Three Poems (translated from the German by Sujata Bhatt)

The Wooden Soup

What? You don't know the story
about the wooden soup?

But everyone knows it!
Even back home
all our folks know it!

Our budgie
can whistle it to you
on two fingers.


The Bell Box

The bone
And the egg from the ray
can hardly be heard.
But they are rattling! Quietly.
Without any haste.
So it goes for a while.

Then the bell shrills,
then the metal trumpets,
then the people rush out
and start to crush
...