Poems & Images

Door cases and table legs

If you bump
into a door case
and get a black eye

Or
if you walk around
on bare feet
and by accident
hit a table leg

The pain
can be so violent
that you almost forget
everything
you have learned by heart

All mathematical formulas
your vocabulary and grammar
all years and historical events
mountain ranges and rivers
learned from a map
and most of the names
of animals

But the pain will vanish
and you will again
be able
to remember almost
all
you have learned by heart

Particular words

The existence of particular words
causes
that their significance
by anyone
is kept
as secrets
or
only said
with a feeble whisper

But even small children
will
very early on
explore
and understand
the consequences
of these words

That's why
they do not
only cry
of hunger
or of thirst

The story

It's almost a pity
to polish a window
when it is soiled

Because
on a soiled window
you could
with your forefinger
write
a whole story

It could be a story
about a tree
or about people passing by
outside
in the backlight

A web
of talking shadows

Inexorably
the time will come
where the clearing
of the window
will be imperative

With sweeping movements
rubber gloves and ammonia water
everything is removed

Thereafter
you will have to prepare yourself
that some time will pass
until the window is ready
for a new story

The garden bench

If you are on your way
through rainy weather
passing by
a grey
blue
old garden bench

You might give it
a brief glance
and vaguely
remember
the summer

But you wouldn’t
sit down on it
even when being tired

If you
nevertheless
sit down on it
it must be
that you are
either exhausted
or indifferent

Or maybe
have forgotten
the summer

Søren Waast is a teacher, a painter and a writer with the pencil, always at hand. And so with the brush (mostly in France, district Drome). A spectator and a traveler (China, Malaysia, Thailand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Indonesia). The focus, human attitudes and your inner voice..