Eduard Schmidt-Zorner
Eduard Schmidt-Zorner is a translator and writer of poetry, haibun, and short stories. He writes haibun, tanka, haiku and poetry in four languages: English, French, Spanish and German and holds workshops on Japanese and Chinese style poetry and prose. Member of four writer groups in Ireland and lives in County Kerry, Ireland, for more than 25 years and is a proud Irish citizen, born in Germany (1946). Published in 61 anthologies, literary journals and broadsheets in UK, Ireland, Canada and USA. Writes also under his pen name: Eadbhard McGowan.
From Rutenga to Cape Town Bay
The train roars through the night,
crawling through the day,
stomps to the beat of the track bumps
vibrating swivel plates and bolts responding,
the land's echo resounding
nadonga donga ...the melody.
Africa, shaped as an oval plate,
a black slate,
written on, erased, labelled again,
yesterday, today, tomorrow,
a vast terrain.
Africa, shaped as an oval plate,
a table set with exotic food:
patata root,
rose harissa, aubergine,
bananas, coconut, beans,
okra, mango,
coriander and cilantro.
Served with lamb and tomato stew
mutton, teff and fufu,
antelope and crocodile,
perch from the Nile.
Africa, shaped as a painting
composed of earthy colours
brown, red, terracotta,
framed with green and sienna
blue and ochre
amber.
Africa, shaped as a sculpture:
mountains, oasis, green pasture
rain forest, mangrove swamps,
lakes and savannas,
deserts, highlands.
Africa shaped as luscious jewellery
adorned with rubies and emeralds,
blue sapphires
and aquamarines,
precious diamonds.
Africa, shaped as an oval plate,
a black slate,
written on, erased, wiped off, forgotten
today, tomorrow, rotten.
Africa, shaped as oval plate
high infant mortality rate,
Empty tables, people deprived of food,
all exported, exhorted.
Africa, shaped as a painting,
composed with dark colours of death,
skin grey, festering purple,
the colour of blood mixing with the sod,
camouflage green, faint marine.
Africa, shaped as a sculpture
exploited, bent and deserted.
On the wall the vulture
watching his prey.
Towns vacated.
Africa shaped as luscious jewelleries
violated, robbed,
diamonds are tears
and rubies are blood.
thistles stretch their prickly arms afar
Demagogue
Like a stone rolling from a hill
Is the tirade of a demagogue,
who is holding a leaflet in the air
like the lost sole of a shoe
I hit a nail into the bench
Next to where I sit, to prevent him
To take rest after his rant
And to let my heart in peace
How heavy they are,
those stone posters.
How empty those tirades are,
those stone words, which burden the souls.
World in Fire
Red sun, pale moon,
black stars, omen of doom.
Storm tossed world,
times in a waft of mist, hurled.
Banshees washing blood-stained clothes
when people die in battles.
Under kettles… burning embers,
smouldering bonfire of nature, which remembers
lost empathy.
On the swords, dried blood, portending evil,
harvest eaten by weevil, dour, ugly warriors.
A red coloured horizon in frantic fire.
Wood heaped for an eternal pyre.
Moving times of wrath
choking the throat, in temper,
clenching a rough fist full of resentment,
drowning in blind anger.
Searching a hand, which is offering liberation,
shelter and happiness
in the bleak empty times of loneliness,
which fill me with sorrow and horror,
which deny a horizon, a tomorrow,
blocking our paths in a brazen way,
preventing us to climb to heights,
to the light of day.
So that a beam strikes us and lights up our life
lifts us out of the darkness, a sharp knife
to cut the strings,
weaving eternal ropes around us.
thistles stretch their prickly arms afar
Militant Thistles