Barbarossa German Poem Elvis Style: Performance Art

Barbarossa: Ein Deutsches Gedicht / Lied nach Elvis Art. For a BYU German class, a friend and I — returned from our German-speaking missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — had to memorize a long poem auf Deutsch. It was tough, until we put it to music. (Of course, we had to use #Elvis music!) Years later, I remembered the song / poem and captured it. Here’s Barbarossa von Friedrich Rückert.

Danke Ihnen viel mals!

Here are the words to “Barbarossa”, if you want to follow along!

Brunette Dreaming: Romantic Free Verse Poetry

She was brunette,
too,
young,
like me,
and I dreamed
and planned
and schemed
how to
date her,
and to what?It's a brunette thing: The hallway at Nicolet High School, ca. 1972

My German class
crush.
When I finally dared,
for the first time ever,
to ask her out,
heart in throat,
palms sweating,
stomach butterflying,
she said
she was
“too busy”.

Funny how some things
don’t change.
Maybe
it’s a brunette thing.