Tuesday, 26 January 2010

January 26, from Klaus Høeck's '1001 POEMS'


        what had become of
‘the good old days’ when the grand
        father clock had a
        more resonant chime
throughout my childhood and snow
        storms could be relied
        on with clockwork pre
cision not like nowadays
        only in fairy
        tales of ‘the good old
days’ when all the fairytales
        actually took place


        it was not all that
        simple with all that
freedom or rather with that
        sliver of freedom
        humans despite e
verything possess and i am
often tempted to lose my
        self in calculat
        ing totals and to
talities to lose my way
        in ramanujan’s
        splendid formulas


        tombeau de robert
jacobsen has now taken
        ‘the old days’ with him
        behind the rust and
red lead there where the secret
        hexagram has been
        welded into the
inside of the iron leaving
        us still alive on
        ly the chance of read
ing his last signature mir
        rored on the steel pane


        memory is quite
spiritless since all that is
        spirit relates to
        itself (otherwise
only to god) while he who
        remembers has pre
        cisely to relate
to a timespan outside the
        moment (point in time)
        which is thereby at
a point outside him because
        all time is present


        the first word ought to
have stood in the last poem
        that much i could re
        member though not quite
        where - whether it was
to take place on the far side
of the fairytale or in
        the depths of winter’s
        box of varnish and
        chinese ink i could
no longer recall and the
        rest i’d forgotten

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