Kevin M. F. Platt 

Translator

A dog softly barks
at a passing cyclist.
With restraint, the weather grows worse
and the barn falls apart.
Night birds are slightly critical
of the glories of the morning.
The sun can’t remember
to what point it ascended yesterday
and aims slightly lower.
Children rise before everyone else
and read their books
trying not to wake the grown-ups.
Water pours modestly from the tap
not splashing and disappearing in the drain almost at once.
Shadows of firs and pines barely move.
Someone spreads butter in a thin layer on bread.
The Classics radio station airs an interview with a pianist
who answers every question with “yes” or “no”.
Although he plays very precisely
with short, confident pauses.

Oil comes out of her kneecaps.
Her knees are oozing with oil.
On a good day you can accumulate
A half-litre bottle,
By dragging the lip along her skin,
Catching unctuous drops.
And what can you do about that?
The doctors just hold consultations;
At least they haven’t sounded off to the press.
Her relatives are already used to her
Always wearing those snug black
Leggings with special padding
On the knees to soak up all the droplets.
Oil is her daily routine.
She even keeps an eye on prices,
Market fluctuations, like someone’s pulse,
Slightly feverish, dynamic, alive,
And unfathomable. Lately
She feels like she’s a whole
Oil-producing nation herself–
A state, confident of its own significance.
Look how she crosses the street,
How she laughs, goes shopping.
So what if she gets rid of the oil
In the bath, wiping away heavy black drops
Again and again. In this life of ours
She has oil. What have you got?

I saw the old world’s birth,
Whole streets of delapidated houses
Were erected, with rusty rain
Downspouts, broken off a couple of meters
From the ground, doorframes ripped out in entryways
And other structures of neglect. Smokestained Opels
And Volkswagons with dents in their hoods and
Splotches of rust were driven into the country in caravan
After caravan. And old folk came in droves from all over the
World, from everywhere they brought these unwanted
Old timers, joyfully coughing into their knit
Gloves at the local tram stops.
And life iced over. The whole world hit the brakes, water
Flowed more slowly from faucets, the police
Chased thieves more slowly, who went for their guns slower
And pulled triggers that fell apart like rot,
As they released one last fiery flower of a shot.
A bullet would fly forward for at least a century, finally freezing
In the air, like a tablet dropped into thick, transparent syrup.
Or like a yellow vitamin pellet, past its expiration date,
That rolls behind the cabinet and lodges in dust, wrappers and
nostalgia.

in nineteen eighty-seven
a certain academic
drove a red car
down a suburban street

in ninety-four
six police officers
(two patrols of three men)
met at a corner

in ninety-seven
a photographer arrived at a shoot
but neglected to bring film
and called his assistant

in ninety-nine
they sat in an open-air cafe
contemplating the tablecloth’s whiteness
with no definite purpose

in two thousand and one
a certain old man was sunbathing
on the shore of a little
lake in a residential area

in two thousand three
they closed that second-hand store
where they had that brand
of t-shirt, just like new

in two thousand five
a certain boy
dreamed of America
 and smiled all night

in two thousand six
for a whole day
it was the twenty-sixth
 of August

I want to tell you simple truths,
Reveal important things to you.
Always open doors, step into elevators,
Go upstairs, move down corridors.
Always get into cars, start the engine,
And if it’s winter, wait until it warms up.
Always spend money, but sparingly,
And only once in a while spend everything you’ve got.
In summer it will be summer; in fall it will be fall,
Don’t get flustered; don’t do anything that disgusts you.
Girls will become young women, and then you’ll notice
Them crossing the street holding little kids’ hands.
Men will somberly weigh the options
But then act according to circumstances, often making mistakes.
Governments are made to fall;
Ships—to glide beneath bridges.
All the same, the lights on the other side of the river
Will never—imagine that—never go out.
Still, if they do, pack your bag—
Only the essentials—and leave the city immediately.
When you arrive in a new place, look around, lean against a tree;
You can light up—if you smoke—stand around, think.
You see, here too they drink tea in the evening, coffee in the morning.
Blame the mayor and wait for things to get better.
And if there is a river and you see lights on the other side,
That’s something to cling to.

Angels are very slow dudes
who smoke through their fists some sort of
chocolate-flavored cigarettes.
They twiddle their thumbs
Up there in the sky.
The clouds smell like vanilla,
And everything’s so clean, safe, and well-maintained,
Like breakfast on an airplane,
Parked at an airport,
For eternity.
Once in a while they watch old action films
And think, well we could also do...
Then they go somewhere together,
Just a little downcast.
They get there—it’s a garden,
And they walk among the apple trees, plucking
Fruits from the tree of knowledge of good
And evil. They bite down. Munch away. For them
It’s harmless, just like everything else.
One day passes; another dawns.
And they watch action films again, on a tv
The size of the sky.

Romance! Sheer Romance! They rush aboard a steamboat
But the steamboat sounds the horn and becomes a train; they grab
The emergency brake, but it’s a champagne cork; foam
Runs through their hands, as if they’re swimming underwater; then up comes
The head captain, who says: “I’ve studied the greying cliffs
Of fractured high-rises...” Must have swallowed a gramophone.
Now he mutters and mumbles. But they aren’t there for long.
They rush to kiss, run and kiss; astounding eyes
They have. Romance! Sheer Romance! They run into a huge city,
A house stands above a ditch; a radio is blaring in that ditch;
And on that radio they announce: “We’ve closed all communications,
Coated all central arteries with tar, and into the sewers we’ve poured
Rivers of gold!” Gee whiz! So they throw 500 matches into the ditch
And run on. They’re met by low-flying birds.
Grapevines weave arabesques around them. The world’s deep basso
Sings and moans. The earth moves luxuriously; the wind licks at them
Like a Londontown kitten. And then they find a tinderbox
And a vast treasure trove big as a nut, and spread their
Chestnut tree bed, and go to sleep, exhausted from love,
Man with woman, Riga boy with Moscow girl.

bronzefaced statue
slave girl with ivory teeth
two days before the auction
became ill
 
contorted
joints aching
fractures throb in overly thin wrists
coral lip bitten, bloodied from pain
 
paralyzed in fear, she stares
neck deadened from strain, numb
one limp arm has fallen insensibly
note crumpled in fist, now dropped
 
the experienced conservator
has cozied up to her, resetting
the dislodged marble backbone
whispers “don’t be afraid, it’ll crack a bit”
about to boil over, tears cool
 
he works over the spot
where a smear has dried and hardened
on whitened knuckles
makes a brush from his whiskers
cleans up chips, seams, underarms, instep and maker’s mark
 
later she’ll tremble
at the mallet’s strikе
and instinctively recoil
when her new owner clicks his tongue

it's kind of dumb to say goodbye in advance
this eternity with small breaks
real fractures in fake marble
and did anyone even suggest mentioning the significant gaps
yet within these constraints space for doubt exists

is it worth it now or afterwards or much later
in the pose of damp tree by suspiciously white blank wall
to voice instinctively the glance sliding
                         from still undeveloped polaroid ceilings
from homemade swollen mirrors
losing its grip in the uneven marble light

it took place either this Sunday or last

no desire to clear the air at length
but you insisted
at the number ten trolley stop
by the wall of the botanical gardens

whatever, let’s come clean

for a start you’d better lie down
to understand me easier
 
and let’s agree: we’ll meet frankness with frankness
look, I’m in a state of suspense too
and I'm not done yet, either

all the same it’s too late to figure out who led on who
and who got carried away all on their own

it was poorly thought out to trust me like that
although it’s understood: my lips are sealed
but imagine what it is to keep that to yourself
even in such a vague form

okay well that’s enough of that
I have two lats — what are we going to do

lips groping for the mouths
of bottles cast into the sea
groping to drink their messages
mumbling through scribbles, obscure in places,
the guttural, whorled gurgle of bubbles
 
painstakingly articulating in polite formulas the crumpled beginnings
 
choking on wild laughter
to penetrate the details of the catastrophe
 
the ship sank
and the sun shrivelled up
and the capsized sea spilled out
and we’re here
we’re here
here
 
we, your surrogate brothers and sisters
related by reason, naturally — how else—
extraneous reason maybe, extraterrestrial maybe
does it make any difference at this degree of amnesia
for those who have tasted unearthly bliss
 
we, the very same gelatinous heavenly creatures
lost in the uninhabited reinforced concrete jungles
standing deathly contorted like undiscovered pseudorangutans
on the uncultivated coast of a longed-for Champansee
we’re waiting for the signal and dying of thirst
 
here the ink became blurred
and through pink and blue jellyfish lenses
were seen the washed-out remains of flat impassive faces

who can you rent out the apartment to, someone
responsible, who won’t mess everything up
and also who’ll always pay on time
but of course, right, the faucets leak a bit
and the tiles are constantly falling right into the bathtub
it’s a tiny apartment, although
in the center, and there’s a lot of useless furniture, and roaches
but the main thing: if you rent it out, where do you live?

somehow you transferred it to me, grafting
a sea frozen at time of tidal drifting
snow sprinkled with salt sand
lay lifeless—playing dead
everything shifted, shifted out of order

outside they turned lights off, the elevator jerked
the four of us slowly downwards inside
sweltering likely the display was dim
like a stain in transit the inkblot sprawled
trash shoot runs in parallel alongside