Six Parisian Poems
Autumn in my office
umber light shrouds the geraniums
sepia covers the asphalt coated in dog shit
Which organ might start to fail?
Fragile
cement artichokes in Créteil
some took their lives this summer.
A 60W pump makes the half-light
music by Maurice Jarre (Paris 70/80)
attics
china (not from Limoges)
coats (not from Astrakhan)
glasses for dry Martinis
flora and fauna-stamped cushions
We follow the direction of a pipe crossing
a plaza and stopping in a café
alone
an Algerian briar extinguished
in a pocket
someone drags a piano]
through the corridor
***
Meticulous and violent,
love revealed its brains
and came in pale dress
like a dream-vedette on the small
stage
the rouge on her lips plus my pallor
took me sailing
on the pleasure
of the nylon night
The objects
the tube of Vicks VapoRub
the cedar-colored compact
and the paranoia once again
the bottle of Meleril
next to the farine de blé
on the shelf
oh and next to the brown rice
the Banania
I plunged into the darkness
of the avenues
in search of Gauloises
alone under the chestnut trees
***
Irritation
my period is late
a pimple on my forehead
symptoms
pressure in my vulva / the cut across my belly
with the moon
the house hurts
perverts
this thought
I spend the night in pajamas under the light
I pen my day.
A market 5 minutes away
Hanging on an island
bunches of artichokes crown an asphalt
road
a bus descends the geological stairway
lizards in a little cave flow like coins
bartering
18 pesetas 110 grams of ham
collage: wurst and desire
erleben and expense
Oh wunderbare republik: daily life
is an expense
I meld with my scents
only my pajamas are real
made of nylon
melon colored
Today I have nothing in mind
today only this glass of brandy belches
today this machine hums
today the tip of this pen only erases
today I erase myself from these lines
***
What I write: dirty words
weathered
a thought
a well of shadows
nothing is true
except that I breathe
pursuing an idea like a hunter
I shoot it
this is that prey
desiccated
between lines
a 65-peseta insecticide
because I’ve included it
on my page
I exist
Yes, today I have lived, I have read Sade
by leaps and bounds
Faulkner by the skin of my teeth
in my library bag
remains unopened overnight
tomorrow will be Wednesday
and the milkman will come
***
This cough does not encourage romanticism
obwohl
I beat beside the sea
he who can shed his drowned
who has inspired mounds of metaphors
whose moisture is only fought off
by taking Buk pills
he does not have a courageous manner
he does not have solitary peace
he is not a sweet syllable as
Jeannot says when heaping praise on a gangster:
he who was good because he filled me with happiness
and affection…
if the poem is not personal it must be political
if it is not beautiful, ugly
if it is not good, opposite women’s swaying waists
my table is square and made of wood
a sweet apple on a floral
tablecloth
sometimes upon waking up
the order I live in is the current
the river opens to the sea
there are clouds
and it rains
***
My gesture or autumn’s:
walking and pushing along the fallen leaves
in the street
scratching out a letter
and jealousy
the only thing intact when foretelling violence
eyelashes
the only truth the knife cutting flesh
lye’s cracks
the pixie disappeared with the detergent bubbles
my period, announcing its return all night, has not come
I have a crease in my skin from two hours of sleep
do not look at these pages
skip them
i
m
m
e
d
i
a
t
e
l
y
or eat the cauliflower pie in the fridge
The Typewriter
The room still has our
nudes at dawn
bread prices rose 10 cents per month
our heads left their traces on
the walls every night
on the table the verses
the papers the coffee.
Your typewriter
has gone up in price
it waits its turn on
any armchair
speckled with drops of wine
scraps of food
its keys came loose from
daily use.
There are matches inside
strands of curling hair
someone peers at it like
at a luxury good
now
on the windowsill.
The Golden Angel
Goethe in Leipzig
in my comic book when I was fifteen
crosses swords one night
with his old teacher.
How many years later
in Schwabing
women dressed in leopard print
and in Berlin leopards of the East.
Then
on the Ku’damm the Turkish workers waved to me
Wohin gehst du, bambino?
You are no longer a girl, I thought,
raised eyebrows
rounded mouth
forehead withered yellow,
from this meadow
the old cranes.
as a student, Wolfgang was a rascal
Kind and
I loved him.
Translated by Amy Olen
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Photo: Peruvian writer Carmen Ollé, by Herman Schwarz.
