Elke Erb
translated from the German by Rosmarie Waldrop
Transitory
What mattered was the cause. Now we’re done with it.
The cause, too, done for. Undone. Fly hum.
Little tyke stomps up from the meadow,
socks sagging, glowing cheeks, fist full
of buttercups.
By much washing slackened, his elastic.
Black and white cow.
And the water down there, having run toward its goal
for almost ever.
No Matter How
I can’t stop wondering:
again I slide down into sleep
for a while, give in
to the -- however well-known --
change of perspective around the three corners
that stack up their small-town
stories in a pale
insipid other-world light. nevertheless:
I wonder.
Russia as It Went On
how in Russia you, I would have been…eliminated. No matter under which
regime: it went on in the way it knew. Damage. Going on has reasons as has what
persists. Within it, each case its own kind of ruin (its own alienation and nothing).
“Back from the War”
When Dad was on leave, walked around, and the grass, where he walked, looked slightly different around him, in relation to him – I thought this is the way it is, took my bearings from a clock.
Belabored
27 august 00
before my eyes an instrument is set up that then has to work, as I—in the upper back corner of my head—suspect. Mech-anics in blue overalls, adults.
28 august
If this happens again it may be that I’m pleased because I understand.
30 august
The child watching senses the part of displeasure involved.
He is old enough for that.
Nevertheless he is pleased with all the others and with the instrument. that it is going to work.
Thus he is already beginning to die.
Moreover he runs ahead of the process, turns to see how far they’ve gotten, comes back and watches again.
It doesn’t take long, vita brevis, but also too long, and there are chasms, nothing to hold on to…
Exactly
If I should come out of an exercise in which I voluntarily “admit fear” with proof of my inferiority…, in disgrace: wouldn’t that dot the i.
The Two of Us
Evening with many leaves. Unaware.
We walk. Walk and walk. Fagged
out. The leaves reflect. Quiet.
To no end. Whirling spiral. Fagged out.
The chessboard soggy, wet. Swelling.
No duty paid, never lie.
Here, in earlier strata, might well have entered
a hunter, carrying a rabbit.
That One
behind the fence, the fatso,
bent double, carries a slab
under his arm, into his house.
His nose at least keeps a straigt back.
This is no scene, the empty windows
are empty windows. Elderberry bush.
Moon of a distant farm yard.
A horseback forms a sine curve,
the I, an oscillation.
For Instance
the stag with the axe in his shoulder. Moves off,
look: will in the future be hit with an axe in his shoulder,
moves North, off, toward a future march
and never more intact, because of imagination.
Gutters in a row, road. Then a steeple,
city wall tower, a little old lady looks out,
forgetmenot, no more moon, the stag’s jawbone,
dictionary illustration, the expression frugality. Grief.
Investigation
I go to have fun
come to have fun
come to
rabbits rabbit, beavers beaver, kids
kid, orphanage, fun
funs,
ghosts ghost, masters master,
legs leg it under coattails, coats
coat
& umbrellas umbrella, goats
goat, but unseen the ways sight
sights
soups soup, sums
sum, right, what-
ever
is continues.
Warning
The world is full of fish hooks. Folk song, all together now.
The world is full of folk songs. The valley is empty of
antlers. I dream gates grate. Sunny morning, dream gates
grate.
Behind the house the fields a bare ribcage. Rising and
falling with breath. Ribs.
Remembered
For years Lili Brik lived in fear of being arrested. She did not know that Stalin had personally struck her name from the list: Mayakovsky’s wife we won’t touch.
How does one look — out of one’s fear --
at a life that could/can be continued
— its course, recourse, flow?
Is it yours?
In your eyes, is it an it, a this
with the accent, the aspect, the accessories
of what’s yours?
Doesn’t
even the pronoun it show too much
composure?
(Haven’t we learned to articulate
beyond murder?)
Does it then run without a grammatical subject?
And not as if born?
Lives, breathes, endures; barely scrapes by you.
As it endures, is it for you what we’d presumably
call durable security?
The Russians smiled when there was talk of survival.
[…]
If one found the smile of those who got off with a scare a bit uncomfortable, when
it played around the mouth of former prisoners it felt completely creepy
6 July 2003
----------
[Quotations in italics from Fritz Merau: My Russian Century: An Autobiography, Hamburg: Lutz Schulenburg Publisher, Nautilus Editions, 2002]
For Christa Wolf’s eightieth birthday
translated from the German by Rosmarie Waldrop
Transitory
What mattered was the cause. Now we’re done with it.
The cause, too, done for. Undone. Fly hum.
Little tyke stomps up from the meadow,
socks sagging, glowing cheeks, fist full
of buttercups.
By much washing slackened, his elastic.
Black and white cow.
And the water down there, having run toward its goal
for almost ever.
No Matter How
I can’t stop wondering:
again I slide down into sleep
for a while, give in
to the -- however well-known --
change of perspective around the three corners
that stack up their small-town
stories in a pale
insipid other-world light. nevertheless:
I wonder.
Russia as It Went On
how in Russia you, I would have been…eliminated. No matter under which
regime: it went on in the way it knew. Damage. Going on has reasons as has what
persists. Within it, each case its own kind of ruin (its own alienation and nothing).
“Back from the War”
When Dad was on leave, walked around, and the grass, where he walked, looked slightly different around him, in relation to him – I thought this is the way it is, took my bearings from a clock.
Belabored
27 august 00
before my eyes an instrument is set up that then has to work, as I—in the upper back corner of my head—suspect. Mech-anics in blue overalls, adults.
28 august
If this happens again it may be that I’m pleased because I understand.
30 august
The child watching senses the part of displeasure involved.
He is old enough for that.
Nevertheless he is pleased with all the others and with the instrument. that it is going to work.
Thus he is already beginning to die.
Moreover he runs ahead of the process, turns to see how far they’ve gotten, comes back and watches again.
It doesn’t take long, vita brevis, but also too long, and there are chasms, nothing to hold on to…
Exactly
If I should come out of an exercise in which I voluntarily “admit fear” with proof of my inferiority…, in disgrace: wouldn’t that dot the i.
The Two of Us
Evening with many leaves. Unaware.
We walk. Walk and walk. Fagged
out. The leaves reflect. Quiet.
To no end. Whirling spiral. Fagged out.
The chessboard soggy, wet. Swelling.
No duty paid, never lie.
Here, in earlier strata, might well have entered
a hunter, carrying a rabbit.
That One
behind the fence, the fatso,
bent double, carries a slab
under his arm, into his house.
His nose at least keeps a straigt back.
This is no scene, the empty windows
are empty windows. Elderberry bush.
Moon of a distant farm yard.
A horseback forms a sine curve,
the I, an oscillation.
For Instance
the stag with the axe in his shoulder. Moves off,
look: will in the future be hit with an axe in his shoulder,
moves North, off, toward a future march
and never more intact, because of imagination.
Gutters in a row, road. Then a steeple,
city wall tower, a little old lady looks out,
forgetmenot, no more moon, the stag’s jawbone,
dictionary illustration, the expression frugality. Grief.
Investigation
I go to have fun
come to have fun
come to
rabbits rabbit, beavers beaver, kids
kid, orphanage, fun
funs,
ghosts ghost, masters master,
legs leg it under coattails, coats
coat
& umbrellas umbrella, goats
goat, but unseen the ways sight
sights
soups soup, sums
sum, right, what-
ever
is continues.
Warning
The world is full of fish hooks. Folk song, all together now.
The world is full of folk songs. The valley is empty of
antlers. I dream gates grate. Sunny morning, dream gates
grate.
Behind the house the fields a bare ribcage. Rising and
falling with breath. Ribs.
Remembered
For years Lili Brik lived in fear of being arrested. She did not know that Stalin had personally struck her name from the list: Mayakovsky’s wife we won’t touch.
How does one look — out of one’s fear --
at a life that could/can be continued
— its course, recourse, flow?
Is it yours?
In your eyes, is it an it, a this
with the accent, the aspect, the accessories
of what’s yours?
Doesn’t
even the pronoun it show too much
composure?
(Haven’t we learned to articulate
beyond murder?)
Does it then run without a grammatical subject?
And not as if born?
Lives, breathes, endures; barely scrapes by you.
As it endures, is it for you what we’d presumably
call durable security?
The Russians smiled when there was talk of survival.
[…]
If one found the smile of those who got off with a scare a bit uncomfortable, when
it played around the mouth of former prisoners it felt completely creepy
6 July 2003
----------
[Quotations in italics from Fritz Merau: My Russian Century: An Autobiography, Hamburg: Lutz Schulenburg Publisher, Nautilus Editions, 2002]
For Christa Wolf’s eightieth birthday