SUN &MOON

CLASSICS

vvith each
clouded peak
Friederike Mayrocker

Translated from the German

by Rosmarie Waldrop
and Harriett watts
 with each clouded peak
Friederike Mayrocker
Translated from the German by
Rosmarie Waldrop and Harriett Watts

Beginning with personal remembrances, experiences, and feel-

ings, Mayrocker adds linguistic material collected from a variety
of sources (which through the years she gathered on pieces of
paper) to create a grand collage in with each clouded peak, a col-
lage subject to the permutations, repetitions, and rediscoveries of
everyday life. The result is a magnificent text that does not easily
fit into any genre, as it straddles autobiography, essay, fiction,
and poetry.
Born in 1924 in Vienna, Mayrocker attended business school
before being drafted, from 1942 to 1945, into the Luftwaffe. At
the same time, she trained as a school teacher, and after the war
she taught school until 1969, when she returned to devote full
time to her writing.
Among her many collections of poetry, prose, radio plays, and
essays are Tod durch musen (1968, death through muses);
Minimonsters traumlexikon (1968, minimonster's dream dictio-
nary); Fantom fan (1971); Das licht in der landschaft (1975, the
light in the landscape); Fast ein fruhling des markus m. (1976,
almost a spring of markus m.), and Heiligenanstalt (1978, trans-
lated by Rosmarie Waldrop and published by Burning Deck in
1994). with each clouded peak was originally published as je ein
umwolkter gipfel in 1973.
Mayrocker has been awarded several major literary prizes, in-
cluding the Theodor Komer Prize (1963), the Georg Trakl Prize
for poetry (1977), the Great Austrian State Prize (1982), and more
recently the 1997 International Prize of The America Awards.

ISBN 1-55713-277-1
51195 > SUN II<

.JJJI
MOON
CLASSICS
162
WITH EACH CLOUDED PEAK
 P.I.P.
THE PROJECT FOR INNOVATIVE POETRY

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Anne-Marie Albiach (France)
David Antin (usA)
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Nicole Brossard (Canada)
Andree Chedid (Lebanon/France)
Robert Creeley (usA)
Henri Deluy (France)
Jacques Derrida (France)
Jean Fremon (France)
Alfredo Giuliani (Italy)
Barbara Guest (usA)
Paal-Helge Haugen (Norway)
Lyn Hejinian (usA)
Miroslav Holub (Czech Republic)
Yang Lian (China)
Jackson Mac Low (usA)
Friederike Mayrocker (Austria)
Cees Nooteboom (Holland)
Michael Palmer (usA)
Marjorie Perloff (usA)
Carl Rakosi (usA)
Tom Raworth (England)
Jerome Rothenberg (usA)
Claude Royet-Journoud (France)
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Douglas Messerli (usA), Publisher

 FRIEDERIKE MAYROCKER

with each clouded peak

translated from the German
by Rosmarie Waldrop & Harriett Watts

Cl
SUN &
§

MOON
§
CLASSICS

162 §

SUN & MOON PRESS

LOS ANGELES • 1998
 Sun & Moon Press
A Program of The Contemporary Arts Educational Project, Inc.
a nonprofit corporation
6026 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90036
website: http://www.sunmoon.com

first Sun & Moon Press edition 1998

10987654321

©1989 by Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main

from Gesammelte Prosa 1949-1975
(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1989)
Originally published as je ein umwiilkter gipfel (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1973)
Reprinted by permission.
Translation ©1998 by Rosmarie Waldrop and Harriett Watts
Biographical material ©1998 by Sun & Moon Press
All rights reserved

This book was made possible, in part, through contributions to

The Contemporary Arts Educational Project, Inc., a nonprofit corporation, and
the National Endowment for the Arts, a nonprofit corporation.
NATIONAL
ENDOWMENT
FOil-THE

ARTS
Cover: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Winterliche Mondlandschaft
(Winter landscape in moonlight), 1919
The Detroit Institute of Arts, gift of Curt Valentin in memory of the artist
on the occasion of Dr. William R. Valentiner's sixtieth birthday.
Design: Katie Messborn
Typography: Guy Bennett

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Mayrocke~ Friederike [1924)
with each clouded peak
p. cm (Sun & Moon Classics: 162)
ISBN: 1-55713-277-1
1. Title. II. Author
811'.54-dczo

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved here,

no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into
a retrieval system, or transmitted, io any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner
and the above publisher of the book.
contents

liliengracht 7
first time the construction worker :1 3
nostalgia :17
far side of the moon 21
narration of a narration 25
in a rundown neighborhood 27
signs of the times 30
protector of the house 33
plot of a supposition 37
indications 41
to leap from mountains, a figure of thought 43
in the ocean of air 48
reproduction of a palm 51
four o'clock deep in the morning 53
in vast woods, blinking 55
we in the shape of a wet feather 59
progression 61
in the white west 64
a stay in zorn 68
a nightiemare 71
there stands there green 75
with each clouded peak 80
tapisserie 8 months' snow 84
the chapter
in a rundown neighborhood
i dedicate to leslie willson,
the chapter
in the ocean of air
is dedicated to my mother,
the chapter
a nightiemare
is for ernst jandl.
'liliengracht, didactic

first wanted to call it tracks, he said, because when A

speaks he gradually slips into a different track, namely
B's; then, when B speaks B gradually slips into a differ-
ent track, namely C's; when C speaks C gradually slips
into a different track, namely D's; when D speaks D gradu-
ally slips into a different track, namely Ns, and so forth.
well, why don't we, he said, want to talk here.
everything so close to happening, and the big billboard,
private property, painted red, inviting all passers-by to
think about all that.
birds already nesting everywhere, he said, and the syrin-
gas purple.
or so theodor storm claimed, he said, the word simply
smells better, better than the word lilac, and besides it
made you always think you almost heard an ocean right
behind the cathedral. what with the fish smell. even ori
seemed to sense it as he panted along the river.
us, he said, on the outskirts of the city, and the moon up
in the afternoon.
strange, he said, the sun was setting, a summer sunset,
the moon rising at the same time, and we deciphered
something about the landscape in the tall scaffoldings,
all crust over a sloshing mass of earth.
as in a real earthquake, he said, the sky changed color.
high time, he said, to read kleist, i don't know, i really
 don't know, maybe that afternoon when the centaurs were
galloping down fischerhiitten street past the little hut,
when we gave chase, when they vanished, the whole pack,
down argentinische avenue and we couldn't make them
out any more in the large distant gardens over there, he
said, can we in talking master the art, he said.
first, he said, we'll decollage everything, he said.
but think about it, she said, everybody is glad to have a
roof even if it's ugly, and evenings, on the way home past
the hospital grounds, there is always a double bass lean-
ing in the second floor window.
sometimes you hear a violin or piano inside.
first, he said, we'll storm, twist, hurricane, sweep through
the streets, rage beyond the city limits all the way to
krumme lanke where the swans.
first wanted to work it this way, he said, include elements
from experience, he said. because in the long run, he said,
the wind blew my hair off my forehead, which i don't like.
would stand up against, he said, would paint the townhall
lawn red, bloodred, the marble feet of the siegesengel,
winged victories and the like.
through fieldglasses, he said, the mechanics of street life
by the brandenburg gate, like madersperger, he said, he
laughed. everything decollaged, he said, time flies.
do they really always expect a mirror when they reach
for a book or other reading matter, he said, do they al-
ways want to find just themselves, be it in a miserable
shard.
when we, he said, and the taxi having spat us out, torn

8
around the corner to spit us out in a great arc before we
could even dig for our few east pfennigs, he said, made a
splash throwing chestnuts, he said, monument to the
colossal east, he said, with a cloud of stars, airliners over-
head, right on the dot.
with tequila & saragossa, he said, he laughed, regardless
of external forces, up into the dome of the monument
where all the citizens of the world, he said, and in talk-
ing mastered the wrong art.
we walked, he said, across ice-covered puddles toward
the river and the old egg-house and finally all sat down
and wouldn't budge, he said.
very much with flowers, he said, with half lifted clothes,
fringes, lace, right at the border of the sector, a run-down
restaurant.
bar stools on a creaky wooden porch, he said, there we
all sat.
his hair beginning to mildew, he said, he laughed. but
still wild for young rosebuds.
murder up, grave, ain't as black as all that, he said, sim-
ply decollage everything. conversations in loops, at long
panel tables, right at the border, by the traffic signals
before you enter the AVUS.
a veritable race track, he said, and down there a figure
with a knapsack, heading toward the weathered mile-
stone, the fields, bony, haggard, sits down on the slope,
in the wind, leaning into it, stands up, face spaced out,
keeps standing there, word for word, on my mind, read-
able.

9
 wanted to wander starward, the clouds did, he said,
groupy-head, he said, he laughed.
in talking mastered the art, he said, of questioning ev-
erything, up-down, inside-outside, of shaking all the
foundations.
exception made for persons, he said, who command the
respect of their wards, for instance, and maple seeds tossed
among words, a newborn puppy, a walk to the mailbox.
close, too close to all that's happening, he said, taking
my arm and safely, he said, tossing his cigarette butt or
stomping it out, heading for a certain part of town, ten-
der light blue eyeballs, and a bike like this, how about it.
bridge construction, he said, a calling, tear & nip from
the airport through the maze of streets, now we'd all
gotten together, he said, together not just in talking, but
really, in reality, out of reality. and my face, he said, on
either side, and as we turned into the garden, there were
some guys hanging around who disappeared into the
bushes, toward the steps smelling of green, two, three
times, ran into our own open arms.
well, why don't we, he said, want to talk here.
and here they came, he said, with this newborn puppy,
he said, yellow like skin, the leash yellow, dammit like
tied in a loop, till the dog on the other side almost tore
loose, jumped again and again at the fence, again and
again as if trying.
as if i were always trying, he said, to tie a knot, a loop, a
leash only to pull it apart again, and again tie, knot, pull
apart endlessly until my head, he said, comes off, would

10
" come off, he said, in the morning for example, this strange
rearrangement of the furniture.
the kitchen chair displaced over night, he said, somebody
must have monkeyed with it or been near, behind, be-
low, on top of it, who, why, which, how, a flower vase is
no garbage can, milky way, he said, wet gardens.
breathless feverish buying spree in woolworth's, she said,
she laughed.
as if i were always trying, he said, to undo long hair only
to rebraid it more artfully, again and again undo and braid
again and again, as if i were always trying to track down
new forms, he said, track down their loops, curves, rings,
he said, is after all my brother, my ant of a brother. all
day was all yellow, she said, crouched at his feet.
is after all my brother, he said, monkey bread, like heav-
ing that portable ironing board or the deck chairs, mon-
key bread, a maple seed dropped in my cap.
and dug his upper row of teeth into his lower lip, he said,
even as a child, you can see it in the old snapshots.
erich zinsler that's who, take in a cuckoo, let it live in
your trees, brandslangen, he said, wrestled the tiger.
erich zinsler that's who, he said, well, he said, he sat be-
hind me in class, at the brethren's; blond, fat, and in the
schoolyard with lilies and lianas, roses & cinderella myths
that sort of thing.
missing that's what he is, lost like the maple seed in my
hat; well, when he came in: can't help looking at the damn
tree in front of the window, he said, those whitish spots
and not even any leaves, he said.

11
hurricanines, sycorous bugs climbing.
ended up liking, and all the other trees too, he said, talked
of your mouth, he said, and your hand on your stretched-
out arm, he said, time flies. foot flags, he said, time flies.
foot flags, time flies.
well, he said, why don't we want to stay and live here or
at least try to settle down; has, in talking, mastered the
art whose worlds, he said.

RW

12
0

first time the construction worker

came to the house

first time the construction worker came to the house, he

said, pockmarked face, sheep's tongue lolling out, at four
in the morning, with the sun already up, the moon about
to set.
first time the construction worker came to the house, he
said, our mental separation from the environment had
already begun.
empty station three trains a day the lobby a dancehall
for ghosts.
first time the construction worker came to the house to
hang around, just hang around with us, at four in the
morning with the sun already and the moon, and we
had to look for chairs because it wasn't your usual time
of day for visitors, he said. first time the construction
worker came to the house he said achescuse me, friends,
achescuse me.
and us with the eternal alpenglow behind the house, with
the first test of the morning, our bucket bird singing,
heaved day and night up the side to the top of the house,
the lavender trees, the stone steps to the well. first time
the construction worker came to the house, he said, ev-
ery thing was suddenly called into question.
first time the construction worker came to the house,
with the eternal alpenglow behind the house, with a bevy

1J
 of ducks beheaded, bleeding, afloat on the pond as if still
alive, to be cleaned out to pasture.
first time the construction worker came to the house he
said achescuse me, friends, achescuse me, and we opened
all the windows.
first time the construction worker came to the house,
pockmarked face, sheep's tongue lolling out, our mental
separation from the environment had begun long ago,
he said.
first time the construction worker came to the house we
didn't know what to say, opened all windows, let in the
morning.
first time the construction worker came to the house to
hang around, just hang around with us, to cut all umbili-
cal cords, clean out to pasture, and us looking for chairs.
with sparrows flying up, a late fall morning, pushing the
windows open, he said, we suddenly felt he might, in his
wisdom, laugh at anything.
empty station, three trains a day, the lobby a dancehall
for ghosts.
first time the construction worker came to the house there
was suddenly a shadow.
first time the construction worker came to the house, and
us looking for chairs, he said as the crow knows where
it's flying in the fall soi know where i'm going, he said.
first time the construction worker came to the house, and
with the eternal alpenglow behind the house, sparrows
flying up, first test of morning, we didn't know what to
say, he said. we, with the neighboring flat roofs you can
 walk on, water straight from the mouth of the well, we
were looking for chairs, pushing the windows open, so
early in the morning, not your usual time for visitors.
first time the construction worker came to the house, the
empty station, three trains a day, the lobby a dancehall
for ghosts, everything was suddenly called into question,
and he said achescuse me, friends, achescuse me.
first time the construction worker came to the house, our
mental separation from the environment was already
quite advanced, toward four in the morning with the sun
already, but the moon, he said.
first time the construction worker came to the house and
told us he'd carried the basket, carried it the way all peas-
ant women do, on his head, and demonstrated.
first time the construction worker came to the house, he
said, coat hung over his shoulders, and us pushing the
windows open, in the vast woods, blinking.
with the eternal alpenglow behind the house.
first time the construction worker came to the house and
asked what did we mean achescuse him, we didn't know
what to say, everything was suddenly called into question.
first time the construction worker came to the house, with
the eternal alpenglow behind the house which frightened
us all, with the ducks bleeding to death in the pond, he
said, very much with flowers that called everything into
question.
with the front yard, he said, the flat roofs you can walk
on, toward four in the morning with the sun already up
and the moon about to set.
first time the construction worker came to the house and
wanted to put his fruit basket in the middle of the floor,
and us looking for chairs, he said achescuse me, friends,
achescuse me.
first time the construction worker came to the house in
the morning, and we snatched ears of wheat from his
mouth and ground them in our hands, toward four in
the morning with the sun already and the moon.
first time the construction worker came to the house,
and us looking for chairs because it was not your usual
time for visitors, everything was suddenly called into
question.
first time the construction worker came to the house he
came as if he hadn't come at all.

RW

16
nostalgia

could see the wedding guests step out of the house if i

craned my neck, he said, if i stood on tiptoe and looked
out the high transoms, down where they were yelling as
if everybody were deaf, it drifted up to me, right in the
outworks, coat, cape, loden, march-chill.
if i braced myself and on tiptoe, he said, neck craned, i
could see them all, they had all come out of the house,
inside they had been sitting, capetown brown, between
crocheted antimacassars, on rattan rockers, he said, al-
ways.
if i craned my neck i could see them push out of the
house to get some air, could hear them yell, and the aunts
from capetown with their kinky hair.
if i strained i could see them all, yelling and wanting to
get out of the house, holding flowers, all of them, to get
some air, he said, at that time i had already stopped sneer-
ing at things, he said.
with craned neck i could survey the yelling crowd push-
ing out of the house to get some air, a dream of course,
he said, and the wintery twitter of birds high above me,
giant green aviary.
if i stood on tiptoe i could see them all, he said, american
magazines, the african aunt had told me, give reading
time in number of subway stations, a dream of course,
he said, march-chill.
0

balancing on tiptoe i saw them push out of the house, a

delirium perhaps, he said, a new penetration of reality,
he said, an utmost determination, he said, a suicidal rage,
he said.
craned my neck, saw them all push outside for a bit of
air, he said, saw them speak orientish, verbhose, nimble
languages, he said, a dream of course, all tables occupied,
they yelled, shall we wait here, they yelled, shall we sit
down over there, they yelled.
stretched and saw them almost make a move to turn this
way or that in order to sit down, he said, a dream of
course, march-chill, he said, to the rhine! they yelled, all
the while crowding in front of the house where the air
was steaming, and i heard them yell up to my observa-
tion post, look, they yelled, how the dome is being blown
off the ramp, look, gusts of rough air, shadowy beuel, a
dream of course, may-stockinged thin the bride, right in
the outworks, suddenly shadows.
if i braced myself, craned my neck, i could observe ev-
erything precisely, suddenly shadows, he said, and how
the bride and the bridegroom, and how they all yelled
louder again, the group photo! they yelled at one an-
othe~ get on with the group photo!
craned my neck, finally the group photo, he said, and
again the group photo, group photo of the capetown-
brown aunts, the other brown aunts, the old masters al-
ways arranged it, he said, so that the heads formed a wavy
line, a dream of course, he said.
straining upwards i could follow everything precisely,
the group photo, the old masters, they composed this way,
he said, a dream of course, heads in a wavy line, a scatter
of events.
if i craned my neck i saw them slowly begin to turn away,
he said, a dream of course, the scatter of events, the scat-
ter of events is amazing when seen from above, he said,
the scatter of events, and how every new day we wash,
dress, have washed, have dressed, this torture till we've
finished washing, dressing, and how we can't bear being
talked to in the morning, he said, could this not go so far,
he said, that we'd no longer want to set foot into the
morning, he said, at least from my post of observation,
he said.
on tiptoe, the clan as if transformed into images, he said,
if i brace myself, a dream of course, the clan now finally
drying up, he said, the group dispersing more and more,
flocking toward the rhine, at least all out of the house,
he said, a dream of course, when i stood at the cash reg-
ister and did not look at the bills handed to me, but in-
stead tried to interpret the smile of the woman at the
next cash register, a dream of course, rhineward, he said,
at least all out of the house now.
craned my neck, but transformations are necessary, he
said, transformed into images, how they scattered along
the bank, he said, and when the clan had finally dried up,
he said, a cork out of a giant bottle, he said, i called to the
oldest relative, though she could not hear me all the way
down there, miss misa, i called, miss misa-with this
branch of the family we've always been formal-do you
 remember, miss misa, i called again, he said, do you re-
member. yes, she said, a dream of course, for she could
not possibly hear me from up here, he said. yes, she said
softly, in the women's auxiliary together with your
mother, forty-two to forty-five.
again surveyed the whole clan, straining, he said, saw
them draw closer and closer to the banks of the rhine,
the rhine black with crows fluttering above, and on a
billboard nearby a poster kept coming off even though
one of the group kept striking it with his fist to fix it,
again and again, he said, air schlieren.
craning upwards, i could see they now had scattered com-
pletely, a second's compulsion, heading in various direc-
tions and definitely making the group photo impossible,
roses from picardy, a dream of course, and now it was
coming down with a splash, the whole width of the em-
bankment. above me they started screaming again, win-
ter birds, heads tossed back, a dream of course, black crows,
he said, the course of events, he said, miss misa, i said,
the course of events, it's a matter of the course of events.
bracing myself, he said, i can hear and see their voices
like shadows in the distance, he said, a dream of course,
and now, now i see them all together again, hurrying
toward the anchorage, transformed back into solid form,
into a single figure, the anchorage swaying and veiled,
thistles in their hair, a dream of course, he said, thistles
in their hair.

RW

20
far side of the moon

we already live mostly underground, he said, ventilat-

ing his skyblue cape and tossing his officer's cap on the
desk.
his skyblue cape waved and fluttered heroically, we re-
ally already live mostly underground, he said and pushed
his officer's cap a bit farther toward the middle of the
desk.
heroic, he said, his skyblue cape swinging as he turned,
we really live mostly underground, he said, and the con-
sequences are undreamed of.
ventilated his mantilla-like cape and looked over at us,
pushed his officer's cap farther and said, undreamed-of
consequences, undreamed-of dangers. it used to be hats,
you understand, he said, in the old days it used to be
hats, hut now, he made a sweeping movement with his
right arm as if his right hand were reaching for an ar-
chaic weapon he had dangling there, completely under-
ground, he said, undreamed of.
it used to be hats, he said, you understand, in the old
days it used to be hats, he said, and hats were still hats,
but today, mere tradition. tradition, he said, it has be-
come a mere tradition, and he fumbled under his cape as
if he were indeed reaching for an archaic dagger.
tossing his skyblue cape in a high arc, tradition, he said,
it has become a mere tradition, he said, the ability to

21
 subsist above ground without having to die, and he
pushed his officer's cap farther in.
heroic times, he said, they will be, he said, when they
come. he looked at us so closely that we took a step back.
heroic, he said, and felt for his archaic weapon, his officer's
cap now at the far edge of the desk, heroically, he said,
and gradually i am becoming a human being, he said,
because, you know, it is so much harder now to exist
above ground, and he looked at us extremely closely.
we did not move away because we felt he would be hurt,
how little time, he said, we have left, he said and pushed
his officer's cap farther.
after all, only a remainder of our time remains, he said.
and the remainder keeps shrinking so we will no longer
be able to read the daily paper, but will have to read
today's paper on the next day or the second or third, and
soon.
it used to be hats, he said, but now.
he reached for his archaic dagger and looked at us.
this heroic impossibility, he said, of communication, the
impossibility of being able to communicate, the impos-
sibility of saying something, he said, it will wipe out our
initiative.
and in the end, the animals will expect to become human
beings, he said, the heroic animals.
and resign themselves, he said, to not being able to.
pushing his officer's cap right to the far edge of the desk,
swinging his skyblue cape high, heroic people, he said,
stopping underground to speak to one another, perhaps

22
just to ask for a street, the name of a district, convictions,
intimacies.
and then one of them will happen to become the person
asked, against his will, just for having stopped too long,
and the others, the askers, have surrounded, have en-
circled him.
the heroic pines on the horizon, he said, the heroic pines
on the distant horizon and the reconstruction of the world
underground.
it used to be hats, he said, in the old days, namely hats
still were hats, and his officer's cap fell off the edge of
the desk onto the floor, and underground, he said.
and gradually, he said, i am becoming a human being,
his skyblue cape swinging high, because we already live
mostly underground, he said, like deer tracks, he said
and pulled the archaic instrument out of its sheath.
we shrank back, his eyes encircled us, heroic, he said, a
strange smile on his face.
while he, with a great kick of his boot, kicked the officer's
cap that lay flat upside down on the floor.
the reconstruction underground, he said, will soon hit
the nerve, he said and again looked at us, and we shrank
back.
then he pulled the dagger and pointed it against his own
chest, it will soon hit the nerve, he said, and his free arm
ventilated his fluttering cape.
with black claws, he said, wing-sleeves.
a human being ends, he said, the way he has begun, pines
on the horizon, he said, black.

23
deer tracks, he said, the dagger point-blank against his
own chest, oh spring, when will it come, he said.
heroic, he said, as he lay on the ground, the spun taffy
turning red.

RW
narration of a narration

red, he said, red and as hard as chalk.

chalk is not hard, she said.
red, he said, and as hard as chalk, and producible from
everything, he said.
from everyone, she said, by everyone producible, poetry
must be producible by everyone.
from everything, he said.
revolution poetry, she said.
no, he said, no.
reality based on values, she said, contemplation.
new contemplation perhaps, he said.
a hand, he said, with a baker's tong reaching from the
shop into a chock-full confectionary window, removing
a segment from an already cut pie, and you in front of
the window;. he said.
a comparison, she said, questioningly.
intellectual compulsion toward truth, he said, intentions
under strain .
like pallas athene sprung fully equipped from the head
of zeus, she said questioningly.
and before the shop door a mat for the dog, he said.
a bit higher a hook to hang the leash, he said, above that
an enameled sign WE CANNOT ENTER and beneath it
the head of a dog, he said.
 you must break out, she said, out of reality, but break it
down with you, down into the abyss as you fall.
and how did that become you, he said.
from next door, she said, i heard in the morning silence
the curtains being drawn back from the windows.
some localities, he said, leave me with pleasant, others
with unpleasant feelings and thoughts, he said.
paths, streets, entranceways, vistas, squares, lawns, pas-
sages, buildings, wall angles, gardens, he said, without
my knowing why.
such reflections are not new to me, she said.
but what have i done wrong, why has it all gone wrong,
i did all that i could to make it work.
we know much too little of each other, he said.
and then, she said, i tried out my left eye to see how it
functioned. meanwhile we were walking down a side
street that ran along the highway, a short stretch always
back and forth as if we were waiting for someone who at
any moment should come out of the house, standing
without neighborhood here at the wayside, and i stared
a long time into the lemon-yellow sky.
in a cold bedroom, he said, when i climb into a cold bed,
slip undressed under the white wool blanket, i can tell,
he said, how my bed gradually grows warm with the
warmth of my body.
with the person i was at ten, he said, i have nothing more
in common.

HW

26
' in a run-down neighborhood

a storm of images, he said, like a storm they come.

and with everything time so short, he said, and still i would
have thought i could eventually win him over to our side.
back then, he said, when we all went out to eat fish to-
gether and I helped her out of the car she answered as
she planted first her right foot and then immediately her
left foot and lowered her head so as not to hit the car,
why not, why not, maybe some day you can win him
over to your ideas, he said, but then time proved to be so
short, he said.
a raw world, he said, corning out of a raw world into a
smooth one, and time so short, her letter, he said, was
old-fashioned, written in an ornate hand, but the cadences
rang true and space between the lines, like the breathing
of someone quite agitated and then, he said, we all drove
together to new orleans and i think he enjoyed the old
city where the french were once in power and later in a
rundown neighborhood, he said, the black jazz musicians.
i'm looking forward to your presence, he said, it will be
springtime.
a rose, he said, today i have a rose on my windowsill.
nor do i have much time left, he said.
a rose, he said, today i have a rose on my windowsill, he
said, my wife picked it for me this morning, so roses bloom
here in december as well, he said.
 i hope, he said, you will have a chance to meet your trans-
lator here, he said, a young banker.
i know exactly what he'll say then, he said, for once not
to follow all these damned signs, he will say, reality is
damned attractive, he will say, reality.
as we, he said, were leaving the hotel callas in cologne
beuys stood somewhat elevated in the gateway, he said,
with arms spread wide, thin white face, surrounded by
young people, spoke, was questioned, answered and it
rained heavily and because of the strong gusty winds many
had closed their umbrellas, he said, because of the wind.
in a run-down neighborhood, he said, and as beuys waved
his arms up and down.
it was raining heavily, he said, she called us up one night,
even though she lived directly beneath us and could have
just as easily come up the few steps and as she suddenly
telephoned us upstairs, he said, we shouldn't be making
such a racket upstairs, he said, because they all couldn't
sleep, he said, we would have to do something about it.
and it is also precisely this split second, he said, of expo-
sure, of being exposed perhaps, he said, this dionysiac rush,
he said, this dirty mutation, he said, that awaits us all
when the green expanse of leaves is broken by white dots,
spots and stripes, he said, it will be a lovely time of the
year and I'm looking forward to your presence, it will be
spring a lovely time of the year.
the alpine republics, he said, where the french were once
in power and later in a run-down neighborhood black jazz
musicians.

28
give it with only half a gesture, he said, in order to in-
spire reassurance in the others, he said, letting friendly
waters freeze over, on the phone, he said, she told me
that she cared as much as ever, but that she couldn't stand
my presence at the moment, a few weeks should pass,
we should let a few weeks go by.
we have to take things as they come, he said, the fact
that time is so short, he said.
the effort, he said, we spend in order to maintain the
substance, he said. how futile, she wore a pink swim cap,
stood in the midst of a shoestore display and asked-to
take out?
yes, he said, better to suffer injustice than to commit it
and in the end one is marked by what one has done, snake
people, wolf people, sirens. she wore a pink swim cap, he
said, a misunderstanding on his part, he said, that's how
things are.
from the hand of a confectioner, he said, the tin shears,
places, he said, placelessness, he said, placenessless grasp-
ing, one winter morning with almost no morning light.
what torments us, he said, what strikes us, moves us, to-
day on my window sill. roses bloom here in december as
well, in a run-down neighborhood, on my windowsill
today i have a rose picked for me by my wife, so roses
bloom in december as well in a run-down neighborhood,
nor do i have much time left, he said, i haven't much
time either.

HW
signs of the times

the omenon, he said, how it looks at us.

it's always on our abstract side, he said, that we wish to
be touched, he said with his back to us.
facing the bookshelves, he ran his hand along the backs of
the books, dictation raskolnikov, he said, you never know.
this delightful life, he said, what are you standing around
as if you didn't want to understand, he said, not a single
thing.
we sighed with relief, finally he was getting worked up again.
when she and i were pacing the tiny waiting room in the
railroad station, he said, and took turns touching the huge
castiron stove to feel if it was giving out heat, she sud-
denly began to talk to me, a middle-aged woman with an
attitude of deploring everything, her life, her fellow hu-
mans, the course of the world.
i was lookinSt he said, through the glass door of the wait-
ing room at the only highrise of the city. the roofing had
just been completed, a banner was fluttering on top. i
wouldn't want to live up there on the top floor, she said,
he said.
i shrugged; she leaned closer.
corn garden contemplation, you never know, an unsolved
problem, he said, outside one could hear a thin distant yelp.
winter euphoria, he said.
but suddenly nothing is right any more, what has hap-
 pened no longer makes sense, he said, door frost, winter
sun so glaring you clap on dark glasses.
and questions, always ask questions, he said, then every-
thing gets put off, he said, and you turn your head be-
cause you've had enough, carved mask, scare-eye from a
pastry cook's hand, like beuys, he said.
to put it in terms of color, he said, it was a thin white
yelp, in the far distance.
watch the fecal snake and be content, he said, cut the
umbilical cord, most important commandment: cut the
umbilical cord, years interchangeable all along the time
one has lived, many years with many faces.
antagonisms of in and out, he said.
fear that the little catalan would fall through the shell of
his instrument, fear of the tiny men with huge balloon-
ing heads, fear their heads could burst inside mine.
pearl in his ear, he said, field kitchens in the courtyard,
he said, a guy in blue overalls with three blue car plates
dangling on a leather strap, out of reality.
the feeling, he said, that we move things with our ever-
waking consciousness never leaves me and never will,
and i feel what i would feel like if i stepped out of the
house now, out of the house into the frosty garden, feel
what i would feel like if i now stepped into the garden, in
the middle of january, avoiding the oblong crusts of ice
that have formed here and there on the flagstones, on
the flat parts of the lawn, now, in the middle of january,
i feel what i would feel like if i stepped into the garden
now, avoiding ice puddles, imagining what it would be

31
like to be home almost without light at noon, to come
home, open the door, take off my coat and drop it on the
spot, feel what i would feel like if the coat had dropped to
the floor and i then thought of stepping beyond the gar-
den into the wintery white-grey day, over ice puddles,
avoiding the frozen grass, heading for the mailbox in the
garden wall, opening it, looking into the cavity without
finding anything, going back up the mirror-slick stairs
to the house, and everything would be as in the old days
except many weeks, months, years would have passed,
he said.
and i have, he said, gotten used to thinking in terms of
millimeters at home.
garden shears, he said, and in the afternoon this close-
ness, he said, of all things, it was getting on toward dusk.
timidly, he said, i looked into the overcome abyss.
outside, in the distance, he said, you could hear a thin yelp.
reality is exciting, he said.
outside, in the far distance, he said, you could hear a thin
yelp.
but there has to be some place, we said, where you are at
home, where you feel at home, we said.
yes, he said, everywhere, any place on earth.
but not settled, he said, not settled, not anywhere.

RW

32
"protector of the house

there are simply other rules now, he said, and you are
exposed to them, exposed.
on your skull they will stomp with mighty boots, he said,
and you can't do anything about it.
under your soles they've spread, corroding your guts as
you step over them, he said.
but you cannot raise up your head against them, he said.
but you cannot go hollering about your rights to anyone.
because you are living a life that is not your life, he said.
ankle-deep, he said, and to the teeth, you are surrounded.
i share your feelings, he said.
if i share, if i divide an orange into several parts, if i split
a fruit into all its possible sections, if i throw the peel into
the environment i've taken the first step toward letting
off steam, he said.
if i exclaim, exclaim with admiration: femme sportive!
he said, if i greet her with admiration, he said, and lean
down, he said, femme sportive! to bite off her hand, then
i have taken the second step.
i have not yet been able to do this, he said.
because over our skulls, he said, they are shaking sacks of
bones.
that's why we can hardly think a thought through to its
end any more, he said.
when i leave this place, he said, i'll be done for.

33
 though i don't know what will have been done when i
leave this place, this place i equally love and hate, this
place where i am surrounded by thoughts, by feelings,
by what i used to feel, by memories of people, baleful
rolling red sun of spring out of reality.
we were in no way prepared for this, he said, the whole
thing smells of sabotage, he said.
we had agreed that i, the weaker, would die first, but oth-
erwise had not thought of anything. we were taken by
surprise, out of reality.
baleful rolling red spring sun, of spring, sparrows flying
up in late autumn, baleful rolling, of spring.
blossoming by the east gate, morning, stipulations, double
voice, sabotage.
we were in no way prepared for this, he said.
we can hardly think a thought through to its end any
more, he said.
it all happened too fast.
it all came head over heels, he said.
it always comes from the outside, fidgeting on the porch
before it intrudes and disappoints our friends because
we claim we already knew it would come to this.
for us it is the most familiar thing in the world, we had
expected it all along, we had ourselves often gotten caught
on the porch, had stood outside locked doors a hundred
times.
we had a hundred premonitions of what was to come.
we fought it, he said, how often.
we fight it, out of reality.

34
 with a dull little pencil, he said, in my coat pocket and
the tattered remains of a notebook i wrote it all down, he
said, with many pinheads.
angelchildofgod, he said, she always said angelchildofgod,
with many pinheads, up the rough inner stairs, three-
legged wobbly wooden stool, baseball bats, his face
spreading like batter.
finely calculated life, he said, for the moment.
how humiliating, he said, form spreading in puddles of
blood, out of reality.
the things that haven't happened to us, he said, but al-
most could have, frighten us more deeply.
you're pinned down, he said.
angelchildofgod, he said, she always said, with many pin-
heads.
a wash cloth, baggy like a boxing glove, he said, and stiff
against the wall, he said, a charnel house.
little, she said, we need little to live.
fossilization, he said, more and more.
obsolescence, he said.
and the dog waiting to become a human being, he said.
mindful of authority, the children in the old days, pagecut,
eyes wide, wide open in belief, out of reality.
entryway, he said, the protectors of the house, he said.
what do you do all day long, he said, just sit around all
day long, he said, just sit around most of the day, around
the big table, the big round table with the mirror cabinet
behind.
things get done, this and that, entryway.

35
and what at first looked like flowers, he said.
when i've left this place, he said, it'll have happened. but
i have anticipated so often what will happen, will have
happened to me that i won't be frightened when it actu-
ally will have happened. by anticipation we take the edge
off fear, he said.
masquerading as a harmless grower of roses, he said, the
prow behind his back.

RW
' plot of a supposition

when i had inspected the interior of the wardrobe, he said.

when i had entered the hotel room.
when the bell hop had unlocked the door to my room.
when the bell hop had handed over the key to my room.
when the bell hop had given me the bag.
when the bell hop had opened the door to my room and
let me in, he said.
when i had climbed up the stairs behind him, he said.
when i had followed him along the dark hallways.
when i had arrived at the hotel entrance.
as i read the sign closed today.
as i tried the gate anyway.
as i stood before locked doors.
when i had entered the inner courtyard of the hotel inn.
when i had walked into the inn and looked around.
as i tried to find the owners, he said.
when i had walked out of the train station, he said.
when i had left the train, he said.
as i got my first impression of the town.
as i looked around me in the glaring sun which strained
my eyes.
as i looked around in considerable discomfort for any-
one who could help me find my way.
as someone finally gave me directions.
when i had crossed the veterans' cemetery, he said.

37
when i had reached the main street, he said.
when i had recognized the new church, he said.
when i had entered the inn which extended in the back-
ground like an immense bowling alley.
as i looked around to find someone to show me to my room.
as i saw the bell hop emerge from the depths of the bowl-
ing alley as if he had been catapulted up out of the dark-
ness at me.
as i watched how he came flying toward me with open arms.
as i watched how his mouth opened wider and wider the
closer he came until i could see his milk teeth.
as i warded him off with my hands.
as i wanted to shout if he knew which room was mine.
as he came racing past me with his great gaping mouth.
as each time he came rolling toward me out of the dark
depths of the bowling alley as if he were the ball and i the
pin.
as each time he skidded past me, coming to a stop dose
behind me.
when i had followed him up to my room, he said.
when he had handed over my bag.
when i had pressed a coin into his hand.
when he had dosed the door behind me.
as i was alone in the room.
as i went to open the window, he said.
as i pushed back the curtain to look down on the street.
as i saw the grey sky, he said.
as i dosed the window, he said .
as i drew the curtain, he said.
 as i heard the storm begin outside, he said.
as i drew the curtain aside to watch the people, he said.
as i saw them pass beneath my window and on the other
side of the street.
as i looked in the mirror.
as i saw my ravaged face.
as i went to open the wardrobe.
when i had opened the wardrobe to inspect its interior.
when i had shut the wardrobe.
as i went to try out the bed.
as i turned back the covers.
as i sat down on the bed.
as i lay down on the bed.
as i got up.
when i had got up.
as i opened the bag, he said.
when i had found the photograph, he said.
as i took it to the wardrobe, he said.
as i opened the wardrobe again.
as i leaned it against the inside wall on the top shelf of
the empty wardrobe .
as i gazed at it a long time.
when i had gazed at it a long time.
when i had entered the train station.
as i watched the train arrive.
when the train had arrived.
when i had climbed aboard the train, he said.
when the train had started to move, he said.
as i watched the landscape from the moving train, he said.

39
as i returned home.
when i had returned home.
as i remembered.
when i had remembered.
as i supposed i remembered.
when i had supposed i remembered.
as i remembered to suppose.
when i had remembered to have supposed.

HW
indications

the power plant glittering, he said, quite contrary to.

we walked through an arbor, the bushes trimmed.
a few old rosehips among the branches, overhanging the
garden edge.
it was the shape of africa, he said, the birthmark on her
forehead.
had faded with the years.
we continued on our way, he said, tottering and uncertain.
we walked through the arbor, the convent bell began to ring.
she wanted to appear modest, he said.
she was definitely downbeat in almost all respects, he said.
she may be remembered now, he said.
shrub leaf, clover, a certain reversal, he said, a figure of art.
in leaden shoes up endless stairs, he said, had to take my
overcoat off while climbing, stuffed it into a big bag.
she may be remembered now, he said.
we remember having remembered.
the convent bell began to ring.
shrub leaf, clover, he said, you who stop here.
how things move into position against us, he said.
even those we've mostly done well by.
had been the shape of africa and faded with the years.
the creature exposed, he said.
free yourself, come free, he said, of this entanglement.
how, he said, the days unwind.

41
 entry way, power plant.
he felt he could never have put out this fire, he said, a
fiery mark fading on her forehead.
hissed through his teeth always the same swearword,
and the stars, he said, already drumming on his skull.
she was taken aback, he said, when a strange woman in
the subway asked if she had seen the giant rabbit leaping
out of the tunnel.
fossilization, he said, gradual.
we went through the arbor when the convent bell began
to ring.
we continued on our way, tottering and uncertain.

RW

42
- to leap from mountains,
a figure of thought

of course, he said, but it's contingent on physics and chem-

istry.
and provable by rules of mechanics, we tried to plead.
he pressed the thumb of his left hand against the pulse of
his right, his eyes roaming over the furniture in the room.
tinny old pianne~ he said, tinny old pianner wrapped in love.
although, triggered by my metronome, he said, focusing
his eyes through the window on the green of the garden,
i used to have a clock in my head and could count on
arriving right on the dot, lately i am always late, and it
upsets me.
it upsets me, he said, as it upsets my search for a new
magic of language, forest father of german art, he said,
and it reminds me of this childhood game, he said, when
we bought a little chinese doll and squeezed to make it
squeak, in very charming contrast to its beautiful clear
face with its straight black hair and the delicate colors of
its crown of glass beads.
it's important to know, he said, and it upsets me.
it upsets me that it upsets me, he said.
that i'm emotionally dependent on you, quarry and plum-
age!
may his hand rise out of his grave!

43
 important to know, he said, and it upsets me.
it upsets me, he said, that it upsets me.
that i feel persecuted, burdened with persecution by men
and things that seem fixated on me so that i in turn be-
gin to be fixated on them, in the hope perhaps to stay
clear of them after all, quarry and plumage!
what the, he said, bell tolls.
just as the tropical moon, he said, which one might liken
to a bowl, he said, seemed to pursue me.
may his hand rise out of his grave!
it upsets me, he said, as it upsets me to leap from moun-
tains in the morning, in hunched position, he said, for-
ever unable to rest, devouring with mounting impatience
all the hours of the day, in fire-eating fits all the months
of the year.
interrupted only by dreams just as breathless, untamed,
unbridled, with irregular habits, in hunched position.
a trip a trip cut into many small pictures, he said.
it upsets me, he said, as it upsets me that i, because alive, try
to spew forth everything inside me because i live by living.
he felt with the thumb of his right hand the pulse of his
left.
secondhand happiness, he said, secondhand love.
how do you explain this, he said, looking at us and using
the formal address as he did from time to time.
czech heart, english hair, he said, how do you explain
this.
how do you explain this, he said, shoes still covered with

44
 dust of new york streets, and already dropped out of the
clouds, out of cloudcuckooland, dropped, before brannt.
go to hell, he said, go to hell.
may his hand rise out of his grave!
it upsets me, he said, as it upsets me that i won't be able
to go to texas any more, it would have been nice for pre-
serving the texts.
a trip, he said, a trip shredded into many small pieces.
it upsets me that i won't be able to experience it, it upsets
me that i see it disintegrate even while i experience it.
disintegrate, he said, a situation getting out of hand, he
said, in spite of stepping on the brake while preserving
the texts.
texas, he said, what a thrill.
it will be beautiful, he said, beautiful in mid-july and then
for years on end.
arcs, arcs & arcs, he said, to leap from mountains, he said,
to pass, pass over, last rites.
a deluge, he said, drove hailstones at my eyes, made me
duck, behind the high transparent windshield, in the bus,
before crawling out, he said, the door moreover covered
with wild flowers and steep buds, he said, which made
for our eyes with spring scratchiness.
a deluge, he said, transreal, electrification called love, and
he put his hands behind his back.
no, he said, now i've misplaced it in my head as well as in
my house, he said, no overview.
it will, however, turn up again, he said.

45
 tum up, he said, like a deluge and cause tears, he said,
pussywillows, red dog roses and lilac.
a crown of lilac, he said, pussywillows, dog roses and lil-
ies, a deluge.
it will take a few weeks, he said, but it will be beautiful in
mid-july and then years on end, and the crown up there
will be faded by then. it upsets me, he said, as it upsets
me to feel shy of gestures.
if any of you have had this experience, he said, fixing us.
a shyness that could gradually turn you to stone, he said.
a shyness that forbids waving your hand, he said.
a shyness of moving your foot, turning your head, a shy-
ness, that is, he said, and in waves, in silent screams.
top level alarm until you go to seed outwardly and in-
wardly, until you finally break down with tattered focus,
unanchored tongue.
ready for pain, he said while his eyes drilled holes into
ours, and we felt ourselves stepping dose to him.
it upsets me, he said, that it upsets me.
he did not let go of us.
and the figure of thought? we cried in a desperate move
and felt ourselves bumping into him. we had lunged at
him. however, while we finished him off, he kept talking
tous.
we finished him off, but he did not let go of us.
i was very attached to you, he said.
but equanimity on parting, he said. and this is it, by god,
he said.
if i had not been knocked down to my bed by you, he said.
and very disagreeable and in general, he said.
i've rather had it, he said.
while we knew we had long been put back in our place
we felt this would not let go of us.

RW

47
in the ocean of air

in the ocean of air, he said.

sometimes, he said, i misplace words as if they were things.
in the ocean of air, we said.
tinny old pianner, he said.
and missed occasions, we said.
here and there, it's true, she met people i knew, he said,
but couldn't hold on to them.
the swallows are back, he said and looked out the window.
we couldn't see any, it was only april.
i had often suggested she should write everything down,
feelings, thoughts, everything that came into her head.
but she always said they wouldn't be worth writing down.
she was so musical in her youth, he said.
played the piano with great abandon, he said.
a message, we said.
she was obsessed with the strangest notions.
for instance, that at her death everything she had ever
thought and felt about people dose to her could be read
by them like fiery writing on a wall.
i feel sorry, he said, when i think of her.
as in Vienna, he said, as in my childhood.
as in my childhood, he said, i again and again try to fight it.
this giving somebody a spark of hope, he said, and then
stomping it out.
the landing, he said, she had a lot of trouble getting it
 across the landing.
the tinny old pianner, he said.
in the end, they dismantled and stored it.
in a dark and damp storage place packed with instruments
of all kinds.
trees bleeding, he said.
the swallows are back, he said.
tinny old pianner, he said, nice tinny pianner.
but equanimity, he said, in a person.
the ruined words, lost words, he said, the words misplaced.
in the fallows, we said, missing.
maybe i'm a chaotic pedant, he said.
i think i've always acted under duress, he said.
even as a child, he said, my mark of Cain was fear of
ridicule.
in the fallows, we said, nickering.
back then all i needed to do was think of a word like fever
chart and i ran a fever and had to be put to bed.
headblock, he said, in the ocean of air.
trousercuffs, cuffed-to-death, as in my childhood, he said.
as in my childhood, he said, when i desperately tried to
ingest language.
dying, he said, for the splendor of words, cries, questions,
tangled structures, coupling cupolas above all, business
streets, markets, greenhouses, train stations.
my grounds of grace, he said.
radiant words, he said, cries, calls, questions, tangled struc-
tures.
dying for them, he said.

49
when i had chewed them long enough i spit them out of
my mouth, cut them to pieces and started all over.
scribbled them down, one to a sheet, tacked them on fur-
niture, covered them with kisses.
dying, he said, poetic transport.
transport of trees, we said.
both carrying inscriptions, he said.
at last the swallows are back, he said, the trees bleeding.
black montenegrin hand.
he looked at the swallows we couldn't see.

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50
reproduction of a palm

as if my ribcage had been, he said, with a hard, hefty beak.

as if i'd, he said, till i was sore and bloody.
as if the giant umbels, he said.
as if the green tops.
as if the footprints in the sand in the dust.
as if the swallows, diving on the ruts of the trail before
rain, he said.
reproduction of a childhood sequence, he said.
body sprouting honeydew, he said, chapped, scabby,
frayed rags hanging in fringes, with a shoulderbag like a
mailman's, a child in those years, the fresh air fund, cry-
ing, strap across my chest.
signaling agreement, he said, to be sure, rotting in the end.
hands in a grave fallen from former form.
scattered like ashes, our plane aimed at the atlantic coast,
he said, descended, swerved seaward.
at that, i hammered my fists against the windowpanes
of the machine.
approached, he said, for the first time in my life, a group
of waving palmtrees.
was seized, he said, by a silent rage.
despondently hacking at word shards, i now just had to
take my fists to the panes, he said, so as not to give up.
i now just had to, would always just have to, amid
palmtrees, he said.

51
speechless, he said, artificial irrigation.
sand-yellow patchwork, he said, we went down on their
tropics, the machine opened for landing, and the wind
palm-fingered and burning hot.
a torrent of tears from my body, he said, from my head.
water pressure, delirious, conifers like reproductions of
conifers.
it took hold of all of us, he said, all things were changed.
some with camouflage names, he said, live in bushes as if
in small huts.
even receive visitors.
on overgrown paths, under tattered flags.
i wanted to grab the palm fronds, a palmtree agony, he said.
the poles on the jetty, gulls perched on them, quivering
missiles from the sea aimed at my body's joints, he said,
in tropical wind.
the feeling, he said, that i couldn't ever put out this fire.

RW
four o'clock deep in the morning

mouseryleader, he said, on the tracks of this dream.

perhaps you'll get through.
frightening feeling, he said, worse from one day to the
next year, irretrievable time of life.
with veiled voice, he said, in their paradisal language.
and their public behavior, he said, inversely proportional
to their erotic desires for each other.
little safety box prince eugen, he said.
in order to escape, he said, into these dreams.
recently i've had a visit from someone coming from there,
he said.
the points on the screen that locate us also hold us, he said.
sleep-death best this way, he said.
he pushed me, she said, against the wall of the room and
kissed me, i was standing, she said, near the wall when he
came up and kissed me, and i did not fall into his arms,
but away from him, against the wall.
i sank into the wall, she said, indenting a niche, and he
sank on top of me against the wall, and we sank deeper
and deeper.
and into this niche that wasn't there, she said, there was
no bottom.
luxuriant landscapes, he said, as the wide earth over.
how closely did i become acquainted with reality, he said.
melted to the spot, he said.

53
 but the snow feast snowballs, an avalanche, he said, and
when soft snow falls on eyes and ears.
four brightly lit nights, she said.
up there the old baptismal chapel, he said, snow flowers,
elderberry trees, a melancholy season.
the bulging leaves of tropical trees, he said.
a story retold, she said.
his voice on the phone betrayed control or reticence so that
you might have assumed you had disturbed him at work.
but actually, he said, he had been sitting by the phone all
afternoon waiting for the call.
the words squandered, he said, in our family that is, waste-
fulness, this goddess that all have always fallen prey to.
so why not me.
without a trace, he said, self-abnegation.
each family, he said, thus has its own christmas tradition.
landscreen, he said.
as if we were speaking different languages, localities.
different localities, he said, so that in the end you no longer
know what is right.

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54
· in vast woods, blinking

out of resinous dreams, he said, you wrap sand paintings

and whatever else fits, he said.
we smiled indulgently and promised.
sand paintings and whatever else fits, he said.
when the fishmonger passes through the village, he said.
trembling in a barrage of missiles the sea hurled against
her forehead, get away from the door, the window, just
getaway.
sand paintings and whatever else fits, she had said, he said.
i'm sorry i didn't manage, he said, to say hello to her, he
said, by phone.
the door bell just rang.
away from the flower room, he said, the door, the win-
dow, just get away.
i'm sorry i didn't manage, he said.
the door bell, perhaps the bell of the baptismal chapel, a
reality, a heap of things winding down evenly.
wheezing bagpipes, freshly cut red clover, in a wheelbar-
row in front of the house.
sand paintings and whatever else, the door bell rang, a
time of day.
as soon as the door bell rang we fled and hid under our
parents' desk, waited for the persons to enter and thor-
oughly scrutinized them from our hiding place.

55
 when the fishmonger passes through the village, when
he crosses the village square.
where the houses around the square from time to time
obstruct view of him.
on a bed of sand, a fruit basket on his arm, a lightning
change.
so they carved his own gentle tirades, with which he had
always regaled the world, into his cheeks, he said.
lively darlings, voracious snouts, we said.
signals from all sides, pieces of language, like meat.
hurled against the forehead, he said.
receptivity, the art of telepathy, he said, heavy gusts on
the atlantic.
pain capability.
in vast woods, blinking, he said.
we were taking a rest, moss patch green, by the cross on
the peak and beyond, there we sat, thinking and talking,
and whenever, she said, she was in danger of getting lost
her long dead grandfather would appear and guide her
till it got light and the woods came to an end.
these connections, he said.
till it's over, we said.
it seems i have left my place, he said, my flesh.
hissing through my teeth swearwords and curses, i turn
here and there without finding a language.
my confusion, my embroilment, he said, speechless.
my dream, he said, i sit in some cafe falstaff with my friends.
my dream, i see from the outside the sign with the name.
my dream, i am called.
my dream, my sister falls ill, my dream, we take her to
the nearest hospital in an ambulance.
and out of reality, he said, a drive at night, after a talk
with friends, i drive half asleep by the sign with the name:
cafe falstaff, and she already sick in bed at home, and the
next morning we took her to the hospital.
the signals, he said, come from all sides.
the ears of corn, he said, in vast woods, blinking.
i have left my place.
a time of butterflies, a siren, a telephone, he said.
with blackbird eyes fleeing down stairways, looking back
in fear; red ink spilled over my hands, simulating blood,
between one landing and another: revolution.
when the fishmonger passes through the village, he said.
so shortly after an accident, we said, there can't be a sec-
ond one.
only yesterday, the express to rotterdam derailed.
self-consumption in time, he said.
up there, the baptismal chapel, he said.
the potato cellars of the war years, now places of assem-
bly and agitation for a political party.
pearl-grey waves, on summer mornings toward the
south, ruffled air.
and whatever else fits, we said.
this pinching, petting, stroking of things, he said.
a portly way of life, we said, and stuffing your face as
much as possible.
a melancholy encounter, he said, we tried to rewind the
years, without success.

57
0

too much that was foreign in between.

up there, he said, used to be the academy for dance, and
next to it, the lottery booth.
ears of corn like ears of corn, what a waste.
reality, melted to the spot, he said, me bodychill.
up there on the little moss patch, he said, we took a rest
and talked till it got light.

RW
we in the shape of a wet feat her

from the springs, he said, set forth.

more or less consciously, but we all, he said, try to leave
a bit of ourselves behind before we vanish.
a trace, he said.
a greenback we've scribbled on before using it, he said.
from the springs, he said, and the conjunction of total
alienation with self-absorption.
with veiled voice, he said, from the flower room.
contradictions, canceling out, he said.
fishing, of a white wooden house by the gray sea.
brilliant poison-green the bugs, fish, butterflies, he said.
when she pointed into the water to choose the trout she
would eat presently.
butterfly years, he said, when she, on the other hand,
inspired me to spare the beasties, the butterflies, not that
i wanted very much to catch them, pin them. they, the
wobbling whites and swallow-tails were too much part
of the sky i admired, the noon air.
maybe i would have had more of a mind to chase them if
i had owned one of those specimen boxes of yellow-green
metal, painted with flowers, that were the big fashion.
the springs, he said, my bare feet furrowed the soil, the
dusty edge of the road.
from the springs as if they'd been springs, a star bait.
springs covered with ice, he said, small dented mouth-

59
 organ, he said, sleepy villagers at the edge of the well, at
noontime, scorching hot.
peasant meals, green driveway, self-consumption spring-
ing from many springs.
the village, he said, a melancholy season, with ears of
corn, poppies, willows.
from the flower room, he said, billowing curtains cov-
ered in bloom, her hand in goodbye.
her hand in goodbye, he said, stayed with me a long time.
now it's all a rubble heap amid shaggy vineyards, fallow
fields.
you must know, she always said, he said, that i am near
you when i read your books, nearer than when i knew
you, but not your books.
on overgrown paths, he said.
if i hadn't recovered, she'd said after her long illness, he
said, you'd have talked to me on the top of the mountain,
on that moss patch where we used to take a rest and talk.
the fields, he said, visibly going to seed, the wells run-
ning dry.
no consolation, he said, for so much wear and tear, he
said, so many departures, embroilments.
circular shadow on the springs, he said, a star bait in
flames.

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60
progression

progression, he said, the kite's got no wind.

as she was weeding the cabbage and fennel, he said, brief
thunder, storm and rain.
walkwise, he said, to strike a pose.
a grayish-white spot, pidgeon in cloudlike fall, in between
silver sparrows, he said, and us taking a shower in hail-
stones, faces cut as by christmas snow, when it's may,
meerschaum.
may-green open arms, he said, to the point of self-sur-
render.
a pose of narration, not real narration.
i dream, she said, always the same dream.
i dream of a house where i once lived in a town i loved.
carnations, he said.
i dream, she said, that we move to the country and live
in the old house.
i dream we have a garden, back yard, front yard, just as
in the old days.
our family is a little peculiar, she said.
marie likes to show up in totally tattered shoes, or bare-
foot, with awfully swollen feet.
or richard, out there in the garden, his back to the ve-
randa we've just entered. we'll look at him for a long
time before calling his name. as soon as we've called him
he'll turn round, come to the veranda and welcome us.
 gives the impression, she said, he had first to be by him-
self to deal with his joy at our coming.
and the feeling of being responsible for all sorts of events
and situations, he said, is peculiarly strong in our family.
for instance when she came out of the anaesthesia and
asked what day it was.
then it's his birthday, she wailed, and he won't get a card.
year-clock, he said.
geraniums at night, she said, bulging red in the front yards.
or i dream, she said, that he strokes me from the neck
down, penetrating me with tender looks.
at midnight, he said, on hills and fields, jasmin and rose-
bush.
wooded, he said, almost a forest.
i imagine, he said, she has always sat in the bay window
and looked out on the lake.
rolling landscape, he said, broken marble columns scat-
tered over the garden, water pursuing us everywhere.
and talked at in the morning, progression in rage.
pulled myself up by the fingertips, hung in tropical breeze.
we couldn't forget, he said, and i ascribed it.
ascribed it to her, the tongue scribe.
the presence of a loved one, she said, cannot be revoked,
only assuaged.
sleep-death, he said, there i was trying to concentrate
without knowing on what, but often came close.
in the end we just torment ourselves, he said.
subject to depart this life at any moment, he said, sad-
dened by so much ugliness.
heard a cooing at four in the morning, but didn't think
of doves, he said.
the progression of a landscape with boats swans clouds,
he said.
of birches, he said.
while we were standing in a semicircle, chatting, a tame
doe approached.
progression, he said, of a dream.
and to change places, on the water.
the karolinum, he said, old institution.
in order, he said, to be able to grow gradually into the
back of time.

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in the white west

in the upper garden, he said.

squinted, he said, through the lens of the judas, which
distorts everything visible into a tear round as a globe.
he was approaching endlessly along the thus foreshort-
ened corridor.
he was approaching me endlessly, endlessly and totter-
ing, until i pushed the lid shut.
the brittle wood of the door, he said, stood, however, be-
tween him and me, a protection.
in the upper garden, he said, i had often thought of it.
i had often thought of it since the beginning of the jour-
ney, he said, i had often thought of it, had often thought
i would soon have to write it down.
although, he said, the monkeys clung to the giant stone
bowls with turtle feet as if they were alive, the voices of
singers practicing came out of the open windows as i
passed the conservatory.
this is the endofthewoods, he said.
endofthewaltz, we said, rain.
and the wasp's nest of her genitals in the niche of the
basilica, he said.
we craned our necks, a towering, rough facade of ancient
stone, wasps flying in and out.
garden terrace, we said.
LIGHT, one hundred lire, he said.
 rain, eye contact.
a supernatural bedwetter perhaps, he said.
murky piss perhaps, free paraphrase, wireless, indecent
postage.
the reports on observations, he said, from the spa, bad
elster, dinging.
less and less swallows there, we said.
wave beats, he said, through the crack of the door i saw
him approaching in a menacing attitude and at the same
time my left neighbor, who also approached and eyed my
door as if she were seeing something horrible, and my-
self watching myself in the mirror while talking on the
telephone and checking every word.
these salt tongues, he said.
at the moment all prepared for reflexes, instinctive reac-
tions, he said.
bush work life's work, we said.
in the spa, bad elster, he said, photo face bending over a
birch railing.
like back in '41, looks into the future, whining.
like the lilac bush, back in'41.
puts on a dreamy face when photographed, he said, also
pouts so her thin lips will look fuller.
lumpkin heart and gushy, he said, at 15.
birch railing in the white west, he said, in the spa, bad elster.
pensively resting her elbows, the rough wooden tables
outside a kind of vintner's pub, everything else as if lost.
liked to eat cake, but with moderation, streusel, one
wanted to be forced to.
 at that time she had not the slightest idea where she was
going and what in general, he said.
a melancholy season, he said, for her.
clutching at some obscure hope, we said.
in vast woods, blinking.
another time, he said, she sat in the evening light in the
cleared birch forest.
in the white west.
skywater, flowerseeds.
that it should not, he said, after all this unconscious ef-
fort, unconscious following of a course, run through her
fingers.
in the white west, he said.
moving upward, one step at a time, confused, barely con-
scious, eager to learn, ready, nevertheless, to include ev-
erything.
letter-writing, summer-star, sleep-death, meditation, sunk
in introspective melancholy, he said.
touched the stone wall of the mausoleum, lowering her head.
illegible of birch, he said, padua.
rather than a pair of stockings, he said, he laughed.
a number, a prize pupil, he said, he laughed.
a prize size stag at my door.
a number, he said, he laughed, for the twenty-second.
received into the order of flowers today, the twenty-second,
we said, and thus concluded the report on observations.
an anti-climax, he said, he laughed.
the climacteric of art, seeing it start, he said, he laughed.
to the market, we said, as always.

66
 whereas in padua, he said, and the trees glistening, and i
tried to note certain landmarks in order to find my way
back, he said, continuing to write.
memorized the way back, to the market, the flea market,
the quiet of this city, the first birches, acacias, squares
crowded with trees, he said.
mid-language leafward, he said, a flag shredding.
here we should, he said, remain.
we walked in an arc into the innermost, collapsed at night,
after dawdling through the park, fell asleep, he said.
cloud priority, later laughs, chomping on white bread.
with a scuffed cardboard box in the white west, he said,
morning-type hunch, he said, as an austrian, as an eagle.
i£ perhaps the mice, he said.
that it should not, after all this effort, run through our
fingers, he said.
crossed out by birch trees.

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a stay in zorn

broad-chested across gaping chaos, he said, we blazed the

trail.
with straggling feet, he said, new york.
in the upper garden, he said, with straggling feet.
through an open iron door you could see a makebelieve
landscape, pastel, palms, pitchers.
having walked all along the long corridor, he said, you saw.
you realized the landscape was painted.
painted on the upper gallery.
augustinus goiterknight, he said, new york and st. florian,
he said, so-called sister cities.
through an open iron door, he said, you could see straight
into painted nature.
could push into, were inside it.
a make-believe landscape of great beauty, he said.
when the organ began to play, he said, a bat among the
altars.
infiltrated, he said, from the ravines.
during a passage of lament in the composition, he said,
silently, the bat.
swooped down on the niches and rose again up to the
gallery.
out of its ears, he said, hung earflaps.
how ears make us happy, he said, he laughed.
there are bats here, she said as we left.

68
• ah swallows, he said when he had finished playing.
swallows? she asked.
if we go by ears it's swallows, swallows and bats.
at the same time, go in one ear and out the other.
stay in zorn, he said, as long as we live.
through the ravine, he said, with straggling feet, ban-
dages encrusted with blood, sister cities.
casa rosso ... albergo... was all we could decipher.
it was too far away, he said, the inscription bleached out.
we pegged through the sand, the deep snow, gave the
bowling children a wide berth, soon grew tired.
the bora, he said, red on the flagpole.
rain, mist, sun with low clouds, he said, lens effect on
shadowy cheeks, held each other by the hand, firmly and
purple.
in the lower garden, moths, swallows, bats.
in bitter march, he said, windows encrusted with ice.
snow glow, rejected stratifications.
water brass, we wade through the snow, have trouble find-
ing our way.
stay in zorn, he said, as long as we live.
march-chill, song of a bucket bird.
heaved up into the iceblue sky, final ridge laments.
and somebody cried attenshion ! wash out !-but my head
was already into the plank, he said, oh my god.
as we left she intoned softly, conjuringly: in/win/ter/
w'ite/in/win/ter/w'ite, and we tried to guess whether she
wanted us to promise, or whether we would get a letter
from her, he said.
above my skull pate, he said, he laughed, and down-time.
stay in zorn, he said, but my head was already into the plank.
down-time, he said, bent, bowed, one arm akimbo, trunk
leaning forward, kerchief knotted tight shadowing the
forehead, all stooped and shriveled, posture of the helpless.
foot bandages, encrusted with blood.
and the real reason, he said, why someone wants to, has
to, leave is not the age limit set by biology.
but rather unbearable conditions on all sides, like being
overgrown.
electric horizon, he said, willows rusting.
light beech forest, wet pasture.
cows soaked.
the bora was blowing fiercely, he said, and we had trouble
finding our way.

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' a nightiemare

a nightiemare, he said, he laughed.

consequences of an uncommon dream, he said.
europe, on the contrary, what a junkstore.
shadow-village, she said, the one with the biggest fists.
lionheartiest, he said.
when we, he said, heavenly thoughts from our hotel win-
dows, i felt something like a malaise in boston.
the double door to the next room did not close completely,
bright light came through the crack.
on the hotel tv, he said, information about heart disease,
an elephant on my sternum, all this illumination.
an impulse to do something friendly, he said, we leaned
far out and looked at the people of boston.
lionheartiest, he said, a girl in front of us, in the street,
struggling with too many shopping bags, the black pol-
ish reflected part of the opera house, police on horseback
into the brightest light, their spiked helmets, horses,
whistles, and in the black rivulet, they spread their arms
against us, stabbed at us with daggers, consequence of an
unusual dream, he said, and i was awakened when hit in
the chest, shot and smoke ring, the bullet ricochets on
the metal pad, i wake up.
hoofing it, she said, lionheartiest, as we parted.
how screwily the moon sat up there as we parted, she said.
how topsy-turvy the moon sat up there.

71
 as we parted, she said, through thinking and feeling.
something like a malaise, he said, spiked helmet disap-
pearing into the dark night, we tried the entrance to the
opera house.
dripping shoes, he said, he laughed, boston rain.
heavenly thoughts, towers, everything fogged.
as we parted, he said, how topsy-turvy the moon.
depopulated fallows, motors racing along the highways
at night as if on remote control.
and whenever the neighbor's dog gave voice, he said, i
woke up.
in the half-light, he said, long after midnight, we pulled over
and tumbled out of the micro bus like so many junk items.
he had gotten us out so we could look at the skyscrapers
on fifth avenue.
could barely keep my eyes open, he said, he laughed, tilted
my head back.
felt i was being whirled up to the top of the stone build-
ing blocks, got dizzy in so ice-cold a night.
when we went on, he said, i slept for seconds at a time.
a saga-sea, she said, he laughed.
and stared upward, he said, tried to get opera tickets,
lionheartiest.
the girl had bought too much, wrestled with the bags in
the crook of her arms.
wanted to help her, he said.
said to myself, perhaps we should help her, he said.
thought she might be afraid, he said, that we wouldn't
give back the heavy stuff, he said, he laughed.

72
 in the passenger seat, she said, as if she sat at the wheel,
facing straight ahead, eyes fixed on the road.
the impulse, he said, to do something friendly, he said.
explained to her that they had no change, he said, that
they were giving candy instead of change, he said.
but she only shook her head, seemed overcome with
something like a malaise, stared up into my face, he said,
but i could not help her.
in bright light, he said, a nightiemare.
all this illumination, he said, we really stood there with
our heads tilted back, marveling from below at the giant
buildings.
nestled, he said, into the bay of lake michigan, a stormy day.
this roar, he said, this splendor, he said, as if it were a sea.
a stormy day, he said, black clouds racing, the surf, the
roar, he said, towers, fog.
how the moon sat up there, he said, the air bluish, cloudy.
very near, it occurred to me.
i approach reality, he said, in ever smaller circles, fright-
ened off by such detours as it requires, he said. thus real-
ity seems to me, in its very refusal, he said, both
unpassable and alluring.
same time, she said, how the moon sat up there.
if i spend more than a few nights out of town, he said, he
laughed, i lose my bearings on first waking up at home
again, and even in my sleep don't quite know where to
stretch my feet, don't know how to turn on the nightlight,
and in the morning i ask myself: where am i waking up
today?

73
and discover, to my greatest surprise, that i am home.
as we, she said, these featherings, these peculiar tree for-
mations.
later impressions, he said, though packed on top of the
first ones, cannot obscure the latter, he said, like bad
dreams, he said, we can always shake them off.
very near, he said, it occured to me.

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74
- there stands there green

there stands there green, he said, bound.

we do want sense, he said.
dig around, she said, scratch your fingers to the bone.
bound, he said, to words.
for grammatical purposes, he said, make changes.
there is, i suppose, no context of overriding importance,
he said, he laughed.
margins of purpose, she said, a flexion.
bellowing, with a magnificent view, he said.
russian soul, she said, was the name he gave to this photo
from the early forties, me leaning on a railing in a shabby
blue child's coat, with a mangy fur collar, woods in the
background, and sticking out my timid head, she said,
never knew what to do with my head, body, limbs.
there stands there green, and an embarrassed smile, he said.
that's because they were always showing the photos
around, she said.
sticking them in the family album.
well-meaning, actually, she said, undecisive, but also
tough, stubborn, mulish, rigid.
bellowing, what a magnificent view, he said.
sensorium lakeward, he said, sloshed back, success.
russian baritone, russian bass, she said, a light-organ.
this whole organ sequence, he said, is bullshit.

75
 my timid head, she said, but it's because they were al-
ways taking pictures of me.
there stands there green, he said.
an embarrassed posture, she said, in the early forties, lean-
ing on a wooden railing, russian soul.
sloshed back, he said.
success, she said.
bellowing, he said, there stands there green.
with timid head, she said, leaning on the railing, in the
early forties, dressed in an old blue child's coat, mangy fur.
with a magnificent view, he said.
in the words, the bent places, she said.
and all of a sudden a smell of cloves.
in the first row, she said, i could tell from the back, it
came from the first row.
a functionary of the left, he said, he laughed.
and the seats next to him remained empty, she said.
the usher was astonished.
entered into the score as if suspicious of the performance.
read red soviet stars into it, he said, he laughed.
proteges, she said.
you could hear crickets too, he said.
that was the pipes, the water chirping, she said.
the course of a return, he said, bullish red.
skin and bone flexions, put on the wrong scent in his early
years.
with mangy fur, she said.
and shaggy with howling at the world, he said.
 when he had been gone for a while, repeated on his re-
turn, he said.
skin and bones, shaggy with howling at the world.
when he had been gone for a while, would on returning
have something rough about him, unsociable.
would, at the same time, enter into a strange quarrel-
some relation to the world, he said.
as if the other place, other places, had shaken him up, he
said, had made him unfit for any kind of return.
hours and days later, he said, it would all smooth out.
retrieved, sloshed back, she said.
but he again and again had the urge to leave, he said.
many repeated trips all successful, he said.
margins of purpose, she said, and endless repetition of a
course.
noisily vinestock, she said.
when i saw her again, she said, she wore mourning and
her husband's wristwatch, she also had started smoking.
shaggy with howling at the world, he said.
once he did not return, he said.
had been gone, had not returned.
when i saw her again, she said, she wore mourning and
her husband's wristwatch, she also had started smoking.
finely articulated thoughts, he said, you could tell they
were always new, in ever new combinations.
without leash, he said, shaggy with howling at the world.
then they all left, and i stayed by myself, he said.
scratching in vain, he said, locked door.

77
 maybe even bunged his head against it, he said.
finally a light, he said, getting larger.
whole sheaves, the waitress.
as if walking along a ridge, he said, an abyss on either side.
that time i cried with mountain-happiness, she had writ-
ten to me, he said, if you don't love the mountains as i do
you won't understand.
under duress, then, she said.
become second nature, he said.
second, or first.
as if on a white winged horse, he said, through the east
prussian landscape.
without her ever having witnessed my shame, he said,
the mere circumstance that i daily ran into her in the
street, that our eyes met.
most of the time i tried to avoid her.
she brought up unpleasant feelings, memories of a time
that was shameful to me.
without her ever having witnessed my shame, the mere
circumstance, that she daily saw my face in which, he
said, i am sure she could read.
that belongs in the realm of utopia, she said.
hoofing, as we parted, a royal winter.
the course of a return remembered, he said, supposing
one had already seen, heard, smelled, felt, done this in
some form or other at some earlier time.
hoofing, as we parted, she said, in the armchairs of the
algonquin.
contemporaries came dropping in, outside it was snow-
ing, april, long manes of whirling snow.
the waitress, he said, we cautiously crossed forty-fourth
street.
pushed a table leg cold as marble between our calves,
served us ice cream, crowded us back into the black leather
seats so that, in the end, we could barely get out again.
in the half light, over there, siegfried lenz waving hello.
to disappear into the night, he said, as into an ocean.
then they all left, and i stayed by myself, he said.
when i saw her again she still had that look: a pretense of
helplessness, timid blankness, puzzled by her own claim
to have a bad conscience.
the uncola, she said, how topsy-turvy the moon in miami.
a chair conjuring fire, he said.

RW

79
with each clouded peak

what a conflict, he said.

until it's finally to the point that.
after all, one would like to make something substantial
of it.
it's a question of maintaining a fiction, she said.
a balancing act.
of slapping, he said, of slapping beauty in the face.
so he sat on the higher pipes, in the higher garden a light
was burning.
in the higher garden, he said, the sister cities.
and in bitter march, she said, in bitterest spring.
in the higher court, he said, elsewhere.
still in bitter march, he said, the heaved up stratification
in glass.
curtains of ice, he said, bound back with cord.
the sweep of the drapes immense, the miracle profane,
he said.
like peacock splendor.
in a, pianos, temples she said, she laughed.
and a millstone about the neck of saint florian, he said,
he laughed.
the fiction, namely, that one has an important office to
carry out.
the problem is to maintain the fiction, she said.
likewise, to slap beauty in the face, he said.

80
 an image, after all, that is often strained.
a celestial parenthesis, a sustaining angel, he said.
sustaining angel, stark blue, toppled from early winter's blind
horizon, he said, down on me, on my startled skull pate.
storms down on us, in early winter out of a blind sky,
splashing plaster on our skull pate, diter rot.
and onwards, piano-thunder, water stream, with stark blue
demands.
aesthetic, ethical demands, he said.
reading finger, word-maker, sheep lice, in the meadow's
brown pelt, he said.
water-cheap, fallen number.
mill-stone about the neck of saint florian, he said.
with each clouded peak.
she had such a lost smile, he said.
as she followed us out of the hospital room into the cor-
ridor to see us to the gate.
saying something about a fallen number.
we didn't know what it could mean.
then she stood on the porch and waved after us, before
she turned away, turned back, went back.
poor, happy child, he said.
in the higher garden, he said, the sister cities.
from things to come, he said, the ships return.
so that we can feel what we shall feel, a few years older,
think back on the time in which we now live, he said.
so that we can think what we shall think at that future
time, when we'll look back on a time in which we were
younger than we'll be then; a kind of self-envy.

81
 still in bitter march, she said.
the star fields.
time-downwards on their way.
whereupon anastas sank his teeth into a drinking glass,
he said.
and busheled ears through the district.
an electric formula, he said.
that is to say, as the hours passed like minutes, the min-
utes like seconds, those again like days, the days again
like years, those again like hours, the hours like minutes,
and those like seconds and those again like days and those
again like years, like decades.
and those again, he said.
stared into the screen of my time displacement.
nights at the window, she said, when looking out I leaned
downwards.
and the beads hanging down to my earlobes, she said.
a sketch, he said, a view, namely, over the landscape.
a view, expanding tributary, reflecting little towns, nois-
ily incorporated casually into the book, he said.
until we, because of the rain, he said.
acquire verdigris, he said.
glistening and green in the forehills, she said, and again
and again the longing she said.
to attach ourselves to things, places, landscapes, to search
them out again.
the old granaries in the village, wildly overgrown inter-
national waystations, a camping site.
old iron, crumbling grave statuary, stumps of pillars.
proliferating green, a path.
above it a shimmer, she said, sighted in earliest childhood.
as soon as we, hesitant, step by step, had entered the sunny
inner court-yard of the farm house, marveling happily.
electric horizon, meadows rust, he said.
farmland, farm wagon.
toddling alongside, he said, sunk in introspective melan-
choly, scratching words down on bits of paper.
which we later mislaid, lost.
trembling sudden love, then, he said.
bewitching, seemingly invincible, obscuring everything
for years.
from things to come, he said, world-travelled flower seed.
bell script, of things to come.
a flying fortress, he said.
and then falling out of line again, he said, nothing but
falling out of line and alarming friends.

HW
tapisserie 8 months' snow

kaolin, drawing circles, dust, he said.

urinal my furniture, he said.
organs of speech, my organs of elimination, he said.
in between open to inspection.
covered with sweat i ran out of the house, and breath-
less, for the mating call.
am under his spell, he said, too much together, with him.
magnifying glass, phenomenally concentrated focus, he
said, his person.
open to inspection, to interpretation, the side of his ex-
istence turned toward me and the control system of my
feelings, he said.
also their reloading place.
so that they, in their latest place value, at cock's crow.
appear, appear to me changed, turned inside out, cleaned,
rejuvenated.
then, on my walk at noon, dust clusters, he said, huge
swarms.
starting place, landing place, steep, high, shingled roof,
next to birth place, next to blue-and-gold facade, next to
pseudo-stilistic, resounding suspension, cloud, of pigeons.
if you walk, he said, toward the sun in november, in the
morning, he said, the sun stands still.
not high in the sky, he said, but low.
so that we must, he said, veil our eye.
and right in the milling crowd, he said, i am near you,
touch you, love you, speak to you, confide in you.
like waves, receding, we stand facing each other.
stiff and orderly, again, all relationships.
as you were taught, he said, as a child, toward older persons.
when you met them, he said, when they came to visit,
you were always already leaning a bit forward, waiting
for the time when your arm, your hand, he said.
were allowed to let fly.
you were not allowed to offer your hand in greeting until.
leaning a bit forward, waiting, smiling, and only when
they held out their hands you could.
only then, really only then, he said.
your own hand, he said.
snake, he said.
in the park, in the evening, he said, a scene in mild
weather.
with open coat, on a park bench, an old man on a bench.
with open coat, he sat there looking at nothing.
held up a dark brown snake, by the head.
the body of the snake hung limply, touching his knees.
my organs of speech.
as i went by, he said, the man held up a dark brown dog
whip.
perhaps to admonish his straying dog to come home, he
said.
at that time, he said, my organs of speech.
always failed me.
at the intersection of all relationships, at that time, he
 said, right on my chest.
a motley woollen square knit by mother out of remnants,
right on my chest.
back turned, motley, and ready to have my picture taken,
leaning on father's desk, leaning, my chair pushed up
against it.
ignorant, sniffing out possibilites, he said, dreamily circling.
pensive, helpless, erratically chasing after hunches, con-
nections.
in her letters, he said, repeatedly requested i should be
more precise in my reports.
but i, he said, was too much wallowing in insights and
conclusions to pay attention to form in my letters to her.
which she criticized.
which occasioned her daily letter.
which occasioned my daily answer.
thus we beautifully entertained our souls.
engagement present.
melting candles, he said, a white bundle of downward
radiation.
as i passed, he said, waxen clusters of white chrysanthe-
mums bent.
we keep, he said, perhaps too carelessly to the beaten paths.
on the one hand, he said, it seems necessary.
on the other, we might discover all sorts of important
things for ourselves, he said.
from hand of one day to mouth of the next.
the ant lion, he said, crawled up the edge of the carpet.
treebark tree, and groaning in the branches.

86
 i stared at the sparse leaves of the tree.
1 oboe, distant music.
manipulation of time, he said, and one thing to another,
and the worst press and crush.
the ant lion, he said, an example.
seeing a poster, he said, which advertises bitters by show-
ing a faithful old retainer with caring look and livery, a
bodyguard, gives us a feeling of security.
if i use the expression: dusk was falling, i conjure up waves
of emotional images in everybody.
open to inspection, he said.
and one thing to another and the worst press and crush.
in the railroad station, in metz, he said, he laughed, i
hardly dared go outside.
i thought as soon as i went outside i'd be lost.
thought as soon as i went outside i wouldn't find my
way back.
then dared, after all, go as far as the gate, eyeballed the
surroundings.
saw enormous castle, enormous bridge, enormous water
tower.
took her arm, he said, and we ran this way and that
through the streets, with feverish curiosity.
downstaired finally winebarward.
as if i wanted to airbathe, as if i wanted to stick my head
right into the sun grill.
this face, world, worn out, he said, almost already blinded.
magnesium flash devouring many years.
one thing to another, he said, and the worst press and crush.
and treats at the wrong time, he said, shrill pain.
better bad lodgings than these new ones, he said.
i took a few steps beyond the gate, he said, i embraced
the city of metz.
two mill wheels, he said, an american state.
sounds like a folksong, he said.
two mill wheels, one water tower, he said, i salute metz.
one more place, he said, where i would have liked to live.
there are quite a few of them by now.

RW

88
 Friederike Mayrocker

Born in 1924 in Vienna, Mayrocker attended business

school before being drafted, from 1942 to 1945, into the
Luftwaffe. At the same time, she trained as a school
teacher, and after the war she taught school until 1969,
when she returned to devote full time to her writing.
Among her many collections of poetry, prose, radio
plays, and essays are Tod durch musen (1968, death
through muses); Minimonsters traumlexikon (1968,
minimonster's dream dictionary); Fantom fan (1971);
Das licht in der landschaft (1975, the light in the land-
scape); Fast ein friihling des markus m. (1976, almost a
spring of markus m.), and Heiligenanstalt (1978, trans-
lated by Rosmarie Waldrop and published by Burning
Deck in 1994). with each clouded peak was originally
published as je ein umwolkter gipfel in 1973.
Mayrocker has been awarded several major literary
prizes, including the Theodor Korner Prize (1963), the
Georg Trakl Prize for poetry (1977), the Great Austrian
State Prize (1982), and more recently the 1997 Interna-
tional Prize of The America Awards.
SELECTED SUN & MOON CLASSICS

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CLAES ANDERSSON [Finland]
What Became Words 121 (1-55713-231-3, $11.95)
DAVID ANTIN [USA]
Selected Poems: 1963-1973 10 (1-55713-058-2, $13.95)
ECE AYHAN [Turkey]
A Blind Cat Black AND Orthodoxies 125 (1-55713-102-3, $10.95)
LUIGI BALLERINI [Italy/usA]
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DJUNA BARNES [USA]
At the Roots ofthe Stars: The Short Plays 53 (1-55713-160-0, $12.95)
The Book ofRepulsive Women 59 (1-55713-173-2, $6.95)
Collected Stories no (1-55713-226-7, $24.95 [doth])
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CHARLES BERNSTEIN [usA]
Dark City 48 (1-55713-162-7, $11.95)
Rough Trades 14 (1-55713-080-9, $10.95)
JENS BJ0RNEBOE [Norway]
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ANDRE DU BOUCHET [France]
Where Heat Looms 87 (1-55713-238-0, $12.95)
ANDRE BRETON [France]
Arcanum 17 51 (1-55713-170-8, $12.95)
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DAVID BROMIGE [b.England/Canada]
The Harbormaster ofHong Kong 32 (1-55713-027-2, $10.95)
MARY BUTTS [England]
Scenes from the Life of Cleopatra 72 (1-55713-140-6, $13.95)
PAUL CE LAN [b. Bukovina/France]
Breathturn 74 (1-55713-218-6, $12.95)
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The Crystal Text 99 (1-55713-230-5, $11.95)
Own Face 39 (1-55713-120-1, $10.95)
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ROSITA COPIOLI [Italy]
The Blazing Lights of the Sun 84 (1-55713-195-3, $11.95)
RENE CREVEL [France]
Babylon 65 (1-55713-196-1, $12.95)
MILO DE ANGELIS [Italy]
Finite Intuition: Selected Poetry and Prose 65 (1-55713-068-x, $11.95)
HENRI DELUY [France]
Carnal Love 121 (1-55713-272-0, $11.95)
RAY DI PALMA [usA]
Numbers and Tempers: Selected Early Poems 24
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HEIMITO VON DODERER [Austria]
The Demons 13 (1-55713-030-2, $29.95)
Every Man a Murderer 66 (1-55713-183-x, $14.95)
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HARRY MATHEWS [usA]
Selected Declarations of Dependence 128 (1-55713-234-8, $10.95)
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MURRAY MEDNICK [usA]
Switchback or Lost Child in the Terror Zone: A Jazz Operetta
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DOUGLAS MESSERLI [usA]
Ed. 50: A Celebration of Sun & Moon Classics 50
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CHRISTOPHER MORLEY [USA]
Thunder on the Left 68 (1-55713-190-2, $12.95)
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The Theater of the Ears 85 (1-55713-251-8, $13.95)
MICHAEL PALMER, REGIS BONVICINO, and
NELSON ASCHER, EDS. [USA and Brazil]
Nothing the Sun Could Not Explain: 20 Contemporary Brazilian Poets
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ANTHONY POWELL [England]
O, How the Wheel Becomes It! 76 (1-55713-221-6, $10.95)
Afternoon Men 108 (1-55713-284-4, $10.95)
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Poems 90 (1-55713-358-1, $10.95)
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KEITH WALDROP [USA]
Light ·while There Is Light: An American History 33
(1-55713-136-8, $13.95)
WENDY WALKER [usA]
The Sea-Rabbit or, The Artist ofLife 57 (1-55713-001-9, $12.95)
The Secret Service 20 (1-55713-084-1, $13.95)
Stories Out of Omarie 58 (1-55713-172-4, $12.95)
BARRETT WATTEN [usA]
Frame (1971-1991) 117 (1-55713-239-9, $13.95)
MAC WELLMAN [usA]
The Land Beyond the Forest: Dracula AND Swoop 112
(1-55713-228-3, $12.95)
Two Plays: A Murder of Crows AN o The Hyacinth Macaw 62
(1-55713-197-x, $11.95)
JOHN WIENERS [usA]
707 Scott Street 106 (1-55713-252-6, $12.95)
EMILE ZOLA [France]
The Belly of Paris 70 (1-55713-066-3, $14.95)

Individuals order from:

Sun & Moon Press
6026 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90036
213-857-1115

Libraries and Bookstores in the United States and Canada

should order from:
Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
1045 Westgate Drive, Suite 90
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55114-1065
800-283-3572
FAX 612-221-0124

Libraries and Bookstores in the United Kingdom and on the Continent

should order from:
Password Books Ltd.
23 New Mount Street
Manchester M4 4DE, ENGLAND
0161 953 4009
INTERNATIONAL +44 61953-4009
0161 953 4090