That Was Me
I was the one who betrayed Him in the garden
I was the one - unrecognized, inconspicuous, unlit
not the one who was later justly indicted
with my face in the darkness, a torch in my hand
in the midst of the screeching chanting and calling
I was the one who quickly slipped away unobserved,
not him, - Me, the mobile phantom
sailing silently behind the soldiers,
the disciples, the scribes and the women
who watched the fire from their hiding places
I was the one who silently branded
my mark onto his forehead
I then skirted around the incident, trailing at a distance
on towards Skull Hill - it was already mobbed
by soldiers, cripples, children and priests
women and horsemen holding banners
I wanted to see his face wracked with pain
to hear his voice again
His was the same face, the face from that town
where in an empty street, curled up like a wounded animal
I had gasped for breath in my agony
He had wanted to lay His hands on my shoulders
to pass His fingers over my eyelids
He had wanted to take away my pain
I knew He was capable of that
He could have done even greater things
But I had recoiled, suddenly pushed him away
I already knew then that he was waiting for me to forgive Him
But I could not trust him, so I watched silently
with impassive eyes devoid of tears
I was the one who passed the stick that snapped over His head
I was the one who shouted: crucify Him, crucify Him
followed by the mob, the tramps and the children
I wanted to see his face wracked with pain
His hands pierced, to hear the hammer slam down
I wanted to see it, I wanted to hear it
for pain, for death, for the agony of menstruation
for the fears that never wish to leave us
for the lingering anxiety, for the screaming desire to escape
I wanted Him to feel the sudden jerks of a child inside Him
- my jerks, summoned up for an instant from the void
The Corner Room
In this hotel, right in the heart of the city
at night
as she came in, suddenly losing
her reflections in a dormant mirror
that sucks in the interiors of rooms
deprived of name, breathing or dream movements
that can draw such images into its deepest core
like a ribbon pulled from my hair
a maelstrom of cables thrown up by some undercurrent
onto the surface of the hall's parquet
suddenly shrank back before her steps like a living plant
My sister had no faith at all in my eyes
from which she had been banished
but despite that, I sensed in the corridor's stillness
the presence of a woman, who had been conceived here by the two of them
in this hotel in the very heart of the city
at night
It was only at that point that my hands abruptly woke up in the pitch black
and my half-opened mouth
could not accept the consecrated host of the air
It was only then that I suspected
why I was here
in the corner room
next to the quivering lift shaft
at the top of this building
which slowly branches out into the darkness
Hotel [fragment]
Men stand beside the white wash basins stamped with München v. Blitz
with sullen expressions on their faces and scars on their forearms
walls are covered with oak panels and hint at the nearby woods
where young men from the evening train loiter with intent
they sway girls to sleep who have only dropped in for a while
to touch up their make-up which is pointless actually when swimming
upstream with bellies displayed while negotiating the toilet
articles in the waters
that belong to the men poring over mirrors
smearing balm over their gashed necks when you sit
on top of the tumble-down bedding it is morning and
the river flows past the window exhibiting its insides
as gentle as the traces of a woman's lips on a glass with a hint
of lymph on the edge
Beyond the wall a woman is submerged into an enamel niche
she has pearl eyeballs and defrosted fingers and she swims
in the arms of a young man from El Alamein
who has a dark face and a purple bruises under his arms
water runs over the edge of the tub, its sounds recall
the faded pages of the reports written by the hotel proprietress
who fills the violet ruled lines with an immaculate script
composed of the trademark emblems Hogar Genevius Imiels
which no one can decipher any more
The restless men suddenly busy themselves
at the sight of the crippled porter his face full of
the raggedness of geranium petals a boy with stiffening hands
disappears in the direction of open windows the taste of freesias
dozing in his mouth when the red brim of a hat
calms its persistent rocking on top of a bed of nickel
and narrowed eyes follow immobile hands the corridors are still
a white shoulder is suddenly bared by mist rising from the river
sad smiles wake up in creaking brass bedsteads
and the marble density of veins is carved out by a razor's brisk slashes
which illuminate the attic room for an instant
where a recently arrived guest now blocks
the view through the brown unwashed window with his old jacket
Cariatids
The wounding glassy shards of evening rain
thud down heavily like leaden bullets
onto the surface of the water tense with a pain
that quivers airily over my head
Ahead of me women stand in monotonous shadow
with their swollen black bodies
bearing fruit under their hearts like red jelly-fish
merging into the slimy darkness
Their feet are immersed in the leaden gloom
pierced suddenly by a sharp shaft of light
the earth's stirring black lips draws all things into itself
hidden underneath the steel plates of rusting wrecks
And only the water mutely absorbs
their breathing captured as white bullets
injecting the billowing streaks of transparent blood
into the cooling ocean's open veins
Black Uniform
This black uniform like an empty banner
fluttering silently over the smouldering rubble
is covered with death heads cast in silver
with a broken cross hung on a red ribbon
it was waiting for my stripped body
breathing in water through its dead mouth
I sensed how in the silence of a stagnant sea
it stealthily slithered up onto my arm
quickly rushing like a slippery lizard
it crawled along my jaw enveloping my neck
it was cold, filled with an echo's darkness
like a black tunnel in the open air
breathing in through the body which only consumes
So I will now have a living skin
which was never possessed by
my two mortal enemies sitting sleepily
at the right hand of the father who is as
unmovable as the sea when anaesthetised
Giving Birth to a Knife
My body, unruly, tired and sleepy
slowly rolled through the streaming depths
grazed by the slippery fingers of eels
and kissed by the breath of overweight jelly-fish
In the middle of the night, on a dead river bed
within the alternating currents of clear blood
your knives slowly penetrated between my hips
There was no child within me
at the tangle of the arteries
There was no heart inside me
that could pump in or out
The knife lived in a black sea, in a cradle of blood
it lay huddled up inside me like an embryo
it exuded one unique transparent tear
and slowly it inhaled darkness
City
The most difficult thing is to believe in a transparent face
at night it is brave, by day swollen with that terror
hidden silently beneath the faces of the living
like the white light under the eyelids of a shadow
The most difficult thing is to believe in a crystallised word
ringing out lightly in the air's azure glass
swaying cautiously between our hands
like the roll-call of the dead in an unknown language
The most difficult thing is to believe in an airborne city
which is like a white body of streaming brightness
opened out with light on the edge of the sea
and which is deeply wounded by the storm's battle axes
Public Baths [fragments]
II. Voice
Women in a red waiting room can sense a dark frostiness within the tiled
floor beneath their feet. They carefully examine their own footsteps which
disappear as fast as the traces of breath on a pane of glass. They are calm.
They cannot yet discern any pale scars that result from difficult births. They
concentrate sleepily on newspapers soaking with damp. They count copper
coins.
Suddenly their skin wakes up. It recoils as if in contact with fire when they
hear the voices of old men slapping each other on wet thighs beyond the
partition walls and they reveal their eyes underneath reptilian eyelids. At that
moment their skin is crammed with memories of childhood. It remembers a scalding
much as it does painless glances and gashes.
The skin trembles.
IV. Meeting
The white lingerie embroidered with green flowers has been ripped off her, so
too has the belt from her hips and the light gold dust off her shoulders... She
is no longer wearing a garland. Or even the thin pigeon down. Or breath.
Someone's lips flutter off. Her cut hair lies strewn over the tiled floor. She
waits.
Behind the partition wall a young man with a tin numbered tag on his chest is
washing his hair. Inside his closed eyes naked women sing out. Underneath the
skin of his hand the memory of a touch swims about. Inside his mouth the taste
of a pink tongue is aroused.
Soon they will meet. Lying on an enamelled chair beneath the mirror is a
recently cleaned gun. A lead bullet waits in one chamber of the gun
barrel.
VIII. An Unusual Photograph
The boys throw glossy pictures around. Their fingernails have been bitten
back until they bled. The sleek paper depicts bare intertwined branches - whose
leaves have been burnt off by human breath. A fistful of ash passes from hand to
hand. Trees have no roots, they do not know their proper place, they live above
the ground. Dreaming is their oxygen. They lose the pruned measure of the apple
tree. Instead of bearing fruit, wolf-berries scorch their bark. Under half
closed eyes there rises that hatred of one's mother and father. The fear that
women are merely an Arabesque decoration that they will never lay eyes on.
The Guillotine Speaks to Danton
"You have no idea how dull bad theatre can be, Danton. When I am raised
high, I can see a thousand eyes fixed on my glistening blade. All hands are
clammy. Their thighs tremble. The idiots swallow to reassure themselves that
their own jugulars have not been sliced. That's all they can think about. They
only see the edge glint, the release, the descent, then the blood, the wet tufts
of hair on the neck and then the basket full of yellow brains.
I really ought to be invisible. Cut from the air as if it were glass. Then
the heaven of our Idea would shine out over the entire city, and transparent
blood would flow down into human bodies transforming them all into white marble.
I really am the supporting strut of the Great Cupola that separates the world
from the darkness outside.
Do not tell me your name again. I will not remember it anyway. Tilt your head
to one side and look straight at the mob through your glasses."
The Last Compartment
All I can do now is run. I can see them down the end of the corridor. They
are following me. They release the burning feathers of swallows out of their
hands. Black flames wheel through the air. They settle on the velvet handrests.
Icicles tremble in the passengers' hair. Frost on the eyelashes. Eyes of
uranium. Phosphorus. A large pane of plate glass opens at the touch of a fan.
One woman with a round face has wooden hands but no eyes. A steel point juts out
from the wrist. Pearls shower down from a torn necklace. A froth of crowns
frames a pair of breasts on display. A ruby cross . . . Damp roses. . . Fog . .
.
They are coming closer. The skin on the walls ripples under their breath. A
great shimmering lake of eczema flows out onto the damask hills. Leukemia,
submerged all the while, swims through the interior of the mirrors. Her eyes are
closed. Slippery lilies surround the lake's open black palm. Quicksilver lamps
hung from the ceiling suck in poisonous air. A hiss. Waterfalls of fire. The
sound of dresses being torn. Silken flakes tumble off shoulders . . . The
hourglass buzzes like a beehive in flames.
The passages between the carriages are full of blood. In side the windows'
double panes dead insects shift. White knives of air cut through the darkness.
Viaducts jump across the roaring lakes . . . The moon . . . Slit clouds . . . A
scream . . .
God is seated in the final compartment. When I walked past he lifted his
newspaper. I could not catch sight of his face. Red headlines swimming in blood
rose up over a finger on which he wore a silver ring. Stars were spilling from
his cigarette.
Translated by Donald Pirie
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