'A German poet of some standing, Manfred Jurgensen is now receiving recognition for his work in English. His writing is powerful and sometimes frightening in its familiarity with pain, yet it is often starkly beautiful.
Writing with the depth of feeling that comes from an almost purely subjective viewpoint, he none the less succeeds, as does all fine poetry, in making his experience and insight universal.
Manfred Jurgensen's fresh approach to and command of English allows him to forge new meanings for old words, produce an arresting image with a twist of syntax and introduce foreign blood to enrich our language and consciousness.'
a kind of dying,
The Hawthorn Press,
(The Hawthorn Poets 19),
Melbourne 1977
from: ward twelve
hate
is a window
drawn by curtains
matching our views
why
won't they
leave me sleeping
in the dark
of night
after fourteen hours
hell-designed protection
from the sun
in memoriam Anne Sexton
so you did it after all
(or would you let me say that it was done to you?)
either way beyond recall
of notebooks filled with all the deadliness you knew
you wrote the body of a woman
with purest lines of reckless love
immortal virgin-whore born of
a poetry of deadly omen
as we still guard the bedlam that we live
with patient care and careless love forgive
that we with our short-lived breath
still make a living from your death
a loss
now that you're gone
i drown in the cursed morning dew
disguise the light that we outgrew
i am alone
i break in vain
the branches' unpruned memories
i smell your absence in the trees
blinded with pain
the timeless years
fall on our garden's thriving weed
harsh seasons dig in to succeed
my sterile tears
no dreams were raised
no passing promises would stay
in absent love and anger may
our loss be praised
post-mortem
perhaps
if ever we should meet a
gain
our sense of timing
will have improved
somewhat
i may
by then have grown into a boy
who kicks his football
over your fence
and merely breaks a
window