Pictures of the gone world 1

Away above a harborful
                                                            of caulkless houses
among the charley noble chimneypots
                                                      of a rooftop rigged with clotheslines
                a woman pastes up sails
                                                 upon the wind
   hanging out her morning sheets
                                                     with wooden pins
                                    O lovely mammal
                                                                her nearly naked teats
                          throw taut shadows
                                                   when she stretches up
to hang at last the last of her
                                             so white washed sins
                but it is wetly amorous
                                                    and winds itself about her
                   clinging to her skin
                                                 So caught with arms upraised
           she tosses back her head
                                              in voiceless laughter
   and in choiceless gesture then
                                                shakes out gold hair

while in the reachless seascape spaces

                                                  between the blown white shrouds

       stand out the bright steamers

                                                     to kingdom come

© L.F.
从: Pictures of the Gone World
San Francisco: City Lights, 1955
录制: 2004 M.Mechner / Literaturwerkstatt Berlin

Pictures of the gone world 1

Weit über einem Hafenvoll
                                                         unkalfaterter Häuser
  inmitten der blitzblanken Schornsteinkappen
                                      eines Flachdachs mit Wäscheleinetakelage
                     kleistert eine Frau Segel
                                                       in den Wind
           hängt ihre Morgenlaken auf
                                                        mit hölzernen Klammern
                                 Ach reizendes Säugetier
                                                               ihre fast nackten Brustwarzen
                  werfen straffe Schatten
                                                 wenn sie sich streckt
  um aufzuhängen die letzte ihrer
                                                    so weiß gewaschenen Sünden
                  doch sie ist tropfend sinnlich
                                                                und wickelt sich um sie
                       klebt an ihrer Haut
                                                      So gefangen mit erhobenen Armen
               wirft sie den Kopf zurück
                                                       in tonlosem Lachen
  und dann in wahlloser Geste
                                               schüttelt sie goldenes Haar

während in den grenzenlosen Meeresleeren

                                                   zwischen den wehenden weißen Tüchern

     leuchtende Dampfer

                                       in alle Ewigkeit prangen

Aus dem Amerikanischen von Klaus Berr




In: L.F.: A Coney Island of the Mind. A Far Rockaway of the Heart. Gedichte. Aus dem Amerikanischen von Klaus Berr. München: Sammlung Luchterhand 2005.