From: West Shore Poem by Volker Braun

V
Breakfast,'Waiter, the traffic menue, please‘

They crouch on the flats like comical birds
Claws out downwards
Plastic bags like black
Craws, swags, the grubbers for mussels
In La Tranche-sur-Mer. Lonely lascivious work
Of poets,
for a crude meal.
What does
The End of History
Count in this everyday silt
Where above is below and death life.
... And he used the time pondering
The paradox
That we enjoy being hit
'Pokes in the ribs ... gratefully accepted.‘
In a woman´s face
So he reads, opens what can be opened
The mouth, the eyes, he reads
More in a womans´ face.
Boiling water. They slurp the mussels
One night after another
Stunned with lemon
And again I hoped of the things
I encounter
As a chosen one
To show myself worthy.

VI
A midday without an address, fleeing the wind and sick
For sun you stray
Out of this gulf of politics
(´given back
To life´) into the flowering steppes. Would you
(Or anyone for you) ever
Have dreamed it? Like a girl
Your soul, wandering the mudflats, freed
From the petrol pumps
You can sense the equal buoyancy of the land masses
On the pulsing core of the earth. Change of subject.
Cannibalism among the galaxies
You can say you are there. The plate tectonics
Of history (`like a rear-end collision´)
And the supercontinent
Pangaea arises
COCA COLA out of the ocean.
Now you have everything (that you don´t need), relax

The change of the seasons sixty times
Thrice the change of an era
You won´t do it for less;
take
Things as they´re not any longer
With cold respect: not a passer-by...
en passant.

translated by David Constantine