Featured Poet - Eduard Schmidt-Zorner

Featured Poet - Eduard Schmidt-Zorner

IN THE GREENHOUSE OF POETRY


Light as a feather

and free like a bird,

thoughts ruffle,

line up letter by letter,

forming seed rows,

fragments take shape

grow in fertile dreams.


Word infatuated,

meandering in vagueness,

yet without squiggles,

commenced, virgin still,

unfinished words,

as rustling leaves.


I plough furrows of sentences,

word signs I sprawl, 

epically,

on soft bog soil.

One word short

may fit into verses

that lie in wait,

pupated, 

ramified drawn words, 

waiting for solid ground.


Put lyrical seedlings in brickwork,

they can sprout, germinate in crevices.

I suck honey from paper flowers.

Metrical foot, rhythmically throbbing,

waiting to be measured.

Finished prodigies

finally in anthologies replanted.


ON A NEW PAGE


I had a certain idea

before my mind's eye.

An idea, maybe a crazy one,

born from a dream in a restless night.


I woke up and put it on paper.

Words were whispered,

light as a feather, free as a bird,

words which determinedly go astray

or into oblivion

if not written down instantly.


Some of them ruffle their feathers

and are soon forgotten

others lead to serious type cases,

letter after letter, typesetting.


Word-infatuated as I am,

meandering between lines,

densely written rows of notes,

illegible in the morning then.


What began remains unfinished.

Worn words, worn down, worn out,

or remain silent, leave no trace.

Evergreen word-tirades pass quickly,

they wither or manifest themselves,

become a cuckoo's egg in the composition,

unfit for epic proliferation.


‘Age-shrewd’ I turn the hourglass.

As a wordsmith too loud the forging,

I weave with a light hand as

weaver of words,

to lie to the time, to interlace the minutes,

to form poems that cast no shadows.



PEACEFUL LAND SEIZURE


I'd like to write poetry,

which opens the door,

slightly.


Push it open yourself.

Go out, peaceful be your land seizure.

Pour yourselves the purest wine

and leave no doubts,

and rehearse the upright walk.


Find the point, always the one,

where you gently unhinge the world.


FESTINA LENTE

(make haste slowly)


Some call it deceleration

I find it enriching and an acceleration.

Only in silence, good things can flourish

haste has never helped anyone,

keeps the pressure and stress anguish.


I sit in my corner and dream,

and crochet and knit

my poems, which,

in the silence,

trickle into my brain.

 

There is a tactile arrangement

between pen, paper, and table

a sorting of word fragments

to enable

to line up the terms

and compose a picture

to make it tangible

for the reader.


DILEMMA OF A QUADRILINGUAL


With a mixture of remembrance 

and nostalgia

I am aware of a phenomenon

which we call

the confusion of tongues, 

a language plethora

that we owe 

to the times of Babylon:

This exile lingo:

The emigranto,

that inimitable mélange

with trace elements 

of indigenous dialects and accents

plus other bits and pieces 

of my countries of transit.

To quote a Viennese cabaret artist:

I am a hell of a fix

while I German and English

fine mix.



ABOUT EDUARD

Born in Germany, Eduard 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.

FB: Eadbhard McGowan (Eduard Schmidt-Zorner)

E: Eadbhardmcgowan@gmx.com

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