Marion Poschmann, Three Poems

[My translations of German poet Marion Poschmann: b.1969; also novels, short stories; first poetry collection 2002. I took the photo above in Bad Kreuznach, Germany five years ago]

Institution of Grace

Baroque desire to flow over the edge,
twitching eyelids, twitching legs,
thickly sugared sleep, sweet burden
this flesh and already beyond your control,
already flowing into images, private
TV program, pink juice I swallow,
your lips are screwed on mine
and my body, pumping and dreaming,
moves by remote

we start transmitting, limbs
touch, give signals, my skin
is full of syrup, I’m stuck
to you, late night series are passing by,
thin movies, REM phases, night
zaps and works us over

I want to freak out,
you test in sleep
our hands’ capacity,
check tropic fruit, stir
hot compotes made of swelling peaches,
plums, apricots, images combine,
thickly flowing I see heart chambers, slides
of completely sugared walls,
a ray of hope, a small kitchen stabilising itself,
and you touch me all over till I’m heavy,
transparent, shining, my body caramelised

Landscape with Proof of God’s Existence

we sat before glass mugs, skins filled with sand and
in the stranglehold of scarves and fur collars, we were
heat islands on a draughty empty terrace,
bulges on garden chairs, secret dignitaries

of early winter,
heater mushrooms opened their umbrellas but we
didn’t move up close, the gas in their stems burned
like cups full of rain, without effect

we ate deep frozen gloves, caps,
colourfully striped ice blocks at minus degrees,
we blew up fluffy clouds,
let them fly off,

a matt-white sky, starving, swallowed them up
I carefully scratched the air
with a spoon: the waiters
circled around us as if on skates,

I levered a few silver coins from my bag,
spread the table with shiny spangles
they remained there for a long time
next to a plate of wet leaves

Substation East

country that’s got the sack
under seductive showers, white lilac
grade A at the rail embankment

pipes above ground, solemnly bent,
in illogical groups without
change of position

walking, something light, something
heavy was borne,
the high stacks rotten

telescopes for
the clouds’ chain reaction,
wind and light

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~ by peterln on July 19, 2012.