Hans-Christian Oeser 

Übersetzer:in

Und oft, wenn ich ein neues Gedicht beendet habe,
klettere ich auf den dunklen Dachgarten hinauf
und lehne mich an ein Geländer über einem Ozean von Straßen.
Welche Neuigkeiten ich für die schlafenden Bürger habe
und für die Ruhelosen, die noch in den frühen Morgenstunden
ihre Lieder grölen! Dünste steigen von der Frittenbude,
und ich stehe wieder an der Theke und warte, bis ich dran bin.
Dorsch, Schellfisch, Scholle, Merlan.
Die lange Schlange bewegt sich voran;
Männer in weißen Kitteln bestreichen die Fische mit Teig,
Fritten springen in den Abtropfkorb.
Ein Tisch ist reserviert für Salz und Essig,
dort wird die heiße Packung ausgewickelt,
gesalzen, getrocknet, wieder eingewickelt
und ins Dunkel getragen.
Im Dunkel lehn ich mich hinaus, die neuen Wörter sind bereit,
die Kirchturmspitzen aufmerksam. St Werburgh’s, St Patrick’s, Nicholas
of Myra. Nahebei die Myra Glass Company,
von wo wir mit Mühe die gläserne Tischplatte trugen.
In einer Sekunde werde ich singen, es wird sein, als ob
ein Gott bei mir gelehnt hat, herbeigeschlendert
von einer der zwei Kathedralen oder von den frommen
grünen Kuppeln der Iveagh Buildings.
Seitdem man mich verbannt hat aus den Bergen,
lebe ich hier, mitten im Lärm der Straßen.
Jedes Jahr nehme ich mehr davon in mir auf, bin
volkreich geworden und verworren. Die tausend Lebensfäden,
denen ich mich entronnen glaubte, haben sich vermehrt.
Ich stehe auf dem dunklen Dachgarten, meine Lunge birst
vor neuen Versen, meine Augen sind gefüllt mit Menschen
und Gebäuden. Ich lasse zu, daß sie sich füllen;
ohne ein Wort zu sagen, gehe ich wieder hinab.

Der Kartograph ließ die Geräte sinken.
Ich habe sie verzeichnet, jede Gasse, jede Straße,
jedes Fenster, jedes Sims,
die Stadt ist erfaßt und abgesteckt.
Jetzt will ich alles andere.
Ich will Historiker der Schritte sein,
Kartograph der Kleidersäume und der Augenlider,
ich will verzeichnen, was die Bürgersteige sagen,
wenn sie einander zusingen
in ihren tiefen Laboratorien, jede Strecke
nachvollziehen, seit die Stadt entstand.
Ich will die ganze
unauslöschliche Datenbank, die bleibende Stadt,
Könige, die durch Serverfarmen pirschen,
Staus und heulende Alarmanlagen,
ich will sein, wo
auf einer Bank von Monitoren Pinselstriche flackern,
wo Friedhöfe umkippen
und sich in den Lüften stille Völker drängen,
ihre Quartiere auferstehen,
ihr Mobiliar
durch die Fußböden kracht.
Ich will im Zentrum
eines großen Wirrsals sein,
Asche kartieren und Knochen kartieren,
ein Archivar, ein Zähler, ein Trabant,
der die Formulare
eines unbegrenzten Zensus unterschreibt.
Ich will,
jenseits von allem, was ich erreicht oder gezeichnet habe,
gar nicht viel oder alles, was da ist,
ein Geograph des Atems sein,
ein Kurator der Hände.
Ich will im Lichthof liegen
eines Museums der Fingerkuppe
und berühren, befühlen, betasten.

Lammgehacktes, Aprikosenkonfitüre, Milchbrot,
während Zwiebeln, Knoblauch, Ingwer köcheln,

nicht zu vergessen Bananen, Lorbeerblätter,
nicht zu versäumen

zwei Eier, in die restliche Milch geschlagen,
das Ganze gebacken und serviert

auf einem Safranreisbett,
Rezept erhältlich

in allen guten Zeitungsgeschäften, dem einzigen,
das noch geöffnet hat, dem traurigen kleinen Laden,

der auch Socken verkauft, im Sechserpack,
grau, blau, schwarz, in einen Korb gelegt,

schreingleich bei den Kühlregalen,
wo hinter Plastikschleiern

Butter, Milch, Speck, Käse sitzen,
der ganze Laden ein Schrein für das Wohl des Elends

o ihr Käufer dunkler Socken, heller Butter,
die Ruhelosen sind erwacht

und in den Laden geeilt, barfuß, außer Atem,
wenden sich an die Frau, die hinterm Tresen sitzt,

vor den Zigaretten, neben dem Lottogerät, bei
den Schokoladenfingern; und erschöpfter Heimgänger

von einer fernen Party, das Lammgehackte, die niedrige Flamme
unterm schweren Topf, der Knoblauch, die Zwiebeln, das Aprikosen-

licht, das Milchgras, die Lämmer, die in den Kratern
des Planeten tanzen, die Frauen, die auf Ingwerbetten schlafen

und in einen Traum eintreten, um etwas zu kaufen:
Armreifen, Seide, Aprikosenkonfitüre.

Fast hätte ich diese Straße lieben gelernt,
jedesmal, wenn ich vorbeikam, sah ich auf,
um das Gesicht meines Vaters ans Fenster zu heften,

umfangen von seinem Blick. Wo das Krankenhaus stand,
ist jetzt ein Baugrundstück, ich halte an, starre
dümmlich in die leere Luft und suche ihn.

Fast möcht ich beten, daß ein Schmerz zurückbleibt
wie ein Riß im Gebäude, etwas Unversöhnliches
im Gefüge wartet, zwischen den Etagen, in einem

geheimen, eigensinnigen Raum. Am Himmel bewegt sich
zierlich, in seiner eigenen Sprache, ein Kran.
Vergeßt all das, denk ich im Vorübergehen, errichtet

ein herrliches Haus; Musik durchstreife die Gänge,
Freude patroulliere die Säle, Sankt Valentins
störrisches Herz schwebe herbei aus der Whitefriar Street,

zu siegen, zu sühnen, meinen Vater aus seinem Bett zu heben:
hinabsteigen soll er die Backsteinmauer, mühelos,
die Beine in die Hand nehmen und sein Leben.

Welche Vagabundenknochen
und auch du, Ivar der Knochenlose,
jetzt zusammenkommen,
Stank welcher Seuchen,
die wieder ausgebrochen sind,
und wohin man sich wendet,
Hinrichtungsstätten

Wer zöge es nicht vor,
den Fluß zu überschreiten
und in einer Prozession
durch den Mittelgang seiner eigenen Kathedrale zu ziehen
mit Samuel,
Erzbischof von Oxmantown,
und nichts von ihm zu wollen als den Titel

oder, sagen wir, mit Peter Lewis, dem Prokurator.
Heute kam mit seinen Männern der Dachdecker Tady,
um die Schiefern zu erneuern
nach dem schweren weihnachtlichen Schneefall und dem Frost

Zuerst kommt die Idee, jemandes Traum
von einer krummen Straße, Straßenlampen.
Dann Stöcke, Flechtwerk, Schiffe, die bei Sonnenuntergang erglänzen,
ernste Köpfe auf den Münzen. Flaschen
dünnen Biers, Destillen, Steuern auf Fenster und Türen.
Licht sprenkelt das städtische Wasser, auf dem Rasen
der Geist eines Galgens. Irgendwie schafft es
die Kathedrale, irgendwie wird die Wolfssteuer widerrufen.
Die Jahrhunderte entspannen sich, flammen auf, entspannen sich.
Die Pubs sind überfüllt,
Junggesellenabschiede, helle Busse bringen
die Schlaflosen in die Vorstädte, die Verschwörer
erörtern noch einmal die Details des Komplotts.
Es sieht gut aus. Silken Thomas, Isoldes Augenlider.
Wo ist die andere Straßenseite?
Jeden Augenblick die luftpolsterverpackten
Warenhäuser, die Wahlkreise, die stummen Heere
der Statuen. O schirme uns. Jemand singt
The Foggy Dew, jemand blickt aufs Meer.
Nein, sie muß schon immer dagewesen sein,
ewig wie das Wasser, unendlich wie die Luft, die singenden
Wattenmeere, die brennende Flüsse, die Bezirke,
die ihre Nummern und Namen ertönen lassen.

Selbst wenn du schläfst, bist du in allen Dingen.
Du fällst durchs Haus,
genau in diesen kleinen Raum,
in dem ich sitze, auf den Bildschirm starre.
Dein Kopf ruht auf dem blinkenden Positionsanzeiger,
für deine Zehen gibt es ein Menü,

irgendwie bist du ins
CD-Laufwerk geraten
und kommst als Janaček heraus,
auf verwachsenem Pfade, das Käuzchen,
das die Flügel hebt. Du lauerst hinter meinen Augen
und überträgst aus meinen Knochen,

doch selbst weit weg liegst du mir auf der Zunge,
trittst mir die Türe ein.
Manchmal erwache ich aus Furcht,
du könntest abgehoben haben
wie eine clevere Maschine
oder verklungene Musik, und draußen

im gefährlichen Dunkel lauerte das Käuzchen.
Was, wenn ich dich nicht hören könnte?
Als wären alle Dinge
unerreichbar jetzt, als würde ich,
wie spät es auch sein mag oder wie fern,
dich nicht mehr atmen hören

wie Fügelschlag im Blut,
ein Lied, von Knochen zu Knochen gereicht ...

Willkommen, 3755547K,
dein kleines Köpfchen ruht
in den Armen des Staates,
deine Finger werden gezählt, deine Zehen
registriert, deine Schreie
haben ihren Weg gefunden
in einen Tresorraum der Bedürftigkeit, du bist
bekannt, erfaßt und zugelassen,
uns jedoch ganz rätselhaft;
und nicht recht überzeugt,
schlitterst und schwankst du
und strampelst gegen die Welt,
doch horch,
dein Atem rührt sich in einem fernen Schubfach,
eine Zahl unter Zahlen,
du regst dich in deiner Akte,
du öffnest die Augen,
du fällst durch den Briefkastenschlitz
und steigst die Treppe hinauf,
du schwebst zu deinem Körbchen
und ergibst dich sachte,
ah, 3755547K,
anerkannt, beglaubigt, abgeheftet,
laß die komplexen Systeme
ihre Überzeugungsarbeit tun, ruh aus auf dem Wunder
deines Namens, der über den Bildschirm läuft,
wenn die Sonne ihre langen Arme hereinstreckt.

(für Hildegard von Bingen)

Gegen gelbsucht eine betäubte fledermaus ums handgelenk getragen
bis sie stirbt gegen fallsucht glühwürmchen
in locker gebundenen tüchern auf den bauch gelegt
gegen taubheit ein löwenohr gegen schwermut einen vogel strauß
gegen verlangen einen sperber kampfer calandria

Bei trunkenheit eine kleine halb ersoffene hündin
den kopf an den venen gerieben
bei trübheit der augen apfelblütensalbe
bei wassersucht spindelbaum bei migräne
aloe myrrhe mohnblumenöl und mehl

Gegen unfruchtbarkeit haselnüsse, convolvulus und knöterich
gegen kahlheit bärenfett asche von weizenstroh
fürs herz storchschnabel und muskat gegen den teufel erhitztes kupfer
gegen verärgerung espenkompressen gegen schnupfen gänsefingerkraut
gegen würmer kirschkerne gegen fieber blutwurz und honig

Ebereschen pflaumen saphir smaragd in wein
topaz in einem ring um gift nachzuweisen gegen flöhe getrocknete erde
gegen haß ein reh gegen schweigen die see gegen stolz
alabaster, eiche, leopard, die erschöpfte sonne
die in ihre hütte kriecht die nacht die sie anhäuft und hortet

ihre geheimen alphabete ...

Du sagst,
es gibt eine Sprache, in der das Wort für Familie

auch das Wort für Abreise ist.
Du reichst mir Bücher, Kassetten, das dünnste

Wörterbuch der Welt,
lerne sie, sagst du.

Unter dem Glühstrumpf, den die Motten bestürmen,
Licht, das bei Berührung zerfällt, staubige Flügel,
Nach Nachrichten lausche ich durch das Rauschen,
Ein Knistern von Seegras, trudelndes Treibholz,
Wellen wie Verkehr in der Ferne, Nachrichten von Zuhause.

Oder betrachte mich wie durch eine sandige Linse,
Wie ich mich aus dem Hitzeflimmern verkörperliche
Und meinen Weg finde für immer entlang
Dem Pfad zu dieser Kate, ihren Fenstern,
Mauern, Sonnen- und Monduhren, Zuhause vom Zuhause.

Solltest du all meine Gedichte lesen, alle, mein’ ich,
Mein Lebenswerk, in einem Zug, an einem Ort,
Dann tu es hier an diesem halbherzigen Wasserfall,
– Jedem steinigen Becken erteilt er das Wort,
Feuchten Kieseln und Silben –, dann, wenn es dunkelt
Und du nach Hause gehst, vorbei an überwachsenen Weinbergen
Und Kastanienbäumen, Lieferanten einst von Balken, mond-
Förmigen Nüssen, Mehl und knisternder Matratzenfüllung,
Lass sie hier, auf dem Blatt, vor deinem inneren Auge, leuchtend
Wie die Glühwürmchen am Wasserfall, eine Sternenwand.

cloudy sky. at the edge of the picture branches
lie stretched across the water, the long fingers

reaching far beyond and holding the ocean
at bay. Seen closer

the horizon isn’t smooth but subtly
ribbed, the light rebounds from the waves

always a little too early or too late, depending on
how quickly the eyes can focus

they run after the lustre, for the branches
that time span is quite sufficient, they stay soft

and firm in the skin, on the hands
the water builds up and the mist

soon blurs the contours, the small grooves
at the edge of the picture, the fingertips

pebble dash the stretched wires
gave to the veranda precisely that dense

order which the gaze with its sharpness
seemed to undo. the severe lines

and edges. the crackling of the sparrows in a sleep
which trickled from the pine trees. was it the timbre

of bare tree-trunks the constant flow
of water against the pebbles. ledges

below them the eroded concrete. lime
and splinters of glass. an easy path

from the eyebrow to the ear. strung wire
kept its sight. in its space, by contrast,

there was some rolling. still lime. which let itself be touched
from an edge for so long.

this is the story of
the embryo’s fear,
what he had been, recurring over
and over again, a downward glance
where between thumb and index finger
nothing could be reconstructed any longer
in the jar, where thin cannulae
had sucked dry all
he knew of himself,
allowing it to proliferate
in another’s head, what
a hare-brained product,
to bury
the soul in the space of time,
in a selfless being, tested
as a rat,
without kidneys, heart, eyes,
innards craving for
multiplication, to go to the happy
hunting-grounds, first and last
life on fertile soil
(he who comes well, should also eat well)
are father and mother
all in none, dividing themselves
into a third
construct of their fear,
capable of reproduction

nativitas, this word like drifting sounds
of high-pitched bells would fit precisely above the
worm-eaten wood, the gentle breeze of the hills
imprinted in wax, surrounding the hollow in which
an exhausted woman sleeps below some faded
goats, the flaked-off stone crib
with the baby and the prayer alcove
of another era, all this earth-coloured
on a warped icon, wheezes,
cautious, wavy, weeping
fingers pointing to something beyond
the extant surface, over scratched-out
faces, some naked legs, torsoless
on their way into the void, as unknown
as we are to ourselves, nothing more,
are these figures,
full of invisible things, flecks
that extend to the retina, following
us with their eyes, cracks
in the grain, the zigzag chase
in the lines of continued
retouchings

clear contours. the light
lay behind the boats, the harbour

held onto the half-light and the hills
unfolding on the other bank

step before the eye

In a star’s halo of light, in the shadow cast by
my language, I walk across a dark mirror,

lagoons, ponds of salt water that cannot drain
away, focussed on no perspective. I see

nothing happening but shifts … vague,
on a child’s hand, his index finger,

his newly-found name: is there something about his place?
Waves crushing upon themselves, imitate one another

by inventing themselves, by giving what they receive,
antiphony of the tide, tight-lipped about the shore. You must

place cold quartz on your forehead in order to think
as clearly as venus shells and algae.

Lift your quill to your lips: is it moving? Are there thermals
wafting or are you breathing, ever more reticent over the shimmering

gorge? Nests of withered grass, nests of
softened fish bones – the circling of the eagles, for hours

without wingbeat, was far from your mind. Standing, you held
fast on the ridge, fidgeting with your arms:

was there a reason? Was it tenable, the fissure in which
slopes and brain stole up on each other, between salt seams,

the temporal licking of water, foreseen weight-
lessness in the marrow? Left behind upright, the joints

were whispering routes, apotropaic sounds: there is a
path, it leads into the deep, but in the deep it vanishes.

then the heat slowly eased itself
off the balcony and the eyes were more easily

diverted from the houses. the white
satellite dishes at the windows

already the first lights began to glow
encapsulated blue and green.

when the eyes wanted to stray between
the boardings there was a red

plastic bag in the air gleaming far above
it floated by and gradually gave the gaze

some focus until it sat softly and calmly
behind the eyelids

then you’d see this squatting body under
the archway, crooked fingers dug into his forehead,
craters driven into his skull by frost, a
leather vessel scorched by inspiration, filled with
dust, who, singing in the sun, meant something like
the harmony of the spheres, ether of unstructured noises
reminiscent of steel axes, from the beginning high-pitched blows,
until you were here, as though a person entirely
dreamed up would make you less frail beneath the
ancestral mask of that alien language which never falls silent,
the fluent paradigms of scree on the porous
lips of the dunes, when you listened under your pale
habit to that murmuring like prayers reduced
to breath, to the sucking of the wind on the wart-like pupils
of the rocks, a motionless gecko peered at the detritus
as if in your face which vaguely remembers whom?

(charnel-house, st catherine’s, sinai)

cancelled grey tickets from an era long
gone, the writing paper like a palimpsest over
the undeciphered text of sawn-up tree trunks,
a plumbline, a round stone with blood-red
crystals inside like a bi-ventricled heart
enclosed by connective tissue, an empty printer’s case,
a hand reaching for something lost, damaged at the ball
of the thumb, a railway sleeper, a polished
glass plate, as heavy as the dumbness of things,
the silence, the breath of air from the skirting board
near the chimney, the current of the electrically-stirred
surface of an aquarium, on the walls
pictures of windows, as if forced open by frost,
photographs of pupils under a magnifying glass, seeing
what?, in the mirror drops of sweat on
oversized membranes, the letters n – e – v – e – r

(dresden, neustadt)

Over karst gaps, overgrown, clad in dripping oilcloth
I clamber wall after wall into a dark luminescence: through

gorges, deeper than the gaze of those to follow can ever
penetrate, a shepherd roamed this way and that, dug caves, his head

hidden in bulging crusts. Thousands of rainy seaons yet to come
ere Baal spills semen on the earth’s flat dish, cattle

are visible possessions. Cud. A rattle. Here we’d find
related names, roots of verbs: animals approach, licking up

wind stalks, panting wind stalks, dust moistened
by red nostrils (moon sickles) in narrow orbit. One,

however, stayed with a calf, as a relic of colour on the edge
of an icon hazy warmth streaming up to my forehead.

for as long as a heaven-ward glance, to be lighter
than the wind, elevators gleamed, the finest traces
of cotton, like needles on the seam of vapour and ice,
trailing through the atmosphere, but even as a child
one learned to read: pilots, inside the jabs for
cholera and reservoirs in the shape of ballpoint pens,
passengers whose excrement falls like stones through air
holes, tanks, but the line of the horizon was
a few degrees darker and the zodiac, conceived of
from the end, a nocturnal experience with empty spaces,
remnants of pigments in video text, as a cause of various
new fevers, in my dreams the earth was flattened
like a disc, slanting, but the instruments determined
most precisely the puncture, no disquiet, just a tiny
hole, since I, too, had remained without a trace at all,
in the dissolving fog, in an unknown place

hundreds of gnats and midges buzzed around
the flames, starving insects swarmed, as restless
as my pulse, from cracks in the earth, from bony
backs glassy wings grew, how it teemed
in the flurry of man-lit lights, how voices
pursued me, give me dollar, give me pen ...,
groping my pockets, to strands of hair and wrinkles
they clung, their writing movements,
eating movements hacking into the wind, flickering,
but it consumed them, transparent shells
bursting in the heat, crackling like begging bowls,
billowing stubbles, where the earth shows
its emaciated thorax and the stars peer
with the eyes of weary infants, my time will be
of the solidity of burnt stuff, forgetting
their number, smoking, anthropomorphous in the foehn

we were sitting in the jardin du luxembourg. there was
a café under chestnut trees, the chairs
were placed on pebble. there was a breeze and

it was october, there was the sun in october.
tha man didn’t know whether to look
at the woman now, his absence

begged for her presence, she begged for
the chestnuts, the table & the pebble
underfoot. he didn’t know

whether to look at her, but he wanted
to take her away into his sleep
like a return to old friendship…

With green hooves came trotting,
over the moraine’s hunchback,
the weather. And the weather,
the other one, in the earth, called
to the weather, the first one:
It’s spring!

The mountain men transform into
plantains. The stinging nettle bush
in the shade of the old garden centre,
no one will believe this, is
my father.

While in the newspapers
we still read of changes,
umbrellas take root
on the bus. Snow falls
in the cellars, and the weeds,
so they say, like the woodlice
demand justice.

Wer immer du bist, du bist
die wahre Ohrenzeugin,
die einer Frau und ihrer Geschichte
Gehör schenkt:
wie sie mit knapper Not
dem Schlachtfeld entronnen.

Wir nahmen nicht den Maienzweig mit
und auch nicht den Winter.
Wir schifften uns nicht
nach Amerika ein, gemeinsam
unser Glück zu suchen
in wärmeren Breiten.

Wir sprengten nicht über die Hügel
auf einem schönen, starken Rappen.
Wir lagen nicht unter der Eberesche,
wenn nachts der Raureif fiel.
Noch entfachten wir Freudenfeuer
oder bliesen das Horn auf dem Hang.

Zwischen uns schwoll trauervoll
der weite Ozean. Zwischen
uns erhoben sich die Hügel und die Berge,
die niemals zueinander finden.

The coastline disappears
in our wake, while
the visual horizon keeps
its distance. Water, I understand,
as the ropes are undone,
cannot be grasped –

the passengers from Vineta
hang out in the bar.
Without some interest in the journey
life is but transit.
Feeling sick from the rocking,
one meets at the railings.

If a body lacks terra firma,
the senses take leave.
Too many old things wear us out,
new things are stressful,
and one feeds the seagulls
with the proximity to land

for which one begs the horizon.

And what is dust, I sometimes want to ask you
when of an evening someone steps momentarily
onto the patio, beats the doormat
on the stone balustrade, with short arms
and with an overdrawn face (why, dust is

there, and dust surrounds us. I
can hear it, the plaster, the bristles scratching, and
down the road there barks

a dog), dust is not hair when a
dachshund is quiet again, dust is not
scurf of dead skin when someone wants to close
his shutters with his heel, is neither
dry leaves nor clay when none of it is recognizable
anymore. What is it, I ask you
sometimes, when I see the cloud of dust, the shadow,
across the clotheslines, the chimney and
then, still shadow, across the aerials.
Dust is in the blue, air, and my
question, dust into the sky, until it’s dark.

Strict eclipses, darkness scripts
dedicated to the dark or once
aimed with the solemn impetus
to shit everything shut. Behold, autumn
and summer balance one another out,
on every morning sky it begins
with old men, yellow leaves and nothing
but a feeling for the uprising. I am there,
and that is pleasing. Docking on noon
ploys and the jaws of smiling
people who stand there ruminating
saying something about habits
with animals, without them – oh you do divine
Everything in suchmoments
but only This you know: That everything
that invades light and memory
prevents the strict eclipse. Failure of
functioning socialisation, footsteps,
walls, arches of bridges, even the
City Council’s small orange-red
cleaning machine that slows down.

But what will happen once we have told one another all our
stories ten thousand hot stories

once the dictionary of our castles in the air has been spelt
out and we have worn through our star like the seat of the sofa

on which we came to know each other very well
once we sit silently by the window and smoke

Nights of almost perfect stillness
in which only your last sentences reverberate

They talked about the fact that both
of us are actually celestial bodies

having such strong gravitational pull
they do not even let go of their own light

and thus don’t shine but are black
story-tellers whose tongues are burnt

In the meantime
it was winter
and close

as the owl
which at night
edges towards the road

separating the house
from the edge of the field,
is the morning mist.

Doubts concerning the signs
in the soil
will pass.

And hollow tubes
made of red clay
connect us all.

And we know
the course of the water
that we drink.

The speed
and
the incline

from the lake in the valley
to the
hollow of the mouth.

I see you draw soot, water, pores in the
plastic curtain, daylight, it smells of
quilt, of ancient green checks. I’m hanging
on chestnut branches, on my forearm

flies. End of August. An urge for mini golf.
Second drawing, at the plastic curtain the images
separate, I see your shadow against the

sky. In the leaves a sneaker, fur, from the
photo on the chest of drawers gazes a stranger. In
one place the fern is stirred, I see
you, the sky moves into the hair behind the ears.

Back home late, I find you
asleep, a curved sight
beneath the sheets. The sky is clear
and so it’s very cold tonight.
With my bloodless hands
and icy feet I shouldn’t dare
to lie down next to you (an uninvited
pause in your dream, reeking of drink).
The light from the fridge seems
warm in this climate, and I pitch
into the wordless message
you have left for me. A plate
of plums, and every one of them tastes
like a ripe compensation, very juicy,
sweet, an apology for something
that one admits to oneself, suddenly.

the gaze marks out the field its roaming
takes its measure from the tongue which mono

syllabically lifts up sand and cross and tin and sign
by sign it scrapes together the names

coats of paint blocks streaks of loam
smeared on the graves … our father

protect his dry skin a wooden
cipher … the hands the gaze melts slowly

fingers creep along the stone ribbons
and wreaths roses made of coarse faded

material brushes the traces a light still falls
perpendicularly on the granite surface the dust keeps

the names hidden the mouth seeks
to dampen what’s brittle and quietly

skin comes off the palate the voice

what blew at us from large peopled trees
was originally deepened
into the time of conversations, tree language
was baumkuchen and lay
heavily at home, like a rested bone which
as we children often shouted before your time
had been away, which had paced the fields

and breathed on them, which we now
knew how to praise long and eagerly and saw
that even father liked it, called it
a memory prop, a signal tower
of his heart and the seeds
of barely common footsteps, of track-laying
vehicles, of ores and oils, broken away

from the lodgings of his ambling, far beyond
the dams of culmitzsch, dragged away
from a rare job near selingstädt
with russian ores and oils, and although
we ourselves should long have gone to sleep
we crowded down towards mother when father walked about
at night and screamed
         the bone the white that was the bones
         with russian oils and ores
thus we said to ourselves, he divined the ore, it is the bone, yes

he had climbed the slagheaps
had known the mines, the caterpillar drive, the water, the schnapps
thus he slid homewards, inventor of overburden
we could hear it ticking, it is the watch, it is
his geiger counter heart

the steps remembered the dark, the break
between lessons in the woods, the ringing above the staircase, the beatings
that went with the nouns, the mnemonic salt hunched up
& deaf behind the ears
  time stopped, from
childhood there was something
  ready for later, always
    it had been valid
       longer or sooner the sentence
is a salt
of broken birds behind one’s ears, that

  the benches could not
survive us, the inks, palely
  the curses & grimaces sank
into the salt the hatred
stood by, always prepared, above
the base began the ruptures, the rivers

& conurbations, before the urals
  metastases of mortar
  painted over with oil, behind
kamtschatka, hardened, limed, as far as
sachalin I stood
  against the wall, that
  amurdaja & syrdaja were flowing, described
crying at djamila’s, explain
how you would
have cried yourself & what is the plough, is
the true weight of the apparent teaching
  the scholochov horse collar
  around the neck only a scarf
  am I virgin land
  are you my curse, anvil

or kortschagin, the sick
  and the freezing hand was the skin
  on the wall & the lime & the gravity
pressed on the lips, singly & whispering:
dear wire dear god frau
bakuski let it be, but see to it, a weeping

goes off
into the ovens, off
through the wall, off
into the ash above the yard, but
   what is weeping, the gravity
   failed, the light
   misted up in the contre-jour, the stars

climbed on
the panzer carriages across the glass
on the taped window casements
out into the air space
above the pact

the sleep
stood by, always prepared & the I
stood against the wall, the base
was cool on the lips
burnt, only
those who could get away
were expelled, they now came
back silently from the ships
up the tables
to their salzgitter
lodgings, complemented

the platform, the oil & the foreign land
  with their burden, complemented
   the progress of things, the waiting
    with stupidity, the smelting
      with gazes into the dark

out there & clods
with shame, which

burst at last
  under the footprints
.. above the air shaft
   below the yard duty
hope, too, stood by, always prepared, an
iron handrail

went round the yard, the chestnuts, the heads
flew
  back to the post-war
   the quark with steamed
    potatoes back to the first
roll call, traitor to the plough: we went

round in circles, we
circled the milk
in vessels of walking
scabbed our steps
the suite
of a coarse darkness

locked the vault, stretched

on the weave of a plank bed, that
   was noon, sleep

lay blinded on hands, headbands
   of sweat:

they had cut down the wick.
came in.
extinguished the light
  between fingers; wash-room, entrance
& daydream of figures of speech; steps towards the window & waving

of all lace net curtains, frau
bakuski must die, oha, frau bakuski
...blindness & silence under the bedcover

coloured the shadows
above the eyes, a
childish pus, the real blue
stayed locked away

in their corners, did
shame not stand by, always prepared
in the course of time
white chestnuts mature in our pockets, the lark

  stabs dead the lark sunday, the lamp
  in the gravel, the dress
  of the drinkers & their patios & bottles
matures in their pockets, the stone

is a draft on time: the bird
dying in flight, the eye
stares at the sky & in
  deserted orbits

circles the dead hoarder, sleep, hypnos
  bitter shoe & satchel circle, bag & box, the
  haversack circles, the gym bag
circles out there, sleep, hypnos, circles

of depressions rapt in coffee ground,
inflamed, in the washroom section
   in the laughter of sheep
   there grew
another seventy stone huts, meat
batteries across the hills
  at the edge of the night, is

the sleep child ready now, always prepared
he leans out there, wobbly
on his broken gate
in his
playpen behind the moon, half

in filth & half in death, strike up, let’s rip, I am
prepared:

   father raises his left hand
   strikes his right hand
   strikes head
   bowed the child
   out the mother
   shakes the little dream
   bloody from the little tree, look at
   me i talk to you
   with tears inside, with
   creation inside in the blood
& all
   bitten-off points of her crown.

At certain hours my eyes grow
dark, then I race back into my
darkness before the first words
come out: At the inn table at three
in the morning, then something else rattles in
the throat, then someone lies
in the cot, his dark eyes
staring up at the ceiling, far back.
And later still, about half three, the eyes
further darkened: mustard, the dirt on fly screens,
wiener, and muggy, cross-country.
At certain hours, moment, relic:
staring at phones, at night in an armchair
out of the way, wrapped up, and plugging cables
seeing, waiting, weakly, before
the first words come out, there,
back with dark eyes.

endless sequence of children, screwed
into the echo vaults of hallways, hidden away
when walking, bent into

a stranger’s coat, seven
   full of wax with a heaviness
breathed in from floorboards, eight

with a heaviness
that rushed to one’s head from urinals, we had
gagarin, but gagarin

also had us, in the mornings the same rustling
of sleeves following the writ
across the desks & at noon
the percussion of spoons, we had

table duty, milk duty, the pressure
   of an empty-headed teacher in our eyes jelly
in our ears until
she fell silent
the heavy-handed teacher fell silent
in our caps
those were the pains

when urinating, in the barrier woodland
when speaking, we had
quotations: that we set against the dark side of the planet
at least a bright one
first all together & then
everyone quietly
by themselves, we were

not lucky. so the houses decay
at last we become
small again &
ride back to the villages built of wood, of
straw from where we came, cracked & thin
with an echo whetted

by the wind: we greet gagarin, we
were not lucky, departure, back
to our villages
& departure of the villages
across the fields by night…

Your heart goes out cold in cold into a cold world.
Scales on shoulders, like an amphibian we can lurch,
unusually tired animal. A warming riddle,
how much time will pass before the stories
have been solved. Road, roof, thin man in street,
Little wood made of so much sound. HUMAN,
HERE, is that more than a place, a destination?
Spray it on the façade. Who lived six cold and damp years
hardly kept warm as a caudate, who was kept young by fungi,
smoke, tubelike, took away the nervousness, the times of the day
snowed past, dark, bright, who found somewhere to stay
in transition and got eyes?

Trees, scents,
life insurances
wander across the tables.

The shop assistant smiles,
she has the lips of a singer.
And a young gentleman whispers to her:
I’ll write to you.

But who still believes
the old wive’s tale of mail?
All letters are invented!

Our words were too long
on our travels.
It’s time for visits again.

Yet anyone who calls gets a fright –
because I live in a garret,
it’s as cramped as the basket of a hot-air balloon.

I once even wanted to move to a raised hide-out.
Only cows in a mist
can calm one’s soul.

It would explain the sandy path,
the rutted tracks
shining in the dusk,
so that a screech owl, by way of shadows,
would have a clue
and one would thus recognise it
before the path rises.
A reason for the embankment!

Also leftovers from provisions
and milk puddles in coltsfoot
under flaking army lorries,
a kind of post-mortem,
autumn of fading camouflage,
a little wood, defoliated in time,
where children would dig for cartridges,
but more distinct traces?

Winter’s night. No matter, whether with snow
or the frost of New Year’s Eve,
above the turnip plot,
at the edge of the circle of the screech owl,
the Wentzenburg would stand,
as the story goes when they butcher.
The sandy path would lead up, there would be a bridge,
on the ridge of the robber baron’s roof eagle-owls would nest.

as though a layer existed between them
and the narrow strip of coastline
the clouds emerged, sharply cut
off at the lower edge, above
a wrinkled belt, in which the seagulls
punched small holes. at the next glance
the haze had ruffled the surface and the wind
was ensnared in nets of wire
just under the mirror of the water, the birds
had long disappeared, the sky
still holding for a little while the air
that rustled beneath their wings

to breathe, out
& in the breathing went in the plaster boat
of the lamp, we had
its dark, mechanical light, we had alpaka
near the ashtray, the nails, chipped
& lonely like crusoe in the slate, deep

inside the radio the radio child slept with
tubes & relays which it alone
understood, a clinking
like from big ships, a flashing, something
between off in the evenings, then
quietly on again: alone

in the dark came
the frequencies later no longer to be found, local
frequencies of ageing, erased
villages &
their weak chromosome hatching on
   the scales – i

saw crusoe, my father, he
   went into baptism, his temples in the wood
   he came home, thus laughed
a man with a radiating hand, his hissing, his
   crackling, they hear
how everything is ending, slipped, two
   legs the coastline the soft
   forking of feet in the crotch

Sleep where I didn’t sleep. So many hands on the
handle, at the basin and what was beneath it. Soon such weak
breathing, no sleep. What could have been, should
have been, what remains between my teeth, what it

tastes of. Sleep of the aroused, of the awakened.
What curtain of rain, someone else’s dust and spittle, what
half-snow up to the shirt. So many hands on the

kitchen table, at the window, no sleep. What someone else’s grease
at the radiator, the range, such clear darkness and what should
have been asleep. Thus I walk through sleet, in January
with teeth again uncleaned, where I didn’t sleep.

The fox eats its own legs in the trap / to go free.
Brendan Kennelly

I seek no evidence for emanations.
Don’t stifle assumptions with notions.
Everyone has their favourite temptations,
instead of sleeping to see the night as a dark motion
during which this and that is to be healed.
The moment can easily be swapped
for another, the day is full with things present
all the same. Can, one should think,
a day be anything other than an avoided accident?

The only thing we’re lacking is proof.
On the glass pane one can see spread wings.
A bird lies in a concrete manner
below the window, broken by things
invisible. Before the negative from full flight
it’s especially hard to break through the obvious.
The time span from grasping to forgetting
measured no more than from opening one’s mouth to speaking.

Which swords lie freely on the fields
when we go for a walk? I am sure
hand in hand everything’s possible whee! little angel fly

little angel die This is just some chat
about this and that when we go for a walk
I know and so do you All sorts of things

happened last week
Last year the trees at the left edge of the forest were bending
under the weight of the snow We proved our own

stability these past successful
summers I think
I always gaze up in the air when you say

we’ll once more pass safely through full moon
Let us plan a holiday this time further towards the
sun much closer to it

Why, that’s almost
as though we lay down together laughing
in the heat of June on the wild bed

in the field I say darling you also say
darling The swords smile at us no one
lifts one up I maintain we’ll grow old together

Go
strangely
without leaving, without arriving
from threshold to threshold

a prefabricated shoot grows
under the glass of your wrist-watch
trees of hours
marching through sameness

with bated breath

the woman on the lead admits
the crookedly patched-together
clothes of her neighbour to be the incarnate
idea of her madness

Go
thus
the trees
hang on the horizon

While the water ebbs away and jellyfish are stranded
unaffected by the salt
by oxidation and the sun
you envy the children who push their heels
into the sand poking for shells their security
with a violence which takes you
completely by surprise

Your eye is cleansed has sharper pupils now
while the surge gobbles its way back into the sea
you lack something
several years
in morsels small as the back of a stamp
white as the flesh of the octopus were snatched by the seagulls
There’s a pain there whose link with your head is severed

Sinewy streaks of oil cover
the waves and lead through rims of foam
to earlier days
and to
the time
when windswept you slowly stepped
down the stairs of farewell to this strand
– You are still able to swim but you can’t
stand on your own two feet anymore –

I know the jellyfish amaze you with their
ability to be ugly and yet transparent
and I know that any moment now
you’ll scream for an answer to what I’m looking for elsewhere
hoping I might ask you back

Have you not noticed that when someone gazes into
someone else’s eye his own countenance shows itself
in the orb of the other as in a mirror,
which is why we also call the orb ‚pupil‘,
that is to say puppet, since they mirror, as it were,
a small image of the person gazing into them?

(Plato, Alcibiades)

For now we see through a glass,
darkly; but then face to face.

(1 Corinthians, 13:12)

From the holes which the westerly tore into the fog
shone beams of black light. He who saw the void

forgot about it, and to search where the night closed up
was pointless: morning, a plasma sucking time dry. The day

drips over the mountains, apparition of an unfinished
lake, stone furrows, hazy mirror. Did an eye gaze up,

already cut up and blurred by the wind,
to a point which lost itself in so many possible

worlds? Did the rain devise shapes on the water
which searched for names: cell star, orbis, sperm?

Nothing yet elucidated why a mind can grasp you:
swelling nucleus and its negated death, rippling stillness.

To be the last one of a kind
what a strange task
When you used to have different ideas
of narrowness and width Quite different
from the granny flat in the zoo of Cincinnati
Martha last migratory dove in the world
what a dilemma that you were so tasty
In 1855 just one delicatessen wholesaler
sold eighteen thousand
of you to hungry New Yorkers
When you in your aviary
miss the real flights
remember your flocks
thousands of metres wide
or the breeding grounds
fifty times six kilometres How you
when the first European
emigrants came to America
darkened the sky How you made them
stand for hours in darkness to do their astonished calculations
Remember the time before
the methods of killing and the railway network
A few wild animals
threatened you

Once, during the credits, when
a foul was repeated, only then
did I see between the players

a magpie taking off from the lawn

in a panic. Momentarily distracted,
the picture followed its flight in slow motion
while the hullabaloo

in the background became blurred

until the camera abruptly
broke away from its spell
and focussed again on the falling bodies.

You sit and look around: secrets. The
objects, unspoken, for some years now
they haven’t even turned towards the
landlord. In the cold smoke, colder
and colder the decoration, the ceiling, the
potted plants turning lightward, more bluish.
More bluish the shimmer of the landlady’s
curls, perhaps she still knows the reason
for this name, Sibyl Place, today. Today,
the landlord walks on soft soles, his hair
combed to one side, hardly a glimmer from
the fairy lights, the atmosphere also more bluish.

Out of fairytales we step with debts.
New ones, complicating lots of things.
Are they facts that tolerate no redress
and no opposition? In my dream I heard
the shallow breath my breast brought forth.
In life and in love that’s bared
imbecilic blood isn’t rare – new inklings
of meaning are rubbed off the face in the morning.
One knows the nature of things.
Connotations are almost smothered
under superficial morals: a liquid curdles
only when it’s blood, everything else races
towards gravity. After the seductions
and soft sheets we dream of facts.

Ah, the well-creased, young
pimps at the next table, slurping
Panzer pils and swapping
porno mags. One of them gets up,
knocks over his bottle of beer,
then, bit by bit, mops up with a whole
packet of kleenex across the
plastic seat. Crew cuts and
brilliantine. Dead buffet. In the jacks
nice bits. An old slap-head
plucks something from his lips.
HUMER chap. Betied. Polished.
Young pups. Randy blue. Clip-
clopping along. Vienna West, sweaty
armadillos. Smoke faster, pimp.
Topless service. Maybe one to
two hundred, on the outskirts,
workers’ dives, seventeenth district. Trotting
in the rain, from an open window,
upper floor, steam.

It’s about beauty, really,
being at home for a few days alone.
The summer’s run is drawing to a close,
and I observe the way a common bird
floats like a hummingbird above the lilies.
It is late afternoon, moist air oppresses
this fragile neighbourhood, and I alone
am answerable for the shade I cast.
Light glitters from the lone remaining wing
of a dragonfly--its cast-off shell
still clings to the stalk
that leans above the water.
This is the house of former poems,
the house of endangered new ones.

translated by Lane Jennings

With special thanks to Goethe-Institut Washington/Timeshadows

- - - alternative - - -

Imago

This has to do with the beauty
of staying at home on one’s own for a few days:
Summer’s approaching its deadlines,
and I watch an ordinary bird
keeping to the lilies like a humming bird.
It’s late afternoon, a damp air lies
over this fragile neighbourhood,
and I myself am responsible for the shadows
I cast. In the light there gleams the single
wing of a dragonfly –
its former body still clinging
to the stalk above the water.
This is the house of former poems,
the house of imperilled new ones.

there were people who
when they coughed covered
all of their face & disappeared: lisa rothe, whatever
we found in her bedside table was enough
for the insect blackness of her feet
   supplies for the footlamps
in the snow, oil and phlegm, so

there she kept the light, the parts
of the mirror, we broke it open, we found
the imprint of a sleeping head &
her excrement, water & soft

remarks about ourselves, the ticking
of potatoes in the pantries, the inner paddock, she
had shrunk so much under the din
of a street, a river, a

bismuth stadium, so
lifeless was she
in the spotlight of her purpose lamp, wobbled
   like a soft dish,
a hard dish, until you slept, soft dish, hard dish... we

ourselves had folded the bedding
far back from the snow
washed cheekbones, mistle blood... but
we endured the smell, the personal

infections, an
eastern suburban dance teacher,
slower than a mandrake, gave birth… no,
one can’t hear anything anymore, now

one really can’t
hear anything anymore, quietly
the meat in the jar flanks
   her coarse standing &

   her well-kempt sleep, it is
september, the
animals are crowding
into the house, nothing amiss

… there were aspen leaves, dry bread, ca-
priciously distributed around the animals’ flesh, it was
their fast living which sank at our feet, so we didn’t
speak almost as if to say, continuously, ruinously, in the crockery
of their blood, from within: to heat the kettle
to clean the entrails, to carry
the news of of boiled pork
to the village, that

   was the high road of the meat inspector
   and there
   lay his instruments, the scrapers
the auxiliary engine… unpublished
   correspondence painfully ridden
to & fro along the time shelves, as

one comprehends a stone, we now accentuate
his absence
his hapless quivering, no sentence
   (completed)
from childhood a sow with stammering parting
with faltering saddle
out yonder (whoever
   quivers so haplessly and goes away)

has what it takes for a novel
has the emptiness
of moderate light, alone
we are nothing, frau koberski

and frau koberski alone
   was able to stand
shoulder to shoulder with yearning, the
shrugging of shoulders to
   old tunes (now she would have loved
to tell us the whole story
of the life of the meat inspector) now

she was showing
   photographs; an innate strand hotel…
the prints of birds alien to us…
there must have been several
we do not know, we ourselves

feel rejected
   destroyed, badly stockinged by the date
   incredible are our doubts
   incredible is his palor… a subtle gleam
in the kernel of his gait
would have announced… ‚alone’

   he was going alone, but
not really alone
in the buzz of a fly
which flies away
like farmhouses
in the roar of the road
across the roar of the farmyards
we know, we said;

even if he
   wasn’t really sick
he was really sad
   after everything that happened
sick and sad
like the meat on the table
   like the meat
   of the last big test animals
rotates under the microscopes, he had

once more set off
from the duration of his century
and century long flight
from the ground of his craft
to the inside of the bacon

We are powdered characters
on easy chairs in the corner seating unit,
dimly lit, black velveteen.
These are the real establishments,
men in vests open the door.
But I am only eyes and ears:
Do people still clear their throats? Snort?
Mishear? “They were famished”, at night,
in the room next door, late until three.
And we are sad characters
at the varnished table, night talk.
Eyes half open. Freshly shaved temples:
Do people still speak easy? Smoke?
Act the coke demon. The bag of sugar
that walked off with me, SANTORA, inhaled
in front of the rust-flecked mirror.
MAXIM FUTUR reflection: Do people
still drop? And I stand there
as if flavoured: hot, elder-ly
and weak.

view frame: the dried oil
on the benches. beneath it the hard
cracked soil the ochre of the stalks the train
shunts slowly onto the rails, past houses
and pillars the piled-up tyres the eyes
fall back, scan the embankment for sand and soot
on the fingers remnants of varnish the wiry handles
of the emergency brake behind the ear tapping the rhythm
firmly into the skin. up to the border
everything settles down to the to
and fro of the neck, the cut gems
on the necklace, cameras and the clicking
of eyes looking up. the shy glance
behind the window, at a distance
it follows the wind. then again fences
holding the sand dust eucalyptus trees
the day lies limply between the hills
above it the sun, calm, a bright spot
in the picture of the landscape, somewhere behind
the sea is ticking

once founded we are a phloem
   on the bark
a guest of the bark & inner child
of the arterial roads. these

roads are a softly spoken
language even beyond what’s been
said past the gardens
   to the latin of the fields. there

the child sits on a hill the
world is made of sand murmered languages
roll inwards also
want water bridges

& roads
need softly
rolling languages one’s
own child in the latin of the fields

Thank you stars thank you non-fiction thank you
when the cyclop unlids his eye
in summer nights and school forms
in the seats of the observatory seriously
realize the difference between it and cinema

Sexy outer space sexy seriousness
sexy innocence and sexy sun sexy
Sirius main star in the Greater Dog seriously
Sirius is nine light years away
and has a white dwarf for a companion

Were it not winter, were the pathways not white
the two symmetrical woods
not clearly proportioned and the stars
on the inside wall of the cupola really were
the message of a magic hand full of happiness

Thank you shine thank you distance
thank you wasteland and thank you name thank you
Silence snow achievements and seriousness
and thank you Venus Venus thank you
white dwarf and little planetarium woods

a last colony smell & heavy
action at the chalets: some
hung sleigh-bells, late
returnees’ overcoats, at the pockets
hard & frayed, we
still had silver foil, at times net curtains in
the cherry trees, bottles wherever one stepped, on
the short brown necks. there

we huddled around the table with
severe partings a few
pounds of eye whelps under the lids: rustic
fences, asbestos cement forever or
a he-won’t-do-anything-pitbull in the pimpish
chaos & crystal-

clear bottles, first hard
to separate from the body but when empty
to be dug into the rat
holes, the whistling necks

against the western moon. how good
it was then the rat-swatting in a
northwesterly & whatever
we now have here: this

patrolling from the skull points, by day
when our musing carefully rests its
temples in the membranes of the air, raw
nerves on the tree-barks when

in the early light head
& life of a bird clash
   with each other

Vergreife ich mich an geheiligtem Grund,
wird über den Fluss eine Brücke geschlagen,
stürzt alles, was tags von den Werkern erbaut,
schon anderentags wieder ein.

Nachts kommt ein Boot den Fluss herauf,
darin steht eine Frau.
In ihren Augen, ihren Händen brennen Kerzen.
Sie hat zwei Ruder.

Sie zieht ein Spiel Karten heraus.
»Machst du ein Pfänderspiel?«, fragt sie.
Wir spielen, und sie gewinnt jedes Mal
und belegt mich mit einem dreifachen Bann:

niemals zwei Mahlzeiten in demselben Haus einzunehmen,
niemals zwei Nächte unter demselben Dach zu verbringen,
niemals zweimal auf demselben Lager zu schlafen –
bis ich ihr wiederbegegne. Ich frage sie nach ihrem Aufenthalt:

»Wenn West, dann Ost«, sagt sie, »wenn Ost, dann West.«
Sie eilt davon, dass die Funken stieben,
und ich bleibe allein am Ufer zurück.
Die beiden Kerzen neben mir brennen noch.

Die Ruder hat sie mir dagelassen.

Frog grease, in an exhausted state, scraped
out but for the edges and
brittle, still black, but only moderately so,

thus they polished, Bert, Berta, Leni, Martha,
Walter, even in their youth, their boots and shoes,
They shone them evenly, and exhausted

it sticks, it doesn’t, but the skin is already
shiny, broken fibres, myself half ancestor,
half fringe-figure with black fingernails

and half a sentence on my lips, so utterly in the
wrong place, thus one rubs away all time, like
myself, across the mildly faded leather

the tone cracked, thus one just rubbed, and
just, moderately loud, the other half, thus one
always abandons the leather, the dyed leather, weak

and finally to where the skin covered
in grease disappears, I am
not there, I am stowed away in the box.

Very gray corn on the fields
as though it had rained ashes from
a perfect factory

Look this woman bends down
to the ground as if she were only playing
with wings on her back
and not with this wicker-basket
She is frozen in her scene

An ancient cloud
floats across the field
like a cracked voice
I remember how
Grandmother got to tell
stories about such images
spoke the very same

recipes to the firmly-baked
landscape and
brewed tea to sip in tiny cups
from which we drank for hours
There was a static quiet in the room
that cannot be blurred To this day

there were names
This cloud could
be an airship
At any rate they were
my relatives
and I can’t recognize
a single soul

i walked in the snow those nervous
post-war whip lamps in my neck
across the mozart bridge in vienna
where there still hunched on a rope a tired
irish setter he

was dead and was waiting for me
that is to say I untied the rope
from the base of the railings and began
to swing the animal a little
to & fro skin & bone-light
peal of bells flurry of snow
set in I sang

a little song across the Danube
& back (I was a child) the dead
setter now spun on my
right arm over the pretty
balustrade he rotated
lightly & huge into the nervous
post-war lamplight a rip
on his neck deepened a whistling

set off and his stiff
eyeshells flapped
faintly up & down: you

would have loved the mechanics of this gaze
and would have been even lonelier
above the snow the bridge & the old song

Felicita, what a stroke of luck, but what if nothing pleases you
anymore? You don’t care for great leaps and bounds
and yet, hardly due, you are a case in point,
from the word go in love with crashing down,
was I not? What a stroke of luck, felicita, an apple.
I hardly arose, and it already struck me:
light, two apples, the incidence of light: that nothing
that wants to fall on its own can be of value.
One falls through the world. Falls further.
Everything falls. So one falls with it. What now?
From case to case I liked playing Fallada
as a little man, as parachutist,
Sir John Fallstaff, at any rate I didn’t fall
far from the tree – one is too heavy, falls after
omnibuses, fountain pens, water towers,
fingers deep in fell and all rises, falls,
rye cradled by winds in the valley with rocks and
fallen phalanxes, dun leaves in fall,
falls after everything in its phallic form.
Then tries to be striking, mostly to women,
but for that one has to fall out of the window.
You are my cup of tea, I call after her,
then we fall for a while butterflylike
down the side of the house. Even this house: staffage.
For many times one will fall past it,
the woman, you behind, felicita, but falsely.

For years the concerts have been cancelled
stanza by stanza
since each head has encased itself in glass

Seduction in dangerous frequencies
still emanates from the songs
of seagulls and martens
that have become undistinguishable
and in dark corners pennyless
women wait for you
with their assault-like smiles

The city magazine advises
that there is cheerfulness among the children with
cat’s faces they make for really
good horoscopes

They announce
note by note
a modern
marriage between you and the night
while they with their left hands cut
rubber toys into pieces
and then smoke a fag
It looks dangerous

But they are honest
you’ll get
your hand back

The master builder must not die
the peasants thought when the castle was built
as their upper arms grew into tree-trunks

For only the master builder had the plan of the castle
in his head and although they hated him the peasants
thought the master builder must not die

because otherwise everything would have been
in vain all those unpaid working hours
all the bother and with the wind combing their

hair during their work the peasants were already
thinking of the portions of pease-pudding and flour which after
long days they would bring home for the whole family

With hands that later were to protect the edifice
to put to flight the Saracenes and Vikings
the peasants went through the motions of praying

the King mustn’t die thought the peasants when battles
were raging thought the wives of the peasants
when they were eating They thought socage equals want not death

grey plan a semicircle
below cupolas slanting weight
of an arch height
measuring out space for itself

the building holds iltself up covered
in colours: mild blue a red
hue small chamber-twig
subtly branched out until

ropes after a tender twist
several cross-sections between
the legs the measure
figures and directions hint at

a flow pressed by something tiny
through channels only a gripping whorl
now: some skin sewed
flush the hem an eye runs

along on its own

sleeps for all the world to see
so inspire me with a phrase
perhaps
how to throw a penny
into a fountain in Rome or Shoa
no, into a slot machine that rattles
and brings luck.
How do I think you,
pythic, your unsupported wings
folded down your spine
like newspapers and one-legged?
Do you resemble Novalis, are you Sophie
Tucker or a wooden dragon, a
flying chariot, golden, pulled by
frenetic flocks of nightingales,
siren, hyena, crocuta crocuta
monosyllabic, star-like, cloud, mobile phone
with my face? Are you
some sort of music?
To sleep between breasts
while snow whirls in front of the house,
only the current hums in the overhead power line
to let a transfer shine through the night
stuck on the cabin window of a snow plough,
behind it the driver, fallen asleep in the snow flurry.
Then limp hither on your gammy leg,
shove the snow aside with your wings.
let hiss what still hisses, until it thaws
and the bridled nightingales give their all,
brightly illuminate the cabin, the cart,
and strike up, Habanera! until the power line
hits the roof, sparks flying.
A man with a blue chin
freezing to death before my eyes.

Once when we drove around the longest days
far beyond the border to the north
and during those first days slept hardly
more than a few restless hours
I stepped outside the house wakened
by the birds’ territorial songs.
The sun stood at its lowest point
still half over the horizon it was perhaps
two or three in the morning and I groped
my way back into the darker room.
When I woke it felt like latish noon
the light came in at an angle that strangely
explained to us the hush since for today
the territories have been marked out for hours and we
are somewhere in between and feel at home.

Ich setze meine Hoffnung aufs Wasser,
im Nachen der Sprache,
wie wenn eine ihr Kind
in ein Kästlein legt,
das aus Schilfrohr
geflochten,
die Unterseite bestrichen
mit Erdharz und Pech,

und dann das Kästlein
unter die Riedgräser
und Rohrkolben
am Flussufer setzt,
um zu sehen, wohin
die Strömung es treibt,
um zu sehen: Wird, wie einst Moses,
die Tochter des Pharao es erretten?

They give their boats the names
of unruly daughters who strain at the leash
to dance with the wind.

A storm is gathering if one believes
what yesterday promised,
visibility was so good it got lost somewhere

like some interest never satisfied,
a fisherman bales water from the bilge
of the open hull in order not to have

to spend even a single day on land,
where holidaymakers wait to see what’s to become of him.

The expectation of tearing open the earth
when putting down a pen you say

resembles the expectation of the first men
across the Atlantic who disregarding any losses

set out like dogs to search for their master in the other
hemisphere It certainly doesn’t resemble

the calm out here on this field
There follows our customary silence

The year collapses and the ground
is frozen in the tumble I remember

the vagueness of the weather forecast this morning
and feel on both hands while you let them go

the ostracism of the wind which only
carries hither hats and perhaps some old papers

Drei sahen sie, drei andre nicht,
die Männer in dem Boot. In blauen
Jacken, ihre Mützen rot,
so eilten sie zum Kliff der Frauen.

Wir sammelten zu dritt dort Tang,
dort in der Bucht bei den Steinen.
Ich, Nell und Nora Brosnahan,
wir sahen sie, die andern keinen.

Wir sammelten Tang und füllten die Schürzen
und hielten den Kopf zu Boden gesenkt.
Doch als wir den Ruderschlag hörten,
da wurde mein Blick aufs Meer gelenkt.

Ich weiß nicht, gab’s fünf oder sechs
von diesen Männern im Boot?
Einer saß am Ruder im Heck,
war blass und reglos wie der Tod.

Ich schrie, dass es gellte: »Seht nur, seht,
das Boot ist im Felsspalt verschwunden!«
Drei sahen es, drei andre nicht,
ein Seehund hätt nicht hineingefunden.

Und wenn sie auch suchten bis in die Früh
und bis zum Jüngsten Gericht,
sie fänden es nicht, das Geisterboot,
das ich gesehen mit meinem Gesicht.

Die Alten schickten uns nach Haus,
den Rosenkranz zu beten, dergleichen
habe man in dieser Bucht
schon oft gesehn, es sei ein Zeichen.

Drei sahen sie, drei andre nicht,
die Männer in dem Boot. In blauen
Jacken, ihre Mützen rot,
so eilten sie zum Kliff der Frauen.

Your gaze away from body to horizon
distances yourself from me and the things
the blood corpuscles the gestures
and finally the shining trio eye tooth lip

leads beyond daylight into other rooms
far away to the grave-diggers the graveside orators
the putschists and fighters in Grozny
to the rainbow red yellow red

since every cloud spits only pus and blood
my mother told me early on
never sleep with a photographer
they have seen too much already

You are near hills of tulips or wherever
This is the city the pedestrian precinct
here we are here your inner
fire strolls about in the knowledge

that two people who love one another
can add to or subtract from each other
can put a plus or as in this case
through no fault of our own a minus

With everything that changes from indicative to subjunctive
the night lies down on the day and chains its hands atop
the bed. Everything we haven’t said grows into the
white of the skin where the tourniquets block the blood.
Ex machina the moonlight switches itself on.
Strangers to language, we conjugate the briefest of alphabets.