The enervated of Jumièges, peQuod 2007

a selection from
Warm Blackness Between The Fingers
antology of the 4th International Festival Of Contemporary Poetry
Zagreb 2009

English version by Serena Todesco

:. from (VI. Heimat)

On the open sea of Galapagos perhaps the natives still dream about us 
like bizarre fortunate divinities 
vanguards on irony bucephali

inside their earthenware bowls they read signs 
seal pacts with the scrapped light of sunset

we advance, the fists full of silverware, 
to found the heroic indian reserve and the epopee 
«Make a note: 
and this little ace, father 
uncertain if is to be played.»

On the open sea 
with the half-closed mouths of Caravaggio 
one after another they’ll fall and it won't be for exhaustion:

someone with big jaws 
will have entered the light in a corner 
and the kingdom an empty tinkling of tin 
– empty as the thunder
the throne.

…

:. from (IX. the night)

It is a lyric night, late indeed.
All the good bourgeois from Bavaria
keep their placid hand on their members.
Something still in a state of panic
ulcerates the border with pliers, with
a small jack knife.
All the good bourgeois from Bavaria
have had their daily bread
and their blood becomes quick – purple.
It is a lyric night, Danubian.
And if the madman cries in the ward it is only
to continue his yard –
give some breath to the corpse
of the dear deceased twentieth century.

It is night of grace,
and the soup is in the child's plate
the clenched lips of the people in peace
while a cloud of talcum powder
from the incinerator puffs
sotto voce.

It is night, yet that buzzing
is returning, that crease of silence,
the stream that sweeps down the rotary press
in the breathe, in the muscles that burn,
in the pipe-hose buggering
another hose,
that need to keep on making – adding up
adrenaline to the strap.

It is night and it is also night on your wrists,
on your cardiovascular rebound
and I mark your vein with callipers and with the nail
remove you – give to me. Still my mercy
pushes on the vein
to make you more paralysis.

It is late night, mighty indeed
and the world untiring arsenal
moans through the flimsy-paper wall,
rhymes it whole.

…

:. from (XVIII. in the society of brothers)

how the horizon stretches, how it clears up
with lights, buckets of torches
how it nightens.
I hear a crackling of laurel bands
and of steps, I hear the pawing of steps
that stomp and grow
as of decision made, across the public, abdominal
square they get pulsed, the steps urge by shifts and more –
how are pumping now my heart’s ventricles
I feel
It is decided but not explicit
it cannot flow:

«We are almost there… you ready?»
«If I had the script maybe yes, but like that, now…»
«Maybe it only takes a whistle, a recall…»
«… not sure this is the one…»
«Lean against me…»

Water is our mirror. In the society of brothers
it is the fear that makes the charity. That makes everything tight in chorus to the other
in the scared brotherhood, in the remedy,
father:
I am from the olive-tree,
I double
and the roots warp against the trunk

andI cripple.
Oh thou – have pity.

…

«You ready?»

Here one must smash, one must
miss completely
reality.

…

‹‹