Zwei Gedichte / Two Poems

Hier sitz ich, luftgebräunt

Hier sitze ich, luftgebräunt,
ich könnte auch anders. Die
Kellnerin, Schuhfetischistin, 
wartet auf. Ich warte ab, bis
die Prozession der Beton-
mischmaschmaschinen sichtbar
wird und eine nach der anderen
ihre Sandergussmarken, große
graue Zuckerhüte auf die
Köpfe der Schalke, meiner
Bockskollegen und sparring partners,
gesetzt hat.

Die kupfernen Brand- und 
Züngelhaare unserer bar-
busigen (eigentlich busenbaren)
anschmiegsbereiten Schalksnarren
schreien Zeder und Mohr*; die omi-
nösen Omnibusse füllen sich bis
an den Rand mit tütüknisternden
streitlüsternen Ballerinen.

Meine Unterschrift haben sie!
Warum sollten ausgerechnet
Ballerinen kein Versammlungs-
recht genießen! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

Here I sit, sun-tanned

Here I sit, sun-tanned
I could be different. The
waitress, shoe fetishist,
waits at table. I wait until
the procession of cement
mixers becomes visible and
till, one after the other
they’ve put their
sandspill-marks, large
grey sugarloafs, on the
heads of the  wags, my 
goat-colleagues and sparring partners 

The coppery, blazing 
licking hair of our bare
bosomed (more truly, barely bosomed)
foolish wags, ready to snuggle up,
raises a  shoe and fly*, the omi 
nous omnibusses fill up to the 
brim with toot-toot-rustling
rancorous ballerinas. 

They’ve got my backing! 
Why should, of all sorts, 
just ballerinas be denied 
the right to assemble!
 
 
 
 
 
 

This Rapidity!

God’s furrow 
plants itself more quietly into the 
power pot** and piss pot 
of the despot (death pots) than I
had thought. And how
it grows, the furrowtree!
This rapidity of the old 
bag, Time, as she lays 
down and beds herself in tree 
furrows. Pinching, 
with turbo-coquetterie, the sheets (what a
word!) from the mummies, ripping
them away; an unfriendly act 
But quite in the spirit of the ghost,
the putrid  and  trusted
that blows across the brackish water
Again and again rehearsing 
the falsetto passage
with the chest-voice. This
definitive altus.
 

                                    transl. by AW

* raises a shoe and fly: schreien Zeder und Mohr. The - at first sight - nonsensical, certainly enigmatic German phrase in the poem echos another,  idiomatic phrase: "Zeter und Mordio schreien" ( "to raise a hue  and cry"). Zeder (cedar) and Mohr (blackamoor; moor) are physical realities; the one non-human, the other human.  In the translation, shoe, replacing hue (shading, color or coloring; Schattierung, Farbe)  and fly, replacing cry (Schrei),  form perhaps a similar relation. The first is an inanimate object, made of leather or wood or oil-based plastics; the second is a living being. And like Zeder und Mohr they echo an idiomatic phrase.

* Krumentopf: a neologism. I associate Blumentopf (flower pot) but I also hear the literal meaning: crumb pot.
Power pot likewise lets us hear the echoing word "flower pot". And like crumb pot, it refers to social relations between those who throw crumbs from their table and those who may be compelled by their situation to pick them up.