[Justin]

Dear Friends,

As you know watching TV is many people's only entertainment. In such an expectation I switched on the TV, but soon I realized it was all rubbish on the screen. The channels have programmes that show you how to have the right sort of decor in your home, wear the right clothes, cook the right food, meet the right people and say the right things when you meet them. This is what makes people tick nowadays. Some programmes make it seem a sweet and sickly place where people are nice. Their message is: We are here to help you. Others have a darker message: We are here to make fun of you because you are very stupid. And at midnight they show naked women, although you don't want to see them.

At the end of the day I was tired of watching TV and switched off the set. Now I am sitting in front of this telly and look at the Ratzeburg site. It happened quite by chance that I´ve spotted the site a few weeks ago. If I had not been there I would not have been able to enjoy all the poems from the poets I got to know at this place. Let me say thank you for a warm welcome you have given to me soon. I don´t want to overdo it and I do not explicitly mention anyone, but many poems are small masterpieces. Dana and Faldi were in the vanguard in creating this site. They have proven the sceptics wrong. Poems never won´t get out of fashion. Despite films, television and video games people generally still have a positive feeling about reading. The Ratzeburg site can be one of the best examples. We take satisfaction that a lot of poems get under your fingernails and into your souls.

We are living in an increasingly integrated world. Evidence is mounting that also English poems are getting more and more popular. Of course they can´t displace German poems on a German-speaking site like this. But we can love them as well.

What would be such a column without a poem. One of my favourite English poems is "I left my heart in San Francisco". In better words it´s in fact a song. But poems and songs have a lot in common. I am convinced you might like the lines too.

I left my heart in San Francisco

I left my heart in San Francisco.
High on a hill, it calls to me
To be were little cable cars
Climb halfway to the stars.
The morning fog may chill the air.
I don´t care.
My love waits there in San Francisco,
Above the blue and windy sea.
When I come home to you, San Francisco,
Your golden sun will shine for me.

It has been a pretty happy time lately and I hope it could be continued in the future. I am looking forward to read new poems sooner or later.

All the best

Justin