Bashfulness
The day, squander
Heel Bar

Author: Tom Schulz
Translator: Nicholas Grindell

Bashfulness

in accordance therewith, everything is
nothing but soapsuds / for the trash gullet

were we to find the place again
the mouth where the river
bid us farewell, the stones crashed

so that we crossed soma with social
ethics, the umpteenth bastard genre
the petrified flower, the pastoral kiss
in a cave full of stalactites

as we kicked ass through ornate
alabaster, butterfly schnapps
on our billowy breath in the meadows
of happiest Mondays

o genius, we sleep-sated ones have spent
too long showering in this century!

the inspired rugs in the corridors of the real
school spawned sorcerer’s apprentices, the bulge
flaws got bellies, we thought as much

but the word doch makes the rounds of mouths
left open, this nes-and-yo

away with the staircases, the wisecracks
let’s stick the art instigators
with the tannic fruit of their soul
into this eternal shop window display

all we lovers of herbal fizzy drinks
wanted was … cuckoo be damned!
ousted fledglings uppermost
derided beauty out of the frame
you sweet burning mulberry tree

 

The day, squander

whatever you do, do it
into glad oblivion:
it all blooms without memory

(look at the wild thyme
in the loins of a pre-Provençal night)

there is no port in the port
only the dew and the ropes

there is no longer no longer

there is no longer
the sell-by-tag on a swordfish
in a shop for maritime gear

how deep is the ocean
(at an unclear point
where the text’s not quite tight
and the poet’s the brainburger)

I two-timed with the losses
up to the roadstead, where this insane
joggling whinnied like a taxi nag

what you must do, let it go
into glad transport

the forgetfulness of a street
corner that I was

when you outside the ice cream parlour:
a beanpole with woodruff

the Gnostic worm, the glowing
thread of a colony of lanterns

count me among the berries
count me among the quinces

make me flitter
before a fluttering blackbird gown

 

Heel Bar

Find a job
or be Rilke

open up the large and spacious bar
of the sea, I’m only saying
(from a poem by)

we’re just kind of lapwing children
kind of shooting stars gone down in flames
just kind of fumigated roses

the concertina is the way to go
(sailor stop your dreaming)

my soles squeak, my footfalls
are not quieter in Scarytownsville

the shoes I was given
wept before crocodiles

(We turn on our heels
pursued by the sprinklers in a multi-storey car park

when the shops shut, we’ll give
the business community a run for its money)

I love it when you
get my goat & fully shall we diss
the present, we’ll steal
the ture the fu too & lock them
in a zoo

we bidders of farewell in the Azores
we’re just split balconies with falls
just these tearfully dried up cisterns

Suni, we fall through the night
like empty bottles down the lift shaft