Eduard Schmidt-Zorner was born in Thuringia/Germany. He studied Economic and Language studies After 40 years in international business, he is dedicating his life now to art and literature. He is a painter, sculptor, art theorist and lecturer. He is also a translator of English, French, Spanish and German poetry and prose. As member of five writer groups in Ireland he enjoys the contact to fellow writers and poets in Kerry and beyond. He lives in County Kerry, Ireland, since more than 25 years and has Irish citizenship.

Time dissolving

Tarmac covered with day,
anonymous shadows in disarray,
melodies of mute steps,
their path lost,

in the depths of time.

Do not forget
her greeting you waited for,
on asphalted roads
with receding minutes.

Yesterday
lies beyond the wall
bricks with hardened mortar,
give little leeway
for a clock face, whose arms whittle away.

You see time vanish.

Traces end in the plastering.
Search in vain the rubble
of broken stones.

The time, disdain,
forgets to ask questions.
Calendars exercise perceptions
for the day after tomorrow
new days grow
on lanterns at dawn,
extinguishing like dying candles.

In the gutter
traces of cold sweat.
I pick my day to pieces:
Flower oracle, plucking petals.
In the foliage of past years:
a forgotten autumn in tears.

In an opened calendar, I search for you
find you in the echo of old songs.
I show your name to the river waves,
your face to the quicksand.
I dip my fingers into clouds,
clenched fists into storms.
I dug the soil where I found your footprint
kissed the stone, which you touched.

Volatile division of time,
carillon figures perform a round dance,
a chime sounds twelve
the door closes,
the curtain falls.

Time changeover 

Ice sky turns, the wind 
sows thistles in the frost.
Swirling dust dances on rind, 
the everyday light, lost.

Abandoned streets without Sunday,
oscillating memories like fragments, 
turn like newspapers,
blown about in an alleyway.

Winter’s crape keeps the morning dark, 
spring pulls it down with force.
Rain and hail washes the tree bark,
lends a sparkle to the smiling gorse. 

First morning light above fog 
sheds its skin to make space, a new day,
glides over bog,
blows grass tussocks away,
matting the gardens, the fur of the stray dogs.

The wind grooms the dandelion,
colouring wayfarer’s path yellow,
showing the road to the scion
of past winters, leading to springs,
so mellow.

Remaining dreams

The graveyard of dreams
rests in cold dark days.
Frost rises on tree bark,
picks dry pine cones,
encircles me, like prey,
strips leaves from branches,
which tumble down, on withered reeds.

I walk the path,
where sunken crosses stand.
When sun is shining again,
let thoughts drift
past weeping willows,
who bend their heads
into shallow streams.

When remembering, the dead,
their dreams,

we see, what remained of them.

Forbearance

You broke the bread
it jingled like glass
the water ran off, mercury over grass.
Straw of life, gasping for breath
breeze, a gentle breeze of death.

They were there before you.
marked, red, yellow, blue,
and drank the same water
in the silence after the slaughter.

They came at night,
and went at night
full of grief.
You looked at them,
in disbelief.

I admire the paintings of death and crucifixion
they give consolation
men survived such cruelty to this day,
the ears full of rumours of war cannot hear.
Chaos turns the wheel of decay.

Somebody calls in the wilderness.
Don’t you hear creatures distress?
You stand in the doorway
and count your fingers.
while the passers-by linger,
who had to move
crushed rocks to the valley,
with bleeding hands
while soldiers marched the alley.

For your boots someone has given the skin,
the sheep are shorn once a year.
stones are collected from the lynn,
shingles are made from grown pear.

Who paid for you?
To whom do you give it back one day?