Dagmara Kraus, Irina Bondas
german
Alfonso in Snow
My people you were something fucking fine
On the morning of the first arrests
Yes, we read each other’s lips and said one word four times
and laughed four times in a loving repetition
and now our boys go outside and are given back in the morning
like a small change—
Yes, the language of a country:
hands that take you out of your mother
I am yelling and my neighbors think I am laughing
Helicopters eyeball us like we are pig’s feet in a jar
And whoever listens to me
thank you for the feather on my tongue
thank you for our argument that ends
thank you for my deafness, Lord, such fire
from a match you never lit.
__________________
The recording from 2013 is based on an earlier version of what became Alfonso Stands Answerable later published in 'Deaf Republic', 2019
Alfonso Stands Answerable
My people, you were really something fucking fine
on the morning of first arrests:
our men, once frightened, bound to their beds, now stand up like human masts—
deafness passes through us like a police whistle.
Here then I
testify:
each of us
comes home, shouts at a wall, at a stove, at a refrigerator, at himself. Forgive me, I
was not honest with you,
life—
to you I stand answerable.
I run etcetera with my legs and my hands etcetera I run down Vasenka Street etcetera—
Whoever listens:
thank you for the feather on my tongue,
thank you for our argument that ends, thank you for deafness,
Lord, such fire
from a match you never lit.
From: Deaf Republic
Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2019
Audio production: Literaturwerkstatt Berlin, 2013
Alfonso steht Rede und Antwort
Leute, ihr wart verdammt geil
am Morgen der ersten Festnahmen
vorher ängstlich, ans Bett gefesselt, stehen unsere Männer jetzt wie Menschenmasten aufrecht
es durchfährt uns Taubheit, wie die Trillerpfeife des Polizisten.
Hiermit also
bezeuge ich:
jeder von uns
kommt heim, brüllt eine Wand an, einen Herd, einen Kühlschrank, sich selbst ins Gesicht. Vergib mir, ich
war nicht ehrlich zu dir,
Leben –
dir stehe ich Rede und Antwort.
Ich laufe etcetera mit Beinen und Händen etcetera laufe die Vasenkastraße runter etcetera –
Wer auch immer mir zuhört:
danke für die Feder auf meiner Zunge,
danke für unseren Streit, der endet, danke für die Taubheit,
Gott, solches Feuer
von einem nie gezündeten Streichholz.
VERSschmuggel 2019, poesiefestival berlin
Sprachmittlerin: Irina Bondas