Fish Magic Quotes

“Time

Her face
a woman not at all old
tomorrow
she'll cry”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“Taking a Walk

The lights behind the dike
I proclaim stars
release them
from gables streetnames
and hurl them high”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“Change

Who were you
the world's gone wild
the animals
I nursed
blaze
sky high”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“Preparing to Travel

In my suitcase
I pack
neither clothes nor shoes

I take
the mountain and valley
so that my back turned
nothing will happen

Not summer nor winter”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“End of Summer

We've been tramping around
long enough
now the sun
falls in a faint
it's done in

The trees quit
the wave stops rolling
how ordinary things have become
how ordinary

I placed my bet
on this summer lasting”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“Gone By

You sit
eyes full
of night's constellations
arched over the valleys
the wind
nests on your back

You sit
and through your hands
plunge fountains of
a lovelier world

You sit
and move
not hand not foot
as the grassbeast
crawls up your leg”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“What can you do
without a heart
the fire dying out of you
it is used to loving

What can you say
without a heart
words without laughter or tears
don't get soaked by rain
don't darken between days”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“the children hide

the children hide
behind the berry bushes
the children hide
behind a wooden chair
the children hide
behind a bug
the children hide
behind father and mother
the children say ticktock
the children say buzzbuzz
the children hide
behind ticktock and buzzbuzz
the children hide behind the sun”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“for us

us above the twelfth cloud
us above the body of the dead elephant
us above the greatly gifted nightingale
us above the brown bread”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“do you always come so late
always between two summers
always when mice
begin to walk
up and down
quicker and quicker”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“and poets rest
their heads on typewriters
as their voices
dissolve in great song”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“hey there, tell me about love
I am the poppy
who blabs
and I am key to the heart
step in and eat your fill”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“farewell

light died
and darkness died too

the earth fell apart
and the cloud fell down too

the sea sank
and the wind was gone too

the angel went away
and then death went away too”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“hear and see
this time
this sudden
redthorn time
when women want to go to the river
when men want to go to the river
when someone says
life turned out beautiful
and I'm beautiful”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“and all your life you want to rise from the dead
and still the bird's shadow of death
is on the house and the wind sows itself”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“I'll get tired
someday
of singing
of playing
my little horse
my little song
then I'll kill you dead”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“I dance towards doomsday
in shoes of fire

I carry the sun
in my belly”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“you with your green secret
you with your shell sleep
you with your mouth full of fish
you with your sunken cities
in your arms
you who dare”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“we with our glass hands
we with our coral shoulders
we with our algae voices
we with our mirroring nests
in eye and hair
we the betrayed”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“softly wave says to wave
take the poor by the hand
and crown their foreheads
with little dead fish”
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

“After catastrophe, on the heels of recovery, comes the banality of everyday life, the grief of broken bonds, and the necessity to face the danger of full-fed rapacious compacency.”
― Anneliese Wagner, Fish Magic: Selected Poems