by Tom Kuhn
Clouds in the skies
She, ’cause it’s dark by now
Kept shut her eyes.
And cos the grass is wet
Cold are the skies
She, on a willow stump
Gave up her prize.
When the new moon hangs red
In willows wild:
She will float down the stream:
Virgin and child.
O you great trees there in the hollow places . . .
O you great trees there in the hollow places
With the mild light of clouds high in your crowns
And dark roots deep in one another interlacing
There you stand and in you creatures house.
Blackly the stormwind lashes your naked branches
We are very lonely and that’s all right.
We never have a light, not even ghosts approach us.
And if we did: what would we do with light?
Never have I loved you as I did then, ma soeur . . .
Never have I loved you as I did then, ma soeur
When in that evening red I went from you.
The forest swallowed me, the blue forest, ma soeur
Over which already the pale stars stood in the west.
I laughed not at all, not the least little bit, ma soeur
As I blithely made my way to a dark outcome—
Whilst behind me already the faces slowly
Were losing their colour in the evening of the blue forest.
Everything was beautiful on that sole evening, ma soeur
After it never again and never before—
True: all I was left with then were the great birds
That in the dark sky when evening comes are hungry.
But in the cold of the night . . .
But in the cold of the night then only the frost
Drove the blanched bodies together in the alder hollow.
Half awake in the night instead of love’s babble they heard
Pale and alone now only the howling of dogs that were also cold.
Though in the evening she brushed the hair off her brow and did her utmost to smile
He, with a deep breath, looked mutely away at the lightless sky.
And in the evening they gazed at the ground while over them endlessly
Out of the south in swarms, great birds, an excited mêlée, hurtled by.
Black rain fell on them.
Absalom
He lies
Stretched out now. Nothing to stop him
Lying down and stretching his full length.
He gives
No orders anymore. Never again
Will he rise up when called. He lies
Stretched out and killed who had risen up
And completing the uprising
Rose up out of the affliction
Mute and contemptible towards the stars.
Never cursing, never helping: he
Clasps his hands! They lie in his lap.
He never seizes, he never defends
But lays down his hands.
Pointlessly beset, moving aside
Shrugging his shoulders, he left
The man dying
In the wood, a
Beautiful corpse, stretched out.
These lost sight of themselves . . .
1
These lost sight of themselves.
Forgot himself, each. One day the sea drove his corpse
On some reef or other, rejoicing the birds
Who lived weeks off it.
Helplessly many hid in the night and believed, not seeing themselves
They were invisible. The night
Gave them shelter and idly
In a motherly fashion stroking their faces
Without a word disappeared them. In wind and the din of water
They became a lamenting voice, scarecrows
A terror to children, billowing like shirts in the meadow
Trembling, fearful of being laughed at . . .
2
And already, laughing in the wind
Another race arises
Sleepers in the dark, devourers of birds
At one with their bodies
And lords of unspeakable joy.
3
And their sighing
Their laughter and demise
Are meat to the sun and drink to the night.
Thus is hourly renewed out of fall and entanglement
The unending sensation
Which is ordained for the meek and the pure in heart:
To be young beyond all measure and to grow old with glee.
Song of the sisters
They say he is growing in the dark forests
Like a gentle beast, one that is strange to us.
Many men have come here from the forests
But out of the forests no, he never has.
And they told us he is growing gently
And quietly in those fields with the trees
But from the fields many have come and none
Of them will divulge the place he stays.
Many, we are told, live in the cities.
And standing in the yards you see many.
And we asked many who had come from there.
But who had ever seen him? Nobody.
So we have begun to think: in white clouds
Often there is a peculiar light.
Perhaps one day there in the clouds we’ll see
Down the wind his face dispersing, white.
That was Citizen Galgei . . .
That was Citizen Galgei
A fat man and not quick
Scoundrels once told him he was
The butter merchant Pick.
They were nasty people
They played him a dirty trick
All unwillingly he became
At last the nasty Pick.
He had no proof of who he was
No one would testify:
It isn’t in the Catechism
That this man is Galgei.
The name was in the registry.
And on a tombstone too?
But Galgei, he might well not be
Who this name belonged to.
Citizen Joseph Galgei
Born in the month of April
Pious, honest, respectable
Just as the Lord God will.
In the enjoyment of his leisure . . .
1
In the enjoyment of his leisure
God in heaven, head on pillow
Sees the lovely flowers blooming
From the earthly tohu-bohu.
2
But to freshen up his limbs
Give them feeling through and through
Love comes on enchanted wings
Softly visiting his pillow.
3
But, alas, how soon love vanishes
And the time of lightness, soon
Lusts are all that’s left of feelings
And the way henceforth is down.
4
Aging, wisdom comes and opens
Wings over the chasm. They
Are blessed who suffer at evening
Because the sun shone at midday.
5
Where the bright rowboats are rocking
Shines a sky of corundum
And the black waves they are rocked by
Drag the music down to them.
6
So his eyes will not be blinded
Now he makes the strong light dim
There between earth, hell and heaven
He rocks in equilibrium.
7
For his goodness, in his honour
Heaven’s mouth sings songs of praise.
Radiant over his vacancy:
Heaven’s arch, corundum skies.
Ballad in the hour of despondency
1
I’ve had all the years I’ll get.
Learned nothing, I’m an idiot.
Time to die, got no religion.
Brother, give me a drink or help me begone.
2
Wash your own face if your hands are mucky.
Mould and lime will cover it if you’re lucky.
All things get used up and worn out down here
But my poxed scabby soul, where can I hide her?
3
Anyone seeing me in my shroud, please
I ask you now, comb my hair down over my eyes.
Cross yourself by all means but if you go white at the sight of me
So you would at the sight of any brute beast very likely.
The birth in the tree . . .
1
In among exquisite corpses
A soft companion of brown predators
In spring I swam with similar
Full eaters out of this world of ours.
2
It’s true that of them all I alone was filled
Golden-yellow with music. Only I
Having their claws still in my flesh
Was wrapped naked in sky.
3
But from this poor earth I took
Nothing with me that would indicate
How she had venerated me
Except a love-bite in my throat.
4
Over my flesh to the very bone
Blue saltwaters swilled. Quite soon
Of shit and linen, of punches (and
Kisses too) I was washed clean.
5
United with myself in death
Delivered up to evil dreams
I surrendered myself to seaweeds
Slept with them, so it seems.
6
When the summer came back again
I was carrion in a green bay
And in one of the earth’s trees
Heavenwards I fled away.
7
Green walls grew in summer
Over the rotted carrion I had become
And in autumn above the rotted grass
Clouds, the white clouds, swam.
The river sings praises . . .
The river sings praises. Stars in the trees.
The smell of thyme and peppermint.
Our brows are freshened by a little breeze
We are the children, this is God’s present.
The grass is soft: the woman without bitterness
The lovely willows make everything rejoice:
Pleasure’s a certainty for those who will say yes.
Never again would you want to leave this place.
My brother’s death
Flung out in drink on the cold stones
Shaking, my brother raised his head to speak
And said he wanted no weeping, no one’s
And gathered himself up in a last look.
He couldn’t see us. Brightness blinded him.
He said nothing. His throat was tight.
His hand felt over his chest to find in him
A heart and then he told us straight:
Go away and shame on you. And all was very still.
These stones, he said, they are what’s mine.
And let nobody weep. That is my will.
And none of us dared bother him again.
We stood aside.
He lay there drunk and mumbling till noon
And died then stealthily and fell apart at speed
Doubtless because he thought he wasn’t seen.
Mankeboddel Bol
Mankeboddel Bol has a bulldog’s looks
Lows like an ox, lows till we’re sick of it.
Down below he wears violet silk socks
And always a spare pair in his pocket.
Mankeboddel Bol, and I can prove it
Mankeboddel Bol is not as other men.
Mankeboddel knows what’s quite beyond your ken:
That the wide world’s not there just for his benefit.
When he reached that point (that you’ll never come to)
Mankeboddel said to himself: Slow down a bit.
For it became clear to him what is still obscure to you:
That a Mankeboddel isn’t there for the world’s benefit.
The prodigal son
The pallid bushes in the mauve of heaven
Often at nights they’re like a sister’s kiss to me
Towards midnight clouds drift over the face of heaven
Very white and very lovably.
To beautiful women I was a cause of sorrow
When I’d eaten my fill and they left me they were sad
The nights have been very warm for some time now
Only towards morning is the grass a chilly bed.
And if one night, being tired, I fall through heaven’s door
At least there’s someone knows about my Fall
Cold waking early I feel my throat. They were
Only the hands of nightmare after all.
Mild heaven and the winds so blue and good
Are well disposed to me on my way down
I sleep at nights the way I slept in childhood
In many waters I’ve washed myself clean.
And when I’ve blisters on my feet, why then
Peppermint cools them as a sister might
And while I sleep my wild hair tangles in
The bitter-smelling lilies through the night.
Heaven is big. One bad dog going about
In a big field’s really no concern of his
He’s not small-minded, he bestows his light
On the whole wide world and everything that is.
When Heigei Gei . . .
When Heigei Gei intones his kyrie eleison
Allowing not the least light in the place
Then the Madonna of the White Backside
Smiles her sweet smile on both sides of her face.
And smiles all the while he’s loving her
And through the seaweed fat white-bellied
Fish drift that did not exist till he
Breathed them into being around her in bed.
Sometimes he loves her seven times
Through and through. Still not enough for her
Who squeezes, teeming full of milt, once more
The softly inflated stake of her poor martyr.
Ballad
Already he saw them bowing and already
Waving to one another in farewell
Oh he stood there in the green and beautifully
Branching foliage quite untroubled still.
Oh he stood there by the tree and did not bother
Even to lift a hand into the air. Already
Their faces were fading over the edge forever
The rocking boat put out from the green bay
And like a cloud in the wind they passed away.
Sun
The sun has shone for seven years
On legs and chest and cheeks and ears
And into my mouth and down red lane
And through my flesh to the very bone.
The winds of the sun got under my skin
I scratched the itch in greenery
She left me nothing, oh dearie me!
For seven years I’ve done nuffin.
My parts above, my parts below
Do as she bids. We love her so . . .
Grass and peppermint
I have the taste of peppermint on my tongue
And can smell the grass. For the fun of it
I lie in the stinging nettles and roll around on
Shreds of my raw skin. I have chewed to bits
The reeds of the little river and committed
Fornication with the thick stones. When
From so much loving I had no more skin
I contemplated the small sky. In my trouser sack
I have known this grass since I was a lad.
And when it, the grass, was still small. Often
It scratched the skin of the back of my neck
And it gre
w a lot faster than my own hair did.
I saw it committing fornication even as a kid
(It was a wonderful black butterfly.)
At any rate we got on well, the grass and I.
Shyly and for a long while it loved only my neck.
Prometheus
That is the hour of her triumph: then
The blue forests are stacked like iron mirrors.
Herself, she stands like a white ghost burned in the marsh vapours.
The rock grows through the red tatters of my skin.
Naked she climbs out of the flayed heaven
Pale, with bared teeth, effortlessly.
I let her rise every morning early
And lay me down by the waterfall to be eaten.
And when she’s had enough the grass blanches
Heaven hides its countenance in a smoke-cover:
And from above through the dark sky he approaches
Of whom it is said he likes a dish of liver.
Since the spray hissed over . . .
Since the spray hissed over my stricken
Forehead, feelings have swum away from me like rats
Lonelier now I have heard the black confession
Spoken by the wind that knocked me flat.