Andrew Duncan 

Translator

He walked now jingling as if on
cups dressed gaily after the fashion
of the steppe animals which cut loose
from in his insides

His skin had grown dry
creaked at each step. Eating he filled
his sandy intestines
while the belt line slowly

climbed in the direction of his Adam's apple
he came apart in two
parts of equal weight which met
in the middle of a lengthways cut

the one rattling and tanked up
the other already emptied out
like a mouth that while sleeping
eats its own teeth


- - - alternative translation - - - 


Mid-life

He now clattered along as if on
cups dressed flamboyantly like creatures
of the great plains while within him they
took flight
 
His skin had become even drier
creaking at the crutch. Eating
he filled his sandy entrails
while his waistline slowly
 
Rose towards his larynx
he drifted apart into two
equally weighty slices that met
at the center of a cross section
 
One of them groaning and fueled up
the other already emptied out
like a mouth that devours
its own teeth in its sleep

I (Town)

Chequered wood thinly inscribed easily broken
glass. Alarm. The walls once book clad. One stands
before this fine orderly dust. Another
stirs the green in the air. The tree-trunks
black with the soot of the praying. Workers hammer
a street. Ambulance.

II (elegiac)

a draft of air from gesturing ladies shakes acacias
and laburnums in their plumage the birds leave
the dust and throw themselves (stones) in the rigid
heat riding on the hills: Warder Acrobat
Cistern Clock. I am too heavy for any air. With my
nose I count my fingers on the flat
I am sitting pretty on this fence

III (Legend)

Now he could see shapes in the inner mirrors of the house
unpainted they sat there with puffed-out cheeks uniforms and
cravats snug on their checked shirt collars reciting
Prussian names: for months I haven't touched beer

reared up fluttered with bent arms when
he banged the door his days were filled with
intelligent wildlife toothless lion's heads from Biblical
gardens old circus material and sawed-up female stars

drawn by white horses in the restaurant hearty
blond women came up to his table juggled with shopping in parcels

in the knee-high grasses we grew quickly
into pines which stood by each other
sharp houses at your back the mountain a
familiar old slope

the land an unevenness between
watercourses a coffee stain on the
almighty white covered table

years sloping away one doesn't know
from what point to start measuring
which mountains are being poured out
in lonelier districts

holy mountain blocky breezy
bridal body graves to see far and wide
and towers all with the same name to read
incomprehensible dialects between them

Anyway we had dogs along
blond brush cuts hip-tall tassel hounds
more obedient than a shadow tugging at
the collar someone had stuffed our hearing gear with
paper and woven plaits
into our hair the cabbage curled
at our feet we

trod on slippery leaf ribs in the clearing
the alphabetical snow!

Crooked as commas we came into the copse
of half-loud wingbeats (the cold had
tuned our instruments) and made
motor noise: Barkas!
we called, Barkas! or crowed in overtones

(to think out how Bettine shrieked
when we walked across the carpet)

In the forest of the single picture
calls came out of our bellies in ancient languages.
We found the meridian established
the place with staffs and candlewax knotted
each time a dog skin into the quiet pines

Tents since then each one with a drum under its
skin as a pastime for expected
caravans scientific idiot test
infinity of names with which the elves are fed up