CAUGHT IN THE NET 203 -  POETRY  BY FRANK JOUSSEN

Series Editor - Jim Bennett for The Poetry Kit - www.poetrykit.org
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Submissions for this series of Featured poets is open, please see instruction in afterword at the foot of this mail.
 

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CONTENTS

1 - BIOGRAPHY

2 – POETRY 

3 - PUBLISHING HISTORY

4 - AFTERWORD
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1 – BIOGRAPHY:  Frank Joussen

Frank is a former German high school teacher and writer. He writes in English and in German. His publications include two selections of his poetry, one of them being a bilingual collaboration with Romanian poet Ana Cicio. He has co-edited two international anthologies of poetry/fiction in India and one of short stories in Germany. His poems and short stories have also been published in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies in India, Australia, G.B., the Republic of Ireland, Germany, Romania, Malta, the U.S.A., Canada, India, China, Thailand and Japan; some of them have been translated into German, Romanian, Hindi and Chinese.
His latest publication is a bilingual selection of poems and prose entitled Das verschwundene Land/The Disappearing Countryside (2024).


 

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2 - POETRY 

 The Song of the Night Owl

staying awake
during the day
equals the toil of an ant
lifting a rock
and beginning to carry it
the long way home
 
my eyes want to close
just like that rock
would like to fall
down
at every turn -
why am I an ant,
a slave of convention
 
haven’t I got wings
and if not, surely
the night air’s much cooler
making the summer
so much sweeter
 
besides, everyone should
be able to see
that it’s so much easier
to stay awake
close to my bed
and past my neighbour’s bedtime
 
with the rocks of the day
only a wing-beat away.
 

Blue Plastic Bag
 
look, he’d put it in
a plastic bag
before he gave it
back to me
right away
saying – it won’t
mean bad luck
seeing you with it
before the ceremony
this time
anyway, you
and your superstition –
 
then he laughed
as if nothing had gone
wrong on that day
or in the years that followed
but I still love
that dress
so will you please
keep it for me
 
look at it now
in that bloody blue bag –
something old, something new,
something borrowed –
finally blue
lying there like the body
of a soldier
sent home in plastic
after some forgotten war.
 
 
Salt and Vinegar
 
life is like
a salt-and-vinegar crisp
always fresh and spicy
at least if you’re
into interior monologue
as well as interaction
sour and sad
at second sight
or bite
forever giving you
something to chew on
on the unendingly
rotating potato
that’d just love
to look like a ball
 
if you want to know
why we keep on
grabbin’ back
for more
it’s just because
the more we crunch
the more it crumbles
till its shape’s
all gone
and only
the wet salt
on your hands
and on your
cheeks remains.
 
 
Erotic Literature
(for Ulla – a brilliant reader)
 
writing is wooing
the love letters of your alphabet
the various characters of your language
 
if it’s more than
mere intoxication, literal infatuation
you create a cosmos full of sense
 
reading is populating
this sense-filled universe
with one person at a time
 
willing and able to
finally answer the letters
and make love all night long.
 
 
Unreal Competition
 
How can I compete with
the cicada-encircled depths
of your first romantic summer pools
in the omnipresent
faraway and longago?
 
How can I possibly beat
the bat-like hauntings
of the forbidden tropical fruit
you were about to pick in
the neverever but alwaysalmost?
 
I am nothing but
the spider of the drybuttry
waterspout of love in real time
waiting for you to touch my web
and be stung till you want me.
 
Kato’s Song
(in memory of a friend in Hungary, on what was then
the other side of the “Iron Curtain”)
 
naked women chatting in the parlour
naked men posing on the lawn
bring you food and
teach you laughter
till it rings through statues
found in Brussels or Geneva
from your Daddy’s studio
 
to the nuns at school - scolding you:
improve your Latin, not your French
give me that mirror, right now
and  stop touching your body!
 
but you’re dancing on the Rhine
high over the mountains of Switzerland
along the coast of Belgium
while your parents are living it up
as international artists before the war
 
an officer and Hungarian gentleman
your husband calls you "Madam"
flies Hungary’s first aeroplanes
in Africa
flies into a rage
over mislaid cigarettes
hangs from a lantern
at the Danube, 1945
the Communists are here
the war is over
your wealth has gone
 
nursing patients with lung trouble
in Budapest
you find your meaning of life
from the need to make a living
you don’t dream lost dreams
 
and then you row me across Lake Ballaton
never sick or tired
never angry -
the little boy in the boat
beside you smiles
that melancholy kid just smiles
 
for wherever I find water
I find life
and wherever I find water
I find you.
 
Touched by Night
(memento tangere; for Ulla)
 
your touching me,
no matter how lightly,
makes all the night-
mares gallop back
to where they came from
 
remembering your touch,
no matter how sleepily,
lets strong white mus-
tangs drag my self
through the dead of night.
 
In the Woods
 
I needed time on my own,
time to think my cloudy thoughts
and smell the coming rain.
So I took a solitary walk
in the woods.
No Robert Frost experience –
not one horse, not two roads,
no epiphany.
But the silently cried out wish
that I could run,
run, run home,
wherever home might be.
 
Grandpa Sold Colours
 
Grandpa sold colours
paint for the poor
wallpaper for the well-to-do
but he wore grey every day
 
he knew the names
departures and arrivals
of every passing train
but he never took one
 
whenever I wanted to travel
he always gave me some extra
to dine in the restaurant
trading in his rainbow money
 
for my tales of steaks
cut in big stations
apple pies munched flying
high over the Rhine
 
blurred visions of my journeys
feelings of a life in transit
I collected for my forebear
who travelled only in his mind
 
Grandpa sold colours
teddy bear dreams for rich kiddos
gray coats for David Copperfields
but for me they were all free.
  
How Long Can You Eat Spaghetti?
 
How long can you eat spaghetti?
How long look at the moon?
How long can you gaze after
a butterfly?
Or repeat the words “too late”
or “too soon”?
 
How long can you think about
the painting of a child,
the sentence of a painter,
the silence of a poet?
 
How long can you afford
to neglect such questions?
 

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4 - Afterword

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