CHARITY
{Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust}
Goethe, Faust*
three times I didn’t give charity:
1. On a Kurfustendamm avenue
to a woman with a child
Dark birth, Albanian or gypsy or maybe just dirty
2. One girl thrusting herself with an alms box, kinder
kinder kinder, she hit
a small tin drum, Grass’s humpback dwarf voice
Kinder, she repeated, to children of the kinder type, an advertising slogan
an egg, which, upon opening, a surprise inside, inescapable evidence of your death
3. One more fellow stood by the bookstore with his empty skull extended
feed on wisdom, I advised him
Books are very nutritious, all who swallow books will
be invited to God’s table
And I did not give any one of them charity
And so
a dark person, vulgar primitive, man-monkey
animal, half-wit, murderer, liar, thief, debaucher
idiot awoke in me, raised
his head, coloured his un-pretty
mouth, with dishevelled instincts
I fed him the cheapest pizza with cheese and
salami, in the street, the hammering
of a pneumatic drill – every instant someone
lays the groundwork of their own hell
{excerpt}
*"Two souls, at least, live in my breast"
6 September 2007, Berlin
