Since Ingeborg Bachmann's first co,1-

lection of poetry appeared in 1953, she

has been recognized as one of the most
original poets writing in German. A na­
tive Austrian, Bachmann published
two volumes of poetry, two collections
of short stories, one novel (the first part
of an unfinished trilogy, published
posthumously), libretti for operas by
Hans Werner Henze, and numerous es­
says-an oeuvre which during her life­
time was honored with the most presti­
gious German and Austrian literary
prizes and which is now widely consid­
ered in Europe to be among the most
significant of her generation. At her
early death in 1973, Bachmann was
one of the leading figures of German
letters, the respected equal of Gunter
Grass, Thomas Bernhard, Christa
Wolf, and Paul Celan.
In the Storm of Roses is the first ex­
tensive selection of Bachmann's poetry
to appear in English. It contains all the
major poems from the first two collec­
tions, Mortgaged Time (1953) and In­
vocation of the Great Bear (1956),
selected later poems published indi­
vidually, and a few brief essays perti­
nent to Bachmann's life and poetry.
Mark Anderson has provided a critical
introduction, which discusses the style
and dominant themes of Bachmann's
writings as well as her relation to the lit­
erary, philosophical, and social tradi­
tions of the Hapsburg Empire.
Uniquely probing, intelligent and
beautiful, the poems presented in this
bilingual edition finally make a great
modern poet of German accessible to
English-speaking readers.
Mark Anderson is Assistant Profes­
sor of German at Columbia University.

lockert library of Poetry in Translation

 In
the
Storm
of
Roses
 The Lockert Library

of Poetry in Translation

For other titles in the Lockert Library

see page 209

 In 01"
"''S/;l
j!r- � .. Selected

the v/i-�
'
Poems

Storm ��.
Fi:;1
9..
iL��.L.� by

of ��
If. .... Ingeborg

Roses �(3};1 Bachmann

TRANSLATED, EDITED, AND INTRODUCED BY

MARK ANDERSON

PRINCETON

UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright© 1986 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton,
New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey

All Rights Reserved

Li brary of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed
page of this book

ISBN 0-691-06672-8 (cloth)

01428-0 (pbk . )

The German text of the poems i s taken from Ingeborg Bachmann. Werke, vol. 1,
Gedichte, Horspiele, libretti, Uberzetungen, © 1978 R. Pi per & Co. Verlag
The Loc kert Li brary of Poetry in Translation is supported by a bequest from Charles
Lacy Lockert (1888-1974)

This book has been composed in Linotron Bodoni

Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free
paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
Paperbacks, although sati sfactory for personal collections, are not usually
suitable for li brary rebinding
Printed in the United States of Ameri ca by Princeton Univers ity Press
Princeton, New Jersey

DESIGNED BY LAURY A. EGAN

Contents

Translator's Note IX

Introduction : Poet on the Border 3

FROM THE COLLECTION

Mortgaged Time
Leaving Port 27
Departure from England 31
Fall, M y Heart 33
Dark Words 35
Paris 37
The Heavy Freight 39
Autumn Maneuver 41
Mortgaged Time 43
Wood Chips 45
Early Noon 49
Every Day 53
Message 55
The Bridges 57
N ight Flight 59
Psalm 63
In the Storm of Roses 67
Salt and Bread 69
Great Landscape near Vienna 73

FROM THE COLLECTION

Invocation of the Great Bear

The Game Is Over 81
Invocation of the Great Bear 85
My Bird 87
A New Land 91
v
Curriculum Vitae 93
Land of Fog 10 1
Tell Me, Love 10 5
Advertisement 10 9
Word and Afterword 111
The Firstborn Land 1 15
Songs from an Island 1 17
Night Portrait of Rome 125
I n Apulia 127
Shadow Roses Shadow 1 29
Stay 13 1
To the Sun 133
Songs of Flight 137

SELECTED LATER POEM S

[Don't prescribe any faith to this race] 1 57

Hotel de la Paix 1 59
Exile 16 1
After This Deluge 163
Stream 16 5
Go, My Thought 16 7
Aria I 16 9
You Words 17 1
Truly 17 5
Bohemia Lies by the Sea 17 7
Prague January 6 4 18 1
A Kind of Loss 183
Enigma 18 5
No Delicacies 18 7

APPENDIX

Biographical Note 1 93

VI
What I Saw and Heard in Rome 1 95
[On the Origin of the Title "In Apulia"] 20 1
[What Good Are Poems?] 203
The Poem for the Reader 20 5
Chronology 206

v 11
Translator's Note

T HE PRESENT EDITION of Ingeborg Bachmann's poetry is

based on the German edition of her collected works (Werke ,
Munich , R . Piper & Co. Verlag, 19 78 ) and includes all poems
that could be successfully rendered into English. Poems from
Bachmann's youth , as well as intricately rhymed poems (such
as the ten-part cycle "Von einem Land, einem Flu� und den
Seen") had to be omitted . This is unfortunate , for much of
Bachmann's strength as a poet derives from her fusion of a
contemporary idiom with a rigorously crafted , classical form .
But the criterion for any verse translation must be that the
poem work in its own language . This principle has guided the
selection of the poems presented here. Several short prose
works relating to Bachmann's poetry , as well as a biographical
note and chronology , have been added as an appendix. They
should facilitate access to her verse and may also whet the
reader's taste for her prose works, few of which have been
translated into English.
These translations are the work of more hands than my own .
I am grateful to Heinz and Sheila Bachmann, who first saw
enough merit in a primitive version of the manuscript to en­
courage me to improve it; they carefully reviewed the manu­
script at two different stages, locating many errors and offering
suggestions of their own . I would also li ke to thank C hristine
Koschel and Inge von Weidenbaum , Bachmann's friends and
editors , who graciously answered my questions about the more
obscure points of the German originals . Eva Geulen , Klaus
Haberkamm, William McClain, and Rainer Nagele all lent a
native or near-native ear to explain to me Bachmann's use of
German . Jean McGarry worked in the other direction, coun­
seling me when the original German obtruded too heavily on
the poems in English. Two scholar-poets, Michael Fried and
Richard Macksey , set a crucial example for me while I was a
student in the Humanities Center at the Johns Hopkins Uni-

IX
versity. Jonathan Galassi printed a selection of the transla­
tions in the Paris Review (Summer 1 98 4); I thank him for his
support and sustained encouragement. Gretchen Oberfranc
provided much-needed editorial assistance in preparing the
manuscript for publication . Finally , I would like to thank my
friend Jorg Ruthel , with whom, many years ago, I first began
these translations .
The work itself is dedicated t o Laura.

x
 In
the
Storm
of
Roses
Introduction: Poet on the Border
I am not overly fond of poetry and don't
read it willingly. In my reading, poems take
up a very small space.

Ingeborg Bachmann, in an interview

with Alois Rummel, 1964

RARELY has a modern poet of serious rank been feted so

early or with such ceremony as was Ingeborg Bachmann . In
1 953 , the year her first volume of poetry was published , she
received one of the most coveted literary prizes of postwar
Germany from the "Gruppe 4 7 . " A year later the magazine Der
Spiegel ran a cover story on the young Austrian poet , then liv­
ing in Rome , which brought her to the attention of the general
publi c . Two years later, with the publication of her second col­
lection of poetry , public and critical acclaim redoubled. One
of Germany's most noted critics and poets dedicated a chapter
of his book on modem verse to Bachmann, explicitly estab­
lishing her rank and affiliation with poets such as Eliot, Rilke ,
and Gottfried Benn.1 Three years later, in 1 95 9, Bachmann
was asked to give a series of lectures on modern poetics for a
newly created chair at the U niversity of Frankfurt , which
prompted additional publicity , critical acclaim , and praise. A
new star had risen, one of the most brightly burning in postwar
Germany's literary heavens.
But this ascendence was undoubtedly one of Ingeborg
Bachmann's greatest misfortunes. To be continually in the
public eye, to have one's every gesture and word scrutinized ,
analyzed, publicly debated , was , for one as reticient and ha­
bitually taciturn as Bachmann, a painful embarrassment and
a fetter on her work . Thrust into the role of celebrated poet ,
1 See Hans E. Holthusen, "Kiimpfender Sprachgeist. Die Lyrik I ngeborg
Bachmanns," in Das Schone und das Wahre, Munich, 1958, pp. 246-76,
one of the earliest and still most insightful treatments of Bachmann's poetry.

3
Bachmann wrote less and less poetry. Her second collection
was her last; afterwards she published only a handful of indi­
vidual poems, which, although among her finest and most
powerful achievements , seemed to gravitate around the prob­
lem of silence or the impossibility of writing poetry. Many of
them were dedicated to friends and fellow artists , as if the
poems alone would not suffice but needed some external jus­
tification for their existence. In 1 96 4, the year she received
the Georg Biichner Prize , Bachmann published her last poem,
which was also-- l ike Hofmannsthal's Lord Chandos "Let­
ter"-a farewell to poetry. It is entitled "No Delicacies" and
begins:

Nothing pleases me anymore .

Should I
dress a metaphor
with an almond blossom?
crucify syntax
on a trick of light?
Who will beat his brains
over such superfluities-

And it concludes :

Must I
. .. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . .

rip this paper apart,

sweep away the plotted word operas ,
destroying thus: I you and he she it

we you ?

(Still should . The others should . )

My share , it should be dispersed .

4
 If the slow dwindling into silence of Bachmann's poetic
voice may be considered among the most fundamental and ur­
gent questions her poetry raises, it should not be allowed to
obscure the i mportance of her later contributions to other gen­
res and disciplines. For if her uniquely probing voice , at once
moral and philosophical, ultimately effaces itself from poetry ,
it makes itself plainly audible jn more public realms: at the
University of Frankfurt in a series of lectures on modern Eu­
ropean literature entitled "Problems of Contemporary Poetry" ;
in radio plays such as The Good God of Manhattan ( 1958 ) ; in
the short-story collections The Thirtieth Year ( 1 96 1 ) and Si­
multaneous ( 1 97 2 ) ; in the libretti for Hans Werner Henze's
operas The Prince of Homburg ( 1 960 ) and The Young Lord
( 196 5) ; and in her first novel, Malina ( 197 1 ) , a complex, chal­
lenging work that nonetheless became a bestseller in Germany
within a year of its publication . Intended as the first part of a
trilogy called Todesarten (Ways of Dying), the novel might
have become Bachmann's most extensive , successful contin­
uation of problems first raised in her poetry , a vast fresco of
contemporary Viennese society in the manner of Balzac or Jo­
seph Roth , a philosophical meditation on the questions of gen­
der, homeland, and borders . But on 26 September 1973 Bach­
mann's writing came to a halt when a fire broke out in her
apartment. She died on October 1 7 from burns sustained in
the accident , having suffered what a friend termed "the most
terrible of Todesarten." She was forty-seven .

INGEBORG BACHMANN was born in 1926 in Klagenfurt, a small

Austrian city near the Yugoslavian and Italian borders . As she
recalls in an autobiographical note ( see Appendix) :

I grew up in Carinthia, near the border, in a valley

that has two names-a German one and a Slovenian
one . And the house inhabited for generations by my
ancestors-Austrians and Wends-still bears a for­
eign-sounding name. So near the border is yet an-

5
 other border: the border of language. I felt at home
here and on the other side, with the tales of good
and evil spirits from two or three countries. For be­
hind the mountains, j ust an hour away, is Italy .

This remembrance is more than an allusion to the importance

that foreign countries , and particularly Italy , would assume in
her own life ; it is also an acknowledgment of her multilingual
Austrian heritage . For like Rilke , Hofmannsthal , Kafka,
Freud , Wittgenstein, Canetti , and others , Bachmann lived in
an environment of extreme racial , linguisti c , and cultural di­
versity, in a country where the problem of borders posed itself
with unusual urgency . These authors wrote in German , but
often in regions where German was not the dominant lan­
guage , or in places where the presence of racial and linguistic
groups radically different from their own forced upon them the
consciousness of the limits of their own language-world. They
wrote what might be termed a "minority" German (which must
not be confused with regionalism or dialect): a subtle , ironic ,
nuanced language different from the H igh German of northern
Germany . A verse to dogmatic or sweeping generalizations
(what the Austrians would term Phrasen), musical and yet
clear-headed , rarely mystical and yet not without a trace of the
uncanny-this language is also "Austria," the landscape that ,
if anywhere , Bachmann can call home .
In an interview in 1955 Bachmann insisted on the centrality
of the Austrian heritage in her writing:

It appears to me that Austria's particularity (which

shouldn't be thought of in geographical categories,
for its borders are not geographical) has been quite
neglected . Poets like Grillparzer, Hofmannsthal ,
Ri lke, and Robert Musil could never have been
German . The Austrians have participated in so
many cultures and thus developed a sense of the
world which is different from that of the Germans.

6
 This explains their sublime serenity , but also their
sadness and many uncanny characteristics. 2

And yet Bachmann states unequivocally , much as Kafka did

in his diaries a generation earlier, that "all provincial and re­
gional literary products are and will be sentenced to death."
Even for the Austrian writer who feels at home in his tradition
there can be only "German literature" (Interview, p. 1 2 ) . Aus­
tria is now a fragment of its former empire , itself a living bor­
der, as Bachmann phrased it, "between a long, noble tradition
and a gloomy future." Thus modern Austrian writers confront
at least two borders : the linguistic border with High German ,
which forces them into a position of linguistic "excentricity ,"
and the historical border with the now legally defunct Haps­
burg Empire , which severs them from the homeland of their
past. Not surprisingly , Bachmann conceives of the poet as
writing in a state of permanent exile, legally homeless ; her
poem "Exile" begins : "I am a dead man who wanders I regis­
tered nowhere I unknown in the realm of the prefect . . . writ­
ten off long ago." The poet's only home must be built from
vowels, images , rhythms-from the poet's language :

I with the German language

this cloud about me
that I keep as a house
drive through all languages

What is the language Bachmann speaks? What is the script of

the poetic utopia she inhabits, its rivers , coastlines, mountain
ranges-its borders ?

2 This quotation is taken from the informative volume Ingeborg Bach­

mann. Wir miissen wahre Siitze finden, Munich, 1983, a collection of Bach­
mann's conversations and interviews, edited by Christine Koschel and Inge
von Weidenbaum. Henceforth cited as Interview. All translations are my
own.

7
WHAT MOST SURPRISED German audiences when Bach­
mann's poetry first appeared was that it did not sound like any
of the major poetry of the previous generation of poets. Al­
though occasional hints of Hofmannsthal , Trakl , or Brecht
could be detected , especially in the first collection , readers
generally agreed with Giinter Blocker's assertion that she had
created her own categories. 3 Part of this originality was her
characteristic fusion of abstract language with powerfully con­
crete images, or what was termed a "philosophical language of
images . " In her poems the temporal mode always seems on the
verge of dissolving into the spatial , whereas a precise spatial
image often stands for a temporal or philosophical abstraction.
This tendency is evident in the opening poem of her first col­
lection , in which the poetic "I" sails out into uncharted waters
of experience, leaving behind the known borders of land, the
small fishing hut , the sandbanks, and a lone tree on the cliffs.
In the second stanza the poet addresses him or herself:4

The dark water, thousand-eyed ,

opens its lashes of white foam

Gunter Blocker, "Die gestundete Zeit," in Ingeborg Bachmann. Eine

3

Einfilhrung, Munich, 1968, pp. 22-25.

" The question of the gender of Ingeborg Bachmann's poetic voice, al­
though not raised to the explicit level of reflection it attains in her later prose
'
(especially Malina), still underlies many of the poems. Almost always the
loved one addressed by the poet is female, which has led some feminist crit­
ics to speak of a "lesbian aesthetics. " But the identification of Bachmann
with the poetic voice in her poems needs some critical scrutiny. Bachmann's
own most important statement on the subject can be found in a 1971 inter­
view in which she speaks of the mixed gender of the narrator in Malina:
"One of my oldest memories . . . is that I can narrate only from a masculine
position. But I have often asked myself: why is that? I didn't understand, not
even in my short stories, why I had to adopt the masculine 'I' so often. [In
writing Malina] it was as if I had found my own person, that is, had not de­
nied this feminine 'I' and still placed emphasis on the masculine 'I' " (In­
terview, pp. 99-100). In the present context, the poet will generally be re­
ferred to as female, a pragmatic decision that should not be interpreted as a
resolution of the problem.

8
 to gaze at you , wide and long,
thirty days long.

Here the temporal adjective "long" applies to the seeing

waves , so that a month's journey , the poet's journey , is con­
cretized with the image of an aquatic face. Water uncannily
comes to life and is subj ected to human laws of time. Sea and
time merge threateningly midway through the poem when
water monsters are used to symbolize the empty flow of human
life:

Blowing into conches the monsters of the sea glide

onto the backs of the waves , they ride and strike
the days into pieces with bared sabers ; a red trace
hangs in the water, sleep puts you there ,
on the rest of your hours ,
and your senses forsake you .

The threat is met with the poem's concluding evocation of a

"sun shore , the sun shore that always returns . " Against the
dark flow of water and mortal time , against the land left behind
with its storm-damaged tree , is posited the image of a sunlit
utopia, which endlessly materializes and yet is still un­
reached .
A similar, though grimmer, version of departure is provided
by the title poem of the collection Mortgaged Time: "Harder
days are coming. I The mortgaged time , revocable at any hour,
I takes shape on the horizon . " Again time materializes into a
threatening form , and the poet must leave behind lover, the
light of flowers , the fish intestines "grown cold in the wind. "
This time the command is issued without the comfort of a
utopic telos:

Don't look round.

Lace up your shoe .
Drive back the hounds.

9
 Throw the fish in the sea.
Blow out the lupines !

Harder days are coming.

Another powerlul obj ectification of time is realized in the

title poem of Bachmann's second collection , Invocation of the
Great Bear. The title refers to the constellation Ursa Maj or,
that great bear in the sky made of shimmering stars :

Great Bear, come down , shaggy night,

cloud-coated beast with the old eyes ,
star eyes.
Through the thic kets your paws break
shimmering with their claws ,
star claws .

This image of a mythic , galactic time evokes the poet's own

mortality and is perceived as a threat , in this case as a wild
animal . The bear plays with human worlds as with pine cones
and orders a ritual feast of sacrifice. The final image is that of
the beginning of history , the fall out of heaven into sin and hu­
man time. Christian angels are germanized into the fir trees of
the North , "the great , winged ones I hurled down from Para­
dise . "
Bachmann's "philosophical language of images," a s well as
her poetic meditation on the problem of time , were fostered by
her study of philosophy . After the war, Bachmann began
studying philosophy and law in Innsbruck and Graz , later
moving to still-occupied Vienna and devoting herself to phi­
losophy , psychology , and German literature. There she wrote
a dissertation entitled The Critical Reception of Martin Hei­
degger's Existential Philosophy under the supervision of Vic­
tor Kraft , a follower of Moritz Schlick and Rudolf C arnap of
the "Vienna Circle . " Recalling the influence of this type of an­
alytical philosophy on her own thinking, Bachmann charac-

10
teristically stressed its "Austrian" rationality: "Another influ­
ence was exceedingly important for me: the Vienna School . In
Vienna we have always waged a fierce battle against German
metaphysics: down with German metaphysics which is our
misfortune !" (Interview, p. 1 36 ).
So it was in the spirit of antagonism that the precocious
twenty-two-year-old Austrian approached the author of Being
and Time, to her the most metaphysical and "irrational" of
modern German thinkers . Bachmann herself explains that her
thesis was openly critical of Heidegger; she hoped , naively ,
that she would "topple" his German metaphysical system:

Yes , I always say in reference to my thesis that it

was written against Heidegger. For then I thought,
at the age of twenty-two, that I would topple this
man . . . Of course the Vienna logicians, Carnap
and others , had tried to reduce Heidegger ad absur­
dum, although Heidegger of course was not even
concerned with their formulation of the problem.
(Interview, p . 1 37)

Bachmann naturally did not succeed in toppling Heidegger.

Ironically , he was one of the few people, she claims, to have
read her thesis . And strangely enough , for his seventieth
birthday he asked his publishers for a F estschrift containing a
poem by Bachmann and one by Paul Celan . "We both said
no," Bachmann relates , "for I've read Heidegger's rectorial
address [delivered at the U niversity of Freiburg in 19 33 and
openly pro-Nazi], and even if this speech didn't exist there
would still be something [objectionable] in his work . We are
always in danger of being seduced by German irrationalism"
(Interview, p. 1 37).
The philosopher who , Bachmann freely admits , influenced
her was her Viennese contemporary Ludwig Wittgenstein:

I wouldn't call it a direct influence, for the gap be­

tween philosophy and writing is too large . But what

11
 I really learned, and this is why I speak of an influ­
ence, was an incredibly precise mode of thinking
and clear expression. (Interview, p. 136 )

His Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations were almost

unknown in German-speaking countries after the war, and
Bachmann helped convince the Suhrkamp Verlag to republish
them in an accessible edition . In 1 953, the same year her first
collection of poetry appeared, she wrote one of the earliest
German critical essays on Wittgenstein's thought : "Ludwig
Wittgenstein: A Chapter in the Recent History of German Phi­
losophy. " 5 Bachmann never conceived of philosophy and po­
etry as mutually exclusive enterprises . Like her fellow Austri­
ans Hermann Broch and Robert Musil, she employed both the
language of science-logical, mathematical , precise-and
the "language of the soul" in her writings . Her ethical concern
required both.
Bachmann clearly saw Wittgenstein's philosophical proj ect
as parallel to her own in poetry . In her essay of 1 953 she sin­
gled out Wittgenstein's confrontation with the limits-or bor­
ders-of language :

What merits our renewed and endlessly renewable

consideration are not [Wittgenstein's] clarifying,
negative propositions, which limit philosophy to a
logical analysis of scientific language and restrict
the analysis of the real world to specialized scien­
tific fields ; but rather his despairing attempt to chart
the limits of linguistic expression, which provides
the Tractatus with its inner tension, a tension into
wh ich he eventually disappears . 6

:; First published in f<'. ankfurter Hefte. Zeitschriftfiir Kultur und Politik,

..

July 195:�.
"Taken from Ingeborg Bachmann. Werke, ed. Christine Koschel, Inge
von Weidenbaum, and Clemens Munster, Munich, 1978 , vol. 4, p. 13 ( my
emphasis).

12
Wittgenstein's attention to the limits of language corresponds
to Bachmann's own view that "we stand, think , and speak on
this side of the 'borders.' The feeling of the world as a bordered
fragment arises because we ourselves, as metaphysical sub­
jects, are no longer parts of the world but rather 'borders' "
(Werke, vol. 4 , p . 20 ) . The same thought finds expression in
one of Bachmann's last poems, "Bohemia Lies by the Sea," it­
self a re-working of Shakespeare's affirmation in The Winter's
Tale that the "deserts of Bohemia" could be reached by ship: 7

I border still on a word and on a different land ,

I border, like little else, on everything more and more ,

a man from Bohemia, a vagrant , a player

who holds nothing and whom nothing holds,
granted only , by a questionable sea, to gaze at the
land of my choice.

These lines might be considered one of Bachmann's most em­

blematic statements on the function of the poet: as a bridge or
border to utopia, both land and language , an imaginative "no­
where" where possibility abides rather than necessity , and the
speaking subj ect is free.

I N 1 9 53 B A CH M A NN moved to Italy , voluntarily exiling

herself from her native Austria. Her discovery of the Mediter­
ranean landscape profoundly influenced her poetry and prose
alike , as portrayed in a poem of her second collection entitled
"The Firstborn Land . " It begins:

To my firstborn land , to the South

I went-and found , naked and poor,

7 The Winter's Tale, III, iii: "Thou art penect then our ship hath touched

upon I The deserts of Bohemia?" Bachmann reverses Shakespeare's nega­

tive formulation of the "desert" Bohemia, appropriating it for her utopic con­
ception of "Austria."

13
 and up to their waist in the sea,
city and castle.

At first the poet is blind , and the skeleton of a tree hanging

over her offers no dream . "No rosemary blooms there , I no bird
refreshes I its song in the fountain." But the poison of a viper
makes the poet close her eyes, paradoxically preparing for the
awakening of vision :

And as I drank myself,

and the earthquakes rocked
my firstborn land ,
my eyes awoke .

Life fell down to me.

There the stone isn't dead .

The wick flies up
when a glance sets it alight .

Life "falls down" to the poet in the south , in "Italy ," which like
Austria must be understood as more than a geographical
space, as the landscape of Dante , Petrarch, and Ungaretti , as
the mouth of a cave leading back to classical Rome , the cata­
combs of the early Christians, and the eruptions of Vesuvius.
An example of her understanding of this landscape is the es­
say "What I Saw and Heard in Rome" (included in the present
collection), in which the stones of the ancient city are brought
to speak of their complex, layered past.
Paradoxically , in Italy Bachmann is not "in exile." To Kuno
Raber she remarked : "Now I am residente and have my per­
manent home in Rome ; nothing can happen to me anymore ."8
And i n a statement prepared for a Vienna radio station , she

11 "Erinnerung an Ingeborg Bachmann," Siiddeutsche Zeitung, 12 Octo­

ber 1974.

14
explained: "I have never been able to explain why I moved to
Rome. The city has something natural in it for me . . . [for] I
grew up on the Italian border and heard Italian spoken at
home. " While writing in German (the "cloud" she keeps
around her like a house) in her Rome apartment, Bachmann is
in two places at once, leads a doubled existence: "From the
moment I enter my study I am in Vienna, not Rome . " This
doubleness grants her not only the necessary distance for her
work but also an intensified , focused vision of her life in Aus­
tria: "I am more in Vienna because I am in Rome , for without
this distance I couldn't imagine writing" (Interview, p. 65 ) .
Bachmann's second collection of poems was published i n
1 956 , three years after her move to Italy , and clearly reflects
in images and form this change in her environment. Critics
have generally concurred that it marks a strengthening of her
poetic voice. The images are calmer and yet more powerfully
direct. She makes frequent use of rhyme and measured verse ,
adopting, as one critic put it, a classicism that merges with the
oldest images and archetypes of Western literature . 9 Or, as
Bachmann phrased it in her essay on Rome , referring to the
three cypress trees reflected on the glass fac;ade of the railway
station, engraved in an unmistakable script: "The classical
form is the simplest , and old and new texts represent it equally
well . "
What gives a n i nner tension t o this collection is the persist­
ent juxtaposition and rivalry between a Germani c , wooded ,
snow-filled landscape and a vibrant Mediterranean seascape
of light, artistic beau ty , vision , and "life . " The temporal
movement of the collection is also a migration from North to
South , from the initial , justly celebrated poems "Invocation of
the Great Bear," "My Bird," and "Land of Fog" to the equally
fine hymn of praise "To the Sun" and the concluding poem
cycle "Songs of Flight. " "Land of Fog" presents Bachmann's
most extreme vision of a mythopoeic North , all the more bar-

9 See Holthusen, "Kampfender Sprachgeist."

15
ren and chill because it is perceived through the eyes of the
jealous, abandoned lover;

In winter my love
is among the beasts of the forest.
The vixen knows
I must be back before morning
and she laughs .
How the clouds tremble ! And a layer
of brittle ice falls
on my snow-collar.

"Faithless is my love ," the poet laments , concluding with the

bitter condemnation of her past: "It is fog land I have seen , I
fog heart I have eaten . " Simple , direct, classical , this poem
derives part of its force by echoing the biblical cadence and
theme of the Song of Songs , 10 although the latter's content has
been ironically reversed . The communion with nature , the in­
terchangeability of human , animal , and plant forms posited in
Solomon's "High Song" is in Bachmann's version granted only
to the faithless lover, not to the jealous speaker who stands
alone on the riverbank .
Yet it would b e wrong t o assume that the poles o f North and
South can be equated in Bachmann's poetry with a beautiful ,
vital present and an evil past. A more just metaphor would be
the positive and negative points of a battery, both of which are
needed to generate a current of poetic energy . In Invocation of
the Great Bear, Bachmann exploits her myth of North and
South and the contrasting associations they provide , j ust as
earlier she had relied on the contrast between land and water,
the rivers and the banks between which they flow. But she spe-

10 "I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. As a lily among brambles,

so is my love among maidens .. . ." Song of Solomon, chap. 2, v.1-2. This
hook also seems to have influenced portions of " Songs of Flight," just as gen­
erally Baehmann's language reflects her sustained readings of the Old and
New Testaments.

16
cifically rejects the notion of a successful "escape" to the
South, be it the German Romantics' conception of Italy or the
"pilgrimages" of contemporary Northern tourists in search of
sun and exotic landscapes. Already in the early poem "Au­
tumn Maneuver" she had poked fun at the latter in the ironic
lines:

Let us take a journey ! Let us see sunsets under

cypresses
or palm trees , or in orange groves,
at reduced prices , sunsets
that have no equal !

And she affirms in the opening stanza of the same poem that
"flight to the South , where the birds fly , won't help us."
Thus Bachmann's use of light imagery is not as categori­
cally affirmative as it might appear. The "South" opens the
poet's eyes, introduces her to beauty , gives her "life . " But this
same process exposes her to the inevitable danger of blind­
ness. Again in "Autumn Maneuver" we read the characteristic
lines: "and sometimes I a splinter of dream-filled marble hits
me I where I am vulnerable, through beauty , in the eye . " The
experience of classical antiquity , the beauty of a marble col­
umn, is also one of pain, which ultimately intercedes between
poet and world , closing off the poet's sight. The same thought
is formulated in the concluding lines of "To the Sun ," which
begins as an unconditional hymn of praise to the sun's beauty ,
virtues, even miracles, but finishes thus : "Hence not for the
moon or the stars . . . I But for your sake and soon endlessly
and as if nothing else mattered I I shall lament the unavoidable
loss of my eyes . " The light of beauty does not result in A uf­
kliirung or illumination , but in darkness.
For the Southern landscape is also marked by unrequited
love and the pain of j ealousy. Bachmann's fine poem cycle
"Songs of Flight" is preceded by the ominous stanza from Pe­
trarch's [Link]: "Dura legge d'Amor! ma, hen che obliqua, I

17
Servar convens i . " The law of Love is severe , even obscure , but
we must serve it. The German title "Lieder auf der Flucht,"
literally "Songs [written] while in Flight ," makes more explicit
than English usage will allow that the poet is still denied a
homeland. Here North and South meet ; the exotic Mediterra­
nean landscape of palm trees and oranges is immobilized by
snow and ice:

The palm frond breaks in snow,

the stairs are falling in.
The city lies stiff and gleams
in a strange winter glow.

The rich winter tinsel ,

the mandarin gold ,
whirls in the wild squalls .
The blood orange rolls.

Later the depiction of human love becomes a communion with

this Mediterranean territory, a remarkably sensuous merging
of poet and world :

Within , your breast is [Link]

that pulls me to its bed .
Within, your hip is a landing pier
for my ships , coming home
from too long a voyage .

Withi n , your flesh is melon light,

sweet and delicious unendingly .

But inevitably this union results in the pain of separation :

''You want the summer lightning, and fling the knives . . I .

and finally you sense how love expires . " Now the sun does not
warm , the sea is voiceless . The dead have not been released

18
from their snow-locked graves . "Release me ," the poet im-
p 1 ores , "I cannot d.1e any 1 onger. "
It is song, after the poet's death, that melts the winter of the
Mediterranean:

Wail for my death and then hear me again .

The snow basket tips over a:nd the water sings ,
all sounds merge into the Toledo, the ice is thawing.

Syllables in oleander,
word in acacian green,
cascades from the wall .

In the final stanzas of the cycle , Petrarch's notion of the

triumph of love is re-stated : "Love has a triumph and death
has one , the time and the time thereafter. " But we have none:
"Only the sinking of stars about us. Reflected splendor and si­
lence . " Then Bachmann concludes , echoing Rilke , 1 1 with
lines that might well be placed as an epitaph to all her work :
"Yet the song above the dust I one day will rise above u s . "

THE Po EM s written after "Songs o f Flight," though unmis­

takably from Bachmann's hand, read as if the poet had
reached a higher, more sovereign , and yet more painful pla­
teau of consciousness. The clipped Austrian accent is there ,
the same rhythm and lightly atonal musicality , the lamenting,
never self-pitying voice. And yet an inner certainty i s missing.
The poems are luminous, but suffused with a light that knows
itself close to extinction. As noted previously , these are essen­
tially poems about poems , or rather, poems about the impos­
sibility of writing poetry . Bachmann continually confronts the
problem of the poet's "dying words," her last poem, denying
what she feels is imminent:
11
See the conclusion to Rilke's nineteenth sonnet in the first part of his
Sonnets to Orpheus: "Einzig das Lied iiberm Land I heiligt und feiert" ("Only
the song above the land I sanctifies and celebrates").

19
 And above all not this: the image
in the web of dust, hollow roll
of syllables, last words.

No dying word,
you words!

Her poem "Enigma," dedicated to the man who, years earlier

in Italy , had set her poetry to musi c , is dark and resigned ;

Nothing more will come .

Spring will never be again .

You shouldn't cry ,

the music says.

Otherwise
no one
says
anything.

Of course , Bachmann also wrote "Bohemia Lies by the

Sea," arguably one of her best poems, which reaffirms the
same belief in a coming utopia that had so strongly informed
her earlier work and , perhaps, had permitted her to stay the
sentence of silence. But then she did write her last poem, did
articulate the wish for self-obliteration in the last line of "No
Delicacies" : "My share , it should be dispersed . " In her ac­
ceptance speech for the Georg Buchner Prize , Christa Wolf
quoted Bachmann's last poem, commenting:

This is language on the other side of belief, but lan­

guage nevertheless. Metaphors are rej ected by a
metaphor; the lines that renounce first-rate morsels
of words are themselves first-rate. The poem that
disowns art must paradoxically be a work of

20
 art. . . . The poet who expresses herself completely
does not cancel herself out: the wish for obliteration
remams as a witness. Her share will not be dis­
persed.12

Why did Bachmann stop writing poetry ? The question is too

complex to be answered in the present context. Bachmann
herself tended to be evasive in responding to the question ,
which her readers never tired of asking. Perhaps the more im­
portant question is not why she stopped writing poetry but why
she moved from poetry to other genres. For Bachmann never
stopped writing. As Christa Wolf has pointed out, not only
does her poetry continue to speak long after the poet has
voiced the wish for self-obliteration ; but Bachmann also began
to write works for a wider audience--works less hermetic ,
more widely read , more effective i n a social and political
sense . Many of the poems in Mortgaged Time had a Brechtian
ring in their critique of Germany's Nazi past. But they were
articulated in a "grand style," their perspective {as in the
sparse but somewhat ponderous "Message") was that of Welt­
geschichte. Bachmann's last poems seem to issue from the per­
sonal grief caused not by the crimes of German leaders but by
the suffering of the nameless. In "No Delicacies" the poet con­
fesses:

12
The title of Christa Wolfs acceptance speech ("Should I dress a meta­
phor with an almond blossom?") is taken from Bachmann's last poem, "No
Delicacies." The speech was reprinted in an English translation, in New
German Critique, no. 23, Spring I Summer 1981. This poem may not ac­
tually be Bachmann's last. Several others, including "Enigma" and "Truly,"
may have been written after "No Delicacies," although "Truly" is based on
an earlier, unpublished poem entitled "On the Way to Prague." However,
Wolfs comments, as well as my own about the problem of silence, are valid
no matter what the last poem is. Although Bachmann undoubtedly at­
tempted to write after "No Delicacies," this poem reads as if nothing else
could follow-which is apparently why her editors placed it at the end of her
collected poems.

21
 I have learned to be considerate
with the words
that exist
(for the lowest class)

hunger
disgrace
tears
and
darkness

If Bachmann's "silence" is to be understood at all , it must

be seen against the ground of her peculiarly Austrian moral
consciousness , her concern with the right words for "the low­
est class . " Like her fellow Austrian Hofmannsthal , whose
Lord Chandos "Letter" expressed moral as well as metaphys­
ical despair and who abandoned poetry for the more social
genre of drama, Bachmann was increasingly concerned with
the fate of the unnamed , the homeless , the ordinary victims of
oppression , and often took part in the left-wing protest move­
ments of the period . She believed that war never really ends
but is waged in private circumstances . And so writing came to
be a kind of antidote to reality , a gesture of exposure and con­
demnation, a statement "against the continuing terror." For
"we don't really die of dis �ases ," she insisted , "we die as a
result of what has been done to us" (Interview, p . 1 10) .
Bachmann's voice, the "human voice" praised by the polit­
ically committed Christa Wolf, did not die out with her last
poem. It changed tac k , field , and register, but it is clearly the
same voice. We hear it, for instance, in the refrain that runs
through her last novel , Malina, lamenting the crime and suf­
fering of the present , crying out, against all odds , for the cre­
ation of what she came to define as "utopia" :

A day will come when all people have black-golden

eyes, they will see beauty and be released from filth

22
 and every burden, they will lift themselves into the
air, walk beneath the waters, forget their callouses
and afflictions . A day will come, they will be free,
all people will be free, even from the kind of free­
dom they have imagined . A greater freedom will
come to be, it will exceed all measure, it will be for
a whole life . . . .

These words are the last steps of a long journey, a journey that
began twenty years earlier in the poems presented here.

23
FROM THE COLLECTION

Mortgaged Time
Ausfahrt

V om Lande steigt Rauch auf.

Die kleine Fischerhiitte behalt im Aug,
denn die Sonne wird sinken,
ehe du zehn Meilen zuriickgelegt hast.

Das dunkle Wasser, tausendaugig�

schlagt die Wimper von weiBer Gischt auf,
um dich anzusehen, groB und lang,
dreiBig Tage lang.

Auch wenn das Schiff hart stampft

und einen unsicheren Schritt tut,
steh ruhig auf Deck.

An den Tischen essen sie jetzt

den geraucherten Fisch ;
dann werden die Manner hinknien
und die Netze flicken,
aber nachts wird geschlafen,
eine Stunde oder zwei Stunden,
und ihre Hande werden weich sein,
frei von Salz und 01,
weich wie das Brot des Traumes,
von dem sie brechen.

Die erste Welle der Nacht schlagt ans Ufer,

die zweite erreicht schon dich .
Aber wenn du scharf hiniiberschaust,
kannst du den Baum noch sehen,
der trotzig den Arm hebt
- einen hat ihm der Wind schon abgeschlagen
- und du denkst: wie lange noch,
wie lange noch

26
Leavin g Port

Smoke rises off the land .

Keep your eye on the small fishing hut ,
for the sun will sink
before you've put ten miles behind you .

The dark water, thousand-eyed ,

opens its lashes of white foam
to gaze at you , wide and long,
thirty days long.

Even when the ship pitches hard

and takes a faltering step,
stay calm on deck.

At the tables now they're eating

smoked fish ;
then the men will kneel down
and start mending the nets .
But at night they sleep ,
an hour or two,
and their hands will grow soft,
free from salt and oil ,
as soft as the dream bread
they break .

The first wave of night rolls onto the shore ,

the second has already reached you .
But if you look closely over there
you can still see the tree
holding up a defiant arm
-the wind has already knocked one down
-and you think to yourself: how much longer,
how much longer

27
wird das krumme Holz den Wettern standhalten ?
Vom Land ist nichts mehr zu sehen.
Du hattest dich mit einer Hand in die Sandbank krallen
oder mit einer Locke an die Klippen heften sollen.

In die Muscheln blasend, gleiten die Ungeheuer des Meers

auf die Riicken der Wellen, sie reiten und schlagen
mit blanken Sabeln die Tage in Stucke, eine rote Spur
bleibt im Wasser, dort legt dich der Schlaf hin,
auf den Rest deiner Stunden,
und dir schwinden die Sinne.

Da ist etwas mit den Tauen geschehen,

man ruft dich, und du hist froh,
daB man dich braucht. Das Beste
ist die Arbeit auf den Schiffen,
die weithin f ahren,
das Taukniipfen, das W asserschopf en,
das VVandedichten und das Hiiten der Fracht .
Das Beste ist, miide zu sein und am Abend
hinzufallen . Das Beste ist, am Morgen,
mit dem ersten Licht, hell zu werden,
gegen den unverriickbaren Himmel zu stehen,
der ungangbaren Wasser nic:ht zu achten
und das Schiff iiber die Wellen zu heben,
auf das immerwiederkehrende Sonnenufer zu .

28
will that twisted wood hold out against the storms?
There is nothing left of the land.
You should have clawed into the sandbank with your hand
or pinned yourself to the cliffs with a lock of hair.

Blowing into conches the monsters of the sea glide

onto the backs of the waves , they ride and strike
the days into pieces with bared sabers ; a red trace
hangs in the water, sleep puts you there,
on the rest of your hours ,
and your senses forsake you .

Now something's wrong with the rigging,

they call you and you're glad
to be needed . The best thing
on ships that travel far
is the work-
knotting ropes and bailing out water,
sealing walls and guarding the freight.
The best thing is to be tired and , in the evening,
to fall into bed. The best thing is, in the morning,
to rise with the first light,
standing against an immovable sky,
paying no heed to impassable waters ,
raising your ship over the waves
toward the sun shore ,
the sun shore that always returns.

29
Abschied von En gland

lch habe deinen Boden kaum betreten,

schweigsames Land, kaum einen Stein beruhrt,
ich war von deinem Himmel so hoch gehoben,
so in Wolken, Dunst und in noch Ferneres gestellt,
daB ich dich schon verlieB,
als ich vor Anker ging.

Du hast meine Augen geschlossen

mit Meerhauch und Eichenblatt,
von meinen Tranen begossen,
hieltst du die Graser satt;
aus meinen Traumen gelOst,
wagten sich Sonnen heran,
doch all es war wieder fort,
wenn dein Tag begann .
Alles blieb ungesagt .

Durch die StraBen flatterten die groBen grauen Vogel

und wiesen mich aus .
War ich je hier ?

lch wollte nicht gesehen we ;den .

Meine Augen sind offen .

Meerhauch und Eichenblatt ?
Unter den Schlangen des Meers
seh ich, an deiner Statt,
das Land meiner Seele erliegen .

Ich habe seinen Boden nie betreten.

:�o
Departure from En gland

I have scarcely trod your soil ,

silent land , scarcely touched a stone.
Your sky had lifted me so high ,
placed me so in clouds, mist and beyond
that I left you
when I cast anchor.

You shut my eyes

with sea breeze and oak leaf;
watered with my tears ,
you kept the grasses sated ;
freed from my dreams ,
suns dared to approach.
Yet everything was gone again
when your day began .
Everything remained unsaid .

Great gray birds fluttered through the streets

and banished me.
Was I ever here?

I did not want to be seen .

My eyes are open.

Sea breeze and oak leaf?
Beneath the snakes of the ocean
I see , in your stead ,
the land of my soul succumb.

I have never trod her soil.

31
Fall ab, Herz

Fall ab, Herz, vom Baum der Zeit,

fallt, ihr Blatter, aus den erkalteten A sten,
die einst die Sonne umarmt',
fallt, wie Tranen fallen aus dem geweiteten Aug !

Fliegt noch die Locke taglang im Wind

u m des Landgotts gebraunte Stirn,

unter dem Hemd preBt die Faust

schon die klaffende Wunde .

Drum sei hart, wenn der zarte Rucken der Wolken

sich dir einmal noch beugt,
nimm es fur nichts, wenn der Hymettos die Waben
noch einmal dir fullt .

Denn wenig gilt dem Landmann ein H alm in der Durre,

wenig ein Sommer vor unserem groBen Geschlecht.

Und was bezeugt schon dein Herz ?

Zwischen gestern und morgen schwingt es,
lautlos und fremd,
und was es schlagt,
ist schon sein Fall aus der Zeit.

:-3 2
Fall , My Heart

Fall , my heart, from the tree of time,

fall , you leaves , from icy branches
that once the sun embraced ,
fall, as tears fall from the widened eye !

For days the earth god's hai r blows in the wind

about his sun-worn brow,
while his fist clenches ·

the gaping wound beneath his shirt .

S o b e hard when the tender back of a cloud

bows down to you once more.
Pay no heed to the Hymettus bee,
should he fill your honeycomb again .

For a straw i n times of drought means little t o the peasant,

a summer little to our great lineage .

And to what can your heart attest?

Between yesterday and tomorrow it swings,
foreign and mute,
and what it beats ,
is its fall out of time.

33
Dunkles zu s agen

Wie Orpheus spiel ich

auf den Saiten des Lebens den Tod
und in die Schonheit der Erde
und deiner Augen, die den Himmel verwalten,
weiB ich nur Dunkles zu sagen.

VergiB nicht, daB auch du, plotzlich,

an j enem Morgen, als dein Lager
noch naB war von Tau und die Nelke
an deinem Herzen schlief,
den dunklen FluB sahst,
der an dir vorbeizog.

Die Saite des Schweigens

gespannt auf die Welle von Blut,
griff ich dein tOnendes Herz.
Verwandelt ward deine Locke
ins Schattenh aar der Nacht,
der Finsternis schwarze Flocken
beschneiten dein Antlitz.

Und ich gehor dir nicht zu. •

Beide klagen wir nun.

Aber wie Orpheus weiB ich

auf der Seite des Todes das Leben,
und mir blaut
dein fur immer geschlossenes Aug.
Dark Words

Like Orpheus I play

death on the strings of life.
And in the face of the earth's beauty
and your eyes , that govern the heavens,
I have only dark words to say.

Don't forget that one morning,

when your camp was still wet
with dew and the carnation
slept by your heart ,
you also saw the dark river
dart past.

Its string of silence

stretched taut on a wave of blood ,
I plucked your sounding heart.
Your hair was changed
into shadow locks of night,
black flakes of darkness
snowed down on your face .

And I don't belong t o you .

Now we are both lamenting.

But like Orpheus I know of

life on the side of death .
And blue before me
I see your eye , forever closed .

35
Paris

Aufs Rad der Nacht geflochten

schlafen die Verlorenen
in den donnernden Gangen unten,
<loch wo wir sind, ist Licht.

Wir haben die Arme voll Blumen,

Mimosen aus vielen J ahren ;
Goldnes fallt von Briicke zu Briicke
atemlos in den FluI3.

Kalt ist <las Licht,

noch kalter der Stein vor dem Tor,
und die Schalen der Brunnen
sind sch on zur Halfte geleert.

Was wird sein, wenn wir, vom Heimweh

benommen bis ans fliehende Haar,
hier bleiben und fragen : was wird sein,
wenn wir die Schonheit bestehen ?

Auf den W agen des Lich ts gehoben,

wachend auch, sind wir verloren,
auf den StraBen der Genien oben,
<loch wo wir nicht sind, ist N acht.

:-J 6
Paris

Lashed to the wheel of night,

the lost ones sleep
down below, in the thundering tunnels­
but where we are, there is light.

Our arms are laden with flowers,

mimosa from many years.
Gold falls from bridge to bridge,
breathless in the river.

Cold is the light,

colder still the stone before the gate;
and all the fountain basins
are half drained.

What will happen if we stay here,

homesick to the root of our flowing hair,
and ask: what will happen
if we sun'ive beauty's trial?

Lifted high on the wagon of light,

though waking, we are lost
in the streets of genius, above­
but where we are not, there is night.

37
Die groBe Fracht

Die groBe Fracht des Sommers ist verladen,

das Sonnenschiff im Hafen liegt bereit,
wenn hinter dir die Mowe stiirzt und schreit.
Die groBe Fracht des Sommers ist verladen .

Das Sonnenschiff im H afen liegt bereit,

und auf die Lippen der Galionsfiguren
tritt unverhiillt das Lacheln der Lemuren .
Das Sonnenschiff im H afen liegt bereit.

Wenn hinter dir die M owe stiirzt und schreit,

kommt aus dem Westen der Befehl zu sinken ;
<loch off nen Augs wirst du im Licht ertrinken,
wenn hinter dir die Mowe stiirzt und schreit .

38
The Heavy Frei ght

The heavy freight of summer is on board,

waiting in the harbor the sun ship lies
when at your back the seagull swoops and cries.
The heavy freight of summer is on board .

Waiting in the harbor the sun ship lies ,

and along the lips of figureheads
the cunning smile of lemurs threads.
Waiting in the harbor the sun ship lies.

When at your back the seagull swoops and cries

the order to sink comes eastward into sight.
Yet open-eyed you will drown in light
when at your back the seagull swoops and cries.

39
Herbstmanover

lch sage nicht : das war gestern . Mit wertlosem

Sommergeld in den T aschen lie gen wir wieder
auf der Spreu des Hohns, im Herbstmanover der Zeit.
Und der Fluchtweg nach Siiden kommt uns nicht,
wie den Vogeln, zustatten . Voriiber, am Abend,
ziehen Fischkutter und Gondeln, und manchmal
trifft mich ein Splitter traumsatten Marmors,
wo ich verwundbar bin, durch Schonheit, im Aug.

In den Zeitungen Iese ich viel von der Kalte

und ihren Folgen, von Torichten und Toten,
von Vertriebenen, Mordern und Myriaden
von Eisschollen, aber wenig, was mir behagt.
Warum auch ? Vor dem Hettler, der mittags kommt,
schlag ich die Tiir zu, denn es ist Frieden
und man kann sich den Anblick ersparen, aber nicht
im Regen das freudlose Sterben der Blatter.

LaBt uns eine Reise tun ! LaBt uns unter Zypressen

oder auch unter Palmen oder in den Orangenhainen
zu verbilligten Preisen Sonnenuntergange sehen,
die nicht ihresgleichen haberl ! LaBt uns die
unbeantworteten Briefe an das Ge stern verges sen !
Die Zeit tut Wunder. Kommt sie uns aber unrecht,
mit dem Pochen der Schuld : wir sind nicht zu Hause.
Im Keller des Herzens, schlaflos, find ich mich wieder
auf der Spreu des Hohns, im Herbstmanover der Zeit.

40
Autumn Maneuver

I don't say : that was before. Our pockets stuffed

with worthless summer money , we lie once more
on the chaff of scorn , in the autumn maneuver of time .
And flight to the South ,
where the birds fly , won't help us. In the evening
fishing trawlers and gondolas glide past, and sometimes
a splinter of dream-filled marble hits me
where I am vulnerable, through beauty , in the eye .

In the newspapers I read much about the cold

and its consequences, about fools and the dead ,
about the banished, the murderers and myriads
of ice-floes, but little that comforts me .
Should it be otherwise? At noon a beggar comes
and I slam the door in his face ; for there is peace
and you can spare yourself an unpleasant sight , though not
the joyless dying of leaves when it rains.

Let us take a journey ! Let us see sunsets under cypresses

or palm trees , or in orange groves ,
at reduced prices , sunsets
that have no equal ! Let us forget
our unanswered letters to yesterday !
Time works wonders. But should it come unjustly ,
with the throb of guilt: we are not at home .
In the cellar of my heart , sleepless , I find myself once more
on the chaff of scorn , in the autumn maneuver of time.

41
Die gestundete Zeit

Es kommen hartere Tage.

Die auf Widerruf gestundete Zeit
wird sichtbar am Horizont.
Bald muBt du den Schuh schniiren
und die Hunde zurtickj agen in die Marschhofe.
Denn die Eingeweide der Fische
sind kalt geworden im Wind.
Armlich brennt das Licht der Lupinen.
Dein Blick spurt im Nebel :
die auf Widerruf gestundete Zeit
wird sichtbar am Horizont .

Driiben versinkt dir die Geliebte im Sand,

er steigt um ihr wehendes Haar,
er fallt ihr ins Wort,
er befiehlt ihr zu schweigen,
er findet sie sterblich
urid willig dem Abschied
nach jeder Umarmung.

Sieh dich nicht um.

Schnur deinen Schuh .
Jag die Hunde zuriick.
Wirf die Fische ins Meer.
Losch die Lupinen !

Es kommen hartere Tage .

42
Mort ga ged Time

Harder days are coming.

The mortgaged time,
revocable at any hour,
takes shape on the horizon.
Soon you must lace up your shoe
and chase the hounds back to the marsh farms.
For the fish entrails
have grown cold in the wind.
The lupins' light burns dimly .
Your gaze gropes in the fog:
the mortgaged time ,
revocable at any hour,
takes shape on the horizon.

Over there your love sinks i n the sand .

It climbs around her waving hair,
it breaks into her words,
it commands her to be still ,
it finds her mortal
and willing to part
after everv embrace.

Don't look round.

Lace up your shoe.
Chase back the hounds.
Throw the fish i n the sea.
Blow out the lupins !

Harder days are coming.

43
Holz und Sp ane

Von den Hornissen will ich schweigen,

denn sie sind leicht zu erkennen.
Auch die laufenden Revolutionen
sind nicht gefahrlich .
Der Tod im Gefolge des Larms
ist beschlossen von jeher .

Doch vor den Eintagsfliegen und den Frauen

nimm dich in acht, vor den Sonntagsj agern,
den Kosmetikern, den Unentschiedenen, Wohlmeinenden,
von keiner Verachtung getroff nen.

Aus den Waldern trugen wir Reisig und Stamme,

und die Sonne ging uns lange nicht auf.
Berauscht vom Papier am [Link],
erkenn ich die Zweige nicht wieder,
noch das Moos, in dunkleren Tinten gegoren,
noch das Wort, in die Rinden geschnitten,
wahr und vermessen .

Blatterverschlei.B, Spruchbander,
schwarze Plakate . . . Bei Tag und bei N acht
bebt, unter diesen und j enen Sternen,
die Maschine des Glaubens. Aber ins Holz,
solang es noch griin ist, und mit der Galle,
solang sie noch bitter ist, bin ich
zu schreiben gewillt, was im Anfang war !

Seht zu, da.B ihr wachbleibt !

44
Wood Chi p s

Of hornets I wish to be silent

for they're easy to recognize .
The current revolutions
aren't dangerous either.
Death in the retinue of noise
has been decided from the very first.

Yet of one-day flies and women

beware ; and of Sunday hunters ,
beauticians , the undecided , the well-meaning­
all the unstigmatized.

We emerged from the forest carrying brushwood and logs ,

and the sun was long in rising.
Dizzied by the paper on assembly lines ,
I no longer recognize the twigs-
nor the moss, fermented in darker inks,
nor the word , inscribed in bark ,
true and arrogant .

Worn-out pages, banners ,

black posters . . . By day and by night ,
beneath this and that star,
the machine of belief is humming. But into the wood ,
as long as it's green , and with bile ,
as long as it's bitter, I intend
to write the word of the beginning!

Make sure you stay awake.

45
Der Spur der Spane, die flogen, folgt
der Hornissenschwarm, und am Brunnen
straubt sich der Lockung,
die uns einst schwachte,
das Haar.

46
A swarm of hornets trails the chips
that flew from the axe ; and at the fountai n ,
bristling against the temptation
that once weakened us,
is my hair.

47
Friiher Mittag

Still grunt die Linde im eroffneten Sommer,

weit aus den Stadten [Link], flirrt
der mattglanzende Tagmond . Schon ist Mittag,
schon regt sich im Brunnen der Strahl,
schon hebt sich unter den Scherben
des Marchenvogels geschundener [Link],
und die vom Steinwurf entstellte H and
sinkt ins erwachende Korn.

W o Deutschlands Himmel die Erde schwarzt,

sucht sein enthaupteter Engel ein Grab fur den H aB
und reicht dir die Schlissel des Herzens.

Eine Handvoll Schmerz verliert sich [Link] den Hugel .

Sieben Jahre spater

fallt es dir wieder ein,
am Brunnen vor dem Tore,
blick nicht zu tief hinein,
die Augen gehen dir [Link].

Sieben Jahre spater,

in einem Totenhaus,
trinken die Henker von gestern
den goldenen Becher aus .
Die Augen [Link] dir sinken.

Schon ist Mittag, in der Asche

[Link] sich das Eisen, auf den Dorn
ist die Fahne gehiBt, und auf den Felsen
uralten Traums bleibt fortan
der Adler geschmiedet.

48
Early Noon

Softly the linden grows green in the opening summer.

Far from cities the dull gleaming moon
of day flickers . Already it is noon :
already the rays of light stir in the fountain,
already the battered wing of the fairytale bird
lifts itself from broken glass,
and the hand , deformed from throwing stones ,
sinks into awakening corn .

Where Germany's sky blackens the earth

its beheaded angel seeks a grave for its hate
and hands you the bowl of its heart .

A handful of pain is lost over the hill.

Seven years later

you realize once more ,
by the fountain in front of the gate :
don't look in too deep
for your eyes will swell with tears .

Seven years later,

in a house of death ,
yesterday's hangmen drink
the golden goblet dry.
Your eyes would sink to the floor.

Already it is noon ; the iron

grows crooked in the ashes , the flag
is raised on a thorn , and in the rocks
of an ancient dream the eagle
shall remain wrought .

49
Nur die Hoffnung kauert erblindet im Licht .

Los ihr die Fessel, fiihr sie

die Halde herab, leg ihr
die Hand auf das Aug, daB sie
kein Schatten versengt !

W o Deutschlands Erde den Himmel schwarzt,

sucht die Wolke nach Worten und fiillt den Krater mit
Schweigen,
eh sie der Sommer im schiitteren Regen vernimmt.

Das Unsagliche geht, leise gesagt, ii hers Land :

schon ist Mittag.

50
Only hope cowers blinded in the light.

Take off hope's chains, lead her down

the slope , put your
hand over her eyes-
let no shadow scorch her!

Where Germany's earth blackens the sky ,

a cloud looks for words and fills the crater with silence,
before summer hears its call through the thin rain .

The unspeakable, said softly , steals over the land :

already it is noon .

51
Alie Tage

Der Krieg wird nicht mehr erklart,

sondern fortgesetzt . Das Unerhorte
ist alltaglich geworden . Der Held
bleibt den Kampfen fern . Der Schwache
ist in die Feuerzonen geriickt .
Die Uniform des Tages ist die Geduld,
die Auszeichnung der armselige Stern
der Hoff nung iiber dem Herzen.

Er wird verliehen,
wenn nichts mehr geschieht,
wenn das Trommelfeuer verstummt,
wenn der Feind unsichtbar geworden ist
und der Schatten ewiger Riistung
den Himmel bedeckt .

Er wird verliehen
fiir die Flucht von den Fahnen,
fiir die Tapferkeit vor dem Freund,
f iir den Verrat unwiirdiger Geheimnisse
und die Nichtachtung
jeglichen Befehls.

52
Every Day

War is no longer declared ,

only continued . The monstrous
has become everyday. The hero
stays away from battle . The weak
have gone to the front .
The uniform of the day is patience,
its medal the pitiful star
of hope above the heart.

The medal is awarded

when nothing more happens ,
when the artillery falls silent ,
when the enemy has grown invisible
and the shadow of eternal armament
covers the sky .

It is awarded
for desertion of the flag,
for bravery in the face of friends,
for the betrayal of unworthy secrets
and the disregard
of every command .

53
Botschaft

Aus der leichenwarmen Vorhalle des Himmels tritt die Sonne.

Es sind dort nicht die Unsterblichen,
sondern die Gefall en en, vernehmen wir.

Und Glanz kehrt sich nicht an Verwesung. Unsere Gottheit,

die Geschichte, hat uns ein Grab bestellt,
aus dem es keine Auferstehung gibt.

54
Message

From the cadaverous warmth of heaven's vestibule

the sun appears .
There are no immortal souls up there ,
only the war dead . O r s o we hear.

And light pays no heed to decay. Our godhead ,

History , has reserved us a grave
from which there is no resurrection .

55
Die Brucken

Straffer zieht der Wind das B and vor den Brucken .

An den Traversen zerrieb

der Himmel sein dunkelstes Blau.
Huben und druben wechseln
im Licht unsre Schatten.

Pont Mirabeau . . . W aterloobridge . . .

Wie ertragen's die Namen,
die N amenlosen zu tragen ?

Von den V erlornen geruhrt,

die der Glaube nicht trug,
erwachen die Trommeln im Flul3 .

Einsam sind alle Brucken,

und der Ruhm ist ihnen gefahrlich
wie uns, vermeinen wir doch,
die Schritte der Sterne
auf unserer Schulter zu spuren.
Doch ubers Gefalle des V erganglichen
•

wolbt uns kein Traum.

Besser ist 's, im Auftrag der Ufer

zu leben, von einem zum andern,
und tagsuber zu wachen,
dal3 das Band der Berufene trennt .
Denn er erreicht die Schere der Sonne
im Nebel, und wenn sie ihn blendet,
umfangt ihn der Nebel im Fall.

56
The Brid g es

Wind blows the ribbon tighter before the bridges.

The sky grated its deepest blue

along the pilings.
Here and there our shadows
change places in the light.

Pont Mirabeau . . . Waterloo Bridge .

How can the names bear
carrying the nameless?

Moved by the lost ones

that faith could not carry ,
the drums awaken in the river.

All bridges are lonely.

And fame is j ust as dangerous for them
as for us, though we think
we feel the tread of stars
on our shoulders .
Yet no dream arches
over the slope of our mortality .

It's better to live for the riverbanks ,

crossing from one to the other,
watching all day for the chosen one
to cut the ribbon.
For he reaches the sun shears
wrapped in fog; and should the light blind him,
the fog will cushion his fall .

57
Nachtflu g

Unser Acker ist der Himmel,

im Schweif3 der Motoren bestellt,
angesichts der Nacht,
unter Einsatz des Traums -

getraumt auf Schadelstatten und Scheiterhaufen,

unter dem Dach der Welt, dessen Ziegel
der Wind forttrug - und nun Regen, Regen, Regen
in unserem Haus und in den Miihlen
die blinden Fliige der Fledermause .
Wer wohnte dort ? Wessen Hande waren rein ?
Wer leuchtete in der Nacht,
Gespenst den Gespenstern ?

Im Stahlgefieder geborgen, verhoren

Instrumente den Raum, Kontrolluhren und Skalen
das Wolkengestrauch, und es streift die Liebe
unsres Herzens vergessene Sprache :
kurz und lang lang . . . Fur eine Stunde
riihrt Hagel die Trommel des Ohrs,
das, uns abgeneigt, lausch.t und verwindet.

N icht untergegangen sind Sonne und Ertle,

nur als Gestirne gewandert und nicht zu erkennen.

Wir sind aufgestiegen von einem H afen,

WO Wiederkehr nicht zahlt

und nicht Fracht und nicht Fang.

Indiens Gewiirze und Seiden aus J apan
gehoren den Handlern
wie die Fische den Netzen .

58
Ni ght Fli ght

Our field is the sky ,

tilled by the sweat of motors ,
in the face of night,
at the risk of our dreams-

dreamt at Golgotha and on funeral pyres ,

beneath the roof of the world , whose shingles
the wind has carried away-and now rain , rain , rain
in our house , while blind bats
circle in the water mills .
Who lived there? Whose hands were pure?
Who glowed in the night ,
a ghost to other ghosts?

Sheltered in steel plumage , instruments

interrogate the air, control clocks and meters
examine cloud thickets , and love grazes
our heart's forgotten language:
short and long long . . . For an hour
hail beats the drum of our ear
which turns away from us, eavesdrops and triumphs .

Sun and earth haven't set-

j ust wandered off as stars , unrecognizable .

We have risen from a port

where the return home does not count ,
nor freight nor catch .
India's spices and silks from Japan
belong to the traders
like fish to the nets .

59
Doch ein Geruch ist zu spiiren,
vorlaufend den Kometen,
und das Gewebe der Luft,
v on gefallnen Kometen zerrissen .
Nenn's den Status der Einsamen,
in dem sich das Staunen vollzieht .
Nichts weiter.

Wir sind aufgestiegen, und die KlOster sind leer,

seit wir dulden, ein Orden, der nicht heilt und nicht lehrt.
Zu handeln ist nicht Sache der Piloten . Sie haben
Stiitzpunkte im Aug und auf den Knien ausgebreitet
die Landkarte einer Welt, der nichts hinzuzufiigen ist.

Wer lebt dort unten ? Wer weint . . .

Wer verliert den Schlussel zum Haus ?
Wer findet sein Bett nicht, wer schlaft
auf den Schwellen ? Wer, wenn der Morgen kommt,
wagt's, den Silberstreifen zu deuten : seht, iiber mir . . .
Wenn das Wasser von neuem ins Miihlrad greift,
wer wagt's, sich der N acht zu erinnern ?

60
Yet a fragrance can be sensed
ahead of the comets ,
and the weave of the air
torn by fallen comets .
Call it the status of the lonely
who still wonder.
Nothing more .

We have risen and the cloisters are empty ,

since we have endured , an order that can't save or teach.
Action isn't the pilots' concern . They have their eyes
fixed on defense posts , and spread out on their knees
the map of a world to which nothing can be added .

Who lives down below? Who cries .

Who has lost his housekey ?
Who can't find his bed , who sleeps
on doorsteps? Who, when morning comes,
will dare to interpret the silver trail : look , above me .
When water pushes the mill wheel again ,
who will dare t o remember the night?

61
Psalm

Schweigt mit mir, wie alle Glocken schweigen !

In der N achgeburt der Schrecken

sucht das GeschmeiB nach neuer N ahrung.
Zur Ansicht hangt karfreitags eine Hand
am Firmament, zwei Finger fehlen ihr,
sie kann nicht schworen, daB alles,
alles nicht gewesen sei und nichts
sein wird. Sie taucht ins W olkenrot,
entriickt die neuen Morder
und geht frei .

N achts auf dieser Ertle

in Fenster greifen, die Linnen zuriickschlagen,
daB der Kranken Heimlichkeit bloBliegt,
ein Geschwiir voll N ahrung, unendliche Schmerzen
fur jeden Geschmack .

Die Metzger halten, behandschuht,

den Atem der EntbloBten an,
der Mond in der Tur fallt zu Boden,
laB die Scherben liegen, den Henkel . . .

Alles war gerichtet fur die letzte O lung.

(Das Sakrament kann nicht vollzogen werden .)

62
Psalm

Be still with me, as all bells are still !

In the afterbirth of terror

the rabble hunts for new nourishment.
On Good Friday a hand hangs in the sky
on display ; it's missing two fingers
and can't swear that everything,
everything didn't happen and nothing
ever will . It dives into red dusk,
carries off the new murderers
and goes free .

A t night o n this earth

open the windows, fold back the sheets,
lay bare the secrets of the sick,
an ulcer full of nourishment, infinite pain
for every taste .

Butchers put on gloves

and hold the breath of the naked.
The moon in the door falls to the ground,
let the pieces lie, the handle . . .

Everything was prepared for the last anointment.

(The sacrament cannot take place. )

63
2

Wie eitel alles ist.

Walze eine Stadt heran,
erhebe dich aus dem Staub dieser Stadt,
iibernimm ein Amt
und verstelle dich,
um der BloBstellung zu entgehen.

Lose die V ersprechen ein

vor einem blinden Spiegel in der Luft,
vor einer verschlossenen Tiir im Wind.

Unbegangen sind die Wege auf der Steilwand des Himmels.

0 Augen, an dem Sonnenspeicher Erde verbrannt,

mit der Regenlast aller Augen beladen,
und jetzt versponnen, verwebt
von den tragischen Spinnen
der Gegenwart . . .

In die Mulde meiner Stummheit

leg ein Wort
und zieh Walder groB zu beiden Seiten,
daB mein Mund
ganz im Schatten liegt .

64
2

How vain everything is.

Roll a city toward you,
rise up from the city's dust,
take office
and mask yourself
to escape exposure .

Honor your promises

before a dull mirror in the air,
before a closed door in the wind.

Untraveled are the paths along the face of the sky.

0 eyes, burned on the sun silo earth,

heavy with the rain of all eyes,
and now spun, woven
by the tragic spiders
of the present . . .

In the hollow of my mute being

place a word-
grow forests thick on either side
so that my mouth
lies all in shade.

65
Im Gewitter der Ro sen

Wohin wir uns wenden im Gewitter der Rosen,

ist die N acht von Dornen erhellt, und der Donner
des Laubs, das so leise war in den Buschen,
folgt uns jetzt auf dem FuB.

66
In the Storm of Roses

Wherever we turn in the storm of roses,

thorns illuminate the night. And the thunder
of a thousand leaves , once so quiet on the bushes,
is right at our heels .

67
S alz und Brot

Nun schickt der Wind die Schienen voraus,

wir werden folgen in langsamen Ziigen
und diese lnseln bewohnen,
Vertrauen gegen Vertrauen.

In die Hand meines altesten Freunds leg ich

mein Amt zuriick ; es verwaltet der Regenmann
jetzt mein finsteres Haus und erganzt
im Schuldbuch die Linien, die ich zog,
seit ich seltener blieb.

Du, im fieberweiBen Ornat,

hoist die Verbannten ein und reiBt
aus dem Fleisch der Kakteen einen Stachel
- das Zeichen der Ohnmacht,
dem wir uns willenlos beugen.

Wir wissen,
daB wir des Kontinentes Gefangene bleiben
und seinen Krankungen wieder verfallen,
und die Gezeiten der W ahrheit
werden nicht seltener sein :

Schlaft doch im Felsen

der wenig erleuchtete Schadel,
die Kralle hangt in der Kralle
im dunklen Gestein, und verheilt
sind die Stigmen am Violett des V ulkans.

Von den groBen Gewittern des Lichts

hat keines die Leben erreicht.

68
r-
Salt and Bread

Now the wind sends the rails ahead.

We shall follow in slow trains
and inhabit these islands,
trust against trust.

I hand back my office to my

oldest friend. Now the rainman administers
my gloomy house , completing the columns
I drew in my debt book
since I stayed less often.

You , in fever-white vestments ,

bring in the banished and rip
a thorn out of the cactus flesh
-the sign of helplessness
to which we bow passively.

We know
that we shall stay prisoners of the continent,
victims of its old offenses .
And the tides of truth
will not diminish .

Even though the shadowy skull

sleeps i n the rocks,
claw hangs i n claw
in the dark stone , and healed
are the stigmata on the violet volcano.

Of the great storms of light

none has reached the living.

69
So nehm ich vom Salz,
wenn uns das Meer iibersteigt,
und kehre zuriick
und legs auf die Schwelle
und trete ins Haus.

Wir teilen ein Brot mit dem Regen,

ein Brot, eine Schuld und ein Haus.

70
So I take the salt
when the sea rises over us,
and turn bac k ,
and place it o n the doorsill ,
and step inside the house.

We share our bread with the rain ­

one bread , one debt and one house.

71
GroBe Land schaft bei Wien

Geister der Ebene, Geister des wachsenden Stroms,

zu unsrem Ende gerufen, haltet nicht vor der Stadt !
Nehmt auch mit euch, was vom Wein iiberhing
auf briichigen Randern, und f iihrt an ein Rinnsal,
wen nach Ausweg verlangt, und offnet die Steppen !

Driiben verkiimmert das nackte Gelenk eines Baums,

ein Schwungrad springt ein, aus dem Feld schlagen
die Bohrtiirme den Fruhling, Statuenwaldern weicht
der verworfene Torso des Griins, und es wacht
die Iris des O ls iiber den Brunnen im Land.

Was liegt daran ? Wir spielen die Tanze nicht mehr.

Nach langer Pause : Dissonanzen gelichtet, wenig cantabile .
(Und ihren Atem spiir ich nicht mehr auf den Wangen ! )
Still stehn die Rader . Durch Staub und Wolkenspreu
schleif t den Mantel , der unsre Liebe deckte, das Riesenrad .

Nirgends gewahrt man, wie hier, vor den ersten Kiissen

die letzten . Es gilt, mit dem Nachklang im Mund
weiterzugehn und zu schweigen . Wo der Kranich
im Schilf der flachen Gewasser seinen Bogen vollendet,
tonender als die Welle, schlagt ihm die Stunde im Rohr.

Asiens Atem ist jenseits .

Rhythmi scher Auf gan g von Saa ten, reifer Kulturen

Ernten vorm Untergang, sind sie verbrieft, so weil3 ichs
dem Wind noch zu sagen . Hinter der Boschung
triibt weicheres Wasser das Aug, und es will
mich noch anfallen trunkenes Limesgef iihl ;
unter den Pappeln am Romerstein grab ich

72
Great Landscap e near Vienna

Spirits of the plain, Spirits of the growing river,

summoned for our demise: don't stop before the city !
Take with you whatever wine was left hanging
over crumbling banks ; lead toward a stream
whoever demands a way out. And open up the steppes !

Over there the naked crook of a tree withers away,

a fly-wheel starts spinning, the derricks chase
Spring from the field, forests of statues
overpower the abandoned torso of green, and the iris of oil
watches over the woodland wells.

What for? We've stopped playing the dances.

After a long intermission : dissonances clarified, barely
cantabile.
(And I no longer feel their breath on my cheeks ! )
The wheels stand still. Through dust and cloud chaff
the ferris-wheel drags the cloak that covered our love.

Nowhere does one grant, as here, the last kisses

before the first. With a dying song in our mouth
we must travel on and be silent. Among the rushes
of shallow waters the crane completes his arching flight,
ringing more than the waves, and his hour tolls in the reed.

Asia's breath is on the other shore.

Rhythmical sprouting of seedlings, the harvests

of ripe cultures before their fall : though indisputable,
I can still say it to the winds. Behind the slope
softer waters blur my eye, and the drunken feeling
of limes would still assail me.
Among the poplars, beside the Roman stone, I dig

73
nach dem Schauplatz vielvolkriger Trauer,
nach dem Lacheln Ja und dem Lacheln Nein.

Alles Leben ist abgewandert in Baukasten,

neue Not mildert man sanitar, in den Alleen
bliiht die Kastanie duftlos, Kerzenrauch
kostet die Luft nicht wieder, iiber der Briistung
im Park weht so einsam das Haar, im Wasser
sinken die Balle, vorbei an der Kinderhand
bis auf den Grund, und es begegnet
das tote Auge dem blauen, das es einst war.

Wunder des Unglaubens sind ohne Z ahl .

Besteht ein Herz darauf, ein Herz zu sein ?
Traum, daB du rein hist, heh die Hand zum Schwur,
traum dein Geschlecht, das dich besiegt, traum
und wehr dennoch mystischer Abkehr im Protest.
Mit einer andern Hand gelingen Zahlen
und Analysen, die dich entzaubern .
Was dich trennt, hist du . Verstrom,
komm wissend wieder, in neuer Abschiedsgestalt.

Dem Orkan voraus fliegt die Sonne nach Westen,

zweitausend J ahre sind um, und uns wird nichts bleiben .
Es hebt der Wind Barockgirlqnden auf,
es fallt von den Stiegen das Puttengesicht,
es stiirzen Basteien in dammernde Hofe,
von den Kommoden die Masken und Kranze . . .

N ur auf dem Platz im Mittagslicht, mit der Kette

am SaulenfuB und dem verganglichsten Augenblick
geneigt und der Schonheit verfallen, sag ich mich los
von der Zeit, ein Geist unter Geistern, die kommen .

M aria am Gestade -
das Schiff ist leer, der Stein ist blind ,

74
for the theater of many-peopled sorrow,
for the smile Yes and the smile No.

All life has wandered off into building blocks;

new misfortune is softened sanitarily ; in the streets,
chestnut trees bloom ordorlessly , and the air no longer
tastes of candle smoke. Above the ramparts
in the park , locks of hair blow lonely. Balls sink
in the water past children's hands
down to the bottom ; and the dead eye meets
the blue one it used to be .

The miracles of unbelief are infinite.

Does a heart i nsist on being a heart?
Dream that you are pure , lift your hand to swear,
dream of the lineage which conquers you , dream of
and yet-protesting-resist the mystical retreat .
Your other hand succeeds with numbers
and analyses that break your enchantment.
You are what divides you . Stream on ,
come back wise, in a new form for departing.

The sun flies ahead of the hurricane to the west .

Two thousand years are up and nothing will be left to us.
The wind lifts up baroque garlands,
a cherub's face falls from the stairs ,
bastions cave in on evening courtyards,
masks and wreathes drop from the dressers .

Only in the square's noon light, with a chain

around the column foot, and bowed to the most fleeting
moment , a captive of beauty : I set myself free
from time , a spirit among spirits who are coming.

Our Lady on the Shore-

the nave is empty , the stone is blind ,

75
gerettet ist keiner, getroffen sind viele,
das 01 will nicht brennen, wir haben
alle davon getrunken - wo bleibt
dein ewiges Licht ?

So sind auch die Fische tot und treiben

den schwarzen Meeren zu, die uns erwarten.
Wir aber miindeten Hingst, vom Sog
anderer Strome ergriffen, wo die Welt
ausblieb und wenig Heiterkeit war.
Die Tiirme der Ebene riihmen uns nach,
daB wir willenlos kamen und auf den Stufen
der Schwermut fielen und tiefer fielen,
mit dem scharfen Gehor f iir den Fall .

76
no one is saved, many are wounded,
the oil will not burn, we have all
drunk from it-where is
your eternal light?

The fish are also dead and drift

into the black seas awaiting us.
But we have long since reached the sea, gripped
by the tow of other currents, where the world
was missing and few were merry.
The towers of the plain praise us,
for we came passively, falling on the steps
of melancholy, falling deeper,
with an ear sharp for the fall .

77
 FROM THE COLLECTION

Invocation of the Great Bear

Das Spiel ist aus

Mein lieber Bruder, wann bauen wir uns ein FloB

und fahren den Himmel hinunter ?
Mein lieber Bruder, bald ist die Fracht zu groB
und wir gehen unter .

Mein lieber Bruder, wir zeichnen aufs Papier

viele Lander und Schienen .
Gib acht, vor den schwarzen Linien hier
fliegst du hoch mit den Minen .

Mein lieber Bruder, dann will ich an den Pfahl

gebunden sein und schreien.
Doch du reitest schon aus dem Totental
und wir fliehen zu zweien .

Wach im Zigeunerlager und wach im Wiistenzelt,

es rinnt uns der Sand aus den Haaren,
dein und mein Alter und das Alter der Welt
miBt man nicht mit den J ahren .

LaB dich von listigen Rabe :r:i , von klebriger Spinnenhand

un d der Feder im Strauch nicht betriigen,
iB und trink auch nicht im Schlaraffenland,
es schaumt Schein in den Pfannen und Kriigen.

Nur wer an der goldenen Briicke fiir die Karfunkelfee

das Wort noch weiB, hat gewonnen.
lch muB dir sagen, es ist mit dem letzten Schnee
im Garten zerronnen.

Von vielen, vielen Steinen sind unsre FiiBe so wund.

Einer heilt. Mit dem wollen wir springen,

80
The Game Is Over

My dearest brother, when will we build a raft

and sail down the sky?
My dearest brother, soon the freight will be too big
and we will sink and die.

My dearest brother, we'll draw maps

of many lands and railway lines .
Watch out, here in front of the tracks
you'll be blown up with the mines.

My dearest brother, then I want to be tied

to a stake and scream with all my might.
But out of the valley of death you ride
and together we take flight .

Awake in the gypsy camp and the desert tent,

sand runs out of our hair like tears .
Your age and my age and the age of the earth
cannot be measured in years.

Don't be fooled by the ravens, the sticky hand

of the spider or the feather in the shrubs.
Don't eat or drink in Never-Never-Land,
falsehood foams in skillets and j ugs .

On the golden bridge only the one who knows

the fairy's word can win.
I must tell you , with the last snows
it melted in the garden .

From many, many stones our feet are sore.

One will heal . Let's jump with it till the fairytale king,

81
bis der Kinderkonig, mit dem Schlussel zu seinem Reich
im Mund,
uns holt, und wir werden singen :

Es ist eine schone Zeit, wenn der Dattelkern keimt !

Jeder, der [Link], hat Fliigel.
Roter Fingerhut ist's, der den Armen das Leichentuch
saumt,
und dein Herzblatt sinkt auf mein Siegel .

Wir miissen schlafen gehn, Liebster, das Spiel ist aus .

Auf Zehenspitzen . Die weiBen Hemden bauschen.
Vater und Mutter sagen, es geistert im Haus,
wenn wir den Atem tauschen.

82
holding in his mouth the key to the castle door,
takes us away and we sing:

It's a happy time when the date pit blooms ,

everyone who falls has wings .
Red Thimble hems the shrouds in the poor men's tombs,
onto my seal your young leaf sinks.

The game is over, dearest, it's time for prayers .

We go on tiptoe , our nightshirts billowing and white .
Father and Mother say there're ghosts upstairs ,
when we trade our breaths at night.

83
Anruf ung des GroBen Baren

GroBer Bar, komm herab, zottige N acht,

Wolkenpelztier mit den alten Augen,
Sternenaugen,
durch das Dickicht brechen schimmernd
deine Pfoten mit den Krallen,
Sternenkrallen,
wachsam halten wir die Herden,
doch gebannt von dir, und miBtrauen
deinen milden Fl anken und den scharfen
halbentbloBten Zahnen,
alter Bar.

Ein Zapfen : eure Welt.

Ihr : die Schuppen dran.
Ich treib sie, roll sie
von den Tannen im Anf ang
zu den Tannen am Ende,
schnaub sie an, prtif sie im l\1aul
und pack zu mit den Tatzen.

Ftirchtet euch oder ftirchtet euch nicht !

.

Zahlt in den Klingelbeutel und gebt

dem blinden Mann ein gutes Wort,
daB er den Baren an der Leine halt.
Und wtirzt die Lammer gut.

's konnt sein, daB dieser Bar

sich losreiBt, nicht mehr droht
und alle Zapfen j agt, die von den Tannen
gef allen sind, den groBen, gefhigelten,
die aus dem Paradiese sttirzten .

84
Invocation of the Great Bear

Great Bear, come down , shaggy night,

cloud-coated beast with the old eyes ,
star eyes .
Through the thickets your paws break
shimmering with their claws ,
star claws .
We guard our herds with a watchful eye,
though caught in your spell, and mistrust
your tired flanks and sharp ,
half-bared fangs ,
old bear.

A pine cone: your world .

You : its scales.
I hunt them, roll them
from the pines in the beginning
to the pines at the end.
Snort on them , test them with my muzzle
and set to work with my paws.

Be afraid or don't be afraid !

Just drop your coins in the collection basket and give
the blind man a good word ,
let him hold the bear on its leash.
And spice the lambs well .

Perhaps this bear

will break loose , stop threatening
and chase all the cones that have fallen
from the pines , from the great , winged ones
hurled down from Paradise.

85
Mein Vogel

Was auch geschieht : die verheerte Welt

sinkt in die Dammrung zuriick,
einen Schlaftrunk halten ihr die Walder bereit,
und vom Turm, den der Wachter verlieB,
blicken ruhig und stet die Augen der Eule herab.

Was auch geschieht : du weiBt deine Zeit,

mein Vogel, nimmst deinen Schleier
und fliegst durch den Nebel zu mir.

Wir augen im Dunstkreis, den das Gelichter bewohnt.

Du folgst meinem Wink, stoBt hinaus
und wirbelst Gefieder und Fell -

Mein eisgrauer SchultergenoB, meine Waffe,

mit jener Feder besteckt, meiner einzigen Waffe !
Mein einziger Schmuck : Schleier und Feder von dir.

W enn auch im N adeltanz unterm Baum

die Haut mir brennt
und der hiifthohe Strauch •

mich mit wiirzigen Blattern versucht,

wenn meine Locke ziingelt,
sich wiegt und nach Feuchte verzehrt,
stiirzt mir der Sterne Schutt
doch genau auf das Haar.

Wenn ich vom Rauch behelmt

wieder weiB, was geschieht,
mein Vogel, mein Beistand des N achts,
wenn ich befeuert bin in der Nacht,
knistert's im dunklen Bestand,
und ich schlage den Funken aus mir .

86
My Bird

Whatever comes to pass: the devastated world

sinks back into twilight,
the forest offers it a sleeping potion,
and from the tower the watchman�s forsaken ,
peaceful and constant the eyes of the owl stare down .

Whatever comes to pass: you know your time,

my bird , you put on your veil
and fly through the mist to me.

We peer into the haze where the rabble houses .

You follow my nod and storm out
in a whirl of feathers and fur-

My ice-gray shoulder companion, my weapon,

adorned with a feather, my only weapon !
My only finery : your veil and your feather.

And even when my skin burns

in the needle dance beneath the tree,
and the hip-high shrubs
tempt me with their spicy leaves ,
when my curls dart like snake tongues,
sway and long for moisture ,
the dust of distant stars still falls
right on my hair.

When I , in a helmet of smoke ,

come back to my senses,
my bird , my nighttime ally ,
when I'm ablaze in the night,
the dark grove crackles
and I hammer the spark from my limbs .

87
Wenn ich befeuert bleib wie ich bin
und vom Feuer geliebt,
bis das Harz au s den Stammen tritt,
auf die Wunden traufelt und warm
die Ertle verspinnt,
( und wenn du mein Herz auch ausraubst des N achts,
mein Vogel auf Glauben und mein Vogel auf Treu ! )
riickt j ene Warte ins Licht,
die du, besanftigt,
in herrlicher Ruhe erfliegst -
was auch geschieht .

88
And when I stay ablaze as I am ,
loved by the flame
until the resin streams out of the trunks,
drips over the wounds and
spins the earth warm into thread
(and though you rob my heart at night,
my bird of belief, my bird of faith ! ) ,
the watchtower moves into brightness
where you , tranquil now,
alight in magnificent peace­
whatever comes to pass .

89
Landnahme

Ins Weideland kam ich,

als es schon Nacht war,
in den Wiesen die N arben witternd
und den Wind, eh er sich regte.
Die Liebe graste nicht mehr.,
die Glocken waren verhallt
und die Biischel verharmt.

Ein Horn stak im Land,

vom Leittier verrannt,
ins Dunkel gerammt .

Aus der Erde zog ich's,

zum Himmel hob ich 's
mit ganzer Kraft .

Um dieses Land mit Klangen

ganz zu erfiillen,
stieB ich ins Horn,
willens im kommenden Wind
und unter den wehenden Halmen
j eder Herkunft zu leben !

90
A New Land

I came into pasture land

when night had fallen,
sniffing out the scars in the meadows ,
scenting the wind before it rose .
Love grazed n o longer,
the bells had stopped ringing
and the sheaves were dry and worn .

A horn was stuck into the earth,

rammed there by the herd's leader,
hammered into the dark .

I drew it from the earth ,

I lifted it to the sky
with all my strength .

To fill this land

with music
I blew the horn ,
ready to live in the coming wind
among the waving grasses
of every origin !

91
Curriculum Vitae

Lang ist die N acht,

lang fur den Mann,
der nicht sterben kann, lang
unter StraBenlaternen schwankt
sein nacktes Aug und sein Aug
schnapsatemblind, und Geruch
von nassem Fleisch unter seinen Nageln
betaubt ihn nicht immer, o Gott,
lang ist die Nacht .

Mein Haar wird nicht weiB,

denn ich kroch aus dem SchoB von M aschinen,
Rosenrot strich mir Teer auf die Stirn
und die Strahnen, man hatt' ihr
die schneeweiBe Schwester erwiirgt . Aber ich,
der Hauptling, schritt durch die Stadt
von zehnmalhunderttausend Seelen, und mein FuB
trat auf die Seelenasseln unterm Lederhimmel,
aus dem
zehnmalh underttausend Friedenspfeif en
hingen, kalt. Engelsruhe
wiinscht' ich mir oft
und J agdgriinde, voll
vom ohnmachtigen Geschrei
meiner Freunde .

Mit gespreizten Beinen und Fliigeln,

binsenweis stieg die J ugend
iiber mich, iiber J auche, iiber J asmin ging's
in die riesigen Nachte mit dem Quadrat­
wurzelgeheimnis, es haucht die Sage
des Tods stiindlich mein Fenster an,
W olf smilch gebt mir und schUttet

92
Curriculum Vitae

Long is the night,

long for the man
who c annot die, long
has his naked eye tottered
under street lamps , his eye
blinded with whiskey breath, and the smell
of wet flesh under his nails
doesn't always kill the pain, oh God,
long is the night.

My hair won't turn white

for I crawled from a womb of machines ,
Rose Red smeared tar on my forehead
and curls , someone had strangled
her snow-white sister. But I ,
the chief, strode through the city
of ten times a hundred thousand spirits , and my feet
trod on spirit lice beneath a leather sky, from which
ten times a hundred thousand peace pipes
were hanging, cold. The repose of angels
is what I've often wished for,
and hunting grounds filled
with the helpless wailing
of my friends.

With spread-eagled legs and wings ,

the young ones overwhelm me with
platitudes, over dung and daisies they went
into those giant nights with their square-root
secret, the legend of death
fogs my window hourly with its breath.
Give me spurge milk and pour
the laughter of the old

93
in meinen Rachen das Lachen
der Allen vor mir, wenn ich in Schlaf
fall iiber den Folianten,
in den beschamenden Traum,
daf3 ich nicht taug f iir Gedanken,
mit Troddeln spiel,
aus denen Schlangen fransen .

Auch unsere Miitter haben

von der Zukunft ihrer Manner getraumt,
sie haben sie machtig gesehen,
revolutionar und einsam,
doch nach der Andacht im Garten
iiber das flammende Unkraut gebeugt,
Hand in Hand mit dem geschwatzigen
Kind ihrer Liebe . Mein trauriger Yater,
warum habt ihr damals geschwiegen
und nicht weitergedacht ?

Verloren in den Feuerfontanen,

in einer N acht neben einem Geschiitz,
das nicht feuert, verd ammt lang
ist die N acht, unter dem Auswurf
des gelbsiichtigen l\1ond s, s� inem galligen
Licht, fegt in der Machttraumspur
iiber mich ( das halt ich nicht ab)
der Schlitten mit der verbramten
Geschichte hinweg.
Nicht daf3 ich schlief : wach war ich,
zwischen Eisskeletten sucht' ich den Weg,
kam heim, wand mir Efeu
um Arm und Bein und weif3te
mit Sonnenresten d ie Ruinen .
Ich h i e l t d i e hohen Feiertage,
und erst wenn es gelobt war,
brach ich das Brot .

94
in my muzzle , when sleeping
I trip over folios
in the shameful dream
that I'm not fit for thoughts ,
that I'm playing with tassels
whose fringes are vipers .

Even our mothers have

dreamed of their men's futures,
imagined them as mighty
revolutionaries, lonely ,
yet bent over the flaming bush
after prayers in the garden ,
hand in hand with the babbling
child of their love. My sad father,
why were you so silent then ,
nor ever thought past tomorrow?

Lost in the flaming fountains,

in a night beside a cannon
that won't fire , damned long
is the night , beneath the refuse
of the j aundiced moon , its bilious
light , the sled with its embellished
history rushes over me (I can't stop it)
in the trail of power dreams.
Not that I was sleeping: I was awake ,
seeking t h e way between i c e skeletons ,
I came home , wound ivy
about my arms and legs , and painted
the ruins white with leftover sun.
I observed the holy days,
and only when it had been blessed
did I break the bread .

95
In einer groBspurigen Zeit
muB man rasch von einem Licht
ins andre gehen, von einem Land
ins andre, unterm Regenbogen,
die Zirkelspitze im Herzen,
zum Radius genommen die N acht.
Weit offen. Von den Bergen
sieht man Seen, in den Seen
Berge, und im W olkengestiihl
schaukeln die Glocken
der einen Welt . W essen Welt
zu wissen, ist mir verboten.

An einem Freitag geschah 's

- ich fastete um mein Leben,
die Luft troff vom Saft der Zitronen
und die Grate stak mir im Gaumen -
da lost' ich aus dem entf alteten Fisch
einen Ring, der, ausgeworfen
bei meiner Geburt, in den Strom
der N acht fiel und versank .
lch warf ihn zuriick in die N acht .

0 hatt ich nicht Todesfurcht!

Hatt ich das Wort,
(verfehlt ich's nicht) ,
hatt ich nicht Disteln im Herz,
(sch liig ich die Sonne aus),
hatt ich nicht Gier im Mund,
(trank ich das wilde Wasser nicht) ,
schliig ich die Wimper nicht auf,
(hatt ich die Schnur nicht gesehn) .

96
In an arrogant age
we must rush from one light
to the next, from one land
into the next, beneath the rainbow,
the compass points in our heart
and the night as radius.
Wide open . From the mountains
lakes can be seen, in the oceans
mountains , and in the cloud-pews
bells of the one world
are swaying. Whose world
I am forbidden to know.

It happened on a Friday
-I was fasting for my life ,
the a i r oozed with the juice of lemons
and a fish bone stuck in my gums­
from the gutted fish
I took out a ring, which ,
discarded at my birth, fell
into the river of night and sank.
I threw it back into the night.

If only I had no fear of death !

If I had the word
(I wouldn't miss it) ,
if I hadn't thistles in my heart
(I wouldn't beat out the sun) ,
if I hadn't greed in my mouth
(I wouldn't drink the wild water)
if I didn't open my eyelids
(I wouldn't have seen the rope) .

97
Ziehn sie den Himmel fort ?
Triig mich die Erde nicht,
lag ich schon lange still,
lag ich schon lang,
wo die Nacht mich will,
eh sie die Niistern blaht
und ihren Huf hebt
zu neuen Schlagen,
immer zum Schlag.
Immer die N acht .
Und kein Tag.

98
Are they dragging away the sky?
If the Earth hadn't carried me
I'd long be lying still ,
I'd long be lying
where the night wants me ,
before she flares her nostrils
and lifts her hoof
to smite me,
always to smite .
Always t h e night.
And no day .

99
Ne bell and

Im Winter ist meine Geliebte

unter den Tieren des W aides.
D aJ3 ich vor Morgen zuriickmuJ3,
weiJ3 die Fiichsin und lacht.
Wie die Wolken erzittern ! Und mir
auf den Schneekragen fallt
eine Lage von briichigem Eis .

Im Winter ist meine Geliebte

ein Baum unter Baumen und ladt
die gliickverlassenen Krahen
ein in ihr schones Geast . Sie weiJ3,
daB der Wind, wenn es dammert,
ihr starres, mit Reif besetztes
Abendkleid hebt und mich heimj agt .

Im Winter ist meine Geliebte

unter den Fischen und stumm.
Horig den W assern, die der Strich
ihrer Flossen von innen bewegt,
steh ich am Ufer und seh,
bis mich Schollen vertreiberi,
wie sie taucht und sich wendet.

U nd wieder vom J agdruf des V ogels

getroffen, der seine Schwingen
iiber mir steift, stilrz ich
auf offenem Feld : sie entfiedert
die Hiihner und wirft mir ein weiJ3es
Schliisselbein zu . Ich nehm's um den Hals
und geh fort durch den bitteren Flaum.

1 00
Land of Fo g

In winter my love
is among the beasts of the forest.
The vixen knows
I must be back before morning
and she laughs.
How the clouds tremble ! And a layer
of brittle ice falls
on my snow collar.

In winter my love
is a tree among trees
and invites the hapless crows
to nest in her beautiful boughs . She knows
that the wind , when evening falls,
will lift her stiff, frost-embroidered
evening dress and chase me home .

In winter my love
is among the fish and cannot speak .
A slave to the waters her fins
stroke from within,
I stand on the bank and watch ,
till i c e floes drive m e away ,
how she dives and turns.

And struck once more by the hunting cry

of the bird stiffening
his wings above me , I fall
on an open field : she plucks
the hens and tosses me a white
collar bone . I place it around my neck
and go forth through the bitter down .

101
Treulos ist meine Geliebte,
ich weiB, sie schwebt manchmal
auf hohen Schuh'n nach der Stadt,
sie kiiBt in den Bars mit dem Strohhalm
die Glaser tief auf den Mund,
und es kommen ihr W orte f iir alle.
Doch diese Sprache verstehe ich nicht.

Nebelland hab ich gesehen,

Nebelherz hab ich gegessen .

1 02
Faithless is my love,
I know, sometimes she sways
on high heels into town ,
kissing bar glasses with her straw
deep in their mouths ,
finding the right words for everyone .
But I don't understand this language.

It i s fog land I have seen ,

fog heart I have eaten .

103
Erklar mir, Liebe

Dein Hut liiftet sich leis, griiBt, schwebt im Wind,

dein unbedeckter Kopf hat's Wolken angetan,
dein Herz hat anderswo zu tun,
dein Mund verleibt sich neue Sprachen ein,
das Zittergras im Land nimmt iiberhand ,
Sternblumen blast der Sommer an und aus,
von Flocken blind erhebst du dein Gesicht,
du lachst und weinst und gehst an dir zugrund,
was soll dir noch geschehen -

Erklar mir, Liebe !

Der Pfau, in feierlichem Staunen, schlagt sein Rad,

die Taube stellt den Federkragen hoch ,
vom Gurren iiberfiillt, dehnt sich die Luft,
der Entrich schreit, vom wilden Honig nimmt
das ganze L and: auch im gesetzten Park
hat jedes Beet ein goldner Staub umsaumt .

Der Fisch errotet, iiberholt den Schwarm

und stiirzt durch Grotten ins Korallenbett .
Zur Silbersandmusik tanzt scb eu der Skorpion.
Der Kafer riecht die Herrlichste von weit ;
hatt ich nur seinen Sinn, ich f iihlte auch,
daB Fliigel unter ihrem Panzer schimmern,
und nahm den W eg zum fernen Erdbeerstrauch !

Erklar mir, Liebe !

Wasser weiB zu reden,

die Welle nimmt die Welle an der Hand,
im Weinberg schwillt die Traube, springt und fallt.
So arglos tritt die Schnecke aus dem Haus !

1 04
Tell Me, Love

Your hat lifts up lightly , says hello, sways in the wind ,

your uncovered head has touched the clouds ,
your heart has business elsewhere ,
your mouth imbibes new languages ,
the quaking grass is gaining ground ,
summer blows star flowers on and off,
blinded by flakes you raise your face,
you laugh and cry and die by your own hand ,
what more can yet befall you-

Tell me , love !

The peacock , in ceremonious amazement, spreads its tail,

the dove pulls up its feather collar,
filled with cooing the air expands,
the duck cries, the whole land eats
wild honey , even in the calm park
every flower bed is bordered with gold dust.

The fish blushes, overtakes the school

and tumbles through grottos into a coral bed .
The scorpion dances shyly to silver sand music .
The beetle smells his lover from afar;
if only I had their sense , I'd also feel
how wings shimmer under their shells
and I'd take the path to distant strawberry patches !

Tell me , love !

Water talks,
the wave takes a wave by the hand ,
the grape swells in the vineyard , j umps and falls.
The snail steps so unsuspecting from its house.

105
Ein Stein wei13 einen andern zu erweichen !

Erklar mir, Liebe, was ich nicht erklaren kann :

sollt ich die kurze schauerliche Zeit
nur mit Gedanken Umgang haben und allein
nichts Liebes kennen und nichts Liebes tun ?
Mu13 einer denken ? Wird er nicht vermi13t ?

Du sagst : es zahlt ein andrer Geist auf ihn . . .

Erklar mir nichts. lch seh den Salamander
<lurch jedes Feuer gehen.
Kein Schauer j agt ihn, und es schmerzt ihn nichts .

1 06
A stone knows how to soften a stone !

Tell me , love, what I can't explain :

Should I spend this short , horrid time
with thoughts only , and alone
know no love and give none?
Must one think? Won't he be missed?

You say : another spirit is counting on him .

Tell me nothing. I see the salamander
pass through every fire .
No horror hounds h i m , and h e feels n o pain.

107
Reklame

Wohin aber gehen wir

ohne sorge sei ohne sorge
wenn es dunkel und wenn es kalt wird
sei ohne sorge
aber
mil musik
was sollen wir tun
heiler und mil musik
und denken
heiler
angesichts eines Endes
mil m usik
und wohin tragen wir
am beslen
unsre Fragen und den Schauer aller J ahre
in die Tra umwi:ischerei ohne sorge sei ohne sorge
was aber geschieht
am beslen
wenn Totenstille

eintritt

1 08
Advertisement

But where are we going

you haven't a care not a care
when it grows dark and when it grows cold
you haven't a care
but
with music
what should we do
merrily and with music
and think
merrily
with regard to an end
with music
and where should we carry
best of all
our questions and the shudder of all these years
in the dream laundry you haven 't a care not a care
but what happens
best of all
when dead silence

sets in

1 09
Rede und N achrede

Komm nicht aus unsrem Mund,

Wort, das den Drachen sat .
's ist wahr, die Luft ist schwiil,
vergoren und gesauert schaumt das Licht,
und iiberm Sumpf hangt schwarz der Miickenflor .

Der Schierling bechert gern.

Ein Katzenfell lie gt aus,
die Schlange faucht d arauf,
der Skorpion tanzt an.

Dring nicht an unser Ohr,

Geriicht von andrer Schuld ,
Wort, stirb im Sumpf,
aus dem der Tiimpel quillt .

Wort, sei bei uns

von zartlicher Geduld
und Ungeduld . Es muf3 dies Saen
ein Ende nehmen !

Dem Tier beikommen wird nicht, wer den Tierlaut

nachahmt.
W er seines Betts Geheimnis preisgibt, verwirkt sich alle
Liebe.
Des Wortes Bastard client dem Witz, um einen Torichten
zu opfern .

Wer wiinscht von dir ein Urteil ii ber diesen Fremden ?

Und fallst du's unverlangt, geh du von Nacht zu Nacht
mit seinen Schwaren an den Fii f3en weiter, geh ! komm
nich t wieder.

1 10
Word and Afterword

Come not from our mouth,

word that sows the dragon .
It's true, the air is heavy ,
light foams vinegary and stale,
and above the swamp hangs a swarm of black mosquitos .

The hemlock loves to tipple.

A cat skin lies on display .
The snake hisses a t it,
the scorpion put in an appearance.

Come not to our ears ,

rumor of another sin,
word, die in the swamp
where a muddy pool begins.

Word, stay by us
with tender patience
and impatience. This sowing
must come to an end !

Whoever simulates an animal cry , won't get at the animal .

Whoever betrays the secret of his bed , forfeits all love .
The word's bastard serves the joke to sacrifice a fool .

Who asks you to judge this foreigner?

And should you judge him unasked , go then from night to night
with his sores on your feet , go ! Never come bac k .

111
Wort, sei von uns,
freisinnig, deutlich, schon .
GewiB muB es ein Ende nehmen,
sich vorzusehen.

( Der Krebs zieht sich zuriick,

der Maulwurf schlaft zu lang,
das weiche Wasser lost
den Kalk, der Steine spann. )

Komm, Gunst aus Laut und Hauch,

befestig diesen Mund,
wenn seine Schwachheit uns
entsetzt und hemmt .

Komm und versag dich nicht,

da wir im Streit mit soviel U bel stehen .
Eh Drachenblut den Widersacher schiitzt,
fallt diese Hand ins Feuer .
Mein Wort, errette mich !

1 12
Word, be one of us,
enlightened , distinct, beautiful .
Certainly an end must come
to its cautious living.

(The crab pulls bac k ,

the mole oversleeps ,
soft water unties the stones
that lime once wove. )

Come, favor of sound and breath ,

make fast this mouth
when its weakness frightens
and chokes us.

Come and do not fail ,

for we stand in strife with s o much evil.
Ere dragon blood protects our adversary ,
this hand will fall into the fire.
You , my word , deliver me !

1 13
Das erst g eborene Land

In mein erstgeborenes Land, in den [Link]

zog ich und f and, nackt und verarmt
und bis zum Gurtel im Meer,
Stadt und Kastel! .

V om Staub in den Schlaf getreten

lag ich im Licht,
und vom ionischen Salz belaubt
hing ein Baumskelett [Link] mir.

Da fiel kein Traum herab .

Da bluht kein Rosmarin,

kein Vogel frischt
sein Lied in Quellen auf.

In meinem erstgeborenen Land, im [Link]

sprang die Viper mich an
und das Grausen im Licht .

0 schlieB
die Augen schlieB !
PreB den Mund auf den BiB !

Und als ich mich selber trank

und mein erstgeborenes L and
die Erdbeben wiegten,
war ich zum Schauen erwacht.

Da fiel mir Leben zu.

Da ist der Stein nicht tot.

Der Docht schnellt auf,
wenn ihn ein Blick entzundet.

1 14
The Firstborn Land

To my firstborn land, to the South

I went-and found , naked and poor,
and up to their waist in the sea,
city and castle.

Trodden by dust into sleep ,

I lay in light.
Covered with Ionian salt,
the skeleton of a tree hung over me.

No dream fell down .

No rosemary blooms there ,

no bird refreshes
its song in the fountain.

In my firstborn land , in the South

the viper pounced at me
with a shudder in the light.

Oh close
your eyes, close them !
Press your mouth against the bite.

And as I drank myself,

and the earthquakes rocked
my firstborn land ,
my eyes awoke.

Life fell down to me.

There the stone isn't dead .

The wick flies up
when a glance sets it alight .

115
Lieder von einer lnsel

Schattenfriichte f alien von den Wanden,

Mondlicht tiincht das Haus, und Asche
erkalteter Krater tragt der Meerwind herein.

In den Umarmungen schoner Knaben

schlafen die Kiisten,
dein Fleisch besinnt sich auf meins,
es war mir schon zugetan,
als sich die Schiffe
vom Land losten und Kreuze
mit unsrer sterblichen Last
Mastendienst taten .

Nun sind die Richtstatten leer,

sie suchen und finden uns nicht.

Wenn du auferstehst,
wenn ich aufersteh,
ist kein Stein vor dem Tor,
liegt kein Boot auf dem MeE!r .

Morgen rollen die Fasser

sonntaglichen Wellen entgegen,
wir kommen auf gesalbten
Sohlen zum Strand, waschen
die Trauben und st am pfen
die Ernte zu Wein,
morgen am Strand .

Wenn du auferstehst,
wenn ich aufersteh,
hangt der Henker am Tor,
sinkt der Hammer ins Meer.

1 16
Songs from an Island

Shadow fruit is falling from the walls,

moonlight bathes the house in white , and the ash
of extinct craters is born in by the sea wind .

In the embrace of handsome youths

the coasts are sleeping.
Your flesh remembers mine,
it was already inclined to me,
when the ships
loosened themselves from shore and the cross
of our mortal burden
kept watch in the rigging.

Now the execution sites are empty ,

they search but cannot find us.

When you rise from the dead ,

when I rise from the dead ,
no stone will lie before the gate ,
no boat will rest on the sea.

Tomorrow the casks will roll

toward Sunday waves ,
we come on anointed
soles to the shore , wash
the grapes and stamp
the harvest into wine ,
tomorrow, on the shore.

When you rise from the dead ,

when I rise from the dead ,
the hangman will hang at the gate ,
the hammer will sink into the sea.

117
Einmal muB das Fest j a kommen !
Heiliger Antonius, der du gelitten hast,
heiliger Leonhard, der du gelitten hast,
heiliger Vitus, der du gelitten hast .

Platz unsren Bitten, Platz den Betern,

Platz der Musik und der Freude !
Wir h aben Einfalt gelernt,
wir singen im Chor der Zikaden,
wir essen und trinken ,
die mageren Katzen
streichen um unseren Tisch,
bis die Abendmesse beginnt,
halt ich dich an der H and
mit den Augen,
und ein ruhiges mutiges Herz
opfert dir seine Wiinsche .

Honig und Niisse den Kindern,

volle Netze den Fischern,
Fruchtbarkeit den Garten,
Mond dem Vulkan, Mond dem V ulkan !

Unsre Funken setzten iiber die Grenzen,

iiber die N acht schlugen Raketen
ein Rad, auf dunklen FloBen
entfernt sich die Prozession und raumt
der V orwelt die Zeit ein,
den schleichenden Echsen,
der schlemmenden Pflanze,
dem fiebernden Fisch,
den Orgien des Winds und der Lust
des Bergs, wo ein frommer
Stern sich verirrt, ihm auf die Brust
schlagt und zerstaubt.

1 18
One day the feast must come !
Saint Anthony , you who have suffered ,
Saint Leonard , you who have suffered ,
Saint Vitus , you who have suffered.

Make way for our prayers , way for the worshippers ,

room for music and joy !
We have learned simplicity ,
we sing in the choir of cicadas ,
we eat and drink ,
the lean cats
rub against our table,
until evening mass begins
I hold your hand
with my eyes,
and a quiet, brave heart
sacrifices its wishes to you .

Honey and nuts for the children,

teeming nets for the fishermen ,
fertility for the gardens ,
moon for the volcano , moon for the volcano !

Our sparks leapt over the borders ,

above the night fireworks fanned their
tails, the procession
floats away on dark rafts and gives
time to the primeval world ,
to the plodding lizards,
to the carniverous plant,
to the feverish fish ,
to the orgies of wind and the lust
of mountains where a pious
star loses its way , collides with their face
and dissolves into dust .

1 19
Jetzt seid standhaft, torichte Heilige,
sagt dem Festland, daB die Krater nicht ruhn !
Heiliger Rochus, der du gelitten hast,
o der du gelitten hast, heiliger Franz.

Wenn einer fortgeht, muB er den Hut

mit den Muscheln, die er sommeriiber
gesammelt hat, ins Meer werfen
und fahren mit wehendem Haar,
er muB den Tisch, den er seiner Liebe
deckte, ins Meer stilrzen,
er mu13 den Rest des Weins,
der im Glas blieb, ins Meer schiitten,
er muB den Fischen sein Brot geben
und einen Tropfen Blut ins Meer mischen,
er muB sein Messer gut in die Wellen treiben
und seinen Schuh versenken,
Herz, Anker und Kreuz,
und fahren mit wehendem Haar !
Dann wird er wiederkommen.
Wann ?
Frag nicht.

Es ist Feuer unter der Ertle,

und das Feuer ist rein.

Es ist Feuer unter der Ertle

und flilssiger Stein .

Es ist ein Strom unter der Ertle,

der stromt in uns ein .

120
Stand firm , you foolish saints .
Tell the mainland the craters aren't resting!
Saint Roch, you who have suffered ,
oh you who have suffered , Saint Francis.

When someone departs he must throw his hat ,

filled with the mussels he spent the summer
gathering, in the sea
and sail off with his hair in the wind ,
he must hurl the table ,
set for his love, in the sea,
he must pour the wine,
left in his glass, into the sea,
he must give his bread to the fish
and mix a drop of his blood with the sea,
he must drive his knife deep into the waves
and sink his shoes,
heart , anchor and cross,
and sail off with his hair in the wind.
Then he will return .
When?
Do not ask .

There is fire under the earth,

and the fire is pure.

There is fire under the earth

and molten rock.

There is a torrent under the earth,

it will stream into us.

121
Es ist ein Strom unter der Erde,
der sengt das Gebein .

Es kommt ein gro13es Feuer,

es kommt ein Strom iiber die Erde.

VVir werden Zeugen sein.

l ? ?
There is a torrent under the earth ,
it will scorch our bones .

A great fire is coming,

a torrent is coming over the earth .

We shall be witnesses.

123
Romische s Nachtbild

Wenn das Schaukelbrett die sieben Hugel

nach oben entfiihrt, gleitet es auch,
von uns beschwert und umschlungen,
ins finstere Wasser,

taucht in den Flu13schlamm, bis in unsrem Scho13

die Fische sich sammel n.
Ist die Reihe an uns,
sto13en wir ab.

Es sinken die H iigel,

wir steigen und teilen
jeden Fisch mit der N acht.

Keiner springt ab .
So gewi13 ist's, da13 nur die Liebe
und einer den andern erhoht .

1 24
Ni ght Portrait of Rome

When the swing abducts the seven hills

into the sky , it will fall back ,
heavy with our embraces ,
into dark water,

dive in the river mire until fish

gather in our lap.
When it's our turn
we push off.

The hills are sinking;

we climb and share
each fish with the night.

No one j umps off.

For we know: only love
and the hand of a friend
can lift us high .

125
In Apulien

Unter den Olivenbaumen schuttet Licht die Samen aus,

Mohn erscheint und flackert wieder,
fangt das 01 und brennt es nieder,
und das Licht geht nie mehr aus .

Trommeln in den Hohlenstadten trommeln ohne UnterlaB,

weiBes Brot und schwarze Lippen,
Kinder in den Futterkrippen
will der Fliegenschwarm zum FraB .

Kam die Helle von den Feldern in den Troglodytentag,

konnt der Mohn aus Lampen rauchen,
Schmerz im Schlaf ihn ganz verbrauchen,
bis er nicht mehr brennen mag.

Esel stunden auf und trugen Wasserschlauche ubers Land,

Schnure stickten alle Hande,
Glas und Perlen fur die Wande -
Tur im klingenden Gewand .

Die Madonnen stillten Kinder und der Buff el ging' vorbei,

•

Rauch im Horn, zur grunen Tranke,

endlich reichten die Geschenke :
Lammblut, Fisch und Schlangenei .

Endlich malmen Steine Fruchte, und die Kruge sind

gebrannt.
01 rinnt offnen Augs herunter,
und der Mohn geht trunken un ter,
von Taranteln uberrannt .

126
In Apulia

Light pours out its seed beneath the olive trees ,

poppies shoot u p and start to flicker,
take the oil they need to burn ,
and their light will shine forever.

Drums roll without pause in the caverned cities .

Swarms of flies want to feed
on white bread and black lips
and children in the manger.

If only the field's light would pierce the caves,

the poppies could smoke in the lamps ,
pain consume them while they sleep,
until their burning was done .

Donkeys rise to carry water over the land.

All hands embroider lace,
glass and pearls for the walls ,
a door in the ringing raiment.

Madonnas nurse children, buffalo pass

on their way to green refreshment .
Snake eggs , fish and the blood of lamb­
finally the gifts would suffice.

Stones grind fruit and the vessels at last are burned .

Oil streams down from an open eye ,
poppies sink drunken to the earth,
trodden by tarantulas until they die .

127
S chatten Ro sen Schatten

Unter einem fremden Himmel

Schatten Rosen
Schatten
auf einer fremden Erde
zwischen Rosen und Schatten
in einem fremden Wasser
mein Schatten

1 28
Shadow Roses Shadow

Beneath a foreign sky

shadow roses
shadow
on a foreign earth
between roses and shadows
in a foreign water
my shadow

129
Bleib

Die Fahrten gehn zu Ende,

der Fahrtenwind bleibt aus .
Es fallt dir in die Hande
ein leichtes Kartenhaus.

Die Karten sind bebildert

und zeigen j eden Ort.
Du hast die Welt geschildert
und mischst sie mit dem \Vort .

Profundum der Partien,

die d ann im Gange sind !
Bleib, um das Blatt zu ziehen,
mit dem man sie gewinnt.

1 30
Stay

The boats have all touched sand ,

the fair wind heeds no call .
And lightly in your hand .
you see a card house fall .

Eac h card reveals a place

that you have once encountered .
You hold the world's face
and shuffle it with your word.

Oh infinite the joker's face

in card games big and small !
Stay , and draw the ace
with which to win them all .

131
An die Sonne

Schoner als der beachtliche Mond und sein geadeltes Licht,

Schoner als die Sterne, die beriihmten Orden der N acht,
Viel schoner als der feurige Auftritt eines Kometen
Und zu weit Schonrem berufen als j edes andre Gestirn,
Weil dein und mein Leben j eden Tag an ihr hangt, ist die
Sonne .

Schone Sonne, die aufgeht, ihr Werk nicht verges sen hat
Und beendet, am schonsten im Sommer, wenn ein Tag
An den Kiisten verdampf t und ohne Kraft gespiegelt die
Segel
U ber dein Aug ziehn, bis du miide wirst und das letzte
verkiirzt .

Ohne die Sonne nimmt auch die Kunst wieder den

Schleier,
Du erscheinst mir nicht mehr, und die See und der Sand,
Von Schatten gepeitscht, fliehen unter mein Lid .

Schones Licht, das uns warm halt, bewahrt und wunderbar

sorgt, •

Daf3 ich wieder sehe und daf3 ich dich wiederseh !

Nichts Schonres unter der Sonne als unter der Sonne zu

sem . . .

Nichts Schonres als den Stab im Wasser zu sehn und den

Vogel oben,
Der seinen Flug iiberlegt, und unten die Fische im
Schwarm,

132
To the Sun

More beautiful than the venerable moon and her noble light,
More beautiful than the stars , the famous orders of night ,
Much more beautiful than the fiery comet burst ,
And called to more beauty than any heavenly body ,
Since your life and my life depend on it daily , i s the sun.

Beautiful sun that rises , remembers his chores

And finishes them, fairest in summer when a day
Steams off the coasts , and mirrored effortlessly the sails
Glide over your eye , till you grow tired and cut short the last.

Without the sun even art puts its veil back on ,

You no longer appear to me, and the sea and the sand ,
Whipped by shadows, take refuge under my eyelids .

Beautiful light that keeps us warm , sustains and cares for us

wonderfully ,
Letting me see again and see you again !

Nothing more beautiful under the sun than to be under the sun .

Nothing more beautiful than to see the rod in water and

the bird above,
Pondering his flight, and down below the fish in their school .

133
[Link], geformt, in die Welt gekommen mit einer
Sendung von Licht,
Und den Umkreis zu sehn, das Geviert eines Felds, das
Tausendeck meines Lands
Und das Kleid, das du angetan hast . Und dein Kleid,
glockig und blau !

Schones Blau, in dem die Pfauen spazieren und sich

verne1gen,
Blau der Fernen, der Zonen des Gliicks mit den Wettern
fiir mein Gefiihl,
Blauer Zufall am Horizont ! Und meine begeisterten Augen
W eiten sich wieder und blinken und brennen sich wund.

Schone Sonne, der vom Staub noch die groBte Bewundrung

gebiihrt,
Drum werde ich nicht wegen dem Mond und den Sternen
und nicht,
Weil die Nacht mit Kometen prahlt und in mir einen
N arren sucht,
Sondern deinetwegen und bald endlos und wie um
nichts sonst
Klage fiihren iiber den unabwendbaren Verlust
meiner Augen.

134
Colored, shaped, come into the world with a mission of light ,
And to see the radius, the square of a field , the geometry
of my land
And the dress you put on. And your dress , billowing and blue .

Beautiful blue, in which peacocks stroll and bow,

Blue of distant skies , happy zones with weather for all my
moods ,
Blue chance on the horizon ! And my zealous eyes
Open wide and blink and burn themselves sore.

Beautiful sun, which even the dust admires infinitely ,

Hence not for the moon or the stars and not
Because the night shows off her comets and tries to fool me,
But for your sake and soon endlessly and as if nothing else
mattered
I shall lament the unavoidable loss of my eyes .

135
Lieder auf der Flucht

Dura legge d 'A mor ! ma, hen che obliqua,

Servar con vensi; pero ch 'ella aggiunge
Di cielo in terra, universale, antiqua.
Petrarca, >[ Trionfi<

Der Palmzweig bricht im Schnee,

. die Stiegen stiirzen ein,
die Stadt liegt steif und glanzt
im fremden Winterschein.

Die Kinder schreien und ziehn

den Hungerberg hinan,
sie essen vom weiBen Mehl
und beten den Himmel an .

Der reiche Winterflitter,

das M andarinengold,
treibt in den wilden Boen.
D ie Blutorange rollt.

II

lch aber liege allein

im Eisverhau voller Wunden .

Es hat mir der Schnee

noch nicht die Augen verbunden.

Die Toten, an mich gepreBt,

schweigen in alien Zungen.

136
Son g s of Fli ght

D ura Legge d'A mor! ma, ben che obliqua,

Servar convensi; pero ch 'ella aggiunge
D i cielo in terra, universale, antiqua .
Petrarca, "i [Link]"

The palm frond breaks in snow,

the stairs are falling in.
The city lies stiff and gleams
in a strange winter glow.

The children utter cries

and climb the hunger mountain .
They eat from white flour
and worship the skies.

The rich winter tinsel ,

the mandarin gold ,
whirls in the wild squalls.
The blood orange rolls.

II

But I lie alone

in barbed ice covered with wounds.

Snow has not yet

bound my eyes .

The dead , pressed against me,

are silent in all tongues.

137
Niemand liebt mich und hat
f iir mich eine Lampe geschwungen !

III

Die Sporaden, die Inseln,

das schone Stiickwerk im Meer,
umschwommen von kalten Stromen,
neigen noch Friichte her.

Die weil3en Retter, die Schiff e

- o einsame Segelhand ! -
deuten, eh sie versinken ,
zuriick auf das Land .

IV

Kalte wie noch nie ist eingedrungen.

Fliegende Kommandos kamen iiber das Meer.
Mit allen Lichtern hat d er Golf sich ergeben.
Die Stadt ist gefallen .
•

Ich bin unschuldig und gefangen

im unterworfenen Neapel ,
wo der Winter
Posilip und V omero an den Himmel stellt,
wo seine weil3en Blitze aufraumen
unter den Liedern
und er seine heiseren Donner
ins Recht setzt.

Ich bin unschuldig, und bis Camaldoli

riihren die Pinien die Wolken ;
und ohne Trost, denn die Palmen
schuppt so bald nicht der Regen ;

138
No one loves me or has
swung a lamp for me !

III

The Sporades, the isles ,

beautiful patchwork in the sea,
engulfed by cold streams
still bid fruit this way .

The white saviors , the ships

-oh lonely sailor hand !­
gesture , before they founder,
back toward the land.

IV

Unimaginable cold has broken in.

Flying commandos have covered the sea.
With all its lights the gulf has surrendered.
The city has fallen .

I am innocent and a captive

in conquered Naples,
where Winter
holds Posillipo and -Vomero against the sky ,
where his white lightning bolts ravage
among the songs
and he grants his hoarse thunder
its due .

I am innocent , and all the way to Camaldoli

the pine trees touch the clouds ;
and without solace, for the rain
seldom sprinkles the palms.

1 39
ohne Hoffnung, denn ich soll nicht entkommen,
auch wenn der Fisch die Flossen schiltzend straubt
und wenn am Winterstrand der Dunst,
von immer warmen Wellen aufgeworfen,
mir eine l\!Iauer macht,
au ch wenn die W ogen
fliehend
den Fliehenden
dem nachsten Ziel entheben.

Fort mit dem Schnee von der gewilrzten Stadt !

Der Friichte Luft muB durch die StraBen gehen.
Streut die Korinthen aus,
die F eigen bringt, die Kapern !
Belebt den Sommer neu,
den Kreislauf neu,
Geburt, Blut, Kot und Auswurf,
Tod - hakt in die Striemen ein,
die Linien auferlegt
Gesichtern
miBtrauisch, f aul und alt,
.

von Kalk umrissen und in 01 getrankt,

von Handeln schlau,
mit der Gefahr vertraut,
dem Zorn des Lavagotts,
dem Engel Rauch
und der verdammten Glut !

1 40
And without hope , for I shall not escape ,
even when the fish ruffles its fins to protect me
or when haze on the winter beach,
risen from an ever warm surf,
builds me a wall ,
or even when the waves,
fleeing,
free the fugitive
from his next goal .

Remove the snow from this spiced city !

Fruit air must waft through the streets .
Scatter the raisins ,
bring in the figs , the capers !
Quicken the summer's step,
the cycle of the seasons .
Birth , blood , dung and phlegm ,
death-catch hold of the welts ,
the lines imposed on
faces
suspicious, lazy and old ,
encircled with chalk and drenched in oil ,
sly from quarreling,
intimate with danger
and the anger of the lava god ,
with angel smoke
and cursed embers !

141
VI

Unterrichtet in der Liebe

durch zehntausend Bucher,
belehrt durch die Weitergabe
wenig veranderbarer Gesten
und torichter Schwure -

eingeweiht in die Liebe

aber erst hier -
als die Lava herabf uhr
und ihr H auch uns traf
am FuB des Berges,
als zuletzt der erschopfte Krater
den Schlussel preisgab
fur diese verschlossenen Karper -

Wir traten ein in verwunschene Raume

u nd leuchteten das Dunkel aus
mit den Fingerspitzen.

VII

Innen sind deine Augen Fenster

auf ein Land, in dem ich in Klarheit stehe.

Innen ist deine Brust ein Meer,

das mich auf den Grund zieht .
Innen ist deine Hufte ein Landungssteg
fur meine Schiffe, die heimkommen
von zu groBen Fahrten .

Das Gluck wirkt ein Silbertau,

an dem ich befestigt liege .

1 42
VI

Tutored in love
by ten thousand books ,
wise from the tradition
of scarcely alterable gestures
and foolish oaths-

initiated into love

but only here--
when the lava bolted down
and its breath hit us
at the foot of the mountain ,
when at last t h e exhausted crater
revealed the key
for these locked bodies-

We stepped into enchanted chambers

and lit the darkness away
with our fingertips.

VII

Within , your eyes are windows

on a land where I stand in clarity .

Within , your breast is a sea

that pulls me to its bed .
Within, your hip is a landing pier
for my ships , coming home
from too long a voyage .

Happiness twines a silver rope

to which I lie moored .

1 43
Inn en ist dein Mund ein flaumiges Nest
fiir meine fliigge werdende Zunge .
Innen ist dein Fleisch melonenlicht,
siiB und genieBbar ohne Ende.
Innen sind deine Adern ruhig
und ganz mit dem Gold gefiillt,
das ich mit meinen Tranen wasche
und das mich einmal aufwiegen wird .

Du empfangst Titel, deine Arme umfangen Giiter,

die an dich zuerst vergeben werden.

I nnen sind deine FiiBe nie unterwegs,

sondern schon angekommen in meinen Samtlanden.
Innen sind deine Knochen helle FlOten,
aus denen ich Tone zaubern kann,
die auch den Tod be stricken werden . . .

VIII

. . . Erde, Meer und Himmel .

Von Kii ssen zerwiihlt
die Erde,
das Meer und der Himmel .
Von meinen Worten umklammert
die Erde,
von meinem letzten Wort noch umklammert
das Meer und der Himmel !

Heimgesucht von meinen Lauten

diese Erde,
die schluchzend in meinen Zahnen
vor Anker ging
mit allen ihren Hochofen, Tiirmen
und hochmiitigen Gipf eln,

1 44
Within, your mouth is a downy nest
for my fledgling tongue.
Withi n , your flesh is melon light,
sweet and delicious unendingly.
Within , your veins are calm
and filled with the gold
that I wash with my tears
and one day will outweigh me.

You receive titles, your arms embrace goods

that you are first to be granted .

Within, your feet are never travelling

but have already arrived in my velvet lands .
Within , your bones are bright flutes
from which I charm melodies
that enrapture even death . . .

VIII

. . . Earth , sea and sky.

Raked with kisses
the earth,
the sea and the sky.
Gri pped by my words
the earth,
still held by my last word
the sea and the sky.

Haunted by my tones
this earth that ,
sobbing in my teeth,
cast anchor
with all her blast furnaces , towers
and proud peaks.

145
diese g eschla g ene Erde,
die vor mir ihre Schluchten entbl013te,
ihre Steppen, Wii sten und Tundre n ,

d i e s e rastlose Erde
mit ihren zuckenden M a g netfeldern,
die sich hier selbst f esselte
m i t ihr noch unbekannten Kraft kett en ,

diese b e t ii u bte und betii ubende Erde

mit N a c h t scha t t e n gewach s e n ,
bleiernen G i f t e n
und Stromen v o n D uft -

u n tergega n gen i m M eer

u n d a u f gegangen i m H i m m e l
die Erde !

IX

Die schwarze Katze,

das 01 auf dem Boden,
der hose Blick :

Ungliick !

Zieh das Korallenhorn,

hang die Horner vors H aus,
Dunkel, kein Licht !

0 Liebe, die unsre Schalen

aufbrach und fortwarf, unseren Schild,
den Wetterschutz und braunen Rost von J ahren !

146
This beaten earth
that bared her gorges to me ,
her steppes , deserts and tundra;

this restless earth,

with quivering magnetic fields,
that fettered herself here
with her own unimagined chains of power.

This stunned and stunning earth

with nightshade flowers
lead poisons
and rivers of fragrance-

gone down in the sea

and risen in the sky
the earth !

IX

The black cat,

oil on the floor,
the evil look :

Trouble !

Take out the coral horn ,

hang the horns before the house,
darkness , no light !

Oh love that broke open and cast away

our shells , our shield ,
the weather guard and brown rust of many years !

147
0 Leiden, die unsre Liebe austraten,
ihr feuchtes Feuer in den fiihlenden Teilen !
Verqualmt, verendend im Qualm, geht die Flamme in sich.

XI

Du willst das Wetterleuchten, wirfst die Messer,

du trennst der Luft die warmen Adern auf ;

dich blendend, springen aus den offnen Pulsen

lautlos die letzten Feuerwerke auf :

W ahnsinn, Verachtung, dann die Rache,

und schon die Reue und der Widerruf.

Du nimmst noch wahr, dal3 deine Klingen stumpfen,

und endlich f iihlst du, wie die Liebe schliel3t :

mit ehrlichen Gewittern, reinem Atem.

Und sie verstol3t dich in das Traumverlies .

W o ihre goldnen H aare niederhangen,

greifst du nach ihr, der Leitet in das Nichts .

Tausend und eine N acht hoch sind die Sprossen.

Der Schritt ins Leere ist der letzte Schritt.

Und wo du aufprallst, sind die alten Orte,

und j edem Ort gibst du drei Tropfen Blut.

Umnachtet haltst du wurzellose Locken.

Die Schelle lautet, und es ist genug.

1 48
Oh pain that stamped out our love,
its moist fire in tender places.
Smoke-filled, perishing in smoke, the flame turns in on itself.

XI

You want the summer lightning, and fling the knives,

you cut open the air's warm veins;

blinding you , from open wounds

the last fireworks shoot up in silence.

Madness, scorn, then revenge

and already remorse and the disavowal.

Yet still you feel your blades growing dull,

and finally you sense how love expires:

with honest storms , untainted breath .

And she c asts you in the dream dungeon.

Where love's golden hair hangs down

you reach for her, for the ladder i nto nothing.

The rungs are a thousand and one nights high.

The step into emptiness is the last step.

And you hit bottom at the old places,

and to each you give three drops of blood.

Deranged, you hold rootless locks of hair.

The bell rings and you've had enough.

1 49
XII

M und, der in meinem Mund genachtigt hat,

Aug, das mein Aug bewachte,
Hand -

und die mich schleiften, die Augen !

Mund, der das Urteil sprach,
Hand, die mich hinrichtete !

XIII

Die Sonne warmt nicht, stimmlos ist das Meer.

Die Graber, schneeverpackt, schniirt niemand auf.
Wird denn kein Kohlenbecken angefiillt
mit fester Glut ? Doch Glut tut's nicht.

Erlose mich ! Ich kann nicht langer sterben.

Der Heilige hat anderes zu tun ;

er sorgt sich um die Stadt und geht urns Brot .
Die \:Vascheleine tragt so schwer am Tuch ;
bald wird es fallen . Doch mich deckt's nicht zu .

Ich bin noch schuldig. Heb mich auf.

Ich bin nicht schuldig. Heb mich auf.

Das Eiskorn los vom zugefrornen Aug,

brich mil den Blicken ein,
die blauen Griinde such,
schwimm, schau und tauch :

lch bin es nicht.

lch bin's.

1 50
XII

Mouth that has slept in mine ,

eye that has watched over my eye ,
hand-

and the eyes that bore through me !

Mouth that spoke the verdict ,
hand that hung me !

XIII

The sun does not warm , voiceless is the sea.

No one unlocks the graves wrapped in snow.
Is no brazier being filled
with glowing embers? I feel no warmth .

Release me ! I cannot die any longer.

The saint has other business ;

he cares for the city and begs for bread.
The washline is laden with cloth.
Soon it will fall. But i t will not cover me.

I am still guilty . Raise me.

I am not guilty. Raise me.

Free the ice from the frozen eye .

Break through with your glances,
seek the blue depths,
swi m , look and dive.

It is not I .
I t is I .

151
XIV

Wart meinen Tod ab und dann hor mich wieder,

es kippt der Schneekorb, und das vV asser singt,
in die Toledo miinden alle Tone, es taut,
ein W ohlklang schmilzt das Eis.
0 groBes Tauen !

Erwart dir viel !

Silben im Oleander,
Wort im Akaziengriin
Kaskaden aus der Wand .

Die Becken fiillt,

hell und bewegt,
Musik.

xv

Die Liebe hat einen Triumph und der Tod hat einen7
die Zeit und die Zeit danach .
Wir haben keinen.

Nur Sinken um uns von Gestirnen. Abglanz und Schweigen.

Doch das Lied iiberm Staub danach
wird uns iibersteigen.

1 52
XIV

Wait for my death and then hear me again .

The snow basket tips over and the water sings ,
all sounds merge into the Toledo, the ice is thawing.
A melody melts the ice.
Oh great thaw !

Ask much of yourself.

Syllables in oleander,
word in acacian green,
cascades from the wall.

Fill the basins,

bright and swaying,
music .

xv

Love has a triumph and death has one,

the time and the time thereafter.
We have none .

Only the sinking of stars about us. Reflected splendor and

silence .
Yet the song above the dust
one day will rise above us.

1 53
S ELECTE D L A TER P OEM S
[Verordnet die sem Geschlech t keinen
Glauben]

Verordnet diesem Geschlecht keinen G l auben,

g enu g sind Sterne, Sch iff e und Rauch,
es le g t sich in die Din g e , bestimmt
Sterne und die unendliche Zahl ,
und ein Z u g tritt, nenn ihn Zu g einer Liebe,
reiner aus allem herv o r .

Die H i mmel han g en w e l k und Sterne Iosen

sich aus der Verkn ii p fun g mit M ond und N acht.

1 56
[Don't prescribe any faith to this race]

Don't prescribe any faith to this race ;

stars , ships and smoke will suffice .
The race engulfs all things , determines
stars and the infinite number,
and a trait , call it a trait of love ,
emerges all the purer.

The skies hang wilted , and stars loose

themselves from the knot of moon and night .

157
Hotel de la Paix

Die Rosenlast [Link] lautlos von den Wanden,

und durch den Teppich scheinen Grund und Boden.
D as Lichtherz bricht der Lampe.
Dunkel . Schritte .
Der Riegel hat sich vor den Tod geschoben.

1 58
Hotel de la Paix

The burden of roses falls silent from the walls .

and through the rug shine floor and earth.
The heart of light breaks inside the lamp.
Darkness . Steps.
The bolt has bee n pushed before death.

1 59
Exil

Ein Toter bin ich der wandelt

gemeldet nirgends mehr
unbekannt im Reich des Prafekten
iiberzahlig in den goldenen Stadten
und im griinenden Land

abgetan lange schon

und mit nichts bedacht

N ur mit Wind mit Zeit und mit Klang

der ich unter Menschen nicht leben kann

Ich mit der deutschen Sprache

dieser Wolke um mich
die ich halte als Haus
treibe <lurch alle Sprachen

0 wie sie sich verfinstert

die dunklen die Regentone
n ur die wenigen f alien

In hellere Zonen tragt dann sie den Toten hinauf

1 60
Exile

I am a dead man who wanders

registered nowhere
unknown in the realm of the prefect
superfluous in the golden cities
and the greening land

written off long ago

bequeathed nothing

Save wind and time and sound

I who cannot live among people

I with the German language

this cloud about me
that I keep as a house
drive through all languages

Oh how this cloud darkens

the somber ones the rain notes
only a few fall

Into brighter places it bears the dead man high

161
Nach die ser Sintflut

Nach dieser Sintflut

mochte ich die Taube,
und nichts als die Taube,
noch einmal gerettet sehn .

Ich ginge j a unter in diesem Meer !

flog' sie nicht aus,
brachte sie nicht
in letzter Stunde das Blatt.

1 62
After This Delu g e

After this deluge

I would like to see the dove,
and nothing but the dove,
saved once more .

For I'd perish in this sea !

if she didn't fly away ,
if she didn't bring bac k ,
in the last hour,
the leaf.

1 63
Stromung

So weit im Leben und so nah am Tod,

daB ich mit niemand darum rechten kann,
reiB ich mir von der Erde meinen Teil ;

dem stillen Ozean stoB ich den griinen Keil

mitten ins Herz und schwemm mich selber an.

Zinnvogel steigen auf und Zimtgeruch !

l\1it meinem Morder Zeit bin ich allein.
In Rausch und Blaue puppen wir uns ein .

1 64
Stream

So far in life and so close to death,

that I shall litigate no more.
From the earth I rip my part ;

into the still ocean , into its heart

I plunge my green wedge and wash myself onshore.

Tin birds rise up and cinnamon smell !

With my murderer time I am alone.
In stupor, in blueness we spin our cocoon.

165
Geh , Gedanke

Geh, Gedanke, solang ein zum Flug klares Wort

dein Fltigel ist, dich aufhebt und dorthin geht,
wo die leichten Metalle sich wiegen,
wo die Luft schneidend ist
in einem neuen Verstand,
wo Waffen sprechen
von einziger Art .
Verficht uns dort !

Die Woge trug ein Treibholz hoch und sinkt.

Das Fieber riB dich an sich, laBt dich f alien.
Der Glaube hat nur einen Berg versetzt.

LaB stehn, was steht, geh, Gedanke ! ,

von nichts andrem als unsrem Schmerz durchdrungen.

Entsprich uns ganz !

1 66
Go, My Thou ght

Go, my thought , as long as a word clear enough for flight

is your wing, lifts you and goes
where the light metals sway ,
where the air is sharp
in a new understanding,
where weapons speak
of a single kind.
Defend us there !

The wave bore a piece of driftwood high and sinks .

Fever pulled you to its breast, lets you fall .
Faith has moved only a mountain.

Let stand what stands , go, my thought !

Filled with nothing other than our suffering.

Conform to us wholly !

167
Aria I

W ohin wir uns wend en im Gewitter der Rosen,

ist die N acht von Dornen erhellt, und der Donner
des Laubs� das so leise war in den Biischen,
folgt uns jetzt auf dem FuB .

W o immer gelOscht wird, was die Rosen entziinden,

schwemmt Regen uns in den FluB . 0 fernere Nacht !
Doch ein Blatt, das uns traf, treibt auf den Wellen
bis zur Miindung uns nach .

1 68
Aria I

Wherever we turn in the storm of roses ,

thorns illuminate the night. And the thunder
of a thousand leaves , once so quiet on the bushes,
is right at our heels.

Wherever the roses' fire is put out,

rain washes us into the river. Oh distant night !
Yet a leaf that touched us now floats on the waves ,
following us to the sea.

1 69
Ihr Worte
Fur N elly S ach s , d ie Freu n d i n , d i e D ichterin, in Verehrung

Ihr Worte, auf, mir nach ! ,

und sind wir auch schon weiter,
zu weit gegangen, geht's noch einmal
weiter, zu keinem Ende geht's .

Es hellt nicht auf.

D as Wort
wird doch nur
andre W orte nach sich ziehn,
Satz den Satz .
So mochte Welt,
endgiiltig,
sich aufdrangen,
schon gesagt sein .
Sagt sie nicht .

Worte, mir nach,

dal3 nicht endgiiltig wird
- nicht diese W ortbegier
'

und Spruch auf Widerspruch !

Lal3t eine Weile j etzt

keins der Gefiihle sprechen,
den Muskel Herz
sich anders ilben.

Lal3t, sag ich, lal3t.

1 70
You Words
For Nelly Sachs, poet and friend

You words, come , after me !

And though we've gone a long way ,
too long, we must go
on, we'll never reach the end .

The sky isn't getting light.

The word
can only
pull other words behind it,
one sentence another.
So world would like,
finally ,
to obtrude itself,
already be said .
Don't say it.

Words , after me ,
so that this hunger for words,
statement and counterstatement
-does not become final .

For a while let

none of the senses speak ,
let the muscle heart
exercise differently .

Let be , I say , let be.

171
Ins hochste Ohr nicht,
nichts, sag ich, geflustert,
zum Tod fall dir nichts ein,
laB, und mir nach, nicht mild
noch bitterlich,
nicht trostreich,
ohne Trost
bezeichnend nicht,
so auch nicht zeichenlos -

Und nur nicht dies : das Bild

im Staubgespinst, leeres Geroll
von Silben, Sterbensworter.

Kein Sterbenswort,
Ihr Worte !

1 72
Not into exalted ears ,
nothing, I say , whispered ,
no thoughts about death ,
let be , and after me, not mild
nor bitterly ,
not comforting
without consolation
not designating,
thus not without signs-

And above all not this: the image

in the web of dust, hollow roll
of syllables , last words.

No dying word ,
you words !

1 73
Wahrlich
F ii r A n n a Achmatova

W em es ein Wort nie verschlagen hat,

und ich sage es euch,
wer blofi sich zu helfen weifi
und mit den Worten -

dem ist nicht zu helfen.

U ber den kurzen Weg nicht
und nicht iiber den langen.

Einen einzigen Satz haltbar zu machen,

auszuhalten in dem Bimbam von Worten.

Es schreibt diesen Satz keiner,

der nicht unterschreibt.

1 74
Truly
For Anna Achmatova

Whoever has not choked on a word ,

and I say unto you ,
whoever knows merely how to help hi mself,
and with words-

there's no helping him .

Not in the short run
and not in the long one.

To make a single sentence tenable ,

to endure it in the ding-dong of words.

No one writes this sentence

who doesn't under-write.

175
Bohmen liegt am Meer

Sind hierorts Hauser grun, tret ich noch in ein H aus.

Sind hier die Brucken heil, geh ich auf gutem Grund .
1st Liebesmuh in alle Zeit verloren, verlier ich sie hier gern.

Bin ich's nicht, ist es einer, der ist so gut wie ich.

Grenzt hier ein Wort an mich, so laB ich 's grenzen.

Liegt Bohmen noch am Meer, glaub ich den M eeren
wieder.
Und glaub ich noch ans Meer, so hoffe ich auf Land.

Bin ich's, so ist's ein jeder, der ist soviel wie ich.
Ich will nichts mehr fur mich . lch will zugrunde gehn.

Zugrund - das heiBt zum Meer, dort find ich Bohmen

wieder.
Zugrund gerichtet, wach ich ruhig auf.
Von Grund auf weiB ich jetzt, und ich bin unverloren.

Kommt her, ihr Bohmen alle, Seefahrer, Hafenhuren und

Schiffe
unverankert. Wollt ihr nicht bohmisch sein, Illyrer,
Veroneser,
und Venezianer alle . Spielt die Komodien, die lachen
machen

U nd die zum W einen sind . U nd irrt euch hundertmal,

wie ich mich irrte und Proben nie bestand ,
doch hab ich sie bestanden, ein um das andre Mal .

Wie Bohmen sie bestand und eines schonen Tags

ans Meer begnadigt wurde und jetzt am Wasser liegt.

1 76
Bohemia Lies by the Sea

If the houses here are green, I'll step inside a house.

If the bridges here are strong, I'll walk on solid ground .
If love's labor is lost in every age , I'd like to lose it here .

If I'm not the one , someone is, he's j ust as good as I.

If a word borders on me here , I'll let i t border.

If Bohemia still lies by the sea, I'll believe in the sea.
And if I believe in the sea, I can hope for land.

If I'm the one , then anyone is, he's worth as much as I.

I want nothing more for myself. Let me go under now.

Underground-that means the ocean , there I'll find Bohemia

agam.
From my ruins , I wake up in peace.
From deep down I know, and am not lost.

Come here , all you Bohemians, seamen, harbor whores and

ships
unanchored. Don't you want to be Bohemians , all you Illyrians,
Venetians and Veronese. Play the comedies that make us laugh

to tears. And go astray a hundred times ,

as I went astray and never stood the trials.
Yet I did stand them , each and every time.

As Bohemia stood them and one fine day

was pardoned to the sea and now lies by water.

177
Ich grenz noch an ein Wort und an ein andres Land,
ich grenz, wie wenig auch, an alles immer mehr,

ein Bohme, ein Vagant, der nichts hat, den nichts halt,
begabt nur noch, vom Meer, das strittig ist, Land meiner
Wahl zu sehen.

1 78
I still border on a word and a different land,
I border, like little else , on everything more and more,

a man from Bohemia, a vagrant, a player

who has nothing and whom nothing holds ,
granted only , by a questionable sea, to gaze at the land of my
choice.

1 79
Prag J anner 64

Seit jener N acht

gehe und spreche ich wieder,
bohmisch klingt es,
als war ich wieder zuhause,

wo zwischen der Moldau, der Donau

und meinem KindheitsfluB
alles einen Begriff von mir hat.

Gehen, schrittweis ist es wiedergekommen,

Sehen, angeblickt, habe ich wieder erlernt.

Gebiickt noch, blinzelnd,

hing ich am Fenster,
sah die Schattenj ahre,
in denen kein S tern
mir in den Mund hing,
sich iiber den Hugel entfernen.

U ber den Hradschin

haben um sechs Uhr morgens
die Schneeschaufler aus der Tatra
mit ihren rissigen Pranken
die Scherben dieser Eisdecke gekehrt.

Unter den berstenden Blocken

meines, auch meines Flusses
kam das befreite Wasser hervor.

Zu horen bis zum Ural.

1 80
Pra gue January 64

Since that night

I walk and speak once more .
There's a Bohemian ring to words ,
as if I were home again-

where between the Moldau , the Danube

and the river of my childhood
everything has a notion of me.

Going, it's come back step by step ;

seeing, gazed upon , I've learned again.

Still bent over, squinting,

I hung by the window
and watched the shadow years ,
in which no star
hung in my mouth ,
disappear over the hill.

Above the H radschin,

at six in the morning,
the snow shovelers from Tatry
with their calloused claws
have swept away the pieces of this ice blanket .

Beneath the bursting blocks

of my , yes also my river,
the freed water came forth.

Audible all the way to the U rals .

181
Eine Art Verlust

Gemeinsam benutzt : J ahreszeiten, Bucher und eine Musik.

Die Schlussel, die Teeschalen, den Brotkorb, Leintucher
und ein Bett .
Eine Aussteuer von Worten, von Gesten, mitgebracht,
verwendet, verbraucht.
Eine Hausordnung beachtet. Gesagt . Getan. Und immer
die H and gereicht.

In Winter, in ein Wiener Septett und in Sommer habe ich

mich verliebt .
In Landkarten, in ein Bergnest, in einen Strand und in
ein Bett .
Einen Kult getrieben mit Daten, Versprechen fur
unkundbar erkl art,
angehimmelt ein Etwas und fromm gewesen vor einem
Nichts,

( - der gefalteten Zeitung, der kalten Asche, dem Zettel

mit einer Notiz)
furchtlos in der Religion, denn die K irche war dieses Bett .

Aus dem Seeblick hervor ging meine unerschopfliche

M alerei .
Von dem Balkon herab waren die Volker, meine Nachbarn,
zu grul3en .
Am Kaminfeuer, in der Sicherheit, hatte mein Haar seine
aul3erste Farbe.
Das Klingeln an der Tur war der Alarm fur meine Freude .

Nicht dich habe ich verloren ,

sondern die Welt.

1 82
A Kind of Loss

Used together: seasons, books , a piece of music .

The keys , teacups, bread basket , sheets and a bed .
A hope chest of words, of gestures, brought bac k , used , used up.
A household order maintained . Said. Done . And always a hand
was there.

I've fallen in love with winter, with a Viennese septet , with

summer.
With village maps, a mountain nest , a beach and a bed .
Kept a calender cult, declared promises irrevocable ,
bowed before something, was pious to a nothing

(-to a folded newspaper, cold ashes , the scribbled piece of

paper) ,
fearless in religion , for our bed was the church.

From my lake view arose my inexhaustible painting.

From my balcony I greeted entire peoples , my neighbors .
By the chimney fire , in safety , my hair took on its deepest hue.
The ringi ng at the door was the alarm for my j oy .

It's not you I've lost ,

but the world.

1 83
Eni g ma
Fiir H a n s VVerner Henze a u s der Zeit der Ariosi

Nichts mehr wird kommen .

Fruhling wird nicht mehr werden.

Tausendj ahrige Kalender sagen es j edem voraus.

Aber auch Sommer und weiterhin, was so gute N amen

wie » sommerlich« hat -
es wird nichts mehr kommen .

Du sollst j a nicht weinen,

sagt eine Musik.

Sonst
sagt
niemand
etwas.

1 84
Eni g ma
For Hans Werner Henze from the time o f the Ariosi

Nothing more will come .

Spring will never be again.

Millenial calenders predict it to everyone .

But summer too, and more , everything with good names

like "summery"-
nothing more will come.

You shouldn't cry

the music says.

Otherwise
no one
says
anything.

185
Keine D elikates sen

Nichts mehr gefallt mir.

Soll ich
eine Metapher ausstaffieren
mit einer Mandelbliite ?
die Syntax kreuzigen
auf einen Lichteffekt ?
Wer wird sich den Schadel zerbrechen
iiber so iiberfliissige Dinge -

Ich habe ein Einsehn gelernt

mit den W orten,
die da sind
(fiir die unterste Klasse)

Hunger
Schande
Tran en
und
Finsternis.

Mit dem ungereinigten Schluchzen,

mit der V erzweiflung
( und ich verzweifle noch vor V erzweiflung)
iiber das viele Elend,
den Krankenstand, die Lebenskosten,
werde ich auskommen .

Ich vernachlassige nicht die Schrift,

sondern mich .
Die andern wissen sich
weiBgott
mit den Wort en zu helf en.
Ich bin nicht mein Assistent .
1 86
No Delicacies

Nothing pleases m e anymore .

Should I
dress a metaphor
with an almond blossom?
crucify syntax
on a trick of light?
Who will beat his brains
over such superfluities-

I have learned to be considerate

with the words
that exist
(for the lowest class)

hunger
disgrace
tears
and
darkness

With unclean sobbing,

with despair
(and I despair even of despair)
of the enormous misery,
the bedridden, the cost of living-
1 will get by .

I don't neglect the word

but myself.
The others know
godknows
how to help themselves with words.
I am not my assistant.
187
Soll ich
einen Gedanken gef angennehmen,
abfiihren in eine erleuchtete Satzzelle ?
Aug und Ohr verkostigen
mit Worthappen erster Giite ?
erforschen die Libido eines V okals,
ermitteln die Liebhaberwerte unserer Konsonanten ?

Mufi ich
mit dem verhagelten Kopf,
mit dem Schreibkrampf in dieser Hand,
unter dreihundertnachtigem Druck
einrei3en das Papier,
wegfegen die angezettelten Wortopern,
vernichtend so : ich du und er sie es

wir ihr ?

( Soll doch . Sollen die andern .)

Mein Teil, es soll verloren gehen.

1 88
Should I
take a thought captive ,
lead it into an illuminated sentence cell?
Feed eye and ear
with first-class word tidbits?
Investigate the libido of a vowel,
ascertain the lover's value of our consonants?

Must I ,
with this hail-battered head ,
with writing cramps in this hand,
under the pressure of three hundred nights ,
rip this paper apart,
sweep away the plotted word operas ,
destroying thus: I you and he she it

we you ?

(Still should. The others should . )

My share, it should be dispersed .

1 89
A P PEN DIX
Bio graphical Note *

I G RE w u P in Carinthia, * * near the border, in a valley that

has two names-a German one and a Slovenian one . And the
house inhabited for generations by my ancestors-Austrians
and Wends-still bears a foreign-sounding name . So near the
border is yet another border: the border of language . I felt at
home here and on the other side, with the tales of good and evil
spirits from two and three countries. For behind the moun­
tains, just an hour away, is Italy.
I think the narrowness of this valley and the consciousness
of borders have imparted to me a longing for distant places .
When the war ended I left my home and , full of impatience
and expectations , went to Vienna, which in my imagination
had seemed unreachable. It became another home on the border:
between East and West, between a long, noble past and a
gloomy future . And if, later, I also traveled to Paris and Lon­
don , Germany and Italy , that means little ; for in my memory
the road from my valley to Vienna will always be the longest.
Sometimes people ask me how I, who was raised in the
country , found my way to literature. I'm not sure of the precise
reason. I only know that at the age when children read
Grimms' fairytales I began to write , and that I liked to lie be­
side the railroad embankment and send my thoughts on jour­
neys to foreign cities and countries and to that unknown sea
which, somewhere , merges with the sky to complete the globe .
It was always of seas, sand , and ships that I dreamed . But then
the war came, and the dream-filled , fantastic world of my
youth was pushed out of the way by the real world where de­
cisions , not dreams , come first.

* Translator's Note: Written sometime between May and September 1952

for a radio broadcast, this untitled autobiographical sketch was found among
Bachmann's papers at her death.
* * A province of southeastern Austria. (Tr)

1 93
 Afterwards so much happened that one could scarcely wish
for more : study at the university , travel , writing for magazines
and newspapers , and later my constant work for a radio sta­
tion . These everyday stations in a life may be rearranged and
exchanged , one for the other. Yet life itself does not rely on
such mediation.
There still remains the question of influence and models, of
the literary climate in which one feels at home. For several
years I consistently read a great deal . Among the more recent
poets perhaps Gide, Valery , Eluard , and Yeats were my fa­
vorites. And it may be that I learned much from them. But at
heart I am still dominated by the mythic imaginative world of
my home country , which is a facet of Austria yet to be real­
ized-a world of many languages and many borders .
To write poetry seems to me the most difficult task because
the problems of form , theme, and diction must be resolved
into a single entity ; and because poetry must obey the rhythm
of the age and still bring into harmony the wealth of old and
new things for our hearts , in which past, present, and future
are enclosed .

19 4
What I Saw and Heard in Rome *

I N R o M E I saw that the Tiber is not beautiful, but that it flows

untroubled between quays and banks that no one dares dis­
turb . No one uses the rust-brown freighters or the fishing
boats . Bushes and high grass are covered with dirt , and the
workers sleep on the stone railings , immobile in the noonday
heat. Never has one rolled over. Never has one fallen. Thev ..

sleep where plane trees offer them shade , and pull the sky
over their heads . But the river's water is beautiful, muddy
green or blond, depending on how the light falls . One should
walk alongside the Tiber rather than look at it from the
bridges, which are considered paths to an island. The Tiber­
ina is inhabited by noantri-we others , a word that can be ex­
plained in the following way: the Tiberina, since antiquity the
island of the sick and the dead, wishes to be inhabited by ''us
others ," sailed by us, for she is also a ship and floats slowly in
the water with all her passengers , in a river for which she is no
burden.
In Rome I saw that St. Peter's appears smaller than its size
and yet is still too big. It is said that God wanted his church to
stand firm on a rock . But this one lifts itself over the grave of
its saint, which now lies open . So it is the saint himself who
endangers and weakens the church. Still the great festivals
take place with all their fanfare , purple ballets are performed
under baldaquins , and gold has replaced the wax in the
niches . Chiesa granne divozzione poca. The poor. in their
watchfulness, still make sure that the church doesn"t fall ; and
the one who founded it is already counting on the tread of an­
gels.
In Rome I saw that manv houses resemble the Palazzo
Cenc i , in which unhappy Beatrice lived before her execution.
The prices are high and the traces of barbarism everywhere .
* First published in Akzente . Zeitschrift fiir Dichtung. February 1955.
( Tr)

195
The oleander containers on the balconies rot for the sake of
white and red blossoms. The flowers would like to fly away , for
they can't compete with the smell of excrement and decay ,
which, more than the monuments, brings the past to life.
In Rome I saw in the ghetto that you shouldn't count your
chickens before they're hatched . But on Yorn Kippur everyone
is forgiven in advance for an entire year. Close to the syn­
agogue a table has been set up in a trattoria, and there the
small reddish fish from the Mediterranean are served, spiced
with raisins and pine nuts . The old people recall their friends ,
whose weight was measured in gold , and that when they paid
the ransom the transport wagons still drove up and no one
came back. But their grandchildren, two small girls in fiery
red dresses and a fat blond boy , dance between the tables and
can't keep their eyes off the musicians. "Keep on playing,"
cries the fat one and waves his cap . His grandmother begins
to smile , and the violinist goes white as a sheet and stops play­
ing for a whole measure.
On the C ampo de Fiori I saw that Giordano Bruno is still
burned at the stake. Every Saturday evening when the stands
around him are torn down and only the flower ladies are left ,
when the stench of fish , chlorine, and rotten fruit o n the
square ebbs away , the men carry the leftover garbage (every­
thing's been rummaged through) , put it in a heap before his
eyes and ignite it. Smoke rises up once more and the flames
twist in the air. A woman cries out and the others start shout­
ing too. Because the flames are transparent in the intense
light , one can't see how far they reach and what they're hitting
at. But the man on the pedestal knows and still he doesn't re­
cant .
In a Roman bar I saw and counted : a cat with funny ears and
an almost naked face , white trousers and a honey-colored vest
that's seen better days; a waiter who spilled coffee and let the
aperitif glasses overflow; a small boy with an apron who
washed cups and glasses and never went to bed before mid-

1 96
night; customers who came and went, and one customer who
always came back and lived from a little swig of bitterness.
In Rome I've seen the great villas with real pine trees, ce­
dar, and even beech carved into make-beli�ve animals. At the
Capitol I saw the laurel tree and the treacherous wild grass of
the Forum . And at dusk, when the grass started attacking the
broken pillars and crumbling walls, I heard the noise of the
c ity , deceivingly distant, and the soft gliding of the cars.
I saw, in the place where Rome's streets sally forth, how the
triumphant sky marched i nto the city, refused to bow under
any gate and stretched itself out over the seven hills , blue after
pirate raids along the coasts of Sicily and filled with the island
fruits of the Tyrrhenian sea, unharmed after forays into the
land of Abruzzian brigands and black with the swallow-grapes
rescued over the Appenines. I saw the promised sky of ermine
and the wretched sky of sackcloth , and I saw a steady hand in
great moments inscribe the medial line above the rooftops.
That everyone builds his own house as he likes , I have often
seen , and that no bluepri nt joins one to the other better than
.
chance and individual taste. But no taste is enough to create
the proper intervals, lonely fields for sun and shade. And no
chance solves the equation in which the weight of a wall ex­
presses the weightlessness of a tower. The houses are covered
with old canvas , its colors dried out . Only when sunlight
forces its way into the porous material does the color we see
appear: a shade of brown capable of every metamorphosis.
In Rome I saw that everything has a name and that one must
know the names . Even things wish to be named. The Ludovi­
sian throne hasn't fallen with the last ruler. Columns from the
temple of Venus remain standing-from this temple and no
other. The head of Saint Agnes has shrunk but it hasn't be­
come that of a leather doll. Like so many Popes before him,
this Pope is carried in a sedan chair, and his blessing is good
urbis et orbi. The noble families are called: Corsini and Pig­
natelli , Ruspoli and Odescalchi , Farnese and Barberini, Al-

197
dobrandini. . . . Those are still their names, even when the
homeless set up their iron beds in a castle in the campagna or
pile up their water containers on sarcophaguses. The last
member of the family has long since moved away . In the city
his rooms are marked with black brocade and he plays blue­
blooded songs on a black piano. He cowers when he hears his
name . So different from the animal that, rather than eat, pro­
vided nourishment from its own flesh for future generations :
the she-wolf.
I saw that whoever said "Rome" still names the world , and
that the key to strength is four letters . S. P. Q. R. Whoever
knows the code can close the books . He can read it from the
coat of arms on passing buses or a manhole cover. It's the
identity card of the fountains and the dutied drinks; the sign
of the only majesty that has ruled the city without interruption.
At the railway station , Termini , I saw that in Rome people
say farewells more easily than elsewhere. For those departing
leave their friends behind with a baggage claim-ticket to long­
ing. The station is bordered by the remains of the Diocletian
Wall , and inscribed on the new floating glass fa<;ade, three cy­
presses appear in an unmistakable script. For the classical
form is the simplest , and old and new texts represent it equally
well.
Whoever throws a coin in the Fontana di Trevi and wishes
to come back fears it might not be accepted . But he can be
consoled . At night a young boy sits on the edge of the fountain
and whistles , luring the others out of hiding. When all have
gathered the boy undresses and climbs nonchalantly into the
water. Moonlight illuminates the scene while he bends over,
shivering, to collect the coins . Finally he whistles again, and
in his hands all currencies melt into silver. The booty can't be
di vided beneath the moon , for the boy has the appearance of a
god i n comparison with the others , whose forms are made of
c heap coats and trousers .
I t i s hard to see what lies under the earth : water regions and

1 98
cemeteries. Steps lead down to cisterns drunk dry by the
wind , to fountains arched over with corbels and hollowed out
of white tuff, and to drops of blood that have grown into
springs. The paths sink into the catacombs. A match is struck
and its flame expands into symbols . For a moment we see : fish,
peacock and dove , anchor and cross, food and drink. The
match goes out quickly and those walking ahead rush upstairs .
In the curve someone stops short and asks : "Where is the wind
coming from?"
When I lost my hearing and sight in Rome the sirocco came
and defeated the eagle wind from the mountains. Then the sun
wore a shirt and shone in a false light. In such times all mis­
fortune increases and a harsh word is easily spoken . For the
warm wind reaches back to the desert. Sometimes it an­
nounces its arrival , scatters red sand over the groggy city , and
blows on it until it is senseless . When the sirocco blows , it
does so secretly , in the middle of the night , while we sleep ob­
liviously. But in the morning, around three , dew falls . How I
envy the one who could lie there awake and wet his lips !
In the morning in Rome I've looked across the Protestant
graveyard to the Testaccio and thrown my sorrow in with the
rest. Whoever digs up a little earth will find the sorrow of
others below. For the graveyard seeking shade along the Au­
relian Wall , the shards on the Testaccio are not counted but
few. It holds a great cloud next to its ear like a conch and now
hears only one sound . In it are the words: "One whose name
was writ in water,"* and next to Keats's verses a handful of
lines by Shelley . Not a word of Humboldt's little son who died
of malaria. And of August von Goethe not a word either. Of the
mute painters , Karstens and Man�es , a few lines have sur­
vived , a spot of color, a knowing blue. Of the other mute ones ,
nobody has ever known .
In Rome, of course , I have heard that many have bread to

* In English in the original text. (Tr)

199
eat but not the teeth , and that the flies must bite into thin
horses . That one is given many gifts and the other none , that
whoever pulls too hard will rip something, and that only a solid
pillar holds up a house for a hundred years . I have heard that
in the world there is more time than understanding, but that
we were given our eyes to see .

200
[On the Ori g in of the Title "In A pulia"] *
[Sketch]

0 NE s E LD o M speaks of a poem's title. How does the poet de­

cide on a title? Does he start out with the title or look for it
afterwards? What happens when he can't find one? I believe
that all poets-and not just poets-have found themselves at
a loss over this problem. Recently poets have preferred to ex­
tract a line from the poem in question, a line in which the
poem appears to culminate ; but they shouldn't be surprised if
the reader takes hold of this one line and forgets the others .
With my poem "In Apulia" the title suggested itself; there
was a reason for naming it thus . Someone to whom I had given
the poem to read asked: "You were in Apulia? Where is that
anyway?-Oh, I see . " Apulia can be found on an Italian map .
It is one of Italy's lesser known regions , an old land , a part of
Magna Graecia, a highway for the Lombards, diffuse in its
expressions, sandstone Baroque in Lecce, Gothic in Trani and
Bari , Greek churches in Galipoli, nowadays overgrown and
bathed only in light, a land of peasants and small ports , of
frutti di mare, oyster stands in Taranto. The Germans have
rarely made it down there . . . the classical Italian roads don't
lead there .
Of course I was in Apulia; but "In Apulia" is something dif­
ferent. It dissolves the land into landscape and leads the land­
scape back to the land . There are wonderfully beautiful names
for the primeval lands , dreamt or sunk into the sea, Atlantis
and Orplid . "Apulia" is a beautiful name--1 don't think any­
body could bring himself to say "Le Puglie," for Italian doesn't
convey it, being merely geographical. And anyway , how

* This untitled fragment, which was found among Bachmann's papers

after her death , breaks off with the following words: "So let us concentrate
on the poem itself. It has five stanzas. The first leads us to Apulia. The
source of light is identified. The first two stanzas. . . ." (Tr)

20 1
strange it is to say "in France" or "in Sweden ," as if we were
speaking of containers and their contents.
I'm not sure whether it was in Apulia or Lucania that I
looked out of the trai n window into an olive grove and saw a
huge carpet of poppies stretching all the way to the horizon. In
such a moment one lights a cigarette or flattens oneself against
the corridor wall to let somebody by . But perhaps it wasn't that
unnoticed moment but the one in which "In Apulia" was writ­
ten . The process consists of many factors , of writing, of think­
ing with a growing concentration that flows back into the writ­
ing. The water into which a river flows doesn't remember its
sources, its tri butaries , the banks it touched , the grass it
surged over or the roots and stems it ripped along in its course .
There are many precise images for production that suggest
themselves, on the path from process to form ; but only one
precise image for process and form . And that image coincides
with the poem itself. . . .

202
[What Good Are Poems ?]*

T o A s K a playwright or a novelist what his favorite work i s will

not disturb him. He will no doubt remember one or two that
have brought joy to some individuals, or understanding or
pleasure--e ven if only for a few hours . I have never heard of
someone spending a fruitful afternoon or an evening with a
poem, although undoubtedly lovers of poetry still exist , as well
as those who find in it a means of edification. And then there
are the children who must learn poetry by heart, for poems­
so it is said-sharpen our memory .
There is, then , little happiness in a poem. For the writer,
the fact that it is a successful poem or may reach someone
brings no happiness. The poem is lonely ; it has no function
and rightly concerns no one. A poem nowadays no longer ex­
alts anything, and even the believers have long since re­
scinded its powers . Fame and belief reside within the poem
itself.
In recent times one often hears (the profanation of) Hol­
derlin's question : "And what good are poets in a needy age?"
Another question, j ust as valid , might be : "And what good are
poems?" What is to be proved and for whom must it be proved?
If poems supposedly prove nothing, then we must content our­
selves with the notion that they sharpen our memory .
I believe poems can d o j ust this . And that whoever writes
poetry engraves forms in our memory , wonderful old words for
stone or leaf, tied to or released by new words, new signs of
reality . And I believe that whoever inscribes these forms also
disappears into them with his own breath , which he offers as
the unrequested proof of these forms' truth .
How long has it been that someone said to us: "Make a

* First published in Monatshefte, April 1955, for a column entitled "My

Favorite Poem" that included poems and commentaries by Ingeborg Bach­
mann, Rudolf Hagelstange, Karl Krolow, and Heinz Piontek. Bachmann
chose "The Heavy Freight." (Tr)

203
word , make a sentence !" We were tormented with poems ; and
the welts still sting in our memory. One of these poems began :
"I stood on my land's borders . . . . " Who, and what land was
it about? What the borders meant could of course be deter­
mined by the context. For whoever accepts the rules and en­
ters the game won't throw the ball out of the playing field. The
playing field is language , and its borders are the borders of the
world-a world gazed on without question, nakedly and pre­
cisely imagined , experienced in pain, and in happiness cele­
brated and praised .

204
The Poem for the Reader*
{Sketch]

W H AT E vE R separated us? If I look at myself in the mirror

and ask that question, I see myself backwards , a lonely piece
of writing, and I no longer understand myself. In this tremen­
dously cold age we should have coldly turned away from each
other despite our unquenchable love? I tossed you smoking
words, burned, with a bitter taste , cutting sentences or dull
ones without luster. As if I wished to increase your misery and
banish you from my territories with my intellect. You came so
trustingly , sometimes awkwardly, asking for a word with beau­
tiful colors. You wanted to be consoled and I had no consola­
tion to give. Profundity is not my business either.
But an unquenchable love for you has never left me, and
now I am searching under the rubble and in the air, in the ice­
wind and the sun, for the words that should throw me back into
your arms . For I am consumed with longing for you .
I'm not a piece of fabric , I'm not made of a cloth that could
cover your nakedness, but of the fusion of all materials. And I
want to burst into your senses and your mind like gold veins in
the earth, illuminate and shine through you when the black
fire, your mortality , starts burning inside you .
I don't know what you want of me . I can't write the song that
would accompany you into victorious battle. I retreat before
the altars . I am not your go-between. All your business deals
leave me cold . But not you . Only not you .
You are everything to me . What wouldn't I want to be for
you . I'd like to follow you when you're dead, look back to see
you even if I might be turned into stone. I'd like to ring with
song, move the remaining beasts to tears , make the stones
bloom , draw fragrance from every bough .

* Of uncertain date. (Tr)

205
Chronolo gy

19 26 Birth on June 25 in Klagenfurt, a small city in

southeastern Austria near the Yugoslavian and
Italian borders .
19 45 -50 University study in Innsbruck , Graz , and Vienna,
at first in law and philosophy , later exclusively in
philosophy .
1950 Degree awarded by the University of Vienna for a
dissertation entitled The Critical Reception ofMar­
tin Heideggers's Existential Philosophy.
195 1 -5 3 Scriptwriter for the radio group Rot/Weiss/Rot in
Vienna.
195 2 First reading for the literary group "47" in Nien­
dorf. Libretto for the ballet The Idiot by Tatjana
Gsovsky , music by Hans Werner Henze.
195 3 Mortgaged Time, poetry , published by the Frank­
furt Verlagsanstalt. Group 47 prize . "Ludwig Witt­
genstein: A Chapter in the Recent History of Ger­
man Philosophy," essay .
195 3-57 Residence in Italy on the island of lschia, in N a­
ples , and in Rome.
195 4 The Cicadas, radio play.
1955 "What I Saw and Heard in Rome ," essay. Literary
prize of the Cultural Circle of German Industry .
Travel to the United States on the invitation of
Henry Kissinger and Harvard University.
1956 Invocation of the Great Bear, poetry , published by
Piper, Munich.
1957 Literature Prize from the city of Bremen .
1957-5 8 Residence in Munich .
195 8 The Good God of Manhattan, radio play .

206
1 958 -73 Residence in Zurich and Rome, later primarily in
Rome .
1 959 Radio play prize from the War Blind for The Good
God ofManhattan.
1 959-60 First lecturer to occupy the newly created chair for
poetry at the University of Frankfurt . Five lectures
given under the title Problems of Contemporary Po­
etry.
1 960 Libretto for Hans Werner Henze's opera The Prince
of Homburg.
1 96 1 The Thirtieth Year, stories, published by Piper,
Munich. Berlin Critics' Prize for same . Giuseppe
Ungaretti: Gedichte, poetry translation , published
by Suhrkamp, Frankfurt.
1 96 4 Georg Buchner Prize. A Place for Chance, essay
and acceptance speech for Buchner Prize . Pub­
lished by Klaus Wagenbac h , Berlin, with thirteen
drawings by Gunter Grass .
1 965 Libretto for The Young Lord, comic opera in two
acts by Hans Werner Henze.
1 968 Grand Austrian State Prize .
1 97 1 Malina, novel, published by Suhrkamp , Frank­
furt .
1 97 2 Simultaneous, stories, published by Piper, Mu­
nich. Anton Wildgans Prize of Austrian Industry .
1 97 3 Death in Rome on October 1 7 .

207
The Lockert Library of Poetry
in Translation

George Se/eris: Collected Poems ( 1924- 1955) , translated , ed­

ited, and introduced by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sher­
rard
Collected Poems of Lucio Piccolo, translated and edited by
Brian Swann and Ruth Feldman
C . P . Cavafy: Collected Poems , translated by Edmund Keeley
and Philip Sherrard and edited by George Savidis
Benny A ndersen: Selected Poems , translated by Alexander
Taylor
Selected Poetry of A ndrea Zanzotto, translated and edited by
Ruth Feldman and Brian Swann
Poems of Rene Char, translated by Mary Ann Caws and Jona­
than Griffin
Selected Poems of Tudor A rghezi, translated and edited by Mi­
chael lmpey and Brian Swann
"The Survivor" and Other Poems by Tadeusz Rozewicz, trans­
lated and introduced by Magnus J. Krynski and Robert A.
Maguire
"Harsh World" and Other Poems by A ngel Gonzalez , trans­
lated by Donald D. Walsh
Ritsos in Parentheses , translations and introduction by Ed­
mund Keeley
Salamander: Selected Poems of Robert Marteau, translated by
Anne Winters
A ngelos Sikelianos: Selected Poems, translated and introduced
by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
Dante 's "Rime ," translated by Patrick S. Diehl
Selected later Poems of Marie Luise Kaschnitz, translated by
Lisel M ueller
Osip Mandelstam's "Stone ," translated and introduced by
Robert Tracy

209
The Dawn ls A lways New: Selected Poetry of Rocco Scotellaro,
translated by Ruth Feldman and Brian Swann
Sounds , Feelings , Thoughts: Seventy Poems by Wislawa Szym­
borska, translated and introduced by Magnus J. Krynski
and Robert A. Maguire
The Man I Pretend to Be: "The Colloquies " and Selected Poems
of Guido Gozzano, translated and edited by M ichael Palma,
with an introductory essay by Eugenio Montale
D 'Apres Tout: Poems by Jean Follain, translated by Heather
Mc Hugh
Songs of Something Else: Selected Poems of Gunnar EkelOJ,
translated by Leonard N athan and James Larson
The Little Treasury of One Hundred People, One Poem Each,
compiled by Fuj iwara No Sadaie and translated by Tom
Galt
The Ellipse: Selected Poems of Leonardo Sinisgalli, translated
by W. S. Di Piero
The Diffi cult Days by Roberto Sosa, translated by Jim Lindsey
Hymns and Fragments by Friedrich Holderlin, translated and
introduced by Richard Sieburth
Rilke: Between Roots , Selected Poems Rendered from the Ger­
man by Rika Lesser
In the Storm of Roses: Selected Poems by Ingeborg Bachmann,
translated , edited , and introduced by Mark Anderson

210
LIBRARY O F C O N G RE S S CATALO G I N G - I N - P U BLI CATI O N D ATA

Bachmann, Ingeborg, 1926-1973 .

In the storm of roses.

(Lockert l i brary of poetry i n translation)

1. Bachmann, Ingeborg, 1926-1973-Translations,
English. I. Anderson, Mark, 1955- . II. Title. III. Series.
PT2603 . A l 47A23 1986 831 ' . 912 85-43202
ISBN 0-691-06672-8 ISBN 0-691-01428-0 (pbk. )