Durs Grünbein Poems

Manchmal spätnachts kehrt er wieder, dieser eine Tag Rom,
Wenn im Zentrum der Glaskugel das Schneegestöber sich legt,
Deine Finger südwärts gleiten, und meine.
Das Metronom
Der Stunden setzt aus und wir sind - in der ewigen Glyptothek.
Noch einmal die Taxifahrt, vorbei an den abgenagten Arkaden,
An Kapitellen, geköpft von der Zeit, Torsi, von Sonne gepellt.
Dann die Ankunft hinterm Rücken klatschnasser Najaden,
Um schließlich einzutauchen in Berninis phantastische Welt.
Was es da alles gab! Gazellen in Röcken und hautengen Hosen,
Obelisken, von Elefanten getragen, Marmor, zusammengestückt.
Barocke Wolkenhimmel, die man hier aus Espressotassen trank.
Fliegende Händler verkauften bei Rot an den Ampeln Mimosen.
Ein Tag nur, der bei Berührung schrumpfte zum Augenblick -
Eh wir zwei, eng umschlungen, in den Hotelspiegel sanken.
...

Sometimes at night it comes back, that one day in Rome,
When the snowstorm in the centre of the globe abates,
Your fingers glide south and mine.
The metronome
Of hours stops dead and we're in the eternal glyptotheque.
Taking the taxi again, past all the crumbling arcades,
Past capitals truncated by time, torsos flayed by the sun,
Sneaking in behind the backs of those dripping-wet naiads,
Before plunging at last into Bernini's fantastical world.
Take it all in! Gazelles in skirts and skin-tight trousers,
A patchwork of marble, obelisks carried by elephants,
Baroque flights of clouds drunk here in espresso cups.
Stopped at the traffic lights, street boys flogging mimosa.
That one day shrank, as we touched, to a moment
And we sank, in each other's arms, into the hotel mirror
...

for Aris Fioretos
The bodies are gone. A posthumous tidiness reigns
In the empty flat, spring-cleaned from the mirrors
To the stains in the bath. At the bottom of the tub
Curls one single hair, last surviving trace of a species
That cleans up after itself and washes after mating.
How peaceful are the windowsills with their dead flies -
But even here terror likes to call.

It insinuates itself into crevices, thresholds and radiator ribs,
A hatchery for insect eggs, an odorless incense
Wafting through the room, blackening the stove rings,
Luke-warm at floor level, cooling in the curtain pleats.
Scales of skin it is, sweepings from a reptile cage
That show who sleeps here. To go by the kitchen calendar
Hanging over the sink, some Monday or other
Has come and gone.

There is builders' rubble under the floorboards, and nothing human
About the furniture, save the tenacity with which it was assembled,
The skeletal table, the clutch of ossified chairs,
So long unwarmed by either hand or behind.
The illusion of mod cons is dried up in the sink,
Contorted in the windings of taps. Comfort
Summons a lurking house-ghost out of the corners,
Where at other times the hoover revelled
In bestial squalor.

After an interval of days, in some cases weeks, the inhabitant
Returns here, to his own surprise. His glance falls - along with
His key-ring - to the indifferent floor, before catching itself
On the resolute walls. He stands there fascinated,
As much a stranger to himself as he would be
Before the grouted frigidarium of Pompeii, or the scribbled walls
Of the House of Charred Furniture, the dark
And juiceless obscenities.

The shades have fled. Printed on the stone
Is the narrow edge of sweat that a Roman woman's foot
Left one July noon. No one could identify
The interconnecting chambers, once they're vacated.
All trace of pink has gone from the assembled emptiness,
Though the rust of the pipes keeps its freshness longer
Than the fishes' blood in the kitchen,
The ocular gleam of clean plates.

Life burgeons in dustbins. Only sometimes a fingernail breaks
While rummaging through the plastic bags. A false movement
Drills a splinter into the flesh. A desk drawer jams
Because, with the insistence of an object in a dream,
An infant photograph of yourself keeps sticking.
Plants, desiccated in a cupboard, deny the peaceably
Ticking grandfather clock. From everywhere comes the derisive:
‘You see what comes of...'

For instance, the towel dangling stiffly on its hook,
Or the pair of shoes, parked by the door,
That got you this far. Or again, the toothbrush,
Grey with use, a living relic, spied through a keyhole,
An archive of tiny deaths that might be broken up at any time.
Till something turns up that no one missed - an X-ray
In amongst the yellow bills in a medical file,
A negative showing your own skull,
With the break in the bone.

The souvenir of an accident - radiation
Has stripped away all the flesh. A white pall
Lies on the film, an angel's cigarette smoke swirls
Round the empty eye-sockets. A triangle gapes
In lieu of a nose. Space is inhaled
Through the dark oral cavity. And that calcium-rich grin
Is both your ur-face and your last, even though
Nothing looks back at you.

The eyes, skin and hair are all abolished,
Cancelled along with the eyelashes and the dutiful eyelids,
As are the tears - lifeblood of fiction - in their ducts and glands,
And every wrinkle. The lips are gone
You used to gnaw. And swallowed up the tongue
Behind the teeth. But all through the ensuing years
(Or weeks), the bent nail stays in the plaster
Where the hammer drove it. The damp patch on the ceiling
shines dully through the paint. Blue as on the first day,
The vase, resting place of so many violets, stands in the window,
A small coin of soap lies pristine in its dish. All signs of use
On knives and bottlenecks were a false lead
In this abandoned flat. Against bare walls,
Flickering in the X-ray illumination, nothing was left
To recall the poise of bodies, vanished
In the come and go.
...

(Normandie)


Eingefallen am Bahndamm
Liegt ein Hundekadaver, quer im Gebiß
Kreideweiß numerierter Schwellen erstarrt.

Je länger du hinsiehst, je mehr
Zieht sein Fell in den Staub ein, den Schotter
Zwischen den Inseln aus frischem Gras.

Dann ist auch dieses Leben, ein Fleck,
Gründlich getilgt.
...

(Normandy)


The body of a dead dog lies
Slumped on a railway embankment, chewed up
Among the chalk-numbered sleepers.

The longer you look, the more
His skin merges with the dirt, the pools
Of gravel in amongst the virid green grass.

And then the stain of this life
Is finally laundered away.
...

(Auf Gotland)


Nur dies gab es auf lange Sicht hier, diesen Wellenfluß
Von Landschaft, fokussiert in einem Bussardauge, -
Die kahlen Hügel, einen Feldweg und am Rand
Die Hasenpfote im Gebüsch, vom Wind zerzaust
Ein abgenagtes Sprunggelenk, das in der Hand
So leicht wog wie ein Vogeljunges,
Das noch beweglich war, noch warm war und heraus
Sprang aus der Pfanne, blutig wie die Beute
Des Grauen Würgers auf dem Dorn der Eberesche, -
Ein kleiner Knöchel, winkend mit dem Fetzchen Fell.

Sah so der Rest von einem Hasen aus, nachdem
Der Schatten eines Flügels über ihn gekommen war,
Den Zickzacklauf ein Krallengriff, den flachen Atem
Gezielter Schnabelhieb beendet hatte. Unbequem
Muß dieser Tod gewesen sein, auf winterlicher Erde
Wehrlos verrenkt, die letzte Zuckung.
Was vom Gemetzel übrigblieb, hing in den Zweigen,
Die sich an nichts erinnern wie bestochne Zeugen.
Das Gras, längst wieder aufgerichtet, sorgt dafür
Daß es auf lange Sicht nur dies gab hier, den Hasenfuß.
...

(In Gotland)


From a distance, this was all there was to see,
An undulating landscape assembled in a buzzard's eye,
The bare hills, a track and at the edge of it
A rabbit's foot in the undergrowth, ruffled by the wind,
A well-gnawed ankle-joint that weighed no more
In the hand than a baby bird,
Still moving, still warm, that leapt
Out of the frying pan, bloodied as the prey
Of the grey butcher bird, on the rowan spike -
A little lump of bone beckoning with a flap of fur.

That was all that was left of a rabbit after
The shadow of a wing crossed his path,
After its zigzag dash had been cut off by a claw, its panting
Breath by a well-aimed beak. How comfortless
This death must have been, helplessly splayed
On the wintry earth, the last convulsions.
The sole survivor of the slaughter perched in the boughs,
Which, like bribed witnesses, had no recollection of anything.
The grass, which had long since picked itself up, sees to it
That this was all there was to see, this rabbit's foot.
...

(Böhmen)


Die Stille um einen toten Maulwurf
Am Rand eines Weizenfeldes, sie trügt.
Unter ihm sammeln sich Käfer, bewaffnete Kräfte
In schwarzer Uniform. Über ihm kreist,
Bevor er abdreht, die Flügel zerzaust, ein Habicht.
Ameisen graben, Kommandos im Eilmarsch,
Am Rückgrat entlang eine Rinne. Im Innern
Laufen die Drähte heiß, wimmeln nervöse Maden
An der Börse der Eingeweide. Vom Bauchfell
Tragen fliegende Händler (oder sind es Reporter)
Die Botschaft in alle vier Winde: Ein Aas, ein Aas…
Nur eine Grille, einen Sprung weit entfernt,
Liest in den Wolkenzügen und sonnt sich
Schweigend, ein stoischer Philosoph.
...

(Bohemia)


The stillness around the dead mole
By the side of a wheatfield is deceptive.
Under it, there is a massing of black-clad
Beetle infantry, above, a hawk wheels
Before turning away with ruffled wings.
Ants, a detachment of sappers, are digging
A trench along the spine. Inside, the wires are hot
With nervous maggots' seething on the intestines'
Dealing floor. From the stomach lining, kerbstone traders
(or are they reporters) broadcast the news
To all quarters: Carrion! Carrion!
Only a grasshopper, a skip and a jump away,
Scans the clouds' script and silently suns itself,
One of the Stoic philosophers.
...

(Campania)


Wie der Gekreuzigte lag dieser Frosch
Plattgewalzt auf dem heißen Asphalt
Der Landstraße. Offenen Mauls

Bog sich zum Himmel, von Sonne gedörrt,
Was von fern einer Schuhsohle glich -
Ein Amphibium aus älterer Erdzeit,
Unter die Räder gekommen im Sprung.

Keine Auferstehung als in den Larven
Der Fliegen, die morgen schlüpfen werden.

Durch welche Öffnung entweicht der Traum?
...