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New York 1999 - 2010
Time Square
After having been last in New York 1999 - it was a special time during which the twentieth century was about to go out the door, and therefore appropriate to gauge what Andre Breton and Peret had to say about poetry - I could not really anticipate my failure to make it the next year around, that is in January 2010. I was meant to give a key note speech at the symposium 'Arts and Social Justice' to be held at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Prof. Anderson was teaching there and who not only organised the said symposium, but curated as well for the 15th anniversay of Kids' Guernica an exhibition. I had wanted to travel there via New York. But then to my first surprise they did not allow me to fly out of Athens to New York due to having but a temporary passport which the American Immigration would not accept, so the information. I went then back home, to Berlin, in order to obtain a permanent passport but when I arrived at the airport to depart, another surprise awaited me. They could not find my booking when I wanted to check in. Only then I discovered the mistake that my travel agency had made. They had booked my flight for Wednesday and not for Saturday, the only day I could fly for the previous day I had received my valid passport. So instead of flying I dreamt in a poetic way of being again in New York. This brought about the following poems.
Hatto Fischer
Athens / Berlin 8.1.2010 (revised May 2014)
To write an answer
Writing down a sensible answer
is most difficult and painful
since the main question is: why?
Love is more difficult to comprehend
when compared with careful reflections
I made about my desire for her.
After all she clings onto life
independent from my wish
for a common life with her
free from despair, and yet
I still dream of going with her
to that place of life called:
New York, New York!
Borders of Manhattan
No more a crisp wish, no more anger,
only galore the street where tires burn and stink.
They tell me go up that street, or no, go down
and under the next bridge till you can cross over
to meet the youth ready for frank talks with old folks
about the hip of going down town just for the sake
of a spin around the neighborhood where women
weep to see children growing up as if a declining sun
thousand miles away to circumvent dust and dryness.
If only the rain would come to bring relief from the heat,
but on and on it goes, at every stroke of the hour
they stomp their feet on the ground and cross subway grids
while listening to the news about battles being waged
to leave behind more people dying without a sense of life.
Elpida affecting stock market speculation
You returned like a windfall
To the stock market now going mad
Like a bull seeing red as a sign to go
To keep the brokers so extremely busy
That they swallow their morning coffee
While running up the stairs
And only stop when values topple
As if it matters no longer to normal folks
Whether they ran flat footed aground
Or pressed their nose flat against glass
Reflecting sky scrapers and yellow taxis.
In such a town everyone seems to get caught
On the wrong side of the street
Since not gallons of oil have to be measured
But the outpour of grief mixed in with joy
To leave everyone confused, emotionally speaking,
By what happened before Woody Allen jolted
After you had passed by him always smiling,
Tipping with your elegant fingers
On the forehead so as to say psychoanalysis
Is like those puddles left behind by the rain,
And they do matter for reflections to clean
The air by becoming an invisible broom
To sweep finally the sky above Manhattan
Free from clouds so that you can sit down
In Central Park on one of those benches
Where joggers pass by and children
Smile when their hands grip red ballons.
Once you just sit there, let time simply pass by
As if you do not want to really notice
How life begins to awaken under your soft nose.
Then your eyes shall follow those sea gulls
To make you wonder where do they come from?
Along that path toddlers shall try their first walks alone
While their mothers, absent mindedly mind you, smoke,
And by doing so look the other way out of a wish
Not to be dragged for too long by the children
Into dreamless worlds when the day seems never to end.
You shall sigh in understanding to be a mother is never easy,
But as complicated it may seem, still worse are the men
Who leave too often the women behind to cope alone -
If only marriage was not just a mirror of inadequacies
Felt every time when you think to return home
Where formidable stairs in need to be climbed await you
Only possible to reach the 10th floor when you can uplift your soul
Despite knowing at the stock market they gamble on values
Soaring higher than the birds now that you have returned
As mythical figure of fortune for men who are without love.
The marathon runner
Her beautiful legs certainly look like
she could easily run the entire day,
on and on, through crowded streets
or while crossing Brookelyn Bridge
still able to look down at barges and ships
passing underneath in noble silence
till they blast their horns as salute
when passing the Statue of Liberty
standing there to greet those who fled
hell as sign here begins a safe exile.
She made sure to stay in the Marathon race
winding through Manhatten till in Central Park
where it ended they could throw themselves
happily exhausted into the grass
and to cherish their feat portrayed
by the New Yorker in the next edition
in satirical form as a surreal campaign
initiated by those who wished to declare war
against laziness and obesity.
There is some nemesis in such an attempt
to overcome the static of age
marked by aching back and heavy lungs.
Always New York stands aside,
and just smiles, knowing to appraise
like the wise aunt, the New York Times,
that all things will abide with time.
But then you think about that unborn child
while walking back home past Brooklyn Museum
where dreams about art are stored
for future generations to explore
till they find something true to say
about the life of that marathon runner
with some links to the Greek light.
Borders of Madness
You don't give away anything,
do you! But don't throw me away,
at least not just right now.
As city you need to sustain
me so that I can live even if madness
prevails since life seems to be possible
only on the dark side of the moon.
I have asked you many a times
but due to melancholy, or the Blues,
I have forgotten your name.
The chestnut tree simply will not do
to hang someone, even if you stay
around Washington Square
where policemen on horses
shall look down at you to check
if they need to drive you
out of a town ruled by the wind.
It is an easy ride by subway
out to the Bronx, but along the way
everyone incurrs a deficit of sunlight
and only papers seem to gather
at the gutter when everything else
remains absolutely still
like abandoned bottles
cast into streets instead of rivers
so that no message arrives
in time to revive a broken heart.
I listen carefully when someone
speaks especially when something
glitters like Gold through broken teeth,
and claims his brother went off
to join the army promising paradise
compared to what exists here.
In frames formed like horseshoes
many try their luck to find a job,
but half way there to the interview
a woman bumps into me and suggests
an alternative route through life
is what all prefer compared to dark alleys
of broken limps and drowned out cries
by the children asking for more
than what the taxman can demand
since you stand up to life only as long
as you can pay your bills on time.
With promises roller coasting in like waves
before election day, there is no way to tell
those political parties apart since all join in
when the ticket parade passes by Manhattan
and every building there displays open windows
when otherwise work is done behind closed doors
for whatever happens at the stockmarket,
it has to remain a deep secret
shared only by Salamon Brothers
and others who like to know how to connect
Europe, Japan and USA 24 hours around the clock
till decisions are made by the executive
driving finally home to his wife
waiting in the suburbs for a relieve
from yet another boring day
spend at the gym, then the supermarket
and finally with the kids
coming back from school
to take them to sleep
before dad gets home.
To plea with you out of hunger
after another devasting day
means I need to spend more time
near borders of madness
drawn lucidly by those
who consume on 5th avenue
all kinds of goods they don't need
except to claim they obtained
that purse, this suit, the ring
just there where it counts
to have been at least once in your life
as if madness is a dream come true.
So when crossing Time Square
to greet yet another New Year
something special is in the air
when standing at the threshold
of a new century and realizing
the Iron Curtain has been lifted.
It lets politicians risk to promise
they will stomp out besides corruption
the reason to go to war, and thus
they make the new world appear
as something everyone can believe in,
even by all those strangers
coming to that novel town
Frank Sinatra sang about
as being New York, New York.
Indeed, you are no stranger to strangers
and therefore ready to give to everyone
a ticket to ride into their dreamt off paradise.
Nomination
I nominate you for President
even though you are only a city
but even if you don't run as fast
as the other candidates manage to do
I believe you will catch up with everyone
before they cross the finishing line.
I see already the blue banners and red ribbons
decorating your great chest behind which
a still greater heart pumps blood
into every vein becoming streets
filled with life around the clock.
See! The folks are already waiting for you,
but like any true winner you need
to be recognized while running down
that last mile, that last stretch of smile
worn thin by politics off the air for now.
Afterwards in Central Park
They need to sweep clean
the elongated streets
after the ticket parade
passed by Central Park
where joggers pass other folks
spread out like mushrooms
over the grass after the rain
had receded and again the eyes
could see the skyline of houses
forming a rim like those haircuts
made along a soup bowl
put simply over the head of the child
if only to be a bit taller than the trees
making sure this is a park, and not
a parking lot to let things play out
till the next rain makes everyone dash
for shelter not of their own making.
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