Mermaids

The Little Mermaid

I sang vaguely
To distant princes
Until I wanted legs
And became a dancer
Without a tongue
Now each step I take
Each waltz I make
Cuts my flesh deeply
My mute pain is invisible
Except for the rhinestones
Adorning my lashes
My sparkling eyes are
Called enticing
The soundless movement
Of my arms and hair
Reminds them of seaweed
Of the salty wetness I come from
Now they feel they have
Conquered me they sail my
Heart like a huge ocean
Pirates and conquistadors
That robbed me of my songs
I do not have a say in this at all
I cannot tell about lies and treason
I have to live with what they make of me
I am the silent dancer without a tongue
I bleed my way from there to here
My feet forever caught in shoes
Red as the warm blood that now
Constantly relentlessly
Runs out of my slashed veins



The Little Mermaid, Grown-up

I gave myself a second chance
Traded the legs for a tail
And got back my tongue
I returned to my lonely rock
My lower half fish scaled and
Comfortably numb
I sing for myself now
On nights of a full moon
I still allow myself to be a woman
Hidden from the eyes of the predators
I do my dancing behind closed doors
It is safer saner more sanitary that way

all poems copyright ulrike gerbig August 2006

Well-Provided

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Living with less

Than the bond of dreams
The share of promises
The mortgage of hopes
The IOU of love
Frees the mind of credit and debit
Makes room in heart’s pockets
For the benefits from life’s unexpected enterprises


New deal

Today
Costs me nothing
No penny
No farthing
No cent
Only time
The currency in my heart
The coinage my mouth phrases
Our stock-exchanged thoughts
Close on a high
Today
I am
A successful Entrepreneur


Sitting Pretty

Your legacy
Left me well-provided
On this rare smile I can
Still feast for hours I still
Drink in your words the memory
Of your touch still ties me over freezing nights
Carefree I live on the leftovers of one single meal of love


all poems © Ulrike Gerbig, 2006

Weather Report

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Thunderstorm

A jaundiced sky
Ready to puke
Rubbish performs
A frenzied dance
A careless wind makes
Doors meow like love-sick cats lets
Gates on hinges voice a rusty bark
The river exhales a tire sigh
All sadness tries to find the sea
The world lies low
A frightened creature waiting
For the one fatal bite
What lives seeks shelter
From the crackling atmosphere
Sheer forces splits the longing sky in two
Send sparks of heaven down to earth
A hungry thunder coughs revenge
On all that crawls
Rain washes streets of all past sins
A sky then is embroidered
With a rim of stars
The night as clear as
Windows cleaned
The final thunder is as small
As a young boy moving his chair



Atmospheric Disturbance

The moment it hit me
The weather broke
A bright flash or awareness
Split me right down the middle
What was left broke with a thunderous clap
I drowned in a flood of unspoken words
My remains washed in the gutter
I simply disappeared

© Ulrike Gerbig, 2006

The magic we sometimes create

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Some days ago I had an inspiration...some call it a vision...maybe it was just an idea:
I thought that I would like to create a blog for female artists, for talented women, a place where they could post their poems, their stories, their thoughts, their photos, paintings...whatever...

The urge to create that was so strong, that I just started...I set up the necessary stuff at Blogspot, wrote to all the talented women I knew and waited what would happen...

...and the whole thing took of like a rocket:

Lilith's Blog (http://daugthersoflilith.blogspot.com/) has been up and running now for 3 days...

It is a magic place where magic things happen, created by magic people...
I am just the founder, I was just the vessel for the creative input, kissed by some kind of muse (certainly female)...I just made real what seems to have been a dream for many of us.

Go and check and take part in the magic!

Peter Pan

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The story of Peter Pan has always fascinated me. Not being American I got to know it through the book, not the film, and thus the images in my head never have been Walt Disney but always my own.

Like maybe many other women, Peter, with his charm and his love of adventures, has influenced my life and maybe my choices in men.
Which female could help but love this boy who never grew up, who never became a male, tired from work and the burdens of life?

It takes a while until a female realizes the prize she has to pay for loving Peter.
He flies away whenever he wants, returns when he thinks fit and in the meantime forgets everything and everyone who ever mattered in his life.

He is a charmer and a thief of hearts: Wendy, Tinkerbell and Tiger Lily cannot but fall for him...and especially Tinkerbell pays a tough prize for her fierce loyalty to this big boy.

Wendy, in the end, seems to be the most successful in the fight over Peter's heart, but then, lately, I came to realize that I would not want to have Wendy's place: she spents the rest of her days waiting for Peter to return, for him to remember, for him to grow up.

I'd rather be Tinkerbell and love fiercly and loyally and lose some of my life over that instead of growing old next to somebody who is there but then is not.


Black coat

It hides
A boy’s soul,
Desperate
For shelter
From a world
In which
Dreams
Must be build
In secret places
Lest they’d be
Crushed by
Inconsiderate feet.
A world
In which one has
To run real fast
To dodge the
Poisonous snake,
The deadly scorpion.
A world that asks
Rough Manliness of
The soft dreamer,
Turns him into
Peter Pan,
Armoured by
Drugs and drink ,
Flying high
Above the rest,
Daring God, Fate,
Love, Life
And Death
To proof him
The right to his
Otherness,
His own individual
Bleeding heart.
He wears it still
On the sleeve of his coat
Well-hidden
A black Chameleon
Shedding ebony tears
Of loss, pain and desperation.


The day Peter Pan married Wendy

He promised that secret adventures would be over
That he would stay grounded that he would spend
Nights in bed beside her that he would keep
The window closed that he would never again
Follow the chimera’s luring cries that he would
Clip his fidgety wings that he would settle down
That he would grow a beard and a belly hiding
His longing he welcomed the responsibility he
Volunteered for this chain for this cork sealing
The bottle in which an alien genie hid from himself


Tinkerbell

Bow your heads to
This iron will
These fragile wings
This tinkling voice

For she will lead
You out of ins and outs
That lead no way

Like Peter Pan
You will be lost
Without her magic wand

Without her pixie dust
You cannot fly

Without her loyalty
It will be you who dies
For you will lose your shadow

And your soul

Will wander endlessly
In Neverland

You will forgive her
Jealousy and rage
For in her tiny body
Only one feeling at a time
Has room to breath

Don’t scorn her and her
Wild ferocious heart
She’ll die for you
While you still try
To grow from boy to man



Tinkerbell’s Death

Don’t mourn her
Fairies don’t live long
A short time seems
A good sufficient while

See Peter!

He already has forgotten her
In everlasting childhood
Real death and tears do
Spoil the fun the sweetness
Of the Darling’s home
Will not be soiled by gratitude
For self-evident affection


The Tinkerbell effect

As long as one believes
As long as just one single
Mind one single heart one
Unspoiled soul still calls her name
She is not dead she is just
Waiting in the wings
If all is quiet you can hear
Her catch her breath her body
Ready to erupt and shake the worldWith her brazen ballsy beautiful laugh

Relevance

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I have been away a while...I have found myself speechless after some human actions beyond my understanding...and again, once more in my life, I took time out to reflect on the relevance of words:
their meanings, their power to hurt and to heal, their absence, their changeability...

When thinking about the relevance of words I always come to the point where I reflect upon the relevance of writing, of poems, mine and others...times like these always render me unable to write for some time...until my soul recouvers again and my eyes wake up to the beauty and wonders of life and people and then a dam breaks and the words come back and flood me and all paper around me....


Things unsaid

Hide in single spaces
Between words and phrases
In pauses and blanks
They are the muted poems
In your head in your heart in your cock
It is there that you remember best



Icarus, female

I came too close to something
I could not fully grasp
With singed wings I toppled
From skies that looked full of promise
I must have missed the point when blue turned black
Now my scorched heart reminds me every day
That it is presumptuous to kiss the sun



Disposable

Be: Hungry, thirsty, horny
Want: food, drink, woman
See: package, can, body
Get: burger, pepsi, person
Use: hand, mouth, cock
Do: eat, drink, fuck
Dispose: faeces, piss, me



Information at the emergency ward

They told her he’d lost it
What exactly he’d lost
They could not say
For what it was
He had already safely
Locked inside himself
His throat blocked
By the indigestible key
He would never reveal
What brought him here



Spit it out!

You have been gnawing
This same old bone
For much too long

Spit it out!

Then go and bury it
Beneath the rose bushes
May its decay beget
Some unsung songs
Some new still undreamed dreams

copyright of all poems, ulrike gerbig

Ciderella

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Fairy tales have always fascinated me...their strong symbolism, their deep conncetion to the subconscious...how can one NOT use them for poems...

When I was a small girl I had a nightdress: babyblue with frills and long sleeves. This nightdress appealed to my girlish side and not matter how much of a tomboy I was (climibing tress in torn jeans), this nightdress made me dream of princes coming to take me away. For months I went to bed in this nightdress, with combed hair and a washed face, and lay in bed trying to be "beautiful": I tried to lie very still, my hair fanned out on the pillow and I was certain that one night a beautiful prince would come and kiss me awake....

This prince never came, but I kissed many frogs....(the nightdresses I have worn or not worn never made a difference...)


Cinderella 2003

Not only kitchen maid
But sales accountant, secretary, manager
She slaves away her weeks

In Neon lit dungeons
In front of fluorescent screens
Not counting peas
But increasing the treasures of invisible kings

The two stepsisters
Have many names and faces now
They changed their sex
But not their vanity

The good fairy
Is now called
Helena Rubinstein
Or Elizabeth Arden
And can be met at Boot’s
Selling magic ointments
Promising
Eternal youth.

From tough wonder woman
Fighting life’s every day battles
Without a magic wand,
By magic spells
Cinderella turns into
A soft and purring, sexy creature
Hiding her strength
Lest kings and princes
Turn away in horror
By the truth.

But, be careful
The spell still only
Last till midnight.
Then pumpkin coaches
Turn into early subway trains
And glass shoes into
Sensible but still attractive
Footwear for work
The ball gowns
Into business suits
Because no matter
How strong the spell
The alarm goes off
At 5.30.


Cinderella, barefoot

Grown-up,
She came to see
That glass shoes never fit
That bloody feet leave ugly stains
That princes are just one-night-stands
That blood-red nights end monochrome
That its for her to wipe the floor,
To wash the sheets, to clean the mess.



Punishment

I dance an unshod dance
On shards of something
Once whole and pretty
Shattered it cuts my hapless skin
Stains my bleak house with
Black-red blots of coagulated dreams
Fills it with wails and screams
Of a pierced and bleeding heart


Cinderella’s Funeral

She might have thought
There would be
A glass coffin and rose
Petals on the way and
Beautiful tears from beautiful
Eyes in beautiful faces
And deep sighs and moans
Of love and loss and shiny
Locks pulled out in desperation
And confessions of misconception
And regret and on the stone the words

“There Never Will Be Anyone Like HER”

But on that day an unspectacular rain did fall
All of them were busy elsewhere
Already perfecting their amnesia
She stood there alone looking down into the consoling hole,
Knew she would not expect visitors anymore
Would not wait any longer for the redeeming kiss
And realized that even this last event was to
Be planned, organized and paid for by herself.




Not Cinderella

I am not
What you think
I am.
I am not
What you dream of.

I might well be
Your worst
nightmare.

I will not wait for you
To find the right
shoe,
Cause I will be
On the way
To somewhere.
I will not wait for you
To kiss me back to
life,
Cause I will be
Out there
Howling to the wind.
I will not let
My hair down
for you,
Cause it suits me
short.

Get your fairytales right, boy,
Frog King turned
Into his better self
When she threw him
At a wall.


Frog-Prince

A frog is just a frog
It’s not a prince
A wall is just a wall
It is not a door
A dead frog is just a dead frog
It leaves a stain
A stain is just a stain
Some mess to clean
A dead frog is the essence of
The stain
The stain is the reminder of the truth
The truth is just the truth
It is not a wish
A wish is just a wish
For a prince
A prince is just a dream
A kiss is just a kiss
A dream is just a dream
It does not hold
A fairy tale is a fairy-tale
It is just told

all poems copyright by ulrike gerbig, 2006

Weather

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The storms that pass through our lives and ourselves sometimes shake our foundations and turn our hearts into fragile kites blown about like brittle leaves and our minds into windswept huts with rattling shutters and banging doors.

Feelings pour down like rain and flood our insides. With water up to our chins we try to survive by building shelters and islands...of words...we swim for our lives and reach them out of breath and sometimes chilled to the bone.


Waterlogged

Slippery tides
Swamp me
Moonstruck
I observe
The waxing
The waning
The desires
The surge
The longing
The undertow
The dreams
The salty liquids
The floods
My oceanic heart


Premonition

A jaundiced sky
Ready to puke
Rubbish performs
A frenzied dance
A careless wind makes
Doors meow like love-sick cats lets
Gates on hinges voice a rusty bark
The river exhales a tire sigh
All sadness tries to find the sea
The world lies low
A frightened creature waiting
For the one fatal bite
What lives seeks shelter
From the crackling atmosphere
Sheer forces splits the longing sky in two
Send sparks of heaven down to earth
A hungry thunder coughs revenge
On all that crawls
Rain washes streets of all past sins
A sky then is embroidered
With a rim of stars
The night as clear as
Windows cleaned
The final thunder is as small
As a young boy moving his chair


The Laws of Nature

What has
Never been
Creates
A strong cyclone
Between them
A storm about
to break loose

Across a
Touchless void
They howl
Their hunger
To the wind

In cold heat
Weak and wet
They dodge
The tempest

The wind
Sentinel of
Desperate words
Adopts the passion


Sighs
Screams
Moans
Shake houses
Bend trees
In lonely shelters
Ears are dead deaf
to the wind
To each other



Like weather

I came over you like weather

golden sunshine
warms your cold bones
lights up your face

fresh winds
steer up emotions
long thought lost

soft rain
waters the barren fields
makes seedlings grow

thunder and hail
make you retreat
into the safety of your cave
where you simply shake
my love from your fur
like a wet dog


Chilled
nothing moves
heartbeat down
close to standstill
frostbitten soul
in hibernation
or close to
dying of exposure



all poems copyright of ulrike gerbig, 2006

Near and far-travels inside and outside of me

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Thoughts

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I haven't posted anything in a long time...I know!
Some people have been complaining about that, which means I actually must have some readers ;-)))

Anyway, I was away: first for real..in Ireland and then away in my head and in my heart, looking for explanations I still haven't found yet...for reasons I did not find, but, as usual, I found rhyme or rhythm or verse or words....so I guess that is what I will share with whoever cares to read...


P.S.: I guess all this is about love, still...


Still

I wake with you on my mind
every day
why that is is beyond
my comprehenssion
I guess matters of
the heart cannot be solved
by the grey matter
in my skull


Outside the limits

I really wanted to go there.
Do you remember how I
Said drive, don’t stop!
I want to see what is
Outside the limits,
What lies behind what we
Can actually see from where
We already are, I wanted to
Explore it all, I wanted each
Pixel to burn my retina, to scar it with memories.
Every single bit of sky seemed to call
On me not to stop, the clouds in
your eyes did the same, they asked me
If I was brave enough, if I was serious,
If I would dare to stay and roam beyond the
Limits of your city, of your mind, of your heart.


Tulsa Airport, Real Time

“I like your hair” he said
As if I had just come back
From the beautician on
Any given Saturday as if
I had just dumped the shopping
As if I had just shouted “baby, I am home”
He told me about how the dog
Had eaten the sugar and about
The mess on the carpet and the weather
Little things, you know, things that matter
We hugged and went outside for a smoke
Stood there as if we were meant to be as if we
Had a past a present and a future


Icarus, female

I came too close to something
I could not fully grasp
With singed wings I toppled
From skies that looked full of promise
I must have missed the point when blue turned black
Now my scorched heart reminds me every day
That it is presumptuous to kiss the sun


copyright all poems ulrike gerbig 2006