by Rolf-Peter Wille 

A Kind Man
A Rusty Snail?
At Madame Tussaud’s
Ballad of the Paochung Shrub
Could I Undrink The Poison of This Love
Courtly Love
Eternal Love
I Like it Hot and Hearty
Metarambosis
Pangolin and Platypus
Paradise Lost: a Culinary Correction
Poem
Pométicolette
Pope Shakespeare
The Tender Monster of Loch Ness
Winter




A Kind Man

A kind man with a mind can mind
a mindless and unkind mankind.





A Rusty Snail?

Oh, let’s be frank: This life is mean!
We went to taste some French cuisine.
What did I order? Juicy snail!
What did I get? A rusty nail!

The lovely chef whose face turned pale
had used—he swore—the freshest snail
and then he (well, that is my guess…)
he must have dropped the tiny "s".





At Madame Tussaud’s

I went to see Her Ladyship
In wax—some lusty royalty!
I gently kissed her shady lip
To show my rusty loyalty
And watched if not a butterfly
In wax might dare to flutter by.




Ballad of the Paochung Shrub

I rode a gondola - quite swell,
the view was nice to see.
Unfortunately my cabin fell
into the Paochung tea.

I grew into a Paochung shrub,
grew many happy leaves.
One night, and from a filthy pub,
there came the Paochung thieves.

They cut me off, they picked my leaves
and dried them, just for fun,
according to their tea beliefs
one summer in the sun.

They brewed me in a tiny pot
and drank me in a cup.
I was so fragrant, fresh and hot -
goodbye, sweet Paochung shrub.






Could I Undrink The Poison of This Love

Could I undrink the poison of this love,
Unwhisper of thy voice my memory,
Unwitch yon ghost whose vision from above
Invades my mind, evokes my misery,

Could I unburry thee and from this grave,
This coffin in my brain, undig thine image,
Surrender thee to heaven and unslave
Me from the horrors of unholy homage,

Then peaceful would my soul in blissful rapture
Soar through the realm of God’s eternal pardon,
Of Adam and of Eve—not of that creature
That tempted them to sin in Eden’s Garden;

Thou vicious Love, thou serpent hast me slain:
As Abel am I butchered, cursed like Cain!






Courtly Love

(dedicated to Carlo Gesualdo)

Farewell, adieu, my distant Love…
Time’s fool is cruel, grim and rough.
Oh, bitter tears I dropped, my dear
Sweet withered rose of yesteryear.

Adieu, my dear. Blessed be Thy skull!
Life is so shabby, short and dull.
And often do I kneel and pray
To Thee, pure pearl of yesterday.

Farewell, my Love, my Lady brave.
Accept Thy fate, Thy quiet grave.
I lead a quaint, a saintly life.
I threw away that bloody knife.





Eternal Love

Eternal love we learn it is
immortal. It dies never.
But, thanks be God, eternities
do rarely last forever.





I Like it Hot and Hearty

I like it hot and hearty, straight and strong.
If this is wrong, then nothing else be right.
Let it taste fragrant, fresh and not too light.
If this proves right, then nothing else be wrong.

Espresso, cappuccino italiano,
Latte macchiato? No such thing!
No mochachino or americano!
A cup of coffee—that’s my very drink.

Here are the beans: arabica, one pound.
Grind bitterness, dispel your morbid mood.
Wake up and taste your treasure freshly ground.
Wake up and sip your treasure freshly brewed.

A cup of coffee makes the mind grow rich.
No coffee leaves it dull and black as pitch.





Metarambosis

Rambo saw a rainbow
and became a Rimbaud






Pangolin and Platypus

There lived a lanky pangolin
That liked to play the mandolin.
Complained a tacky platypus:
"This fiddle sounds monotonous!"
And our lofty pangolin
Plucked softly then its mandolin.

Unfortunately some platypi
They do not like the do-re-mi,
And our tacky platypus
Was not exactly humorous.
It seems to me that platitude
Had certainly some attitude.

Behold, the cranky pangolin
It swung the lanky mandolin
And crushed the creature’s swanky beak.
Those shrieks of that poor platy-freak!

The pangolin began, I hear,
To shed a bitter-sweetish tear.
It bought some nifty crazy-glue
And smeared it on the platypoo.
So could the wobbly beak re-harden.
Oh, what a nice idyllic pardon.
And at the end of this affair
The two appeared to be a pair.

The pangolin and platypus
They lived their life quite amorous,
Had many lovely little feasts
Produced some other mighty beasts,
Created - that’s preposterous -
A pretty baby pangopus,
Or maybe platylin, I guess…
In any case, it was a mess.

The pango- and the platypus
They lived a life quite wondyrous
And had the sweetest of relations
With plenty of communications,
The platy- and the pangolin,
In English and in Mandarin.

They had the sole monopoly
Of plangy- and patopoli
And lived forever and in glory.
This is the end of our story.






Paradise Lost: a Culinary Correction

(modestly proposed by Rolf-Peter Wille)

Show me to Eden and I shall be wise.
I shall not loose John Milton’s paradise.
No slimy eloquence of any brute
Shall tempt my palate with his rotten fruit.
Unless the devil by foul magic makes
Forbidden trees grow juicy Kobe steaks.



Lower alternative:

If I am Eve I shall be wise.
I shall not loose my paradise.
No eloquence of any snake
shall make me munch on apple cake.
I shall not listen to that brute
and stuff my mouth with rotten fruit.
Unless the fiend by magic makes
forbidden trees grow juicy steaks.





Poem

…to work with words?
Oh no - that hurts,
it is a crime, a curse!
Yet right on time
arrives a rhyme
and - voilà - a verse.






Pométicolette

A chicken, quite a funny bard
stuffed with poetic sense,
laid metaphors, true eggs of art,
and hatched by eloquence.

One critic at Café Bla-Bla
threw proverbs from that chick
into his pen and—voilà—
omelette métaphorique.





Pope Shakespeare

Say, are you searching for diversity?
Manure the garden of your fantasy!
Pluck not your nose but pick the rose that flowers
in eloquence—not in those torture towers
where bookful blockheads, ignorantly read,
chop loads of learned lumber with their head.
(If you trust Shakespeare rather than A. Pope:
‘Most learned pates duck to some golden dope.’)
Wind up that rusty Rolex of your wit
and read those timeless poems they have writ.





The Tender Monster of Loch Ness

There lived a monster in Loch Ness
that had a lot of tenderness.
It mended cleverly its dress
and never missed a Sunday Mass.

One day the monster met a miss,
a lovely lady—she was Swiss.
Delighted and in sweetest bliss
the monster asked her for a kiss.

"No kiss would surely be a loss.
But wait…, I have to ask my boss."
"Sweet girl", said Nessie, "don’t be cross
and throw my love into the dross!"

The lady cried "Oh, what a fuss!
This love is surely not for us.
Farewell, sweet couz, here comes my bus."
And the relation ended thus.






Winter

Like the mighty river
When its flowing water feels cold and tired
In winter,
And sleeps -

Flowering thoughts
In the winter of our life
Freeze into
Icy opinions.

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