Seen her

And where she was he had no idea

And so he thought: She’s in Madagascar.

He looked at the map in Thomas Cook. She’d

Very likely be there somewhere

He thought and so

He landed up in Madagascar

Rather

As Pontius Pilate did in the Creed.

He traveled with a case full of documents

An umbrella badly in need of splints

A guitar and a bottle of Johnnie Walker

And trouble in the heart, an old disorder.

But the sea is a damned bad-mannered critter

So he didn’t give much thought to Erna Susatte

But once he was on the island then

The name (not the face) occurred to him again

But that night he went to bed alone, supposing

He’d hardly come across her the very first evening.

So when Balaam Lai in his thirtieth year

Suddenly one morning was in Madagascar

He asked himself before he went in search of her

Whether it was possible Erna Susatte

Was in Madagascar

And concluding it was possible, why shouldn’t it be?

But that his chances of finding her were slight, especially

Since all he’d got with him was a suitcase and an umbrella

And since moreover the interest that he

Still had in the face of the vanished Erna Susatte

Was not great, not very great

And deciding over a vilely concocted punch

That Madagascar wasn’t up to much

He sailed home moderately drunk on punch but

Shot of all the yearning and longing muck

And ordered another punch at The Red Carnation

12 Tauentzienstrasse, run

By another Erna, surnamed Clouds, this one.

Many years later, same street, number 4, in a bar

A supersaturated drunk used to relate

Among various true stories this one about

A daring trip in a schooner to Madagascar

Shipwreck, visions, snakebites

And a face he had seen deep in the swamps of Madagascar

As proof that now and then miracles do happen

For example when

With nothing to go on

He sees the pale and forgotten face of Erna Susatte

In an Asiatic

Swamp, drunk as a skunk on punch.

NOW IN THE NIGHT . . .

1

Now in the night while I love you

White clouds are in the silence in the sky

The waters make a roaring over stones

And the wind shivers in dead greenery.

2

White waters hurry

Down year after year

And in the sky there are

Clouds for evermore.

3

Later in the years of loneliness

Still there will be white clouds to see

And the waters will make a roaring over stones

And the wind will shiver in dead greenery.

NEED FOR ART

The virtuous woman who gives her lover all

And offers up herself to him quite freely

Must learn that good intentions are not really

Quite enough—he’s also crying out for skill.

And even if her cry of “Iamyours”

Translates to sex with breakneck quickness

He isn’t only interested in slickness

When it comes to emptying his swollen balls.

Although it may be love that stokes the fire