Lampionbehangene Hütte
am ernst-verschmitzten Boskop-Baum.
Ein Klettergerüst der Erwartungen
auf Akrobaten, kopfüber hängende
Faultiere. Schwaden von Kompostgärung
eines gewesenen Sommers. Viel Liebstöckel.
Die Mohnkapseln im mitternächtlichen
Mondlicht, heftiges Glucksen im Teich.
Im heiseren Lichtsmog der Stadt
erheben sich Masten
mit schlappen HSV-Fahnen.
Eigentlich wollten wir
heute nacht in Sizilien sein.
Nocturnal Covid walk in a Lokstedt allotment garden
Lantern-framed huts
next to a seriously mischievous Bramley tree.
A jungle gym of acrobatic expectations, upside down
hanging sloths. Compost fermentation,
wafts of a summer past. Plenty of lovage.
Poppy seed pods at midnight, moonlit
the heavy gurgling in the pond.
In the city’s hazy light smog arise
poles with flabby HSV flags.
Actually we had planned
to be in Sicily tonight.
Norman P. Franke is a Hamilton-based scholar (MA, Hamburg University; PhD Humboldt University, Berlin), poet and filmmaker. He is a Research Fellow at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales. He has published widely about 18th-century literature, German-speaking exile literature (Albert Einstein, Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Else Lasker-Schüler, Karl Wolfskehl) eco-poetics and at the intersection of religion and poetry. Norman’s poetry has been broadcast on radio and published in anthologies in Austria, Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA. [2017/18 finalist at the Aesthetica (UK) and Feldkircher (Austria) literature contests; 2019 New Zealand Flash Fiction Day competition, takahē Short Story competition (NZ)]; 2021 New Zealand National Flash Fiction Award, Waikato Regional Award; 2021 Landfall Essay Competition (highly commended); 2021 Münchner Lyrikpreis (shortlist); 2023 At the Bay/ I TE Kokoru Katherine Mansfield creative writing competition (shortlist)]
Goethe Society Wellington 