„und doch hab’ ich so roten 
       Mund als die großen Madamen...
       Ich bin nur ein arm Weibsbild“
 

... when the moon was still moon
the red shard (red like your lips, Marie) alight in the —

a matt black lid

of an abandoned top.

What’s left then?

Goldless earrings

and splintered eyes.

The undone kiss

… “Mensch!”…

and fevered hands.

       
Oh Marie, we are

but poor human

  images.
 
 

Note from the author

There is a level of the Büchner’s play "Woyzeck" which belongs - exclusively - to the oppressed
and the underclass.  They are incarcerated by their social conditions, and are reduced to the mere 
“images” or shadows of human beings, criminalized, dehumanized and deranged.  However, this degradation is also true of the human condition in general in the wake of advanced market capitalism.  
The poem seeks to bridge these two realities, illuminating the incarcerating qualities of both material 
and spiritual destitution.