Diane Butterman 

Translator

I thought that time would work indirectly,
with a light erosion, a slow mould,
that he, from the shadow, gnawing at a lukewarm bird’s leg,
would allow a low-educated wind to do the job,
if necessary would send someone
to steal away a space or discreetly collect a couple of tints.

Why didn’t I see it myself,

wet and blinded by the sun looking in the camera
of your eyes,
pleased to once more feel solid ground, tongue on upper lip,
pleased to be reminded of certain muscles, all the veins
reopened for the sweet high of the blood group, the home run,

why didn’t I see how

time itself had done most of the work
and had apparently decided
in the short-term, between the surf and my things,
in a couple of flashes, with one’s own hands, firmly
with the cudgel, and hop and

rap and another

clap.

Just wait until your goddess Aurora
starts going on about her receding gums
and you realize that you have spent a fortune
on placebos and coloured spotlights.

Just wait until you are asked to
call back
the demon of noon, who fritters away his days
in an espresso bar.

Just wait until full of understanding
at the door at dusk a Smurf comes to
fob you off with two morphine pumps.

With the ingenious
combination pedals

the suppression
of the red-orange bar diagram
leads to the emergence

of a relief of gracious figures, a complex
amalgam of amperes and Schweppes, an orgy
of yellow-green geysers, flanked by thin blue spirals,
behind that a mouth-frothing rising indigo glitter curtain
and in front a plot-less mini-ballet of violet pawns,
so simultaneously elegant and vulgar that no one is bored.
In this cleverly contrived pre-programmed séance
in this magical grotto full of explosions and depressions
and deeply-rooted, high-spirited sprinklers,
in this phantasmagoria, this eccentric festival
of growing fans in increasingly higher Ti-Amo-Tis
in a frenzied swishing potpourri of upwardly shooting
crisscrossing lines lashing each other in ever-increasingly
symmetrical pumped-up demonstrations of amazing strength

the entire horizon then comes crashing down in the dark.

All the light-hearted may proceed to the Dandelion salon.
Much the same applies to anyone who is strong and spontaneous.
Sociable or tough people can also go with Geoffrey.

The rest can stay here to stir
the primer before then applying a thin layer of paint.
Someone there has a question, please use the wireless mike.

What about the self-assured people?
Can I just have your attention please. Also self-assured people
may follow Geoffrey or Sylvia to the Dandelion salon.

He throws her on the bed, it has to be done,
the polo neck must come off,
the rest as well, a rip doesn’t matter, he must quickly
lie with his skin
upon her skin; she is hypothermic.

Whether that’s really something for me? Of course.
If it works with those pores, then she’ll be saved!

I am old enough; I know
the combinations to which this context leads.
She sweats and she coughs and she must now feel him.
The cabin – what a beautiful cabin – is a cabin
round a rat. For life.

– I hear that you have stabilized.
It’s me, no, that’s not something
you’d eat or utter,
too crude, I understand that,
something
against the young, is that what
you want, against the young?
– I am disgusted by the mini-supermarket,
by the smell of the devil in the cornflakes,
by the everywhere inembroidered . . .
– Don’t say such things.
They can turn out to be last words.
Leave the big box with dots in it closed too.
Alright.
You can roll your eyes
to the cable spaghetti tail. Do you
perhaps do you want trailing lane trailing lane, yes, spit it out.
Just you wait until I or until we – is that gasping normal?
You seem to beam
approval with every word,
graspless, knee-deep.

[…]
The mother’s heart has ears that never sleep!
I mean to say
the mother’s heart that is made
of shammy leather and trampoline material.
Whoever copies the mother’s heart
and chews on the copy for twenty-four hours gets an
incalculable weight.
Whoever tears the copy, fries it to shreds in the pan,
gets back a great amount of
white smoke and every scent so far.
If one loosens the hooks of the mother’s heart
then it will pop, it will swell up,
it will grow large, too large, unmanageable,
a folded tent that
triple-doubles itself to a zeppelin, which then, cut loose,
extends to something even more extreme and casts a shadow, a shadow
that personally hears children, follows them soundlessly.
[…]

Proceeding to the letter
and in the spirit of the scheduled starting time
he checks the buoys and the temperature
and shyly he traverses the zones.

– Hello colleague who, with pipettes and pots, lids
and mini-labels, securely honours the procedures.
– Hello Mister Chlorine Shock, drop dead and I’ll pay you
homage on the homepage.
– Good morning trainee with the sweet-and-sour grin.
– Hello colleague with the nice collage of plasters
(but must we have that in our canteen?) so early already
almost in the arms of the one with that squeaky Styrofoam voice.
– Hello gnome shower, once again today plainly obscene.
– Hello treacherous waterfall, tedious thing.
– Hello double massage water jet, I’ll see you later.
– Hello Sea Wave the Sea Wave that’s still of course asleep, tired
from all that unremitting, indifferent firmness and kindness.
– Hello underwater injection, how vigorous you are once more.
– Hello little rattling flap in the cursed corner.
– Hello hose pipe with the obstinate coil.
– Hello dripping tap.

Proceeding to the letter
and in the spirit of the scheduled starting time
he climbs (with stiff calves) in a routine way onto his chair.
There his shift bursts open
and in one spurt his attention gushes out.

In our country we deal with pent up pain
by assuming that everyone can
paint, hate, break in, murder and deal with pain.

So there is always a pulling and a pushing,
what else did you expect?
A push away, a roll away (no, too detached)
or a pushover or a rollover (no, much too clownish)
or a turnover, yes, a turnover sounds good (think fish finger).

All of that first and especially directed inside.

The rest will come later.