Poems by A.J. Kaufmann

JAZZ ME BLUES (EXILE DEUTSCHLAND!)

The seraph, the tempest, in cobbled sky
avert in milky mourning 

thumbs up, 23
still wedded under
hope signs

Strands and days of marriage
jazz your blues
out of the moon
cheering wrecks
in harvest

Starlight reclaims
mind's burden
suicide hipsters
drown
where nightfalls 
blow

Soul's fire showers
stigmata whirled in sands
scythes
in the whirlwind
driven to flame

Fountains pitched in the lightning
screaming
exile Deutschland!
while mercy reigns
on Saturday heaven
Body be our pride
black sex
chalk stain
lions in lettering light
hunting
penthouse pain

Palms crash
your madrigal flesh
granite soul
a quarter of earth
you’re ink sketch Christ
unshapeable

Exile Deutschland!
for the years we spent
on bitter surf

THE SHADOW BOYS

Wake up to the burden
feel pain in everything wild
Polaroid electric smile

Round formless river eating herself
drinking with sadly late some
enduring in parade of poker

True fat age
shows through winter covers
tight family suits

Stormy days of heavy past
gather round
mouth meat
hearing fellow sounds
of a rat reel

Money, air, eccentric ink
with little sun painted squeals
brown bowdlerized
dinners rose
to prove
you’re eating noise

Night knell for the clowns
hard-earned peace
diminished
in clattering thoughts

We suddenly stop stealing
savage states
hitching strange 
rags of times
tuned with low
sailor days’ cravat

One frightful April
policeman laughing at
a nameless death
climbed, in face anguish
to the silence jury doodling:
talk of the pigs

Cold everything, muffled sick
shelved to watch
worried women
insects, booze
blue, burnt blankets
The frantic wait 
of sharp cruel dogs
dead city thirst
war sick divers
playing the old
patriotic drum

On far German deserts
of circus love
in begging eyes, serving
the glare wheel
you soberly walk
round twirling of words
memorizing
the shadow boys’
heaven

YOU DON’T EXIST

Murmur of leaden wings
dead edge
of a coffin

Thru whispers mad
we know you

Little pitiful
body death
a warm strange hand
in the night

Between incense
and the dark
blood is the flame
you burn

In waking moments
carefully watching
the blade
 
Rarify ecstasy now
then you don’t exist

BOMBAY

Ashes she describes 
her white and smallest you
light unwraps your head
every ornament
of intellect
childlike, translated
larvae

Guiding lady hybrids
thru satisfactory ages
burning sand in your eyes
days to their palm
anxious, demoralized
nights

Simple cracks, like us
subtle to destiny
practice monotony
against the shades
of reply 
this black, nauseous
leather

Parting with the quiet life
long, indigenous months
make me feel resigned
but I hold my true Bombay
in words timidly
carved

YIDDISH GHETTO FLOWER

Yiddish ghetto flower
old twilight bird 
searching eyes
in irony of vision

Cities forgotten
in velvety gleaming night
are slow side
phosphorus flesh psalm

Ridiculous, gone 
gleaming without a world
as ancient darkness saddles
our thought

Empty sunken stones
parade red words 
creeping up our fine cold skulls
blocking books and harmonies

Garbage goblets, mirrors
dull, ephemeral beauty
shocks the stars, screaming grapes
on vermilion black surface




A.J. Kaufmann is a young poet and songwriter hailing from Poznan, Poland, whose debut poetry chapbook, "Siva in Rags", was published on June 28, 2008 with a small American publisher, Kendra Steiner Editions. Since then he has published lots of poetry chapbooks in the USA, UK and Poland, including “Saint of Kreuzberg”, “Cut-up 2010” and “I’m Already Not Here”. His debut studio album, "Second Hand Man", appeared on the Polish music market on October 2, 2011.