I honour them all,
as I would an old mother.
To abandon home is action.
What is empty can’t be emptied.
(As for dachas which are part empty,
you may as well burn them right away!)
So – do not flinch! When
the wound opens.
You must go into the outskirts
and simply rip out the stitches.
Let me put this plainly: love
is no more than a line of stitches,
a seam, yes, which is no protection.
So don’t beg to be shielded.
These stitches hold the dead to the earth.
that is how we are stitched
and time will show what kind of
stitching: single – or reinforced.
Whichever, rip the stitches out,
friend, leave only shreds.
I’m glad they tear out easily –
better to rip than unravel.
Look under the basting – there:
a living red vein not decay.
Rip and tear, you lose nothing.
Let’s make for the outskirts
Let’s go way out of town!
And divorce our spirits for ever.
There’s a wind in the brain, today:
an execution to witness.
The one who leaves feels no loss
even as dawn is breaking.
I sewed your whole life in a night
perfectly, without basting.
If it’s crooked, don’t complain!
– You can just rip out the stitches.
Ours are untidy souls. Both
are covered with scars.
Let’s make a violent sweep of this:
in the outskirts, out of time.
To the suburbs! The heel of fate
is pressed into wet clay –
So blame my hurried work
friend, or the living thread
which clings, however tangled.
Here is the last street lamp.
*
– Here then? A glance, as if in
conspiracy. A glance. From a lesser race.
A glance – Can we climb the mountain,
for the very last time?
12
Dense as a horse mane is:
rain in our eyes. And hills.
We have passed the suburb.
Now we are out of town,
which is there but not for us.
Stepmother not mother.
Nowhere is lying ahead.
And here is where we fall.
A field with. A fence and.
Brother and sister. Standing.
Life is only a suburb:
so you must build elsewhere.
Ugh, what a lost cause
it is, ladies and gentlemen,
for the whole world is suburb:
Where are the real towns?
Rain rips at us madly.
We stand and break with each other.
In three months, these must be
the first moments of sharing.
Is it true, God, that you even
tried to borrow from Job?
Well, it didn’t come off.
Still. We are. Outside town.
Beyond it! Understand? Outside!
That means we’ve passed the walls.
Life is a place where it’s forbidden
to live. Like the Hebrew quarter.
And isn’t it more worthy to
become an eternal Jew?
Anyone not a reptile
suffers the same pogrom.
Life is for converts only
Judases of all faiths.
Let’s go to leprous islands
or hell anywhere only not
life which puts up with traitors, with
those who are sheep to butchers!
This paper which gives me the
right to live – I stamp. With my feet.
Stamp! for the shield of David.
Vengeance! for heaps of bodies
and they say after all (delicious) the
Jews didn’t want to live!
Ghetto of the chosen. Beyond this
ditch. No mercy
In this most Christian of worlds
all poets are Jews.
13
This is how they sharpen knives on a
stone, and sweep sawdust up with
brooms. Under my hands there is
something wet and furry.
Now where are those twin male
virtues: strength, dryness?
Here beneath my hand I can
feel tears. Not rain!
What temptations can still be
spoken of? Property is water.
Since I felt your diamond eyes under
my hands, flowing.
There is no more I can lose. We have
reached the end of ending.
And so I simply stroke, and
stroke. And stroke your face.
This is the kind of pride we have:
Marinkas are Polish girls.
Since now the eyes of an eagle weep
underneath these hands…
Can you be crying? My friend, my
– everything! Please forgive me!
How large and salty now is the
taste of this in my fist.
Male tears are – cruel! They
rise over my head! Weep,
there will soon be others to
heal any guilt towards me.
Fish of identical
sea. A sweep upward! like
… any dead shells and any
lips upon lips.
In tears.
Wormwood
to taste.
– And tomorrow
when
I am awake?
14
A slope like a path for
sheep. With town noises.
Three trollops approach.
They are laughing. At tears.
They are laughing the full noon of
their bellies shake, like waves!
They laugh at the
inappropriate
disgraceful, male
tears of yours, visible
through the rain like scars!
Like a shameful pearl on
the bronze of a warrior.
These first and last tears
pour them now – for me –
for your tears are pearls
that I wear in my crown.
And my eyes are not lowered.
I stare through the shower.
Yes, dolls of Venus
stare at me! because
this is a closer bond
than the transport of lying down.
The Song of Songs itself
gives place to our speech,
infamous birds as we are
Solomon bows to us, for
our simultaneous cries
are something more than a dream!
And into the hollow waves of
darkness – hunched and level –
without trace – in silence –
something sinks like a ship.
1924
How is your life with the other one,
simpler, isn’t it? One stroke of the oar
then a long coastline, and soon
even the memory of me
will be a floating island
(in the sky, not on the waters):
spirits, spirits, you will be
sisters, and never lovers.
How is your life with an ordinary
woman? without godhead?
Now that your sovereign has
been deposed (and you have stepped down).
How is your life? Are you fussing?
flinching? How do you get up?
The tax of deathless vulgarity
can you cope with it, poor man?
‘Scenes and hysterics I’ve had
enough! I’ll rent my own house.’
How is your life with the other one
now, you that I chose for my own?
More to your taste, more delicious
is it, your food? Don’t moan if you sicken.
How is your life with an image
you, who walked on Sinai?
How is your life with a stranger
from this world? Can you (be frank)
love her? Or do you feel shame
like Zeus’ reins on your forehead?
How is your life? Are you
healthy? How do you sing?
How do you deal with the pain
of an undying conscience, poor man?
How is your life with a piece of market
stuff, at a steep price.
After Carrara marble,
how is your life with the dust of
plaster now? (God was hewn from
stone, but he is smashed to bits.)
How do you live with one of a
thousand women after Lilith?
Sated with newness, are you?
Now you are grown cold to magic,
how is your life with an
earthly woman, without a sixth
sense? Tell me: are you happy?
Not? In a shallow pit? How is
your life, my love? Is it as
hard as mine with another man?
1924
Distance: versts, miles…
divide us; they’ve dispersed us,
to make us behave quietly
at our different ends of the earth.
Distance: how many miles of it
lie between us now – disconnected –
crucified – then dissected.
And they don’t know – it unites us.
Our spirits and sinews fuse,
there’s no discord between us.
though our separated pieces
lie outside
the moat – for eagles!
This conspiracy of miles
has not yet disconcerted us,
however much they’ve pushed us, like
orphans into backwaters.
– What then? Well. Now it’s March!
And we’re scattered like some pack of cards!
1925
i.m. Rainer Maria Rilke
Happy New Year – new sphere – horizon – haven!
This is my first letter to your new address,
– notorious region, misunderstood, unsettled –,
as clamorous and empty as the Aeolian tower;
my very first letter to you from the yesterday
in which I suddenly found myself without you,
my own homeland become one of the stars…
Shall I tell you how I heard the news?
No earthquake or avalanche announced it,
only someone – might have been anyone – said
he’d read it in a daily paper. ‘Show me the article –
where did it happen?’ ‘The mountains.
(I think of pine branches in a window)
Don’t you ever read newspapers?’
‘The article?’ ‘I don’t have it with me.’
‘Where did it happen?’ ‘In a sanatorium.’
(A rented paradise.) ‘Please tell me when.’
‘Yesterday, or the day before, I can’t remember.
Will you write something for us?’ ‘No, I won’t.
He’s family. I’m not treacherous.’
Happy New Year, then, which begins tomorrow!
Shall I tell you what I did when I heard
of your – no, that’s a slip of the tongue.
I don’t use silly words like Life and Death –
So tell me, Rainer, how was your ride?
How was it when your heart burst open?
Was it like riding Orlov’s horses – wild
and fast as eagles fly – as you once told me?
Did it take your breath away? Was it more intense –
sweeter? Russian eagles have a blood tie
with the other world, and in Russia
you see the other world in this.
It belongs to us, that long night of stars
I speak of with a secret smile…
You timed your crossing well.
Dear friend,
if Russian script replaces German letters here
it’s not because the dead have to put up with
everything, as a beggar does, – it’s because
the world you live in now is ours.
– I knew as much when I was thirteen…
Am I digressing? No, that isn’t possible.
Nothing can distract my thoughts from you.
Every one of them, du Lieber, every syllable
leads me towards you in whatever language.
German is as native to me as Russian,
and most of all the language Angels speak.
There is no place where you are not.
Except the grave…
Do you ever – think about me, I wonder?
What do you feel now, what is it like up there?
How was your first sight of the Universe,
a last vision of the whole planet –
which must include this poet remaining in it,
not yet ashes, still a spirit in a body –
seen from however many miles stretch
from Creation to eternity, far above
the Mediterranean in its crystal saucer –
where else would you look, leaning out
with your elbows on the edge of your box seat
if not on this poet, with her many griefs…
I live in Bellevue: these suburban outskirts,
have birds’ nests in the branches. Glance
at your tour guide: Bellevue is a fortress
with a good view of Paris and its palaces.
How absurd we must seem as you lean out
on the crimson velvet edge of your theatre box,
looking down from an infinite height
on our Bellevue and Belvederes!
Skip the details. Here’s an urgent fact.
The New Year is already on my door step.
With whom can I clink a glass across
the table tonight? And with what?
Cotton wool? I have no champagne froth.
The New Year is striking. Why am I here?
What is there to do in this New Year?
If such an orb of light as you can go out
then neither life nor death has any meaning.
I shall only understand when we meet again.
What joy to end with you, begin with you.
Let us clink across the table, not with pub
glasses, but as if our souls fused.
I look upon your cross. Everywhere
outside time and place belongs to us.
Leaves and conifers. Months and weeks
in rainy city fringes without people!
And mornings – all of them spent together.
Of course I see poorly down here in a pit
Of course you see better from up there.
Nothing turned out between us.
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