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  •  

Donald Berger

I Forget

  • 1 The Long Time | Translations: de
  • 2 The Wall | Translations: de
  • 3 People’s Stage | Translations: de
  • 4 To Be Where the Sun Is | Translations: de
  • 5 Annisquam | Translations: de
  • 6 Tom Madigan | Translations: de
  • 7 I Forget | Translations: de
  • 8 Television | Translations: de
  • 9 The Ghost of Good Bread | Translations: de
  • 10 Epistle | Translations: de
Language: english
Translations: german (Ich vergesse)
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I Forget

Everything you’ve never read of mine scolding itself for not being published,

The chestnuts whacked the glass when the bus went through the branches in the fall,

There was a metal statue of a wild boar in wild grass at the rotary in Dahlem,

There were a lot of real ones in the ditch next to King’s Avenue, Koenigsallee.

At the café outside Literaturhaus once, Monika Rinck took at least 85 things from her pocketbook
    and covered the table with them, and then she did it again.

In German I told someone I was from England.  

Internal life’s rich, too, but couldn’t compare.

This slip of paper says go over the mosquito bridge, the Gate to get to it, and then the
    Templehofer riverbank.

Gyorgi Ligeti over dinner used to ask questions like, can machines think.

The street, at many times, loved my eyes, like it was letting them lead.

There was world weight and world force whether the rain would come, like someone whispering.

I stood 20 feet from the real Holy Grail in Valencia but never saw the thing.

I first thought Christian Rothman’s painting that I loved was called The Funny Bachelor not The   
    Merry Widow, but he himself said it could be either.

The ads on the outside of the buses carried questions like Who has the overview?  Who brakes?  
    Who makes place?

Why, I asked Ulrike Draesner once, in German, Why is your English better than mine?

The strength of that green around the patio and the push of the music, both of these organically
    sad and exceptional,

I was only afraid when I didn’t have words for what I meant, or when the words I had were wrong.

© Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2015
From: The Long Time | Die währende Zeit. Poems | Gedichte
Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2015
Audio production: Literaturwerkstatt Berlin, 2016
Categories: poetry & poets, memory

Translations:

Language: german

Ich vergesse

Alles, was du von mir niemals gelesen hast und das sich dafür
          schilt, nicht veröffentlicht zu werden,

Die Kastanien schlugen an die Scheiben, als der Bus im Herbst durch
          die Zweige fuhr,

Es gab die Eisenplastik eines wilden Ebers in wildem Gras im
          Kreisverkehr in Dahlem,

Es gab eine Menge wirklicher Eber im Graben neben der King’s
          Avenue, Koenigsallee.

Einmal, im Café außerhalb des Literaturhauses, nahm Monika Rinck
          85 Sachen aus ihrer Handtasche und bedeckte den Tisch damit,
          und dann machte sie es noch einmal.

Auf Deutsch erzählte ich jemandem, ich sei aus England.

Das Innenleben ist auch reich, aber könnte sich nicht vergleichen.

Auf dem Zettel steht: gehe über die Mückenbrücke, das Tor, um
          dorthin zu gelangen, und dann das Tempelhofer Ufer.

György Ligeti stellte beim Abendessen gern Fragen wie: Können
          Maschinen denken?

Oft liebte die Straße meine Augen, als ob sie sie führen ließe.

Es gab Erdlast und Erdkraft in der Frage, ob der Regen käme, wie
          jemand, der flüstert.

Ich stand 20 Fuß vom Heiligen Kelch in Valencia entfernt, aber
          sah das Ding nie.

Zuerst dachte ich, das Gemälde von Christian Rothman, das ich sehr
          mochte, heiße ›Der komische Junggeselle‹ und nicht ›Die lustige
          Witwe‹, aber er sagte selbst, es könne beides bedeuten.

Die Werbung auf dem Bus zeigte Fragen wie Wer hat den Überblick?
          Wer bremst? Wer macht Platz?

Warum, fragte ich Ulrike Draesner einmal, auf Deutsch, Warum
          kannst du besser Englisch als ich?

Die Stärke des Grüns um die Terrasse und der Musikstoß, beide auf
          natürliche Weise traurig und besonders,

Ich hatte nur dann Angst, wenn ich keine Wörter besaß für das, was
          ich meinte, oder wenn die Wörter, die ich besaß, falsch waren.

Aus dem Englischen von Christoph König
Aus: The Long Time | Die währende Zeit. Poems | Gedichte
© Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2015
previous poem
   (Tom Madigan)
7 / 10
nächstes Gedicht
(Television)   
listen to all poems

Donald Berger

photo © Peter Berger
* 25.05.1956, New York City, United States
lives in: Baltimore, United States

Donald Berger was born in Queens (NYC) and grew up in NY and MA, attended the University of Massachusetts and the University of Washington, and lived four years in Germany, where he was a Fulbright Fellow.

He has taught language, literature and writing for more  than 28 years, at the University of Maryland and Montgomery College, and teaches currently at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Donald Berger is the author of The Long Time, a bilingual collection of poetry in English and German from Wallstein Press in Goettingen, Germany, and two other books of poems, Quality Hill (Lost Roads Publishers) and The Cream-Filled Muse (Fledermaus Press).

 photo © Peter Berger
His poems and prose have also appeared in The New Republic, Slate, Conjunctions, Colorado Review, Ironwood, The Iowa Review, TriQuarterly, Fence, The Massachusetts Review, and magazines in Berlin, Leipzig, and Budapest. 

Publications
  • Quality Hill

    Poetry

    Jackson, WY: Lost Roads Publishers, 1993

  • The Cream-Filled Muse

    Chapbook

    Fledermaus Press,

  • The Long Time | Die währende Zeit

    Poems | Gedichte

    English | Deutsch. Aus dem Englischen von Christoph König

    Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2015

Links
  • Review of 'The Long Time | Die währende Zeit' at Fixpoetry

    Donald Berger ‒ Ein Dichter für DichterInnen ist zu entdecken

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