Ashes for Breakfast (21 page)

the hot, dusty wind that eradicates,

and I care. And in the name of what happened there

one gives up the Vermeer (burned)

and the Bach (disappeared).

Was it worth it? That whole cities,

from which the death transports rolled

became wastelands on Lethe's banks.

The plowing is done with bombs here, and no farmer

is familiar. Dandelion

chews up the figures on the frieze.

What does the mole care about the damage he does?

 

IX

Dresden, leftover city … a death trap

for angels, left stranded here by the War

before they could fly back. Buried under sandstone

and basalt. Circus animals

were the last creatures they saw fleeing

into the fire. A horse that could count,

and Blake's tyger. None of them a monster,

compared to the smart boys, the pilots,

who went after man and beast on diving raids.

They did their stunts without a net or trapeze

above the arena. The charred

apostles on the roofs stand there in dismay.

 

X

After no more than a second, it was as though
she'd been gone for hours.

—
PROUST,
SWANN'S WAY

City in the blizzard beyond your misted glasses—

your first visit home, you lost them and didn't miss them.

You'd have to go to Christmas carols

to find silence as thick as that outside the station.

A pair of red ears and a pale face in the snow, and that was you.

At liberty, thanks to an army exeat.

The uniform restricted you to small jumps for joy.

But for a kangaroo you showed a lot of patience, out in the deep freeze.

No one was there to meet you. In your own city,

you were a stranger at last. The life behind net curtains,

the burlesque that carried on till the last one said, that's it, I've had it…,

from your standing seat, it looked like a big panto.

Never again would you have prayed so fervently

for the beauty in the streetcar, used to orders, to flash

you a smile. Anyway, as you soon saw, family

life went on without the prodigal—what was he now?

 

XI

Im Ernst,
Max—no kidding now—you can dream

of a city like that till you're blue in the face.

You can watch the colors dissolve, without even crying.

Above the slashed brocade,

even the sky is infantile, and pouts.

But what's the use, they've stopped weaving tapestries

in the new waterproof marquees.

Only the old black and yellow favors continue to

poke through the material, as though nothing had happened.

If there's a zeppelin hanging aloft,

should the sight of the Elbe make you melancholy?

No one, in a hundred years, would go that far.

FROM

ERHLÄRTE NACHT

(2002)

BERLIN POSTHUM

›Du kannst ja nach Berlin fahren. Da bist du schon einmal gewesen.‹

KIERKEGAARD, DIE WIEDERHOLUNG

Dezembermorgen. Im Taxi, an Friedhofsmauern vorüberfahrend,

Überrascht dich dein Neid. ›
Die
haben's geschafft.‹

In den Augen, vom Licht aufgestemmt, reibt es wie nasser Sand.

Der Fahrer nestelt am Rosenkranz. Du siehst nur die Bahren

In den Schaufenstern, Trödel, hinter gelben Gardinen, gerafft.

Dann beginnst du zu zählen. Die Finger an jeder Hand

Reichen nicht aus — so viele Bestattungsfirmen gibt es entlang

Der Strecke von der Haustür zum Bahnhof. Schamlos ihr Werben,

Schwarz auf weiß, um die Toten von morgen, in harten Sätzen.

Alles ist rechtwinklig hier. Kreuze und Gitter brechen den Drang,

Als Samurai, ein Schwert in der Magengrube, zu sterben.

Die Bäcker haben den Brotteig verrührt. Die Metzger wetzen

Die Klingen vor Arbeitsbeginn. Obst glänzt in Stiegen, sortiert.

Das Taxameter, in Zwanzigerschritten, springt mit dem Geld um,

Das sich unendlich langsam verdient, mit elegischen Zeilen.

Fröstelnd das Hirn, exklusiv vom Zynismus der Zeit penetriert,

Reagiert mit Schläfrigkeit. Der Fahrgast erwidert stumm

Im Rückspiegel den Blick des Chauffeurs. Er muß sich beeilen,

Wenn er den Zug nicht verpassen will. Im Autoradio raunt

Eine sachliche Stimme die Weltnachrichten um sechs Uhr drei.

Irgendwo steigt jetzt ein Börsencoup, irgendwo platzt ein Scheck.

›Schon mal vorausgedacht?‹ pöbelt in Fettschrift ein
Sarg Discount.

Am Straßenrand blitzt ein Leben auf, einzeln und — schon vorbei.

›Lange trauern hat keinen Zweck. Wir schaffen die Leiche weg.‹

BERLIN POSTHUMOUS

You can always go to Berlin. Remember, you've been there before.

KIERKEGAARD,
REPETITION

December morning. Driving past the cemetery walls in the taxi,

You feel a strange pang of envy. “
Their
worries are over.”

In your eyes, forced apart by light, you have a sensation as of wet sand.

The driver is fingering his worry-beads. You see nothing but biers

In the windows, junk, behind yellow drawn curtains.

And then you begin counting. The fingers of both hands

Are not enough for all the undertakers on the stretch

Between your front door and the station, all hustling shamelessly

For the dead of tomorrow. A cutthroat business, evidently.

Everything here is right angles. Crosses and latticework cure you

Of your yen to die as a samurai with a sword in your guts.

The bakers have kneaded their dough. Different fruit gleams in flats.

The butchers are whetting their blades before getting to work.

The taximeter skips ahead twenty cents at a time—money it takes

Forever to earn if what you do for a living is turn hexameters.

A delicate shiver in your brain, the effect of so much cynicism

Taken on an empty stomach, first thing in the morning.

Silently you catch the eye of the driver in the rearview mirror.

He will have to step on it if you're not to miss your train.

6:03, a low voice gabbles financial news on the car radio.

A raiding party on some stock exchange, someone else's credit rating dives.

“Ever considered the future?” the bold print mugs you in
Coffins for all the Family.

On the pavement edge, a life flashes by—a blur and gone.

“What's the sense in
endless moping
. Just leave us to do the coping.”

ARKADIEN FÜR ALLE

Nicht nur das Zentrum, menschenleer am Sonntagvormittag,

Die Briefe, gestempelt mit dem Vermerk
Empfänger unbekannt,

Das Meeresrauschen im Telephonhörer, in die Stille das ›Bitte?‹

Die tausenden Autos, von den Besitzern verlassen am Straßenrand,

Auch die Reklametafeln mit den Dichterplagiaten, die keiner liest,

In den Parks, grell beschmiert, die Monumente der Schulbuchidole,

Dies alles und manches, wovor man die Augen gern schließt,

Nährt den Verdacht. So also sieht, aufgeschwollen zur Metropole,

Der Ort aus, an dem man den Gott einst begrub wie einen Hund.

Arkadien, Friedhof der Himmlischen, ihm gleicht jede Stadt,

Wo der Tod ein- und ausgeht, das Leben auf privatisiertem Grund.

Von wegen Idylle, Landschaft der Seligen, bukolisches Reservat.

Was immer Hirten besangen, wovon die Reisenden träumten —

Dies ist der Schauplatz.
City
und
gorod, metropolis
oder
ville.

Hier geht man, sein eigener Geist, unter stoischen Bäumen,

Ein gläserner Mensch, schlaflos, sich spiegelnd im Vielzuviel.

Den Takt geben Blicke, urbane Reflexe, nicht die Eklogen,

In denen Daphnis flirtete, Milon und Lakon einander beschützten.

Man spürt sein Skelett, Vertebrat im Vibrato der Brückenbogen,

Verliert das Gesicht, geblendet vom metallischen Glanz der Pfützen,

Und ist doch nirgends so heimisch. Erst hier, im gewohnten Exil,

Wo man nachs in sein Mauseloch kroch, gab es Krümel von Glück.

Wann sonst, wenn nicht im dichten Verkehr, unterwegs ohne Ziel,

War man je so vital, so dem faulen posthumen Frieden entrückt?

ARCADIA FOR ALL

It's not just the city center, deserted on Sunday morning,

The letters, branded with the stamp
not known at this address,

The sea-surge in the phone, and the irked yell of “Pardon?”

The thousands of cars abandoned at the roadside by their owners;

It's also the advertising hoardings with the poetic borrowings that no one reads,

The defaced monuments to boyhood heroes in the parks,

All this and much more, from which you prefer to avert your gaze—

Well, it gives you pause. This, then, swollen to metropolitan dimensions,

Is what it looks like, the place where they buried god like a dog.

Arcadia, celestial cemetery, a model for every city

Where death comes and goes, and life stutters on privatized astroturf.

Forget your idylls, your landscape of the blest, your bucolic reservations.

Whatever the shepherds sang, or travelers dreamed—

This here's the place for you.
City
and
gorod, metropolis
or
ville.

Here you promenade your own soul, beneath stoical trees,

A glass man, insomniac, reflected in so much excess.

The tempo's set by glances, flashing eye-contacts, not eclogues

Of flirtatious Daphne, Milon and Lakon closer than a pair of brothers.

You can feel the buzz in your bones, your spine in the judder of the arcades,

Lose your face, dazzled from the metallic upgleam of the puddles,

But where else is home? It was only ever here, in this familiar exile

When you crept into your rathole at night, that you tasted a few crumbs of joy.

When else, if not in the human flock, maundering without purpose,

Did you feel so alive, so cut adrift from the moldering posthumous peace?

NOTES

“PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG BORDER DOG (NOT COLLIE)”

“THE MISANTHROPE ON CAPRI”

“(OF INNER UNREST)”

“BERLIN ROUNDS”

“IN FRONT OF AN OLD X-RAY”

“VITA BREVIS”

“EUROPE AFTER THE LAST RAINS”

“BERLIN POSTHUMOUS”