Sonja vom Brocke

The doctor phantom on the terrace. If you slip out of your shoes now
will the serpent protect you or attack you?
And what now. No
...

a Lunatica cobbled together
from shorthand trunk and bones

; only as vocabulary Le Luxe von Bräuns supplied the milk for a
...

We're slipping away
watering the nymph temperature
conquering weak plant growth

a calcified nomen in the drain
the hip joints on
Golden Rain!
A sleepy, ticking egg.

Would that you, woman, and we other erasers
would meet the curses
alertly and at the same time in slow motion.
Let us gather scattered stubby platelets
in the pockets of our white coats

they'll yield
lovingly nest
exhausted and laying in phlegm
still full of ether confused with heavenly poison
alone and in one, their care.

Which will help us in a more terrible time.
Having come through, softer to permanence.

While heated teenie choirs race
through space
blindly petrifying in fright
of the sun - it's brighter than you think! -
and themselves.

The charred ones. Shorn of all but tentacles
they wave to their relations
and tap keys to each other:

seahorse, seahorse, you
perhaps the glowing heat was
another way of being taken away


Poet's Note: another way of being taken away
From the farewell note of a young women which once came into my hands.


Translated by Catherine Hales
...

»I am boarded in - and they are juggling!«


you pile the bats into clumps of rage
chewing on leather tunics, work muscles
cram yourself into the heart
and nerve strangulators, a heart-nerve strangulator
machine gender, calibrated.

Of course calibrated! And it's abandoned by all reason
with the mini-jugglers in the courtyard of death
you feed in tassels, dried hermaphrodites, crust -


you bite into foam. Huh.
Nibble it off . . .


Translated by Catherine Hales
...

Walked up Auerstrasse, through the building site and forgot to take note
of which way I had gone - no thread, winding in like a tightening screw like persuasion, until the town was no longer fastened in fibres. Fever land, cyber land, cut off, was hardly a destination, for anxiously staying put.

A cemetery, in it a theatre, the old ladies still mothy, swathed
in their housecoats. Hats of the ravens. Their discordant conference, wreathed number on number about the ivy tomb. But their fluttering turned to dust (I admit that I let out a sob).

Sensitive spectre. Afterwards only the single feathers from the hat, which were not feathers, and fluttered on to the tombstone, which was a tombstone, and so on, but forever, unrelated in the rumble garden of absence into which I dissolved.

The clinic of broad daylight outside the walls a chalking-up of sober
time of day. Gauze and wheel bearings took over the lead, the car showroom, in the wall of a bridge, offered coffee. ‘Take a seat, that close and wings genuine! This skin is an animal for slaughter, well-stocked, coupling without obligation and here, the plastic button tames what you say - you say! Are you listening at all? Are you listening? Not a sound, now you can please get lost.'


Translated by Catherine Hales
...

Meadow, my mood level sinks
into your nested pit
when redirected
put into force, and I
move through your limbs

for since I've been avenging the terrors
I've no longer had any fear
they seem sweet - or desperate.

Yellowed
little skins, eyeing me




then they come bursting over the meadows
their undiscussed unanimity
from the edge of the woods, among the
trees, high, striding
through the field, heaving
a steaming sutra among
the unrestrained ones, nose-ring wrestlers

are they speaking? To the grandchildren?
...

the insects come when you leave the net
don't you get it, swelling broth queen
slovening around in ochre
until your rump (thanks to its funnel-wheels) rotates
maimed into the earth
where the lyres are waiting, elysian alpine meadow
where there's a scent of lamentation
and running shoes wear what you carry off

crawl through the frost
grass-blades glazing your thighs
hair mousse foaming out of the water, courtyard
of your poverty, derust the winds
thin katabatics
oil your feet well!
And spit on your fists, squeeze your gall bladder
out of the net





surrounded
all-round (all together, bestiary)
...

vulgo aristocracy, oh vulture
why so scorned? You sit patiently at the roadside
turning your ropey throat
now to the saguaros, now towards us, in our super-speedsters
and whether it's the desert fox - or us - , you
are the edge. And grin.
We're allowed to disengage
turn off the lights. Cut the cord
smooth the mudguards and off we go
...

Walked up Auerstrasse, through the building site and forgot to take note
of which way I had gone - no thread, winding in like a tightening screw like
persuasion, until the town was no longer fastened in fibres. Fever land, cyber land,
cut off, was hardly a destination, for anxiously staying put.

A cemetery, in it a theatre, the old ladies still mothy, swathed
in their housecoats. Hats of the ravens. Their discordant conference, wreathed
number on number about the ivy tomb. But their fluttering turned to dust (I admit
that I let out a sob).

Sensitive spectre. Afterwards only the single feathers from the hat, which were
not feathers, and fluttered on to the tombstone, which was a tombstone, and
so on, but forever, unrelated in the rumble garden of absence
into which I dissolved.

The clinic of broad daylight outside the walls a chalking-up of sober
time of day. Gauze and wheel bearings took over the lead, the car showroom, in the
wall of a bridge, offered coffee. ‘Take a seat, that close and wings
genuine! This skin is an animal for slaughter, well-stocked, coupling without
obligation and here, the plastic button tames what you say - you say! Are you
listening at all? Are you listening? Not a sound, now you can please get lost.'
...

Despite haste in permanence garlanding, the hairy clump of smeargod
on the inside of the aisle, without co-ordinates he fills himself, emaciates,
viscously settles in and spreads out. Almost unbelievable that he doesn't start
peeling away; but he's tense, Lot holds him tied by his sandals,
the other end of the thread is pierced through the fingertip of a pale
daughter of Munch.

Above, I may presume that it's still carrying on. In the grey fabric of the cloud cover
and above the damask is where the universe is said to be. The universe in us high above,
below, on, beyond, beside us, the universe without a street map bores
through me, heat-resistant, as though I were the corner of the globe.

That it's not carrying on. No guided tours anyway. The tourist ding-dong train is
starting vertically today and chugging towards the moon. If anybody's hungry
she can pick beans. If she needs to have a pee, please wait, soon
it'll pool and hover off. From star to forehead the woodchip massages us
differently, but the ether drifts in un-ending nearness away from us. Clicking
with flash startles the meteorites, shy as a boss who lacks nothing.
On the backs of the sweet little seals which are up here like in heaven,
honestly, oyster-coloured blotting paper grows, then it slides
away singing a song all the while until it's settled into my hand,
then it falls silent, but carries on humming without sound. The letters
that were pressed away get up and climb with their comical feet up the
ladder of the humming into my ear; there's a ringing again, ringing a sea shanty,
the wings of the gulls souls of the sailors, the soul of the sea
a prayer.

I'm hungry. I was promised beans. I take off my 3D glasses
and notice how flat the head is of the person sitting in front of me.
...

»The bone marrow was somehow
replaced by a kind of airbag.«
The Dawn of Species


Do I need an ouija board? A miracle in harrows?
It need not hurry, slowly.
You encounter flight; growth of branches, light
wishing it would always go on like this - a mix-up in the midwife's hand.
And always rinsing it away.
Washes, pouring through your glassy gaze, from sleep
at the Argus edge; jutting out of evolutions, clammy and sparkling
to calm the coolness
vowels in the aircraft OIL - via unentwined loops
into the country that's bunkering itself in, grublike.

For the colours a mandala, bright
...

»I am boarded in - and they are juggling!«


you pile the bats into clumps of rage
chewing on leather tunics, work muscles
cram yourself into the heart
and nerve strangulators, a heart-nerve strangulator
machine gender, calibrated.

Of course calibrated! And it's abandoned by all reason
with the mini-jugglers in the courtyard of death
you feed in tassels, dried hermaphrodites, crust -


you bite into foam. Huh.
Nibble it off . . .
...

where it mirrors and blurs in its reversal
dries
it would not have expected that

makes icicles in the eye of the pen

like morse-tapping paws
it swipes off into bent-away space

a total lack of instruments

no backing up and breakthrough
neither exhaust nor clouds
of vapour nor wisps

it just can't do it!

What is your position on affirmation
of cats' games and bunkers, on the mixing of drinks per glass?

Everything a constellation
of probable light and bad luck

but illustrating the chronology of ending with sitcoms -
only G. could think of that
...