Uwe Kolbe Poems

Keeping the distance
and staying close together
with dangling arms.
The father the uniform,
...

for Peter Waterhouse

We pull ourselves up
and spit the muddy water
out of a young mouth
...

It was probably due to boredom that I noticed it.
We were waiting again - station Schönhauser Allee -
for a train on the northern ring, on the half that had remained of it.
...

It was the gnat, I heard it.
And it was - didn‘t the grass grow there
between two wars?
It was similar to the reason why I seriously left the city
for the first time.
...

He, I hear, leaves the house at night,
and, I see, watches the sky high above,
him, I know, someone longs to meet,
but, she says, apparently,
...

For years I have sought him.
I knew that he lived in a bottle,
that was soon established,
though where to begin looking?
...

Once in a little town
which might have been ludicrous
but which like everywhere you took in earnest
because we have only one life
...

And again a love song
from the sidelines of catastrophes
(was it terrorist murder?
inundation, famine
...

First it was the Fado
in Porto, down by the bridge,
of the River Douro.
We drank heavy port-wine.
...

We really have to stop.
It's Spring, and we must really stop.
Everything ends and we must
stop like everything else.
...