Spontaneous Combustion 

Spontaneous combustion

creates an eruption

Of words in my head

waiting to be read

By anyone willing

and needing a filling

Of thought for the day,

or something to say. 

Spontane Verbrennung²¹

Meine Gedanken

blitzen wie Funken.²²

In meinem Kopf kreisen

Wörter auf Gleisen,²³

Um jedem, der will

und sei es nur still,

Etwas zu sagen,

um den Tag zu ertragen.²⁴

²¹ Once again, this poem takes a closer look at the workings of the mind during the creative process. It uses « Spontanne Verbrennung » (Spontaneous Combustion) as a metaphor for the synapses firing in the brain.

²² The first verse employs an end-rhyme known as « schmutziger Reim » in German or consonance (analyzed rhymes) in English: « Gedanken » and « Funken » are not a true rhyme, yet they sound very similar in German. The English version also uses consonance in the first verse: combustion and eruption.

²³ In the German version, the second stanza plays with the metaphor of tracks or « Gleisen, » upon which words are circling (kreisen), whereas the English takes advantage of the rhyme in the past tense of « read » and « head. »

²⁴ In the final German verse, the poem ends with the rhyming words « sagen » (to say) and « ertragen, » to endure or sustain. The first line of the final German verse « Etwas zu sagen » becomes the last line of the final English verse, « or something to say, » on account of the different syntax in English and German.