Parkbank im Herbst
Glühend hängt im Geäst,
welches sich klaglos entblättert,
das hehre Gestirn,
blendend und fern,
ein verspäteter König
ohne Gefolge rosiger Wolken…
Und ausgeschnitten aus den Schatten
ersteht ein Geviert von jauchzendem Glanz!
Christina Egan ©2008
Photograph: Christina Egan ©2016.
Trefflich
Ach, wozu noch Meeresblau
je beschwören und wozu
Wellenschlag und Morgentau,
wenn ein Paar bestickter Schuh
bunt aus Schutt und Asche schaut,
– angefaucht und fortgefegt –
und die namenlose Braut
nie mehr ihre Füße hebt,
nie ein Kind zum Himmel hält…
Ach, wie bleibt das Meer bloß blau?
Denn es stirbt die ganze Welt,
frißt der Drache eine Frau.
Fällt die Kugel einen Mann,
klagt ein ganzes Engelheer.
Lautlos schreit ein Schlüsselbund
aus dem Schrott,– doch hört ihn wer?
Paßt der Schlüssel auch ins Schloß,
hängt die Tür in schräger Wand,
denn ein treffliches Geschoß
riß das Haus halb in den Sand.
Immer wieder gibt es Krieg
voller Lügen, voller Lärm.
Niemals aber gibt es Sieg,
nur die Hoffnung wie ein Stern.
Christina Egan ©2024
(Gazakrieg)
In this poem, War is personalised as a hissing dragon burning, devouring, or blasting away everything in its way.
The title is a pun on an old word for “excellent”, literally “hitting precisely”: in a war, success is based on destruction.
On October 7th, 2023, the Palestinian terror organisation Hamas committed a massacre and mass abduction in Israel, whereupon the Israeli Government launched a war on the Palestinian territory of Gaza. It has since attacked the West Bank and invaded neighbouring country Lebanon, where the terror organisation Hezbollah de facto rules. The aim on both sides is evidently genocide. This is destruction against destruction, revenge upon revenge, genocide versus genocide.
I am Singing my Song
My life is not about me:
It is about the mountains
rising all around the horizon
in the dense blue of dreams.
It is about the mud I am made of,
the little trees which I must water,
the tall trees which give me breath.
It is about the rivers around me,
running, running without rest
and singing without doubt.
My face is priceless:
My face is mine alone, and
an echo of my ancestors’ faces,
a signal of my descendants’ faces.
My face is a sacred lake,
a blurred mirror of the sky,
of the mountains and trees.
I am drinking the sun,
I am walking my way,
I am singing my song.
Christina Egan ©2022
Inspired by Navajo and other
Native American philosophy.
Navajo pottery. Photograph:
Woody Hibbard, CC BY 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons.
Three word clouds of this poem: one typed up on a Word document with all repetitions, two designed on the Simple Word Cloud Generator (left) and WordItOut (right), with the frequency of the words represented by their size and position. (You can click on the images to enlarge them.)
Via WordItOut, you can order badges or key-rings with the right-hand word cloud.
Buntbetupft
Nur
einen
seligen
Sommer,
einen zweiten
und dritten tanzten
du und ich inmitten einer
buntbetupften Wiese unter dem
Summen der Hüpfer und Hummeln,
unter des Bussards hoher Wacht.
Und keiner von uns beiden
wußte, was bliebe,
und keiner
nannte es
Liebe.
Aber
das Leben
war gegeben,
wie es nur Kindern ist,
Heiligen oder Toren oder eben
Liebenden, und die Freude war stark
wie die Pracht der Mittsommersonne.
Die Erde war rund und bunt, und
ihre Haut duftete uns! Wir
drehten uns schnell,
alles drehte sich
um uns, es
war ein
Heute,
hell.
Christina Egan ©2021
The shape of the poem emulates two children holding hands and whirling around, or two spinning-tops…
Illustration from ‘Children’s games throughout the year’ (1949) by Leslie Daiken.
Apfeltraum
Wohin die Liebe fällt
wie Apfelkerne oder so –
ins Irgend- oder Nirgendwo –
erblüht ein Apfeltraum
vom Garten Eden.
Das leuchtet und verwelkt…
Doch heimlich und gelegentlich,
vermeintlich gar versehentlich,
erwächst ein Apfelbaum
daraus im Leben.
Christina Egan ©2024
Apple-dream
Wherever love may fall
like apple-pips perhaps
– into a field or cracks –
new blossom will enthral,
an apple-dream of Eden.
It burns and fades, that glow…
Yet sometimes secretly,
– by chance or destiny? –
the apple-dream will grow
into an apple-tree.
Christina Egan ©2024
Image: Cover art for sheet music (1920).
Visual poetry of text A Window will be Thrust Open.
Christina Egan ©2024 (Text ©2003).
You can click on the image to enlarge it
or click on the link to see the text more clearly.
These images were created in a day…
one visual poem can easily take a working day!
Lautlose Rede
Kurven von Tinte und Ketten von Lettern,
Wörter und Worte wie bunte Girlanden
steigen und ziehn über Erde und Meer…
Ketten von Lettern, die leuchten und flattern,
bunte Girlanden, die kreisen und landen,
zaubern dir lautlose Rede her…
Es ist bloß Papier, es sind bloß Gedanken,
doch bringen sie Herzen und Häuser ins Wanken
und fallen gleich Samen in wartenden Sand.
Was ist das Geheimnis der Blätter, der Briefe?
Als ob eine Seele die andere riefe…
Als ob ein Geist den andern entflammt!
Christina Egan ©2023
Some lovely handwritten letters from friends.
Photograph: Christina Egan ©2020.
With great thanks
to my friends who write letters to me –
some have done so for over forty years!
Hochzeitssegen
Malen die Schwalben verschlungene Schrift
aufs Blau wie ein uraltes Liebesgedicht,
baden die Wolken in rosigem Licht,
schwanger mit Regen, der Ernte verspricht,
während sich Finger in Finger verflicht
und Auge zu Auge nun schrankenlos spricht.
Segen der Erde schwelle und steige,
Segen des Himmels sinke und bleibe!
Christina Egan ©2017
Wedding Blessing
May the sun shine and the stars
On you both all the way.
May your wishes and your dreams
All come true from today.
May the blessings from below
Rise and swell, rise and swell.
May the blessings from above
Sink and dwell, sink and dwell.
Christina Egan ©2024
The English poem was inspired by the
German poem but is not a translation.
As often in my poetry, “Himmel” or
“above” may mean the sky or Heaven.
Photograph: Christina Egan ©2020
Indigo Pond
(Hiroshige, Wisteria)
Deep blue sky, deep blue pond.
Two black-and-white feathers
drifting – no, two ducks!
Two specks in the indigo
like two pearls in enamel.
*
The arched wooden bridge
is as steep as a rainbow,
exasperating.
So we meet only rarely
right above the brilliant blue.
Christina Egan © 2016
Utagawa Hiroshige: Wisteria at Kameido Tenjin Shrine (1856). One hundred famous views of Edo, No. 57.
With thanks to the Royal Academy of Arts for the postcard and to the British Museum for the digital image.
In this Japanese verse pattern, the first three lines of each poem could stand for themselves, while the last two add another aspect.
The Red Helicopter
(Tottenham)
Some of us are pushing the swings
in the park, a powerful pendulum,
some are hurrying for their daily bread,
counting the pennies in their pockets,
and all are treading on rustling leaves,
fallen too soon, too soon this year,
for the world is brittle with heat
and creaking and breaking apart.
The rain has come and gone
but the clouds have stayed:
No rainbow today
over the weathered church.
The blue emerges, the brightness
of grass, of the thousand things,
and the old oak stands smiling.
Higher the swings go and higher –
Then the sky bursts
with the lion’s roar
of the helicopter, closer, close,
here, the colour of blood.
And we look at each other
and fear the worst and
know it has happened
again.
A street between brick walls,
a random courtyard
or a random corner
has been stained,
and from the earth cries
someone’s blood,
someone’s brother’s blood,
our brother’s blood.
Christina Egan ©2023
I have seen the red helicopter of the emergency services land in parks in Tottenham (Lordship Recreation Ground and Bruce Castle Park). In both cases it was the middle of the day, and in both cases, a teenager had been stabbed, once fatally and once nearly so. Another young man was shot and left to die in Tottenham Cemetery. All these green spaces are vast and idyllic.
See Himmelblaue Uhr (Tottenham) for Bruce Castle Park as a haven of tranquillity and Gedächtnisgarten zu Tottenham for the old cemetery as a garden of peace.
Christina Egan 
