Author: Frank Joussen
Location: Germany

Frank Joussen is a German high school teacher. He is a member of a local One-World Group and involved with several Indian NGOs for street children and other discriminated groups. His English poems have been published in a great number of print magazines, anthologies and e-zines, e.g. anthologies published by Poet Works Press, The Pedestal Magazine, KotaPress (all: U.S.A.), The Poetry Kit, caught in the net, Pulsar (all: U.K.), POET and World Poetry 2005 (both: India), Southern Review, UIitarra, Imago and The New England Review (all: Australia) and the Malta Ezine Zone. He combines teaching young people and enabling them to work for peace and understanding by preparing students for a voluntary year in India.

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Air-raided Night

I am Night
Giver of Peace and Quiet
but I am not
myself tonight.

My head aches - crisscrossed
by mutated mosquitoes
that send lightning
through my veins
which tear up my belly
and wake up the children
pursuing their dreams
of happiness there.

My ears hurt - pierced by noise
to mock my tranquility
with explosions
that turn my darkened homes
into illuminated graves.
My feet are shaken
by man-made earthquakes.

They´re raiding - robbing me,
of everything that I am
till I go to pieces which
fall
    down to reveal
the debris
    that the world
and I
    have become.

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