Sunday 13 January 2013

Another 'Galgenfrist' poem

 
Lapidary landscapes


i

a ship sails in the air
a gable is lit on the invisible
surface of the water

these low shores offer no resistance
this night is kindly disposed


ii

the late brush of the birch
against the icy sky, the silver sun’s
waxing eye

the poem is finished


iii

the steppe-grass whispers in a thousand telephones
directs the night wind with its waves

countersunk in itself the small eye
of the well stares hard at eternity


iv

like sticks in the fire
glowing
for a second still visible

this city no longer exists


v

even these corn-ears and stars
            these voices on the terrace
                        and clouds at bedtime
have other properties
            contain truths and threats
                        only temporarily hidden
(the distant blue harvest lightnings
            only hesitate, spare this:
a provisional state
            of mosquito song and bindweed)

far into the night, into oblivion
            i of course know it

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