

Like on a rock

as outpost in seclusion.


Summer without people.


Months of loneliness,


without conversation.


A boat bobbing on a lake


in its own indivisible time,


on a Sunday without end.


A lonely seagull his companion

.
Both keep distance, eying each other.


He hears voices, but discards them,


the whisper of faces,


he cannot see.


Vague sound memories


of the last carefree year.


Not a soul is here.


A bookmark in a book,


which he reads again and again:


An expired train ticket


for a train never taken,


a journey never made.


Time as a band


that ties in with the past.

 

 

Incomplete

 

Found old letters in a drawer,

like rustling, heaped, dry leaves,

which, letter by letter,

lead into serious realms,

a few were a laugh,

some encouraging and revealing.

They reflected a futile, perishable past.

 

Metaphors cheaper by the dozen.

Story beginnings, relationship endings.

Short stories with sad content,

curses and songs of hate,

long-sought-after rhymes and verses,

carved, pressed into white pages.

 

Concise irreversibility, final lines.

Sentences cut amidst by sharp blades.

Pages with many spots of tears.

Some letterheads in pink or purple

or smelling of violets.

One with traces of red lipstick on it.

 

I also found letters from me.

Unfinished, inconclusive,

in a state of limbo, indecisive,

broken off and never sent,

never mailed, forgotten legacies.

 

Stammering of words of love,

sound trivial when read today,

sweet talk, a little bit of levity,

platitudes, nothing of depth -

as fire now in the fireplace,

substitute for the heat,

which was never mediated,

never has been transmitted.

 

Eduard Schmidt-Zorner is a translator and writer of poetry, haibun, haiku and short stories.

He writes in four languages: English, French, Spanish and German and holds workshops on Japanese and Chinese style poetry and prose and experimental poetry.

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 over 140 anthologies, literary journals and broadsheets in USA, UK, Ireland, Japan, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Bangladesh, India, France, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Nigeria and Canada.

Some of his poems and haibun have been published in French (own translation), Romanian and Russian language.

He writes also under his pen name Eadbhard McGowan.





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