A poem by Ivan Malinowski from 'Galgenfrist' (short respite)

Still Life

The general leans his cheek against the general’s wife’s

a caress begun in 1908

stares furiously at the dusty palms and spider’s web’s portières

a drop stands motionless in the wind while the house rises measuredly skywards

and black snails invade the garden room

with large white astonished eye they hesitate at first on the threshold

then transform themselves into tears

that roll across the floor in gleaming trails

the night is an ear that yawns itself out of joint

a gurgling in hidden pipes

the one-eyed owl sighs deeply from its perch on the sideboard

under the chaiselongue the moon

catches a ball of combed-off hair a greying fledgling

a matchless kelim (Pirot 1840) arches its back and squeaks like a rat

while the mosquitoes whisper hoarsely about Walt Whitman’s private life

now the ache has found its tooth and the bullet its stiffened chest

the general his life’s his death’s proud Atlantis

it is accomplished

the Cossack Oedipus on his stallion on the plain on the wall

has found his grave the limitation (the fine balance)

only the table linen is still waiting for its rightful apparation

only time its scissors only the eye its gleam only the stones are a strong redeemer

oblivion has forgotten these images and thunder always drifts over

the tongue of daybreak steals off a different way

the garden’s marble doves have perched on the retina

the wrought-iron spears deep in this flesh

Meissen will always be Meissen and the soul immortal

(how long immortality

how long this blind bitter open lens this tower that falls down

so great a loneliness how long)