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In Red Eggs
Speech and Silence in Pankow
Fish

Author: Gerhard Falkner
Translator: Andrew Duncan

In Red Eggs

I am back from the strange bridge
over these sleepless and sharp-sighted nights
only my rest is giving me headaches
as I have a corpse in my head
which from the iron grip of memory
is slowly escaping

we are consuming ourselves for the burning ennui
which penetrates this memory
breathing it in like a supernatural fire
but with time fade also
its outer contours

we cower in red eggs our eyes
are going like wheels they listen upwards
over the thin shell thumps a light beat
we destroy our implants and throw them from the bridge
the water of the Spree boils up briefly
then the picture is gone

Speech and Silence in Pankow

I was already awake with all my weight
just breathing through my eyes a final
bit of night
the town was rotating
as if on a gramophone
and over the chest tones of the basses
the trills of the morning birds were twinkling
like splashes of nail varnish
on tattered paper
like razorblades
new, unheard-of words
for body, life, and so on were
twirling through the high, woody air
but why bother them
when there’s no sense in speech
but no safety in silence.

 

Fish

anyone who sees me
throwing fishes
all around me
with what a powerful
clacking-tongue gesture
they lash the air
anyone who sees
how these fish
deploy
all of their suddenness
in flight
how their gills
seem to grope for
word-resembling
monsters
will think:
ha! yet another one
chucking fishes around
because he is small, alone,
lonely, cruel and lunatic!

hare winter
the destruction of the fish by water
warning lamp lights up
logbook of a journey to the centre of a cow

Author: Ulf Stolterfoht
Translator: Andrew Duncan

hare winter

fourth secret note. ever more cryptic. more differentiated.
more stubbornly mastering. he just sprays at the sight of an animal.
testifying name-giver. directed at worm. a milk-licking cavern newt.
into the reader’s brain springs sub-classically “woodlouse”. less lovely.
rating “with adult” makes these lines in certain
circles a cult. now comes the reason: man “all of

clay” drapes himself with rein-carrion. by night he stuffs oce-
lot. ermine. all this somehow makes sense. piles loose otter
till it rots – and uttered not a word. awkward business.
becoming after curing. brought about in single action. then
again all day nothing. louse-grey sky. pack howling.
further decay is written-up. dithering. in the upshot

white horse has growth spurt. oneself lodged in gut-warm
lair. good for the writing. on skids or living modest-
ly. grace? let it be! persistent thriving. and around bubbling
gretel noises. if only the titling could be skipped. brings the namer
cumber. falls into uneasy slumber. all at once “twitchi”
appears before him. blocked for future specialists. alas. “bucking bea-

ver” could be available. so then – be it so! scribe in blood and then
it is good. add-on with minimal profit scope – listen;
SPORCICON IN VARERSE – what could that mean? author
takes in and rewards. tip: think precisely! be a touchy
peacock and check the construction! and then? bend the key
before you blow it up. experts know all about that.

 

the destruction of the fish by water

and lightning beams / blathering oneself up to a steam / in
between one would have to twitter / to think twitter / and
lesser snakes glide past / creep / as one just
hesitates / something becomes visible / as everything shows itself/
like sounds / liquids plosives / the lips please closed! / thank
s! snort! / in / as the lake is trampled out / and is found-

ling in language / but but philosophy / 11:12 p.m.: the table
the hand the categorical knee / ughhhhh! / there’s still some text
stuck to this pencil! / fragment / draws on like a stocking / scads
of clumps / or fungus / but when / hen and cockerel / sort of
plan / for understanding / green was my shawl / st. patrick my
day / and you: what side are you on? perhaps er at

first really roughly there / gone at once / you
see it as a word / possibly hear it / my god / great
slobbery wet muzzle / still dripping with syllables / charming/
quite charming / fine lines rage at experience / logic chopping / that
waits to be transformed / the writing that was a writtling/
the lyric albeit / personal disappearance in prints

and ink cakes / behind in the churls’ parlours / the yobs / they
are knitting at the shirt once more / win themselves the tawdry minx /
now strike them out / stew them / for all I care diligent effecting/
of muffled accents – good! / thence fury – good! / everything is good / and
gently the loop / gently the loop and gently / gently
fine: this very evening we will be in the storehouse of arms

 

warning lamp lights up

especially alert for the paling ‘with Falkness’ and / or
gnostic-heuristic probing. while. while
runs under syntactic desiderate. semantically further
mayrocking is deplored – while title ‘new from the man/
who fielded the echoes. poetry straight from the hiatus.
an indulgence’ actually sounds rather better. gets further in.

we hear into it: “feely tivity early struggles. bagged speech and
a strait jacket. shut up” – that brings respect anyway. eval-
uation by klaus ramm: the text is simple. I understand it well.
you connect to it. completes: throbbing splendidly in sap/
in its own blood. what follows looks hard as a plank. in the original I guess
stadtpark stock. label on the reel: ‘collection for re-

curred decay.’ quite unexpectedly a billow laps you:
‘modus acoustic. onto-status “rigoro.” formally resolved as
elegy. so narcho. haptic. blank verse. gnash …’ – what in
the name of god was that ? answer? rather nothing: they heard
practiced intertext which situates this speech event.
in the most favourable case far from reality. how was the lesson

imparted? gladly. didactic beaver. how does one continue? concept-
ually gripping. systematically crackpot. rarely room to lay
your limbs. and for a long time no end in sight. extendi-
ble hat shall then end-board text stretches. does so. phew! that
just came off. end with crow swarm. with nest-
ing jackdaws. falling silent in fairly bad odour.

 

logbook of a journey to the centre of a cow

may one then hope for a plot there? one may! induc
-d plot in the cogito-system of the author “tacitly understood”. some-
how cow-within-cow. the issue will be change.
of the marten frass in cismigiu. soft and civil war.
phenotype phrygian. factually though dacian-trojan. there
flower evolving backwards. a chalky. quartzy. mane-

y something. word is also of iron packs of dogs. quota mag-
yars and showpiece-slavs. ample bees. double tercets.
unripe fruit in a state of guilt. but then suddenly it’s
time / holds the standard range pails ready: unto us is
a scum born of morph. and morph begat mass.
mass worms its way up to animal. declares itself a dro-

ne / a stout horse. all too soon horse becomes soldier. when
he knocks you up the circle closes / drops newly the
foal. draws near on soft soles: in stocking feet. gentlest
to accept in the lufthansa-tunic. shows where he was grafted:
there! in this banished place. casa slurp. casa schimb. worship-
ful’s guildhall etc. late glimpse from the train feather fan.

may have been pelican. cormorant. in our humble opin-
ion a hen apparition more likely. then oxcart. girls in region-
al costume. a tolerably happy boy on a hill. before dormer.
never happier than under Naum’s hood. the lashing of the knap-
sack. wading through rennet. we reach the maw. hiss cadenza in
the meat-packed swan. possibly the pencil sets to work now.

 

 

 

With All Your Might
Wealth and Scum

Author: Bert Papenfuß
Translator: Andrew Duncan

With All Your Might

Ignoring the fact
that I am not interested
in what doesn’t interest me,
it does not interest me
what people know.
It can’t amount to much.
What they think they know
is simply what they’re familiar with,
and that only barely.
What interests me
is what people believe.
With all their might
and if you like with all their violence.

Ignoring the fact
that I am not interested
in what doesn’t interest me,
what gets my interest going
is what people still believe in.
It can’t amount to much.
Whoever carries everything on his back
should rear up and unload
what he hates, and keep what suits him.
With a bit of basic science
you come to have a conscience.
With all your might, individual protest,
and if you like with all your violence.

On the contrary, ignoring the fact
that I am not interested
in what doesn’t interest me,
what especially interests me
is what people steal.
They should snatch up
what has been casually, unjustly
allotted to bureaucrats.
Let court eunuchs ingest
what crawled out of their arses.
Property should remain in theft
With all our might, with a crowd surge,
and if you like with all our violence.

 

Wealth and Scum

Wealth makes you greedy. Those who cultivate greed,
seal themselves off, give out commands, martyr others,
persecute themselves, and gradually die out.
Those who pile up wealth, have lots of company,
especially the uninvited. Those who want to prevent this,
should at least arrange for equal distribution.

The scum must be trampled down,
degraded and knocked about,
must be sent out into the cold,
to freeze to death. Let it happen to the scum,
what the scum organises consciously or not.
Let justice be done. Theft is an obligation.

Politics has run down, is rightfully
discredited, and in the final analysis always on the Right;
there is no more Left politics. Left criticism of capital
is only the forerunner of an effective economics.
So-called Left politics is opportunistic tacking
on the long march to a Left economy.

The scum must be trampled down,
degraded and knocked about,
must be sent out into the cold,
to freeze to death. Let it happen to the scum,
what the scum organises consciously or not.
Let justice be done. Theft is an obligation.

Wealth and scum are steering towards decline,
and it’s not in the short or the long run, but suddenly
and unexpectedly that the cruise ship runs aground.
the quick route leads via uprising directly
to nationalisation, the stew pot and sweetmeats.
The mutineers have their seats on the lifeboats.