Sven Kretzschmar

I came into the office early
(after William Shakespeare)

Calm is the morn,
without a sound.
Day is born,
still cold
and full of possibility.
Not quite a midsummer's dawning,
but still
a broadening into boundless day.

The seabird's call
up over my head
where only the ear can reach,
and the park already full
of all the fair flowers of the season
that fell from Dis' wagon –
such ravishing beauty
cannot but make for a moment of hope.

And now sparrows courting
on the window seat.
The almost rising sun,
the white clouds in the sky,
the melodious chanting
of blossoms and leaves
announce a promising day –
maybe a new beginning.



Daybreak encounter

The rolling hills of age-old mornings
I dipped into, that summer’s last nightshift behind.
The sky a rosy-grey above the crownscape
of trees, no human sole in the wood but mine,

tired, but joyful among the green,
the brown, the sandy ground –
and a rustle in the undergrowth.
A shote stared at me there in surprise

and I stared back wondering if sow or tusker
were reasonably near. At the break of the spell
the break of the moment, dashing off
in opposite directions. I ran that day!

Never before had I left those woods faster
to enter civilization at rose-golden daylight.
I rose uphill, out of the narrows, at sunrise
leaving green and brown and boars behind.



Afterwards
(for Kathrin)

Afterwards the strong one faltered
then fell, suddenly,
unexpected aggregation
of misery on the basement floor.

Mis-spook over, post-
consolidation set in – none of us
had seen that coming.
Her eyes water-smooth, she trembled,

shivered despite the mild weather.
Squalor, like
tears, ran down
the brick wall.

In lack of translation of shades
in the shadows of detached brick ghosts
in a dynamite-factory-turned-
apartment the welter of moving

boxes stored her past. Bricks
do not have a soul, bone
and pottery thickets of white nights
conserved her record. And confusion.

Unbox. Then pack in bones,
pile boxes till you see bricks no more.
Here – let us help you. Do not
live from a place of grief,

but in a place where
the cat will fold in
on herself. Let us equip
your place with new hugs and pottery.



Sven Kretzschmar hails from Germany. His work has been published internationally, e.g., in Writing Home. The ‘New Irish’ Poets (Dedalus Press, 2019), Turangalîla-Palestine (Dairbhre, 2019), Hold Open the Door (UCD Press, 2020) and 100 Words of Solitude (Rare Swan Press, 2021). Further work is forthcoming in 2 Meter Review.