Part XII: Mein Beste Freund

a tribute to my best friend

Daniel.
His name is Daniel
Er nammst ist Daniel
my best friend

where are you
now?
As I stretch across
on the pavement
this city in ruins
almost
after an earthquake
the world shaking
my body shaking
our hands shaking
makes it all better for a while.
  “You saved my life,”
I say,
  “many times.”
He knows this
I told him so
in his own way
his mystical presence
unknown
to most,
I’ll tell him again
I want to
ich wilst zum
so here it goes
all our memories
and grieving
over many years
rolled into one
like a cigarette
burns orange and slowly
fades
turn to ash
like the dead of Hiroshima
in this city
I lived
stayed for a short while
and here I go
to the unknown
yes
we shall all go
�" goodbye.

We sit on the bench
Daniel and me
listening to the fading tide
listening to the gentle breeze
we then drink to remember
and we drink to forget
the time is passing over, but
it hasn’t passed us yet.

as the moon is high
there’s plenty of wine
the sky darkens then it glows
the moon shines, the waters flow

Danie, oh Daniel!
where are you now?
where are you
now
when I need you
the most?
All rivers begin
from the frost
of tall mountains
where the ice then slowly melt
like that,
friendships form from
prickles of frozen tears
falling from heaven.
For me,
they began at twelve, eleven
when my parents stopped caring
for each other
and I watched this establishment
fall, nail by nail
so I entrusted
him
my best friend, and,
still do;
in some way
he was there
in the darkest, coldest
nights.
He was there
in some way
like a waking dream
or hallucination
I don’t know which
that time in Sendai
laying across the hot road
the evening where the last
trace of hope
vanished before me
like a flower snatched
right before I landed,
I, the butterfly
with nowhere to feel
safe
I shall rest
the colourful wings
now in tatters
its traces left across
  the world
as sprinkles of rainbow dust
in the wings of others
I met along the way
real as glass
warm as stardust
they’ll remain forever
so they will in my dreams
but I, the butterfly
lie wounded in some
wet surface of the soil
tangled up in coils
of twigs and branches
  no question
  no answers
a phone-call that reaches
a dead line.

 

Author's Note

daniel wasnt on this trip in physical form, but he was there in my mind as always. someone who has always been there for me, always on my side. i've helped him out many times too -- i was too humble to write that in the poem, but i am not here. we look out for each other; brothers. we have recently stayed in touch.