sky, scooter swarms, back
to the Union Hotel, its
awoken name at four (szu):
...
1
(the soft paws of the organ)
(behind the back, shining
Magdalene relic) (you
...
'and failure, yes, that does it in this life'
T. Kling, Leopardi: L'Infinito / Das Unendliche
this hugely orange, table-filling ashtray,
Giangiacomo Feltrinelli's wedding present
...
to put oneself
out in an incan
descent nothing;
in the highway tunnel
a shark's mouth, diving,
...
undyed pants of the
conqueror of the exotic
world, straight razor, chess
pieces he still played
...
has clambered onto the Z of the fire
escape, showing those who live down
stairs: I've seen God! Still there,
...
'Death creates an immediate synthesis of the life that has just ended,
and the light it reflects back onto that life
illuminates the essential moments and turns them
into mythical or morals acts outside of time.'
...
it's raining, or the sun is shining.
Its way up through this
Maria air to the visibility
of the chapel. Drala
...
Dieter M. Gräf was born on November 24th, 1960 in Ludwigshafen on the Rhein and lived there and in Cologne; 2004/05 in Rome, New York and Vézelay; and since then as a poet in Berlin. Since 1994 his books were published by Suhrkamp, Wunderhorn, Insel and at Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt, as well as in USA, in Croatia and France.)
Typhoon
sky, scooter swarms, back
to the Union Hotel, its
awoken name at four (szu):
the elevator's missing number
is death in the coloratura
of the beloved next door;
in the morning: the flowing
street, vanishing, muddy
torrent with drifting barrel
a boy is sitting on. One
eyed we are, toward the TV
screens more and more water
is pouring out of, death (szu).
The day before, there'd been
TVs by the pond, karaoke
corners. Opening another in the
summoned landscape, for singing,
while the instruments
stay in the speakers,
or installing a waterfall with
good-luck charm: the temple
carp. Swimming away, now.
Translated by Andrew Shields