Read Across the Land and the Water: Selected Poems, 1964-2001 Page 5


  vicious eye-contact

  with total strangers

  in the adjacent lane

  Driven by yearning

  for its prehistoric brothers

  a Jumbo climbs out of Newark

  airport over marshes and lagoons

  a giant smoking

  mountain of rubbish

  and the countless lights

  of the refineries

  Mile after mile of stunted trees

  telegraph poles fields of blueberries

  a Siberian countryside

  colonized then run to seed

  with moribund supermarkets

  abandoned poultry farms

  haunted by millions and millions

  of breakfast eggs

  harboring the undeciphered sighs

  of an entire nation

  Near the retirement town of Lakehurst

  a safari park soundless

  under its coat of frost

  cemeteries as spacious

  as the world war killing fields

  funeral parlors dubious

  antique shops and a bus station

  for last trips

  to Atlantic City

  In the twilight of the settlement itself

  ten square miles of faintly

  luminous bungalows

  lawns dwarf-conifers

  Christmas decorations

  Santa Rudolph the Reindeer

  and in front of one of the houses

  my uncle feeding the songbirds

  Drinking schnapps

  he later tells me

  of the conquest of New York

  Drinking schnapps I consider

  the ramifications of our calamity

  and the meaning of the picture

  that shows him, my uncle

  as a tinsmith’s assistant in ’23

  on the new copper roof

  of the Augsburg synagogue

  those were the days

  Next day we drive out to the coast

  Seaside Park Avenue at noon

  the boardwalks deserted

  boarded up diners

  Alpine-style summerhouses

  with circulating draughts

  yachts rattling in the cold

  the sub-urban migration of dunes

  With the brown house-high waves

  in the background my uncle

  leaning forward into the wind

  snapped me again

  with his Polaroid

  Do we really die

  only once

  The Year Before Last

  For some time

  we crossed a low plateau.

  Our eyes took in

  the distant landscape,

  elegant touring cars

  flew past

  and a motor-cyclist

  with a gun

  over his shoulder

  appeared again and again

  in our mirror.

  Soon our road curved down

  swiftly into a basin and

  Marienbad lay suddenly before us,

  a petrified magical city.

  Black spruces thronged

  to the edge of the outer buildings,

  Siberian chervil and eight-foot

  giant hogweed in the gardens.

  Behind the drab, yellow façades:

  Old German furniture,

  hat boxes, the strains of a pianola,

  an inkling of poison and bile.

  It was like driving

  into an old-time theatre.

  We had a fire made up in the hotel

  although it was still mid-summer.

  Later, wrapped in heavy

  Scottish dressing-gowns we gazed

  through the open windows

  and gloomy rain outside

  into a dusky otherworld.

  Is not the world here still,

  you asked; do banks of green

  no longer follow the river

  through bush and lea? Does

  not the harvest ripen? Do

  holy shades

  no longer hang

  upon the cliffs? Is this

  drawing-in

  the gray stain of night?

  Next day we sat in the café

  beneath a painting of water-lilies. Or

  perhaps they were even flamingos.

  Do you remember the waiter?

  His closely cropped white hair,

  his turn-of-the-century

  frock-coat and taffeta bow?

  The way he kept touching

  his left temple with his fingers?

  Remember the Cuban cigarettes

  he brought me? The fine blue

  smoke rose straight as a candle.

  A good sign, no doubt.

  And indeed, outside it had turned

  brighter. Reduced aristocrats

  swished past in dust-cloaks

  bound for the refectory.

  The Rabbi of Belz, plastic

  beaker in hand, walked to the well.

  A bride and groom were posing

  for a photograph on the promenade.

  Harquebused suffering

  hearts lay about

  on the shorn lawns.

  Returning to the hotel

  we saw Dr K, half-obscured

  by a red flag, sitting

  at his balcony table,

  busy with a portion

  of smoked pork much

  too big for him

  The match game

  was meant to decide everything.

  The gleaming parquet floor

  stretched before us. All round us

  were mirrors, guests, motionless—

  and in the middle you

  in your feather boa. Hadn’t

  we met once before?

  In a taxus maze?

  On a stage? The perspectival

  prospect, pruned hedges,

  little round trees and balustrades,

  the palace in the background?

  You were supposed to say, I

  am wholly yours, nothing

  but these words;

  and you did say them,

  while strangely not

  coming an inch

  closer.

  During the journey home

  fantasies of a fatal accident.

  Unspectacular woodlands

  and hills flanking our route

  through the countryside.

  The motor-cyclist

  turns up again in our rear.

  Not a soul on the streets

  of Eger. I see only

  one woman shoveling coal

  through a cellar hatch.

  A deserted house,

  the icy cold here,

  the corridors and chambers,

  the flight from the alcove,

  the blind window-pane,

  the flash of a lance,

  the barely audible cry of horror.

  And at the end of the act

  they carry the pierced

  corpse across the stage

  in a piece of crimson tapestry.

  A Waltz Dream

  The traveler

  has finally arrived

  at the border post

  A customs official

  has untied his laces

  removed his shoes

  His luggage rests

  abandoned on the

  planed floorboards

  His pigskin suitcase

  gapes, his poor

  soul has flown

  His body, last

  of his personal effects

  awaits meticulous scrutiny

  Dr. Tulp will soon be here

  in his black hat, prosectorial

  instruments in hand

  Or is the body already

  hollow and weightless,

  floating, barely

  guided by fingertips,

  across to the land

  one may only enter barefoot?

  Jan Peter
Tripp

  Das Land des Lächelns (1990)

  Donderdag

  23 Februari 1995

  between Schiphol

  & Frankfurt at ten

  thousand feet

  in the air

  I read a

  report in the

  paper about

  the so-called

  carnavalsmoorden

  van Venlo all

  about the strange

  quarter of Genooy

  where in the van

  Postelstraat

  right among

  the respectable

  condos stands

  a row of

  whorehouses

  where white & colored

  women sit

  behind the

  windows & where

  a few guys from

  the koffieshop

  branche: Frankie

  Hacibey & Suleyman

  drive out

  one evening to an

  execution on the banks

  of the Maas. There is

  talk of a

  bludgeon & a

  bread knife of

  a jar containing

  thirty-five

  thousand guilder

  & of the married

  couple Sjeng &

  Freda van Rijn who

  as the carnival

  surged through

  the town center

  were lying at home

  twee oude mensen

  met doorgesneden

  keel op de grund

  a dark tale which

  so they say has much

  to do with hashish

  dealing turkse

  gemeenschap &

  duitse clientèle

  with greed & ven

  geance violence

  een zwarte Merce

  des een rode BMW

  & twee kogels van

  dichtbij in het hoofd.

  The secrets

  of the Universe,

  Patriotic Tales and

  Memorabilia,

  A Germanic

  Hall of Fame,

  The Neudamm

  Forester’s Primer,

  Register of

  Germany’s

  Protected Species,

  Social Hygiene

  in Hamburg

  and The Mushrooms

  of our Region—

  all informative

  work assembled

  by chance

  in the display

  of a junk shop

  near a railway

  underpass in

  Oldenburg I

  think or Osnabrück

  or in some

  other town

  30.ix.95

  On 9 June 1904

  according to the Julian

  calendar, on 22 June

  according to our own,

  Anton Pavlovich and

  Olga Leonardovna reach

  the spa at Badenweiler.

  The tariff is sixteen marks

  for board and lodging

  at the Villa Friederike

  but the spelt porridge

  and creamy cocoa

  bring no improvement.

  Suffering from emphysema

  he spends all day

  in a reclining chair

  in the garden marveling

  again and again at how

  oddly quiet it is indoors.

  Later in the month the weather

  is unusually hot, not

  a breath of wind, the woods

  on the hills utterly still,

  the distant river valley

  in a milky haze.

  On the 28th Olga travels

  to Freiburg specially

  to buy a light flannel

  suit. At the Angelus hour

  of the following day

  he has his first attack, the

  second the following night.

  The dying man, already

  buried deep in his pillows,

  mutters that German

  women have such

  abominable taste in dress.

  As dawn breaks

  the doctor, placing

  ice on his heart,

  prescribes morphine

  and a glass of champagne.

  He was thinking of returning

  home with Austrian

  Lloyd via Marseille

  and Odessa. Instead

  they will have him transferred

  in a green, refrigerated

  freight car marked

  FOR OYSTERS

  in big letters. Thus has

  he fallen among dead

  mollusks, like them packed

  in a box, dumbly rolling

  across the continent.

  When the corpse arrives

  at Nikolayevsky Station

  in Moscow a band

  is playing a Janissary

  piece in front of

  General Keller’s

  coffin, also newly

  arrived from Manchuria,

  and the poet’s relatives

  and friends, a small

  circle of mourners,

  which from a distance

  resembles a black

  velvet caterpillar,

  move off, as many

  recalled, to the strains

  of a slow march

  in the wrong direction.

  Ninety years later

  on a Sunday after-

  noon in the month

  of November I drove

  south from Freiburg

  across the foothills

  of the Black Forest.

  All the way down

  to the Belfort Gap

  low motionless clouds

  above a landscape

  deep in shadow,

  the hatched patterning

  of vineyards on the slopes.

  Badenweiler looks

  depopulated after

  some virulent summer

  epidemic. Silent

  hemorrhaging in every

  house, I guess, and

  now not a living

  soul about, even

  the parking lot

  near the facilities empty.

  Only in the arboretum

  under giant

  sequoias do I meet

  a solitary lady

  smelling of patchouli

  and carrying a white

  Pomeranian in her arms.

  As the evening

  draws in the sun

  sinks in the West

  between the clouds

  and the skyline of

  the Vosges hills

  the last of the

  fading light flooding

  the Rhine plain

  which shimmers and quivers

  like the salty shore

  of a dried-out lake.

  In Bamberg

  I lie sleepless

  in a stone-built

  house. The last

  revelers have

  abandoned the streets

  and, save for

  the Regnitz rushing

  over the weir

  there is hush.

  Whirlpools drag me

  under the water

  and I roll along

  the bed of the river

  with the stones

  a gasping fish

  I return to the

  surface, my eyes

  wide with fear.

  The passage of dreams

  is haunted by ghosts

  the Little Hunchback

  for example standing

  by the sluice hut

  on the Ludwig Canal. He

  wears glasses

  with uncannily

  thick lenses and

  a blue baseball

  cap

  with the logo

  MARTINIQUE

  back to front

  on his head.

  Empress Kunigunde

/>   has been waiting

  for ever

  at the foot

  of the Katzenberg

  and on the bridge over

  to the old Town Hall

  of which an oleograph

  always hung

  in our sitting-room

  the dog Berganza

  crosses my path

  for the third time.

  A little way

  further upstream

  up at the Hain

  Park Schorsch

  and Rosa are taking

  a stroll one August

  afternoon in ’43

  she in a light

  dust-cloak he

  with his traditional jacket

  slung over his

  shoulder. They

  both seem happy

  to me, carefree

  at least and a good

  deal younger than

  I am now.

  Thus, thinks

  Kara Ben Nemsi

  son of the German,

  floweth time

  a ruby red

  cipher leaping

  from digit to digit

  trickling

  in silence

  from the dark

  of night

  to the gray

  of dawn

  just as sand

  once ran

  through

  the hour

  glass.

  Mai 1996

  Mai 1997

  Marienbad Elegy

  I can see him now

  striding through the suite

  of three south-westerly

  facing rooms in his

  cinnamon-colored

  coat pondering

  diverse matters

  for example his long-

  harbored plan

  for a treatise on clouds

  & yet somewhat

  troubled too

  & testy on account of

  his passion for Ulrike

  who is the reason

  for his third visit

  to this up-&-coming

  resort. He looks

  out at the little

  rotund trees

  evenly spaced around

  the square in front of

  the Kebelsberg Palais,

  sees a gardener

  pushing a barrow

  uphill, a pair of blackbirds

  on the lawn. He has slept

  badly in the narrow

  bed & felt like some