Klaus Høeck/Winterreise: Caput IV (Kleist)

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.

Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer: Idyll 4

4

We have to learn how we are to revere things and

to moor our veering thoughts as if they had found land

to smooth, unruffled edges of a wind-still glass.

Each thing retains a memory of what it was

before it in our hands acquired a life as thing.

Through paper walls it listens to some other thing

in an adjoining room. The cutlery for fish

can just relax enjoying life there in its dish

rack, while the cupboard’s glasses clandestinely chink,

the napkins crinkle and the bright spoons shyly clink.

They quietly wait till we for them arrange a do

at festive tables flanked by smiling people, who

thankfully waltzing with a scintillating wine

propose a toast that things exist while here they dine.

Each breaking glass leaves cupboard’s plates quite unconsoled

and then festivities are duly put on hold.

The wisest things are simply useless, more or less.

They never gnash their teeth or wring their hands from stress

because of targets, rearing children, and high prices

like those who, flattened by fast living and its vices,

dash off in great distress into lethargic queues

like groggy boxers into ropes. Front soldiers lose

their lives in orphaned cohorts, are mown down in droves

in every morning rush hour. He who sows troves

of hope reaps comedowns. Quick’s too late, despite its twists.

The thing that’s useless hopes for nothing. It exists.

You find it on a sideboard or a window ledge,

or lying in a drawer or attic plank’s far edge,

street marketers can’t sell it – all they can is give.

It’s not too late as yet. We have to learn to live.

The oldest hunter, when he reads tracks made that day

will smell the wind, the fear, the sweat, become his prey.

He knows the time of caterpillars, spider’s webs.

His task is being there, not wanting to possess.                         

Small leaves are by the moving current borne downstream.

This is a thing that moves things greatly, and they seem

to softly start to crackle at the sight. Contrive

for me a drawer where I may live: I live. I strive

no more for living striving, living will suffice.

Do you remember all the hats you’ve worn, their price?

Or all the beds you’ve slept in? Small things at your feet

you always would bend down and pick up off the street?

The hats, bed, tiny coins all this still recall.

Your imprint in the duvet matters most of all.

That’s what the pillow lives for. Never will forget.

All the small hats that on your head you’ve ever set

remember well your thoughts. Your home street also knows

with great precision just from where to where it goes.

And does so willingly. For you. You often fail

to see it though or small notes left behind as mail

which state: ‘We must revere things, and at every turn.

From silent things we have to dare to learn.’

Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer: Idyll 3

3

Night has been notified. Demons are due, it seems.

The bat you fear so much squeaks winging through your dreams.

I stood this morning on a spacious fascist square.

The sun was strong. With shade to spare. I felt fine there.

The waiter served my coffee with a graceful gesture.

The day came, ticking softly, slowly gaining texture.

Once it was stylish here. Those who could get their way

might get hot water, he a better bath, let’s say,

than me. Decaying concrete falls from coffered ceiling.

Hand on your cup, watch out for cracks and paint that’s peeling.

All things have always something that is worth restoring.

Life’s nothing else than constant buttressing and shoring.

The boilers in my houses are all quite corroded.

A girl weeps. I repair myself till I’ve imploded.

This mortal life needs maintenance that makes no sense.

You paint what two days later is a clapped-out fence

and all you wash today tomorrow coats with grime.

The one I haul on board’s the woman I next time

lose to the normal stream of weather in the main.

Mind well these words of mine. What was your name again?

And will you hold me close in this night that’s so queer?

For all those demons are mere figments of my fear.

Night has been notified. I could myself make small

in all your toxic rose-pink, gentle know-it-all.

My head lies on the chopping-block of your bare shoulder

I pull the duvet over you. It’s getting colder.

Gaze with your eyes of blue straight into my blue eyes

and stroke me ice-cold dead. It’s like an enterprise –

what I do, you do for me, and what people do.

The white steeds steam, will’s young and green in me and you.

‘Anon! Jump on my back. I’ll bring you far from here.

I’ll feed you lion marrow, hooves of many a deer.

I’ll teach you how to fly on the curls of your hair.

The beasts will keep you warm, imagine and you’re there.’

Yes. All these kinds of things I’d dearly like to say

Instead of which I’m wasting time explain away

how Holland sends me coloured letters every day

and threatens acronyms if too long I delay.

Apologies, this poem’s aim has never been

political. Pour more wine. Let music now begin.

And at the centre of the table lots of snacks

from Albert Heijn. That makes things fine. And our wisecracks

that by the third sour hour have simply gone to pot

when chattering in our old shack is more than shot.

Come closer, love. And choke me softly if you can.

Make love to me just like an axe. What is your plan?

That I the griffins that I have should start to burn?

With your green hands brush all my yellowed teeth in turn.

An ape is for a green ape such a lovely thing.

It retranslates the world. It wears a golden ring.

You know why animals regard us with sad eyes?

I do. They want to look like us, assume our guise.

The cows desire a god that writes books which endure. 

And birds too want a son of bird that will for sure

last till the final tweet is sent and yesterday.

And camels want to gently sway not far away

from some dilapidated wall, if not instead

five times a day to sniff a cloth bow down their head.

They see how humans lose themselves in untrue hope.

For animals there’s only truth. A cause to mope.

The one who cannot flee into green fantasy,

as can a cow escape its shed to some vast sea

of grassy meadows with lush flowers that never stop

and genuine horizons, lives but for the chop.

All animals are Buddhists, although unaware.

To unawares be something means the name’s unfair.

That is the koan of the dog. The poodle’s core.

To be quite conscious isn’t modern any more.

We’re simply something, and half-heartedly at best.

Our own true being is to us a long-lost quest

and thus we are so much, though unaware of it.

And only forms still know the names we truly fit.

We do not open them, afraid of crashing down.

In fearful figures we’re expressed in which we drown.

There’s still a little bit left over of one wine.

No, don’t go off to bed yet. For I find it fine

to talk to you of animals, of formulating,

of mouldered grooves through which the wind shrieks unabating,

demons that I’ve invented wholly on my own.

My cheek is black. I talk too much? You set the tone.

The bat’s not genuine. Please give me now a kiss.

I’m not all-knowing, though aware of much of this. 

I chew on glass, though I’d prefer to be transparent.

Are there still snacks? Is my sheer panic so apparent?

Must get the washing in. Bad weather’s on the way.

That’s barking. Hear it? Did somebody ring? Please stay.

Let’s just sit down, relax and eat what you’ve prepared.

The floors will cope for now with liquid not been spared.

Already rung your mother? Are you scared, unsure?

The shards are packed in cases in the corridor.

And the insurance papers? Know where they might be?

Despair ascends in sodden letters to my knee.

The animals are without brandy yet again.

The red blots on the squares of Melba toast aren’t rain.

Already rung your mother? Now the evening ticks 

like some small suspect parcel at the station. Fixed

is what has been fixed up. Where can my tool-box be?

I can mend leaks that you know nothing of, can’t see

when from the bedroom you the bat attempt to chase

and in your hands’ cassation no more questions raise.

Night has been notified. Demons are only fear.

Can you patrol the corridor that’s outside here?

I feel like glass. I only wish you were my mother

Then in the clammy grass we could lie close together.

It soon will rain for sure. You’re right, we think alike.

You kiss me like the fractious sea the fragile dike.

Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer: Idyll 2

2

What is the best style like? It’s quotable, each line.

A scintillating wine in purple crystalline

smells unassailably of an age-old still-life

and I would give my life to live just such a life.

Instead of which I hang like some peeled outer skin

and polish my gold frame just like a child. Begin

to wish I could shun situations that induce me

to express myself so haltingly. I hope profusely

that in an air-tight showcase I’m interred some day

as a complete, well-rounded whole. It’s a ballet

of impotence to make en pointe this whole endeavour,

on tip-toe, trip in one great curve and hell for leather

round white-hot coals of life that is not everyday.

True walkers walk through curtains, do so straight away

and stand as style. Give me a place to stand out clear

and I will shake the earth. Is that a cock I hear?

Perhaps I am mistaken. The whole world’s devised.

Each friend who laughs at me has acted, improvised.

The play’s producer sits upstairs and sells the soap

of all I know and fear and anxiously still hope

to the commercial channels. Time for a quick break,

we’ll be right back: ‘A mouth that can rebel’s your take?

Then join us rebels! For together we’re uniquer.’

With every remedy though I feel even weaker.

OK, there’s pay-back day. Scratch nail-scars in my head.

No woman have I promised sunny days ahead.

The light-brown flowers have never been so fine before

At chocolate bars the great beast now begins to gnaw.

The hems of my black full-length coat are wet and matt.

With claws stuck in a mouse is every cat a cat.

Time for a myth. For a Dutch company now say

they’re setting up a trip to Mars. The trip and stay

all-in. The sponsors are prepared to pay the lot

because it will be televised. Stories are not

devised by anyone, they are commercially

conceived and with due marketing are usually

a money-spinner. Heroes, like say Hercules.

Why nowadays he’s chosen by text messages.

A euro for each text. Perhaps it should be stated:

it’s one-way – for the trip back no one has donated.

Which of the fifty Argonauts had contemplated

that at the destination too their journey’s end awaited?

I’ve often levered boats along a desert trail.

It is my bottle-post which makes the ocean quail.

I hear a cock. Was this the one I heard before?

My words are just like packing ice. I’ll say no more

unless like some spoilt indoor plant you coddle me.

And where I’ve landed up I don’t know honestly.

Come with me off to Mars. I’ll quit fags if you do.

And once we’re famous, I will do the cooking too.

In prime time we will wave our mothers’ way.

And look, they wave back. Time-lagged images now sway

like summer breezes past our helmets and are gone.

Like the best statue I prefer to stand alone.

I live in isolation. That’s quote-friendly living.

In isolation in the sense that my chill striving

stands cold as marble in the chill majestic hall.

To me life is not what our life’s about at all.

I do not even know what I ate yesterday,

I’d like my name to name myself in some strange way.

Non-living can well be a form of sluggish pride.

In storm and wind someone as rock must stem the tide,

even from laziness, to just not have to move.

But keep on licking, dear. All’s fine. My dagger’s groove

all of your soft pink tongues will pierce and cruelly savage

I’ll get the consulate to pay for any damage.

I hear the cock. Again. As earlier today?

My smile is made of fur, my words are made of clay.

The seals are stamped and certified on my dry tongue.

If you should need to cough, I’ll give you my good lung.

Or we could cough together nicely like a choir

of airy angels. No words meet what you require,

I very often hear they say. Though in that case

words may do something else. Surround though not embrace

what’s quite unheard of. Were I to define the eye

of calmness in the middle of the storm, then I

in quite unheard-of wordiness would have to rage

around with buildings, cars, roofs, glass – a verbiage –

and the uprooting racket of snip-snapping wood.

The absence of all pain as joy is understood.

Do you believe me? Black the stars all are today.

Just grab hold of your apparatus and press play.

What shall I tell you? If I’ve ever learnt from you?

That’s the third time, I think, the cock crows doodle-doo.

The round-card girlies kiss me on my cheeks both bared.

My body seems quite strange to me. I’m really scared.

Menno Wigman: 'Aan een man in de supermarkt'

Aan een man in de supermarkt

En toen, gifmuze, kroop hij in mijn blik:

een man, klein, dik, met onbemand gezicht

die keek alsof hij Ron of Ruud moest heten.

En alles wat hij dacht was mij bekend:

belasting, voetbal, Emma, missverkiezing,

broccoli, koffiefilters – heel zijn mond 

een dunne brief vol blanco levensdrift. 

En ik was in verwachting van een scheef

gedicht, wou hem haten, kon het niet – 

want alles wat hij droomt, dacht ik, droom ik

niet beter. Groet, gegroet dus, vale oom 

die net zo magisch over lakens droomt. 

De rij in, dan naar huis, deurmat, ijskast,

de bank, de oven, later weer die slaap. 

Ik ben zo bang dat je niet eens bestaat. 

To a man in the supermarket

And then, snake-muse, he crawled into my gaze:

a man, small, fat, and with an unmanned face

that looked as if his name was Reg or Ron.

And everything he thought was known to me:

taxation, football, Emma, beauty contest,

broccoli, coffee filters – his whole mouth

a flattish letter full of blank zest for life.

And I with a wry poem on its way

then found the hate I sought for would not come –

for everything he dreams, I thought, I dream

no better. Greetings, therefore, drab old man

who just as magically dreams of sheets.

Queue up, then back off home, the doormat, fridge,

the sofa, oven, sleep – the usual list.

I’m so afraid what’s more you don’t exist.