Sam Langer 

Übersetzer:in

through a rip in your skin

distance entered you. you open your eyes

and you are standing alone, aloof from things, which in their sum

make up a world. you stand cut off from thoughts

and noises and what cuts you off, you are.

you open your eyes for a second time and return your gaze:

cold meat as though perfectly cut to the body, and plastic sheeting

beating against a wall in the wind. the expiration of time

as a god's bodily function, you think, and breathe in

and breathe out; night comes up, on the border

it's already getting dark.

let A equal acceleration

and let T equal time: insomnia, whispers a voice

from the wings. motionless in free fall, the heavy pressure

on your chest and the t-shirt outside in, the skin, partly,

beneath it. a black dog is prowling about the house

and the sounds wilt, they abandon the cocoon

of glass, and all senses as though in cotton and on ice.

there's twilight and there's night; nothing about them

isn't dangerous.

a cold trace of silence is lying in the hall

and the nose catches a hint of address unknown.

floorboards turn in their sleep, telling of the voices,

the music and the laughter too, back then, in the air.

and if we assume that there were flowers in this dwelling

– and why not – then these boards also tell of the absence

of those flowers, of the colours of their petals and the bouquet

of the colours at the windows. and if we assume

that the floorboards' timber never forgets – and why not –

then it's an elegy, then all this creaking tells of the time

in close proximity, of the lying down and the breathing in alike,

of the breathing out, of the til-death-do-us-part keeping of silence.

at some point there was a table here

and here at some point people sat on chairs,

words were set in order for next morning,

dreams were folded up for later use

in darkness and/or by night. fingers busied themselves

with the good porcelain, high windows reflected

their people and the light encompassing them.

you were expected to take your shoes off at the door

and thoroughly wash your hands – thoroughly

wash your hands! – before the meal. the hot water

on the red skin and sap under the fingernails,

from some tree or other, out in the open air.

but who knows what it will look like

when it’s over including the waiting for trains

in winter everything eternal the farewells are over

only one more without you it gets easier

but who knows what it will look like

the books will be packed in my room

is what you had not all that much what you needed

were two or three quiet poems and some music

but who knows what it will look like

if you believe in nothing everything’s likely

if anyone considers your name three times a year

one hears less and less a slip of someone’s tongue

but who knows what it will look like

have I asked too often no one has an answer so

I’ll pack my two or three quiet poems some

music for a farewell would still be nice.

To have a friend who knows nothing about
you is the best thing for everyone and for me and
I’ve been sneaking behind my friend for days
my boy with the restless legs hugs
the lanterns when the wind wants to pass through him
in his undershirt so green he has something
in his head that’s not right a light
from vending machines as long as it blinks no one
leaves the scene he plays the people
the whole works the display everything reads error
and he swims in the streets of rain
the people of the cars the buttons in the ear
error and I also wanted to say

The traffic light on the faces is
a soft thunderstorm red and the recording
button is on red smolders the snow in February
we move closer together in our
box but nothing works that’s part
of the deal like the icy rustling of the AC
our blue hands rummage around beneath the seats
we put on an old tape and quietly listen
to the reel the beginning is everything we count
the silence in between is what you have to endure
first three seconds for three chords
we composed back then with record and
stop invented a new dramaturgy
bent over the radios our nervous fingers
trembling between the announcements
for the position we heard for the first time
that we are flowers in the garbage can.

on the last page of my diary
i write with black ink
from the morning on
about our story once more
i write and write about
the words i write
layer by layer.
it gets dark. the paper
now depicts the image of a sky.
the sky we sat underneath
on the first night a pen
pushed behind our ears.
we never suspected that a story
could end at its beginning
that our signs disappear
into the depths for one look
for one moment

and at some point the wind is
only the restatement
of the river.
and at some point the river is
only the restatement
of your language
when you tell stories
about the wind
about the river.

who are you and i
if things disappear altogether?
if poems are reeds
growing out of the river
written in the wind?

i’m going to fill up a cup
at the river where you and i
spoke about flow. i’m going
to paint us just how we were
in the years afterwards:
save for us, an empty room
a window wet with rain
the city behind it.
we will be mud: two
bodies mixed with colors
of light. we will
touch each other with our fingertips
me seen from the back
you gazing out of the picture.
the white in your eyes will
be the last empty space
and the paper that holds us
will make waves

Bulge
of the body of the dragon in
the fast food chain the abundance
of all gifts the promise
of the present afternoon and evening
bless them
morning praise
at the plastic tables up
lifting realizations what might
come?

the room, the picture

        I’m looking for you

remains open is
let your eye
close

Inland navigation
knotted up
and too capably
counter
and capsize in / in
the flow of language
that comes so harm
lessly across
that’s where
my misgivings come in
lacking dissonance
the red
flag taken down
the index finger
pulled back
the document re
signed

There are a couple of feathers left
behind from his tremendous fall.
Fly high, or else for the long haul:
a warning that’s meant to arrest
the overconfident. History,
though, keeps failure’s shape in mind.
Clio’s ledger’s mystery
is the poor return that profit signed.
The downfall, as the final act,
is rescued from oblivion’s blow.
And from the daily cataract
it rises, like some weird rainbow.

So unassailably dull and term-obsessed:
the managers of bare life’s reign,
each horror, and that it gets repressed:
the voices raised against them are in vain.

Abandoned to a bureaucratic tangle
your days are taken from you, one and all.
Guests on the Earth, you suffer in the wangle
round your human rights, denied by powers banal.

Adrift in meshes of a legal net,
finally strangers even to yourselves,
you can already hear the knife is being whet
for the next calf in a line of countless calves.

Like snow-flurries the human mass
is pouncing on the entire planet,
devouring all the goods upon it
to leave dry deserts where they pass.

Compare this grass: time-traveller.
Petrified, older than this world,
its vegetable form unfurled
as if come down from a foreign star.

It exhibits the futility
of an innumerable miracle.
Through aeons it makes visible,
too late, the way we slip away.

So the unending terror slowly morphs into
            normal life
Bystanders blink in the courtyard
            in the light of noon
Small town, hard scar brick-red
pub, curtains waving
and now at the desk the personal
            death isn't worth much
I can't say how the panic of matter
            works, how I in my panic
which isn't personal, only come up with
            the wrong words.
I miss the caring beautiful in krypton and
            iodine-129. The future’s future is missing
I miss it.
I already miss my children’s children
Memory of the worlds
I miss results, long summers on the water
hard winters, wool and work

Here come results harsh words
that are lifeless, the vicious bastards
            feel nothing, they tighten the cartels
no sense of what they're putting into the earth
no sense, only science
what they’re putting into the earth into the air and water
            forever
no feeling for “forever”. For death
they reserve special treatment like a pest
good death poisoned like dear old need.
What you defile my children's children's graves
what are you plundering the dream of matter,
the dream of images, of tissue, of books
            bones.

Grief is now helpless
rage without syllable, all the masked liveliness
all the choking confidence
grass falls, the gardens fall, no-one
            in money armour feels the wound
in being disposed of by one's own self.
Not a poem, at best the end of that.
            Human incidences
caught in a vicious reason that
            knows nothing of knowledge.          
Not a step left free, no breath
no water not delisted, commercial traces of summer
the skin of the earth – photo prints
the soul concreted over, prefabricated moans
            that then stop taking place
            when the voice breaks off.
Tiny process-invoices in the hand's hollow
            bring the earth to life, all-knowing mutants
thus utter protection from experience.
Extras in life, graduates. On the system's
            drip.

Tipped meadow, angels, unknowns,
warm human bodies and understandings
gardens broadened out, benches under boughs . . .
            . . . Shadows . . . Leaf. . . spoken in the wind
            . . . . . . . . . Seed

What pain to flow
what coldness to be alone with the enemy
what a task to blow nitrogen into the forest!
            The silent action of the leaf-green in the green salad
            the noisy action of the green salad inside us.
Has the dandelion gone out of our lives
            the coltsfoot the grass harp?
What does the horse's flattened ear promise
what do the pains mean in the arms of the cleaning-woman
            whose world has been in the toilet for twenty years?
Why are carnations such dumb flowers
            so jaggedly crocheted
and why do I start dripping when I see tulips?
What's the low-flying swallow saying to me?
Who bites when the neighbour's dog growls
            he or I or the neighbour?
What does it mean if I get a tip from a stranger
            and hastily leave the house?
If my father's eyebrows grow together overnight
and the subscription salesman's facial scar goes red
if the taxi driver looks in the mirror for so long
            that his fare gets suspicious
and the roofer wants to put the boot into his apprentice
            but realises too late that he's stepping into space
if the teenagers in the club for teenagers roll their eyes
            after the fifth cola
if the starfighter pilot starts a long novel
            during the flight-break
if the major shareholder eating beef stroganoff
            finds a horsehoof in it
and the teller at Commerzbank
            takes off with his wife's housekeeping money
            after seeing “Viva Zapata”?
The calm before the storm
the thorn in the eye
the beam in the carpenter
hot love at 17
the investment manager's oath
ebb and flow
mini and maxi
and the public servant at social services
who leaves the office holding soap and a towel
            when thirty people are queued up?
The car on Monday the knocked-over lake
the unusual way in which property develops itself
            in the hand of the employee
those above
those below
the valley floor
the tightrope?

If I love you it snows on the earth
and if you leave me for my best friend
            then it is spring
and if you come back totally destitute
            it is autumn.
If nobody gives me something for nothing
            do I therefore have money?
And what point is there as a dead man in having a book
            about archaeology under your pillow?
If it's true that there must be wars
            then is it still important to take part in them?
Is it realistic if man and wife
            decide to move in together after the wedding?
If she a year later throws her dowry
at his head and he throws his
            rich vocabulary at hers
and if the window cleaner up on the IBM tower
falls under the spell of the punchcards
but then his survival instinct kicks in
            and he jumps off at the last minute?
What does it mean that I make poems
            and you make up all these stories?

here it is, however
seen out the window and also
            from inside
a brown old sofa appears
            that was already the bit with the sofa
it'll never really take root
like the black forest fir also doesn't.
            This place is bad
what do we do with it once we begin
            our NEW LIFE in the cities
when we crack the cities and blow their cover
            in favour of a love story?
Now I have to be careful that I don't take root
grey guttering runs around the house just as you
run around me, as though I'd taken root:
            "should I wash the curtains today
or tomorrow or are they still all right?"
            "Leave it Mum I'm heading off tomorrow."
She looks up astounded: "Tomorrow? Already?"
I throw her a melancholy look
then the carpet rail in the garden on which three
            small birds have now taken root.
At this point the heating turns
            itself on in the basement.
"It'll get warmer again now" she says
and at that a great warmth emanates from her.

In the dream Pasolini came up to me
            in a starring role.
He looked good, flashing blue like a machine
            an actor for everything -.
Pasolini stamped through puddles, he could be
short, lumpish, dark and antisocial
            still he was Pasolini and always another.
Then he stood in the entrances to building shells
            waved from up on the scaffolding.
With his finger he pointed out old cars.
In the entire country lived a population
            whose lover he was
and with the camera he found countries
that he no longer saw through dark sunglasses.
My images are whining, he said
            I could make silent films;
            I haven't heard a word in years.
He started to grind on me and that was
            just fine.
Then he fell down a foundation pit.
A car finished burning.
Rain was falling on the sea.
The cinema wash was all white again.