Author: Bert Papenfuß
Translator: Rosmarie Waldrop
grassgravesentiment
in spring our
doubts itch
in spring proud
hairs sprout and twitch
in spring insprings
the haircutter
O last borderguard
O let me painlessly
write writing
ragetowrite cou-
ragetolive
bored to death write
grow rank O grass
the symmetrical nihilism of meatballs
one cannot inany let no meatball
not rest on inanycase, aswellas isntit the case that
not every meatball does not correspond to not,
isntit, but also not even every second not in that sense
don’t i write the notworst german of all
aswellas as especially not
in order to give the “socalled” prime meatball a push
till my meatball is no longer not no meatball
& gives no more offence, complacent in its arrogance
& is all of the stuff that revolutions are made of
& ofcourse counterrevolutions too
promenade toward fungi, eumenides discussion & canalisation
cows, cows, cows; cow flops & coltsfoot I suppose
& black berries, the gate of fame sank in the brambles
brollacham & buhmann snuggeled in the basalt column quarry
right of the rhine and cisalpine wishsausaging wallowed
reticence & unprofessionality hours on tabula
drugs that mugged, love to the death your threat
but I won’t suffer it, rather die myself
tracked by a squadron of mediawise con men
snapped the schnapsnosed mammal thrice for air
his hellhound round the bend strolled on stormwatch
& we skulked bed-& bulletward into an inn
each thinking he gave more, than he took
& this loss is the so-called evil in the world
that never errs, we concurred; nonesoever twosoever
none, nothing, hardly even naught: go rest among the alders
punishment makes free, discipline’s in order
all floodgates open, do they have ovens enough
the pleiades drowned, the tollgate gone up
the magnus annus of the moon is over, comment superfluous
the germans trip over themselves, do they put their heads together
or make mincemeat of each other or the rest of the world
the undead red open their arms, a public fest sans merci
every foot in it is german, gift champagne, free beer & gratis sex
repent of nothing & everything to boot this is a perfect mummydress ball
Originals © Bert Papenfuß
Translations © Rosmarie Waldrop