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