Author: Marcus Roloff
Translator: Jeremy Balius
my gleiwitz
the long holidays beforehand & now / the neither-nor-
light at six a.m. // on the 1st of september a night-
shirt all tangled up / a nightmare jammed in the folds
of the cushion // from the cabinet a tumbling swift
or rather a jump / (a re-pre-metaphor) like the dusk under
the bedcover // & behind the window of the children’s room
the heimat of school full of empty idols and water
pistols / begins on the day of the attack on poland //
bora
on the european route to zagreb sawn out of
the region one afternoon
lifted at night
ram shackled by bullet holes of thoughts & volleys
of the plastic sheet above the MOSOR & KOZJAK
and charcoal from three days ago all fallen litter
crumbled moonlightand the random
look-back lands (the airport’s reopened)
somewhere in the area mined by tv
Originals © Marcus Roloff
Translations © Jeremy Balius