Störtebeker Poem by Jan Wagner

„I am the ninth, a bad position.
But he's still walking."
(Günter Eich)

he's still walking, a head watching a body
as it staggers on. but where is he really,
his real self? in those last looks
he gave from the basket, or in his blind steps?
i am the ninth and the month is october;
the cold and the hempen rope cut deeper
into the flesh. we kneel in a row, high
above us dabs of downy white in the sky
as though our women, on the eve of a feast,
were plucking fowl. father's pale fist
clutched the haft of the axe, its shiny blade
glinting in the sun. and the hen, a mess of blood
and fluttering feathers, sought a way between
two worlds, past us cheering children.

Translated into English by Iain Galbraith