I guess that all of you interested already know... However: John Siddique is coming to Austria again. From the 20th to the 27th of May, he is touring Vienna, Graz and Salzburg, doing various readings and workshops. I am going to miss it, but all of you literature lovers back home should go. It´s not only words that make poetry. It is people. People who don´t write for profit or fame, but for writing as such. For saying something they truely believe in. Something making you smile. Something making you think. Something making your day.

Here is my favorite, YES, once again (this is the ´G-rated´ version; I can´t publish the original one now as I don´t have the book with me and it is not on the internet); klick on the poem to hear the mp3.

Yes to the Martian canals that run the length of me.
Yes to the frozen lakes beneath my fields.
Yes to yes.
Yes to my atoms.
Yes to love.
Yes to the fool with the serious face I sometimes am.
Yes to believing that this means something.
Yes to stardust, I am fleshed by you.
Yes to sweat, labour, working with my hands.
Yes to the dancing self that gets dizzy and falls over in the long grass,
writing my name in the snow.
Yes I am the same dust as you.
Yes to my soul.
Yes to my death, I hope I never lose sight of you so I can live brighter now.
Yes to breathing which makes my dust a body,
so I can hate & cry & love & live, live, live.
Yes to falling on the floor crying my heart out.
Yes to having a heart to cry.
Yes to the hand that can write yes.
Yes to yes.

(c) John Siddique