Gisela Kraft

saw hammer drill needle and tongs are there any tools that weren’t from the beginning misused for torture and killing throw away the tools even the nails on your fingers can scratch and about the tongue the chinese have a saying, it can pulverize a person is there not some means that peace can call its own erect a house made of blossom petals and bird down capacious as a dream and no one will live in it all we have is what keeps its form to hold something together you must use force even for peace

one lies in rags on the street and his stomach is empty and he wishes for death one sits with friends at tea and backgammon and his mind is empty and he wishes for death one sits in a straight-backed chair at a desk and his bank account is empty and he wishes for death one lies in bed staring out to sea and the place next to him in bed is empty and he wishes for death one flies back with food in its beak and its nest is empty and only this one says we should give it another try

on the first day you were beautiful and good on the second you grew a horn on the third a lead-gray wing budded from your shoulder on the fourth a claw sprouted from your shoe on the fifth you flew right into my armpit built a nest and then lost interest on the sixth you were a host of leeches having their way with my veins on the seventh I heard you trotting above me with hollow hoof beats on the eighth you went to moses to ask for advice winged horned buraq the prophet’s steed returned as a lamb on the ninth to graze on my belly fur on the tenth you died for isaac the angel decided in favor of animal testing on the eleventh I had forgotten the color of your eyes on the twelfth day you were poor and naked on the thirteenth you were lying on the bottom of the sea a millions of eons old whispering mussel on the fourteenth they called you into the field duldul, ali’s tireless gray mule on the fifteenth you stood still welded on the lip of a kettle the sweat of the holy brew had oxidized your copper neck on the sixteenth you were the primordial ox zarathustra sang of your suffering on the seventeenth day when I came home you were once again the one human being