The Sinkhole

I felt the chilly wind as I stepped out of the taxi. The hotel my boss booked for me was in the northern district of the city. I stood next to the car gazing at the dark red building while the driver took my suitcase out of the trunk. The building was wide rather than

The 9th and 10th of August

The 9th of August I water echinacea and watch melons grow. I find the scattered feathers of Turkeys in the  morning, and the blood dripped dried below. I watch infinity’s strata unfold as keets corralled  amass and grow into spotted Guinea Fowl.  I recall, remember, am reminded  of the depth of space, the tininess of

I am from here

Somewhere on the border,  where the cold and the dry kills everything that needs to be killed,  somewhere around here is where I’m from.  Where the weeds are lush and the grass is gone.  Where the cow’s milk tastes dirty and the breast milk tastes sad.  Where bodies are cremated, not buried, and you can

Some Thoughts on Love

Some thoughts on love  Some thoughts on affection  I work my way up into no expectations  And coax away the need for labels  When I stare at your hand resting across the dinner table,  And notice the fine scars across some shape of a palm  That could belong to anyone  But because it’s not anyone,

Birth of the Blue Heron

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.    My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,    Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I? A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.    The mind enters itself, and God the mind,    And one is One, free in the tearing wind. “In a Dark Time”  By

Random At Moments

1 The day I lost my iPhone, credit cards, a photo, a student ID, a residence permit and the purse that contained them all, I was with a friend who was visiting Berlin for fall break from Vienna. We used to sit on the bench every night, drinking enough “përlinër bilsnër” to fill up Spok’s

The Fire That Never Went Out

Die Bärliner invites you to revisit a flash fiction piece by BCB graduate Océanne Fry (HAST’ 21), originally published during our Poetry Month in April. Océanne worked on this project last Spring semester as part of the “LT 167 Writing African Futures” course taught by Prof. Dr. Kerry Bystrom at BCB, in association with the

Open your eyes

A slow movement of the eyes before the dizziness of the day is taking over. The clumsy beams of the Sun are rushing into the mirror on the wall and then bouncing back, leaving behind no more than a puddle of light. The birds are finding their melodies they lost during the night, starting the