Europeans just fall for it
This myth of feasibility
Of endless possibilities
Of freedom and equality
They ignore the big boy
Playing president
The soldiers sent to
Useless wars
The weapons hidden
In every second closet
They still follow
The false promises of
A nation
Held captured by prozac
A country
Where pills come in
Giant-size packs
To keep the zombies of
the modern work-ethic alive
They are swallowed by
The hand-full
Just like everything else
Including emotions
That are too big
To be easily digested
Europeans
Sacrifice themselves willingly
On this self-service buffet
Of the new world
They readily join the
Eat-as-much-as-you-can
Philosophy
Of gluttony and obesity
Nourishment
For the eternal conqueror
With the sexual hang-ups
Who comes, sees and triumphs
Then rushes home
To instant absolution
Dealt by bleeding heart
Radio stations and
False priests
He believes in God alright
Yet defies him daily
In his addiction to
Fast food, TV, antipsychotic drugs
His remedy against the
National lie
He readily preaches his
False freedom to the
Delusioned masses
Requiring entrance at
The borders of
His sham paradise
Where they still
Timidly wait in line
For the salvation from
The alleged burdens
Of their grave history
City slick sluts
Screaming scents
Flash static nylons
Cheap lace
Chatty old women
Peddle
Free advice
Empathy
Sliced history
In old cider places
Under chestnut and oak
Gnarled as
Gold-encrusted hands
Multi-coloured
Snot-nosed kids
Graffiti
Freshly painted
Walls
Tags
Mark off
Stomping grounds
Clueless
Youngsters
Search
For identity
Brisk bankers
Dance around the
Golden calf
Worship
Multi storey office buildings
Eroticism of
Phallus probing
Smog-hazy skies
Silver birds
Criss-cross
This self-made
Metropolis
This blabber-mouthed boom box
Blaring music from Babylon
Sodom and Gomorrah
Rackety
Cheeky
Dirt cheap
Benevolence
Her spicy smell of
Petrol Money Sex
Permeates
My hair
My skin
My bones
Marks me off
As hers
Forever
This Babel of
Tabla sounds
Rip-roaring streets
Feverish crowds
Soundtrack
Setting
Staff
Script
Of the film
In which I
Play the lead.
I should find
Someone
To sew
My mouth
My cunt
Firmly shut
Another
Pandora’s box
Closed for good
Cut off my
Right breast
Numb my heart
And let me
Roam the plains
Alone and unattached
“She who cries silently”
My nom de guerre
Ulrike Gerbig is a poet who lives and works in Germany.
Her collections, Every Woman’s Blues and Love in all the right places are from Lapwing Publications, Belfast.
Her work can be read in several magazines and e-zines like Hearts with Soul, ICP, London Art, The Poetry Kit Magazine, Photoaspects, Electric Acorn, Zygote in my Coffee, Pedestal Magazine, Dublin Quarterly, Voices, LitVision, Out of Order, Open Wide, Mouseion, Aestethica, and The Poetry Victims and in anthologies like Voices of Israel, 2004/2005 and In Our Own Words.
She was featured in Voices, Poetic Diversity, and the Poetry SuperHighway.