Author: Marcus Roloff
Translator: Catherine Hales
GLAMBECKER SEE
white light of a season still stuck in its small town ways hanging as an eternal lamp when I think of my lake that follows my sports teacher right into the abyss. my shore is unpeopled, no flip-flops, snow-covered woodpiles. in reality the washed-out concrete wall is being eaten away from below, behind it the russians are crouching in their part of town, reaching for their ice picks. I have to defend my nest I’ve somehow lived in all these years against coal men & loitering dog owners. it’s already pretty worn out from those sports lessons in the open air, by chronic hypothermia that’s tuned to win.
WHO’S TALKING?
: you’ve made it this far, so we’ll have to send you away again, just turn around, that’s the way, do it again between the jagged pictures tacky with candlelight (st. mary & high mass & sunday) & do it differently, here everyone’s called prometheus or something like that, you know that, you knew that & YET YOUR NAME IS meyer too, altar boy & sister mary, you haven’t got a clue about us, the oracles, we’ll cast you into this HOW SHOULD I KNOW western-style about-turn, in the knowledge of … in your let’s say absolutely inspired knowledge of the end of days.
NEAR GIZYCKO
summered, honed & so forth, above it all sky
hardly any clouds, the dog sleeping all afternoon outside
the cottage a buzzing & whirring romp through its dreams. the thawed
towers from this side of the pole lying across the landscape
the pipe literally cladding nymphs, could even imagine
having a bath in the morning & later there were still the masurian
lakes, worth remembering & talking about, probably just
puddles made of sentences left lying around, the region
reflecting off the corrugated tin – perforated
with languages, questions & haystacks.
(for Emilia Albers)
FRESCO
you with your gaze fixed on your human crutch (half-sitting, half-
lying, relaxed) at the god’s side, storming from upper right
into the divine armpit, into the host, crouched (shroud of
purple): apostate gaze in the direction of adam.
in the half-light a porcelain cherub, a girl perhaps (face plump
& round as a knee) staring at us at any rate, like a
refractory kid turning away, knowing that PEOPLEMAKEPEOPLE,
although their fingertips only just meet.
the finger throws breath out onto the world’s vestibule WHERE THE HELL ELSE. curving languidly into the lounger: adam, barrel-chested, opens his hands for the cornucopia, probably thinking your doe-eyed look is meant for him, alpha male, this clay with so little breath.