LOCAL DISCOMFORTS
I was really thinking of four situations, preferably painful ones
of course or local discomforts as well as: how she did that.
How is the word for 1. see: desperation (on to a tangible party!)
I celebrate / there’s nothing but 2. stumpy characteristic, mood
that can hurt the flesh, real pain, old pain too, good.
Even this word, lifted with her tongue and squeezed between her jaws:
3. the tasty word expression of everything. 4. see: wants to be enjoyed.
Translated by John Irons
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UNDER A FAITFHUL SKY
Your sweetheart counted intervals in your drinking-binge. Underneath the house
the robin ranted with robins that night and interesting subjects with effervescent sentences.
He cornered me (a trick). We had a feeble day. Something exploded, the city
sprung up. What then is the protocol for animal welfare, your sweetheart said.
Almost rhythmically, an admirable tone. I believed in generous ancestries,
even though I stood strangely with billowing hands and by now everyone was ranting
The city slurred to its knees. None for desperation, he said, or just a few.
First make victims. Some might think that easy, but I mean real ones.
Translated by Astrid Alben
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LIVING OUTDOORS IN WINTER
We missed you only when your departure could no longer be delayed.
Later that day breaking news you on the backseat bolt upright
refusing point blank to comment. Is there a word for that
or would an audition do you good: studio space is available
a squeaky young coach with trivial tips. Everyone is gorgeous in the light,
someone fingers your points of view and I can almost touch you –
today by the way everyone excels in everything frightening.
A horse drops to its knees in the snow, you said that’s how they’ll find me.
Translated by Astrid Alben
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CHECKPOINT
my father said I shouldn’t attract attention while growing and I ate without weight
his father said the man that betrays his country flogs forgiveness for ovens
his mother said he who know his patrons can marry without god
my mother said the man who betrays his wife wants to give birth to a murderer
her mother said little red riding hood went to grandmother’s to kiss her wolf
her father said she shouldn’t be afraid because deeds are worth more than motives
my father said it’s not because of an angel that parties split but dead animals
I said the presentation of the world was adjusted too late thanks to old decrees
I said the prophecy that came onto me lies like salt beaten on my head
I said in my dreams I escaped this and was loved by detainees
I said I ran on the tracks alongside my dreams, was grabbed that is correct
I said I met no one after such an accident, nothing that weighs more than nothing twice
Translated by Astrid Alben
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SHOWING AND TRIPPING
It takes intense bliss in this dress to look at neighbours stashing
their rubbish bag in a container around midnight with tenderness.
It takes intense bliss in this dress to flag down a taxi unwilling
to take you to the edge of the city where broad-leaved trees propagate.
It takes intense bliss in this dress to make a sound that drowns out
animals to catch the attention of a dolled-up queen.
It takes intense bliss for this dress to be carried to a show drunk
and wide awake, blindly find the door through which to exit the stage.
It takes intense bliss in this dress to pop one, go on a balloon ride
and look down on the mosaic of your country like a slow astronaut.
It takes intense bliss in this glorious weather to be killed with care.
Voices scream instead of dress say shroud.
Translated by Astrid Alben
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REPRESENTATIONS
Ask how it happened that the summer lost its way in the man, couldn’t find its way out
and the man disappeared like rising dough, he lit up red and sparked, fell off.
Ask how it happened that the poet said the ambition of the mother is the abolition
of desire, but her child tuned the back of the father like a speckled instrument.
Ask how it happened that the child fell down the stairs holding the book, lay at the bottom
like a what’s done is done, whoever unrolled him cracked, cracked: the book didn’t say that.
Ask how it happened that desire curbed width, her aftertaste a memory and
the not so self-evident glimpsing at “a pole dance for hungry intestines.”
Ask how it happened the earth existed as an explosion, a colour wash, a breach,
as an emulsion. As polymers. Look: Earth as hallmark. Earth as hall mark.
Translated by Astrid Alben
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HIT & MISS
If it takes time, being Anne Vegter.
Keeping the plates in the air, I venture.
Of course, it’s hit and miss with me.
Yesterday someone said either it fits or kiss it goodbye.
Someone said genes of interest
grow rampant / theorists want to waste!
It doesn’t necessarily cost time but the brain
(thinking of the prostrate years, calling it an anti-
thesis of desire) protrudes.
Readers look for someone to take a breather in.
Translated by Astrid Alben
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OTHER NEWS
An urban environment, a bike ride
someone drives off a pontoon into the river, dies
you tell him what you saw
was it an accident
you speak about the ease of the word fate
you speak about the situation at home, the love for a man
the send-off prepared in spite of equipment, i.e.: money, child and goods
you can already remember tomorrow’s photograph in the ‘Harbour News’,
saturated, bloated beyond recognition
you ask your son what he makes of it
is it male or female, he asks, a bin bag
a small bathtub, a Lilo, a shop-window dummy
he sees an awful lot, but what is it, he wants to know
you cherish the intimacy
You point at what looks like steering wheel, finger, rope
you speak about how death can take you by surprise
you speak about your son’s sloppiness
now he’s gone and lost his watch,
on Thursday it was his leather jacket
as if you don’t care about material things, you say
he smiles, strokes your cheek
giving scope to a religious matter
you speak about the desire for subjugation
you want a ride without a driver, fully automatic
you say you’re not sure who actually is pulling the strings
you speak up about the incessant smoking
that you’re just mucking about, that you wish it’d end differently
a successful attempt requires a certain expertise, you say
the willingness to go far
Translated by Astrid Alben
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MORATORIUM
When we returned home after John’s funeral
there was no one who asked: did John actually want to live?
(he was mad on funerals, always went,
maybe suddenly had had enough of them).
He visited us once more after that, two years later.
Said: ‘My mother won’t stop harping on about that heater,
don’t hold it against her, she misses me.
She believes payments help against the pain.’
When we crawled towards the exit you heard no one say
that John had made a mess of things.
Just past the gate we kept a close eye on each other
but every one stayed silent, as the dead tend to.
His mother perched high up on a branch, a little uncomfortable
in the body of an Eagle-Owl.
The bird’s real name is Bubo bubo, which experts say
means ‘I seize you’.
Translated by Astrid Alben
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ISLAND MOUNTAIN GLACIER (EXCERPT)
I
Even when you wake up over a death zone and you strap your kids in tight as belts: let me
take a look out the window see how bad, you can’t see anything because it’s a bird’s-eye-war.
Even when a target waves at you from the ground after all and you long for pale stars
on that tiny brow, you taxi across the training ground of your grimaces and play every role.
Even when you walk up to the kids naked and say Schuld you know what Schuld means that you
did nothing but confess and you relinquish your skin, strip after strip, because it’s a bird’s-eye-war.
II
Even when her shaft contracts and tameabilty escapes her red welding, she fans
the fire that heats the system through and her brille dissolves to a yes! optimism, she stalls.
Even when her XXL-lucky size emerges above ground ‘like a dead miner’ (I first count
my women, then my days), she remembers the small methods of his hands.
Even when this happens to her and the ear is torn too bad like paper from her head
she crushes optimism like bouncy balls über her axles and conquers her breathing.
III
Even when I fail to grasp the breath-taking in your opinion and my mouth mimics
the sound of breaking stone but not precise enough, too fine, startled, new, you fuck me.
Even when I fail to recognise the fickle meaning of the letter l (leitmotiv, layman,
long stay parking) and I say lava to your salvo and or lover, it is only the l, you fuck me.
Even when I drop my Job’s-grievance and you look up from your molehill with
the uncertain eyes of ‘so who can turn this street engulfing mud slide’, you fuck me.
Even when someone rises up in me and lifts your sentences from our Procrustean bed and you
stammer ‘pleasure heals but what was whole heals not’ etc, you fuck me even when that’s me.
Even when I, in this minute of my kingdom, in this household of seasons (jan steen), in this
temple (breath), leave it all to you (here sweetie, for you) I turn your thin meat into a spectacle.
Even when I touch the recollection of your hips, your hands tiger my uh-huh parts
ingest me (tongue chest mouth) and I read my gape from your lips or should that be gave.
VII
Even when you place your powers above a law for love and it’s me who takes your
workmanship so that the same blossoms in my hands, I want how you hold back.
Even when you oblige yourself to me and beget the omnipotent once more and you say
‘you remain unspoilt by what turns love into a product’, I want how you hold back.
Even when you subject yourself to my shame and I run away from you through a landscape
‘nobody will ever expect a postcard from this place’, I want how you hear me.
VIII
Even when you flex your smallest joints in the unfolding of your scream, you are
your shape’s positive and what distorts the sheets, shy one, is the self-tonguing child.
Even when you scrape a final atom from your skin, you’d like to be a there there dodo
as the last heart (island), as the last mountain (belly) or simply fabulous as a cunt (glacier).
Translated by Astrid Alben
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