CAPUT IV
91
Berlin, large cracked urn that is full of snow.
The ashes of the past still swirl down a
long the shop and theatre street of Kur
fürstendamm beneath an alien
wing of night-black velvet. Already the
imitation stars of the future gleam
in the horoscopes and mirrors of the
display windows which are violet with
the skins of polecat and of otter in
the reflection of quartz lamps and plastic.
Oh, what an art of illumination
and illusion to conceal the darkness
of past days and the spirit’s gutted fire
in the midst of the winter’s blue-tinged heart.
92
In the midst of the winter’s blue-tinged heart:
this thrombosis of a wall that separ
ates the closely knit lovers. A fanning
of snow and turquoise across the quiet
streets down by the Spree. I cannot tell you
why it is I happen to be thinking
of long and rusty saw blades, but it could
perhaps be because reason no longer
functions at such a sight. Or maybe since
emotions are brought to a halt by the
merciless concrete of ugliness. It
is here that humanity loses its
case at the high court of power and the wall.
You are well worth the cold and a journey.
93
You are well worth the cold and a journey
Berlin, as was Paris a golden mass.
Here in Grünewald the twilight is al
most the blue colour behind my closed eye
lids. Is there anything that is loneli
er that a lit-up window pane in a
wet and misty winter’s forest, where the
soul finds no boundaries at all and its
own darkness fuses with that of the bush
es. Does anything exist that is more
beautiful than this brief instant, when your
breast is torn apart by an insane de
sire not to exist any longer? – Here
in your earth rests the army of lost souls.
94
In your earth rests the army of lost souls:
those who truly loved, those who perished as
a result of too much tenderness, those
rejected by the World since they suffered
from genuine grief on behalf of others.
Those who before the very eyes of us
all dared together the salto morta
le of action, dared to stake all on the
impossible, how was it that we re-
paid them: with applause and with ovations
or with the worn coins of charity?
No, with the cruel revenge of medio
crity, but there’s hope midst the suffering:
each new defeat’s closer to victory.
95
Each new defeat’s closer to victory,
each humiliation to redress, al
though RAF has ended in a blind alley
in Kreutzberg (blind alleys are often the
loveliest). Perhaps this time they lost their
way, but this should not give rise to a re
trospective condemnation, but instead
to a time for reflection, because they
now have become incomprehensible
to themselves and desperate and because
they are becoming what they are fighting
against: a dragon without a head. Put
down your weapons, mobilise the spirit
and all those who belong to each other.
96
And all those who belong to each other,
they will also meet each other in the
class of all classes: the revolution
ary. All of those with their race, nation
gender, lineage and name sorted out.
People of all kinds and dispositions,
who have overcome themselves as well as
their own greediness, they will concentrate
on the single objective: to fully
implement social justice, econom
ic equality and freedom, which means
the abolition of classes of all
kinds. Whether they be militant or not,
all of them shall also be united.
97
All of them shall also be united
despite all distances. What would it mean,
for example, if one were to measure
death in kilometres. So when I de
liver this greeting, Ulrike, this oth
er little heart of jade, the true copy
of which lies in a cemetery in
Stuttgart, it is only a silent sign
between human bodies which is now con
nected with silver chains, not human souls
which meet each other in completely dif
ferent spheres, to which we with our bodies’
weight do not have an admission ticket:
To them life is nothing but the prelude.
98
Berlin, large cracked urn that is full of snow
in the midst of the winter’s blue-tinged heart.
you are well worth the cold and a journey,
In your earth rests the army of lost souls.
Each new defeat’s closer to victory.
And all those who belong to each other,
all of them shall also be united.
To them life is nothing but the prelude
to the open rooms of immortality
that at least is duration in our minds
and this carbon-black offertorium.
In that way death is in no wise a wind,
an emptiness that wipes out human shame,
God conceals himself, so we can seek him.
99
To them, life is nothing but the prelude,
to us it’s everything, we who shrink from
beauty and from the deadly splendour of
love. For after all it is true: in the
passionate moment we lose everything,
and maybe will never find a foothold
in ourselves again. We who are so scared
of taking risks cling tight-fistedly to
the sealed, familiar things that have been worn
down by habit’s planetary orbit.
We who flee from each other, who are sil
ent when we shout, talk mostly, are cold when
we believe we love. We’ll hardly make it
to the open rooms of immortality.
100
To the open rooms of immortality
full of lemniscates and kingfishers’ wings
they could only come via death’s muteness,
paradoxically enough, these me
taphysicians of the revolution
shot on the bicentenary of Bernt
Heinrich von Kleist’s birth, the greatest poli
tical poet in Germany, condemned
expelled, whose sister’s name was Ulrike.
Shot through the back of the neck or the fore
head: Bernd Andreas Baader, Carl Jan Ras
pe and Gudrun Esslin, who were hanged by
a wire, they are caught in a new web
that at least is duration in our minds.
101
That at least is duration in our minds,
I wrote earlier, and all in all that
closes the case, but in a different
way now from the inside, in my, its
and the idea’s inner universe,
which is no less real for all that. By
your death you became immortal. The vers
es are evidence of this, sonnets with
negentropy and crablike contortions.
Ah, one can hardly live in both places at
the same time fully or die. This only
takes place in the world of spirit and love,
in the mystery of the Trinity,
and this carbon-black offertorium.
102
And this carbon-black offertorium
is a finished chapter, a catechi
sm with omitted questions, silent ac
cusations and insufficient answers
between the pressed lilac leaves of obli
vion. A paper hell from which a flame
occasionally flares up. A pure ang
er, as corrosive as caustic soda.
I will go out into the morning sun
shine and burn this will and testament so
that the inner flame shall be united
with the outer one and the smoke perhaps
attain God like a thin, distant column:
In that way death is in no wise a wind.
103
In that way death is in no wise a wind,
rather the darkness of silence after
two shots. Here they went down: von Kleist and the
woman, directly down from the green rooms.
So when they closed their eyes everything turned
red: the after-image of life that slow
ly faded away, invisibili
ty because that which is transparent is
the dimension (crowned by cirrus clouds) which
connects them with each other. Were both of
them disappointed perhaps at seeing
nothing in the surface of the Wannsee
and that there was nothing else that remained:
an emptiness that wipes out human shame?
104
An emptiness that wipes out human shame
does not exist anywhere, nor does it
here on John Kennedy Platz, where dark ang
els have painted a bright-red pentagramme.
Your actions and your words, yes, even your
angry kisses will leave behind their dis
tant comet traces in the space of an
other consciousness, and finally be
part of a total swarm of Leonids
which fall down behind the November’s light ho
rizon as humanity’s fate, down there
behind the Brandenburg Gate’s quadriga
of flaming irreligious copper where
God conceals himself, so we can seek him.
105
God conceals himself, so we can seek him
behind the nothingness, behind the might
y white light which spreads out on the sky’s e
namel like eczema, a mandrake’s
flaming sign over the futility.
God sits behind a closed door that does not
exist on a throne of nickel, a court
of justice that has never existed.
Greater is this wrong: not to find him eith
er in the mind’s pure ivory chambers.
God conceals himself behind the truth in
such a way that the lie is bearable or
the converse perhaps, sadly enough.
Berlin, large cracked urn that is full of snow.
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