Gloomerang Poem by Dagmara Kraus

you race along the furlong,
crookeder than a barong,
you go away,
u-bend again,
in sidelong zippersong
as in crabwalk;
so long as my foot is long,
you'll always
come again,
but you can't be
snagged
circling and circling, so long,
till you come,
alone all along,
sprung from the oak-rungs,
you fan out, fangs out,
from your flightpath
(carving headlong
down the valleyslope),
you return
to me.
your spin
returns—
(oblong) a craving to
begin—
it descends
when you miss a target;
that's when the gong
gets rung.
and were it pyongyang,
you'd come
back,
you'd come with yin-yang,
dugong, and oolong-scent,
surrounded by linsangs,
christened in kelp.
were it canaan,
you'd come
back,
you'd come diaphanous
as pale touch-me-not,
escorted by ten
sandaled vandals,
genghis khan's courtesans,
their private scandals
bandaged in green cellophane.
perhaps you'd come
by toboggan
to my slack-walled wigwam,
with baboon-elan
and legerdemain,
as mezzo-hetman
with a toucan-right-hand-man
—the astrakhan mane
would suit you well.
you'd come
back like a mustang,
you'd come
trotting, completely frank
without salute or stink,
sturm und drang or harangue,
but with quite correct
oberek-step,
you'd come back
as bridle, from scamming
and summits. gloomerang,
welcome back.


all this gloomerang-caprice
(gloomerang, capiche?),
—oh gloomerang-gazer, book-nosed schnook—
the cancan-ing gloomerang-beats,
all the gloomcrookedstoop:
gloomerang's hunchback, hooked as a scythe,
will outhunch
my nosebump (plumb out of line).
then you would come,
with your ever-bent back,
back to me, gloomerang,
bent on return, vestigial,
and always much worse than
you were the last time you bent
your flat gaze back to mine.

but who threw you,
gloomerang,
not my arm, certainly,
not this hand, there's no doubt
it's in no condition
to throw you so that you'd
come bending back.

so may i, this time?
i'd toss you, somehow,
so that you'd never
come winding back:
you'd shoot target-wise,
to your target be tethered,
in its bull's-eye gulphole
you'd vanish forever,

your bull's-eye of gloom banished into the ether.

but you pester
and never relent
but you bluster
and never recant
but you rupture
and never repent
but you hector
and never relax
even once

into something resembling sleep.

the snoozerang cannot bring down the gloomerang.

how wretched, my catch-stress,

catch! catch! catch! catch! catch! catch!

you, that gashed heaven's latch,
once match-straight
in the windbreach
of cumulous cumulonimbus:
you are the mistake-hatch,
the gloom-coma of wingrash.

so long, you circle,
have circled already,
you, gloomerang—
hours-, days-, overnightslong
in gloomerang circles
over my head,
in my head, and around,
and always you come
back round again.

i went round
in the gloom
on a morning constitutional,
ambushed
and questioned,
collared,
but not—
and so then further on,
i grappled with gloom,
i wrestled with gloom,
with the gravegloomcrush
and the gloomerangboom
from sundown
until moonrise.

the gloomerang-effect
differs thusly
from all others:

it colors waves
in the dressgray
of mourners;
it tugs earth
through the blueweave
of weepies;
it teaches or barks
the cha cha
of crossed stars.
it sands corners away.
only a featherbrain
believes it meanders:

though it pesters
it doesn't relent
though it blusters
it doesn't recant
though it ruptures
it doesn't repent
though it hectors
it doesn't relax
twice over.

this above all:

it does not sleep.


(spinningsong, to a melody from mary poppins)

boomgloomerang, boomgloomerang, boomboomcheroo,
gloom never skips, has no blood and no shoes,
boomgloomerang, boomgloomerang, boomboomcheright,
gloomerang knows only quickturningflight,
boomgloomerang, boomgloomerang, boomboomcheree,
gloomerang slips from your dictionary,
boomgloomerang, boomgloomerang, boomboomandbigger,
gloomerang lands on a pistol's hairtrigger.


TORNADA

battered gentians
scattered far
and beheaded.
gargantuan
volcanic pelicans
spouting firebeaks.
you sprawl next to me. wake, gloomerang—
the facts were, perhaps, somewhat
demented. how cozily
we fit, spooning into each other,
me and my beau, the gloomerang-tempter.


optional: incantation/invocation


come, gloomer glowmbe, come gloomer glowmbe
gloomgloomer, come. gloomgloomer, come:
come gloomer glowmbe.
gloom glúmian aura.
gloomcomboros. gloom oroboros
(ouroboros), gloomygus boris, come (in gloomerbolo).
suffer glum solo, o come, gloomypuss, gloom-lump, -yoke,
-load,
-rake,
-drum.

so, have a couple
gloomercrumbs—
o gloomcrumb, come;
have a rugelcrumb,
yes, gloomrugel, come;
come crumble,
thurderlette, come.

what then?
why crumble into this
gloomernook?

the gloomrunes. gloomerina.
daginia's newgloom.
daginiacrookedcrumb.
gloom came in troughs (that one's for frank), clammy,
in font gloomyman—and here the gallowsmien
clump-clear, littlelamb.

the muumuutune.
my fevertunemuumuuspell.
a muumuutrombone booms and flames up the gloomyman.

there: that is his gloomstare.


lumber'sglúmian—cumbersamba—cumberglúmian—gloomerrumba
gloomertango—mamamamba—gloomermambo—watch your waist
lumber'sglúmian—cumbersamba—cumberglúmian—gloomerrumba
gloomertango—mamamamba—gloomermambo—watch your haste
lumber'sglúmian—cumbersamba—cumberglúmian—
gloomerrumba
gloomernumbfoot—gloomerlambda—dumbencumbered
GLOOMCARAMBA—

poolside in kumba, camergloon—wait, wait,
—does that work?

mooning gloomy
like a lounging loon.

slogging through toxic glumes,
clubfooted, bowlegged, arms curtailed:
here comes gloomerang with the whole gloomclan.
(tak, tak : szklany.)
(carnival hands.)

postcard


gloom'rang here
in old st. gloom
and como
(for the pagan jubilee)

caravans come round here.
karaman's been full besieged
by makara's caracaras;
and when comes dagmara,
then comes, too, the gloomerang
harping on the karaghan.
(then she wants
to tell him:
turn your head; cough.
chuyh.)

most likely i'll come
in looming turns,
fate's gloomyarn
its evernewgloom,
and karakumsandblack,
caviarstarved,
i come dumb,
come bargehearted,
come, come,
i come, i come,
gloom'rang, crumbling i suc-

cumb.

Translated from German by Joshua Daniel Edwin