"We think we're writing something to amuse, but we're actually saying something we desperately need to share. The real mystery is this strange need. Why can't we just hide it and shut up? Why do we have to blab? Why do human beings need to confess? Maybe, if you don't have that secret confession, you don't have a poem - don't even have a story. Don't have a writer."
Ted Hughes
gefunden in Connie Palmen "Du sagst es"
Diogenes Verlag Zürich 2016

"Sich sehnen danach
& sich überwinden
es zu tun

& sich nicht überwinden
es nicht zu tun

& bereuen
es getan zu haben

& nicht bereuen
es nicht getan zu haben

& anfangen
es zu tun

& nicht aufhören
sich zu sehnen."

Koni Hansen

"     PERSONAL

Don't take it personal, they said;
but I did, I took it all quite personal -

the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;
the price of grapefruit and stamps,

the wet hair of women in the rain -
And I cursed what hurt me

and I praised what gave me joy,
the most simple-minded of possible responses.

The government reminded me of my father,
with its deafness and its laws,

and the weather reminded me of my mom,
with her tropical squalls.

Enjoy it while you can, they said of Happiness
Think first, they said of Talk

Get over it, they said
at the School of Broken Hearts

But I couldn't and I didn't and I don't
believe in the clean break;

I believe in the compound fracture
served with a sauce of dirty regret,

I believe in saying it all
and taking it all back

and saying it again for good measure
while the air fills up with I'm-Sorries

like wheeling birds
and the trees look seasick in the wind.

Oh life! Can you blame me
for making a scene?

You were that yellow caboose, the moon
going over a bridge of pearl gray cloud.

I was the dog, chained in some fool's back yard:
barking and barking:

trying to convince everything else
to take it personal too."

Tony Hoagland
"Little Oceans" Hollyridge Press, Venice California 2009