Some of my English and German poems.
http://www.bookrix.de/_ebook-kerim-mallee-voice-stimme/

Swedish Miles

Did you know that one Swedish mile
has a length of ten kilometres?
No, I don't want to go hiking
in Sweden with you.
Not today.
I just want to tell you,
the most talented architect
could build a skyscraper,
one billion Swedish miles high,
he won't feel as close to heaven,
as I do,
because of looking in your eyes.
Holy shit!
Normally I am an atheist,
but you played mind games with me
and I'm not sure anymore.
The problem with a word
like “love” is,
that it was often said,
but never meant.
It is too short,
jumps of someone's lips before he realizes
what's happening.
That is why I don't like to use it
in my poems.
I prefer to say,
that
“With nobody in your bed,
the night's hard to get through.”
is not my only reason.
It is rather a feeling of comfort,
that is bigger, then my fear of death.
You look like the harbour
where I want to rest,
till hourglasses splinter,
because I miss you,
like a sinking ship must miss
the lighthouse.
And I hope my words can swim,
I don't want to imprison them in bottles.
I want them to be free,
so that they can find you,
wherever you are.
And I want you to know,
that if you were a sinking ship,
it would be my greatest pleasure
to get shipwrecked with you.
Although that would mean,
to inhale the cold frosty water,
as it hits the engine,
and drown with you.
To be or not to be,
that is not the question.
Not for me.
My issue is:
“How can I make you breakfast,
without waking you up?”
Because I am clumsy as fuck!
My steps sound like an elephant
slipping on ice, falling into a storeroom
full of timbals.
It seems to me,
that I'm the joker and you're
the queen of swords.
I am tired of Wildcard
and you are sick of tarot .
Let us start a new game.
Let us invent our own rules.
I cannot prove,
that we ought to take the same direction,
on this crossroad in the middle
of nowhere, where we've met.
But I am not a vampire.
Worst-case-scenario is, that I'm a bad
knock-knock joke,
but we won't ever find out,
if you let me stand on your doormat,
till the end of time.
If that happens,
I would put up a tent and wait.

-Kerim Mallée

Do You Remember?

Do you remember how life was,
thinking that the moon was made out of cheese?
Do you remember how we
were t-shirt-suited knights,
how proud we looked wearing that harness?
While riding our bikes like horses,
we wore our helmets,
like they were made out of unbreakable steel.
Do you remember,
how I told you
that my grandfather was a magician?
In some way, he was!
Every grandfather was a wise magician that time.
Do you remember how we forgot
that everything can become reality,
if our faith in it is strong enough?
I know that you’ve seen those dragons
and dwarfs, too.
Do you remember how we used sticks as rifles?
The best rifles ever!
Because they didn’t hurt anyone.
Do you remember how many times
I imitated the noises of a shooting gun,
but you were always able to stand up again.
So we bought some time,
to learn…
To learn for our “What is death?”-exams.
Do you remember how it was,
to live in a world,
where no one is able to hurt true beauty?
We were kings and queens,
living in sandcastles,
ruling kingdoms,
within borders marked by sandboxes and seesaws.
Do you remember your first day at school?
You felt alone, because you didn’t know anybody.
Remember how you realized
that we all don’t know each other.
How you broke the silence.
How we all became friends.
How we had to learn to use our feet again,
each time after we had fallen.
How we learned faster and faster.
We are still learning today.
Remember how we skipped stones over water,
counting the leaps.
Remember first love and braces.
Remember that small way between fantasy
and reality,
we were moving on all the time.
Remember those days when we were young!

-Kerim Mallée

Hemingway's Shotgun

One day I saw the smiling face of death,
while I was looking in a bathroom-mirror,
after spending the night in the last motel
on a road going nowhere.
A strange place,
inhabited by even stranger people.
Angels who became atheists, living next door
to broken-heart-couples,
killing time on their honeymoon.
Novelists who have sold their souls
for poppy-field-born fantasies,
melting in the heat of candles,
on the soot-blackend tongue of
once silver-glinting spoons,
who write their poems about evanescence
and mortality on toilet-walls.
They use needles to write the same poems
on their belt-spanned arms.
As the ink floats into their veins,
the voices are muted for a second,
but after a moment, they are turning into the same
haunted people, that they always were.
The kind of person who spreads his arms
to hug a train, liken an old companion.
A person who's neck is a breaking match
in the hand of god,
who knows that street-lamps were not designed
to lighten the dark places inside us.
Someone, thinking that love is the sweetest
word, hidden in the devil's dictionary.
Someone, lost in never ending nightmares
about secrets behind locked cellar doors.
Nightmares don't care about insomnia.
You can't escape them with caffeine or amphetamines.
Sometimes they visit you,
when you're lying sleepless in your bed,
Hemingway's loaded shotgun under your mattress.

-Kerim Mallée

I'm from germany. Most time I'm writing german, but some days ago, I've tried english, too.

Writing Scars

Whenever I take a shower,
I realize that the contrast
between my scars and my healthy skin
is changing,
as the temperature is changing.
Whenever I take a hot shower
to wash away the dirt and dust
of a long cruel day,
the wounds get visible again.
My scars talk to me,
they tell me about the time
when I first felt unreal.
How everything started to feel unreal.
And how I tried to test the boundaries
of reality…
…with a thin and sharp razorblade.
But not with dying as an aim.
I was only trying to harm the surface,
the skin,
trying to get a better view,
to look directly into the abyss beneath it.
Getting a better view.
That was all I ever wanted in my whole life.
On my own way,
I was a scientist, an explorer,
trying to learn, what nobody can tell me.
I was hoping to see foreign cotinents,
to touch the earth, where no one ever placed a foot.
I was an explorer.
A very desperate explorer, but an explorer.
I remember how this all was reduced to one word,
by therapists and teachers:
“cutting”
The problem wasn’t selfharm.
The problem was NOT KNOWING.
So I replaced razorblades and kitchenknives,
with pens and pages.
Until today I’m thankful for my scars.
My greatest wish is, that my wounded flesh
will never heal,
because it is my everyday rememberance
of the reason why I write.
The ugly beauty of my skin
is the best teacher,
the wisest prof I ever got.
The only true manual to write.
1st step: Harm the surface.
2nd step: Uncover the secrets under it.
3rd step: Look directly into the abyss.
Final step: Test the boundaries of reality.
Let the silent tongue of your pen
become a sharp knive,
use it to cut your ink-bleeding, unspoken words
in paperskin.

-Kerim Mallée

The Melody Of Meteors

You are an asteroid,
dancing across the universe.
A raindrop,
falling in the desert of time.
But with an unforgettable light inside you,
waiting to shine bright,
waiting to burn your eternal fingerprints in
the night-time-sky,
as you break through the atmosphere.
Immortality is a drug,
powdered on your lips
like cocaine.
Let me put my words there, too.
So that my handwritten sentences turn
into magic spells.
Transform my nameless notebooks
into bibles, praising your holy beauty.
Let me taste the rush of blue letters
and question-marks.
Show me,
how the tip of your tongue touches
the teeth,
how time stops,
bound to your breath,
by chains made out of whispers.
I saw your face,
reflected on the surface of polaroid-tears,
floating over Chronos eyelids.
Touching your skin,
is like putting my fingers on piano-keys,
to compose the most beautiful melody,
ears will ever listen to.
Your portrait is painted on the inner walls of my
skull.
Forget Proust!
Your Lips is
where I will find the lost time.
Forget Einstein!
You are my relativity-theory.
Forget Van Gogh!
You will ever be my “Starry Night”,
bright as day, by the light
of thousand burning meteors.

-Kerim Mallée

This is a great piece on short stories.

Looking for impressions and/or perceived weaknesses.

This begins the last section of an unseen work in progress here.

I feel like I'm just skimming somewhere--characters, imagery?

http://www.bookrix.com/_title-en-evans-haller-draft-last-section

When you believe your book is wonderful and someone tells you

"your story is great but the whole thing needs to be re-written"

Arrrggghhh! Wow is me . . . I'm really thankful for the expert eyes.

Back to the laptop . . oh wait, I'm at my laptop. :D

what are your takes?

I tried a 1st person and have been told it's in the wrong tense.

Am now trying to write in 3rd person.

I'm thinking 1st was easier but was told I went about it wrong.

Confusion slipped in making me wonder why?

Does anyone else feel that the name of a character is just as important as the appearance of the character? When I am naming a character I try to find a name that fits the fate and personality of the charter? However, for some reason I get discouraged when I see that an author has decided to name the hero of the story Jacob, Rachel, Cain, Judas, Garret and in one case... Adolf. Although these are popular and nice sounding names (except for one) the meaning or reputation of the name is not so pleasant. For instance the name Jacob means "cheater or the deceiver". Rachel means "ewe" and for those of you that don't an Ewe is a female sheep. Also a sheep is common symbol of stupidity. Which means the name Rachel can be interpreted as "Stupid Female". Have I made my point? If so then is it all that important to give your character a GOOD name? I mean Jacob and Garret (Garret means to cut a throat) are great names... for villains. Does anyone else agree?