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

  among the dying spruces

  In the afternoon

  my crazy grandfather

  torches the fields

  My last aspirin

  dissolves gently

  in a glass

  As the pain subsides

  I hear once more

  the call of the distant posthorn

  Solnhofen

  White fields

  in winter sometimes

  strewn with ash

  The high shoulders of the hill

  stunted conifers

  juniper shrubs

  rock tombs

  one-eyed sheep

  Overtaken by ruin

  a Wilhelmine artisan mill

  reflects the breadlessness

  of the passing trains

  Deposited between layers

  lie the winged

  vertebrates

  of prehistory

  Leaving Bavaria

  Glacial in the early morning

  the train station at Bamberg

  a Reichspost stamp

  overprinted for hyperinflation

  Hindenburg’s gray-green millions

  history’s null ouvert

  penny panic

  in the poor souls of commuters

  Beyond the tracks

  moored in the half light

  the brickwork brewery

  a German airship

  At the gondola window

  Saint Dionysius

  a lonely passenger

  with his head under his arm

  Something in My Ear

  Falling asleep

  on the sofa

  I hear from a distance

  geese on the radio

  whetting their beaks

  to pass the verdict

  The mildew grows

  in the garden paralysis

  spreads

  a long succession

  of minute shocks

  I feel the blood

  at the roots

  of my teeth

  As I awake

  sudden cardiac

  death waves

  from the other side

  of the abyss

  Panacea

  A snip of the scissors

  a thimble

  a needle’s eye

  A place of pilgrimage

  a memory stone

  a mountain moved

  A club moss

  and a cube of ice

  tinted with a jot

  of Berlin blue

  Mithraic

  Nine thousand nine hundred

  and ninety-nine years

  Zarvan murmured

  to get a son

  And now his descendants

  are flogging off

  the houses of heaven

  and the five coasts of the earth

  With his sea-goat ready

  for departure the mythologist

  beholds once again

  the shattered world egg

  Memo

  Build fire and read

  the future in smoke

  Carry out ash and

  scatter over head

  Be sure

  not to look back

  Attempt

  the art of metamorphosis

  Paint face

  with cinnabar

  As a sign

  of grief

  Barometer Reading

  Nothing can be inferred

  from the forecasts

  Tree frogs

  are ignoring their ladders

  Changeable weather tests the patience

  of the rheumatic soul

  The slightest gust makes it flutter

  first this way then that

  Meanwhile Propertius

  waits faithfully in his folding boat

  One oar in the water

  the other skimming the sand at the edge

  K.’s Emigration

  His personal effects

  are ready to leave

  Entered

  well in advance

  the calligraphic endorsement

  an analphabetic cipher

  valid for a single journey

  Pictures sent

  en route greetings

  from Bohemian Switzerland

  and a group photo

  in front of the High Tatras

  Didn’t you

  have your

  photograph taken

  in Franzensbad too

  Through Holland in the Dark

  The cucumbers

  lurk in their greenhouses

  The customs official

  borrows my evening paper

  A wet hand

  casts no shadow

  Kaiser Willem

  is still smoking his cigars

  No sign

  of the reclaimed land

  Abandoned

  like Kafka’s essay

  on Goethe’s abominable

  nature

  Mölkerbastei

  Beethoven’s room

  is tidy now

  The pictures straightened

  the curtains washed

  and week for week the floors

  polished anew

  But the chair

  for the grand

  has been taken away

  He still comes in at night sometimes

  and composes something

  standing up

  The proviso is

  it be audible only

  with an ear-trumpet

  A Galley Lies off Helsingborg

  Such desolation

  in Harwich Harbor

  when I am here

  it always seems to me

  as if we were

  in the throes of a silent war

  The hollow barges

  all that bulky

  worn-out iron

  the oil-green water

  and the ever stiller

  county of Essex

  round about

  The poor travelers

  with their woe-begone

  faces oppressed

  hapless folk

  standing here waiting

  on the Red Sea shore

  Nobody tells them

  where the ferries are heading for

  tonight

  Holkham Gap

  A green zone

  for field glasses

  and camouflaged

  ornithologists

  Beyond it the bay

  its sweep broader

  than the furthest

  horizon

  The Home Guard

  waited here

  for the sea lion

  to appear

  When the monster didn’t

  show the marram

  was permitted to reoccupy

  the fortified strip

  But Uncle Toby

  doesn’t entirely

  trust the peace

  Stuffing his pillow

  with sand he wishes

  the deluge would begin

  Norfolk

  Sailing backwards

  as a passenger with

  banished time

  A Louisianian

  landscape populated

  by invisible windmillers

  Where the Egyptian

  in his painted boat

  sails between fields

  Crossing the Water

  In early November 1980

  walking across

  the Bridge of Peace I almost

  went out of my mind

  Natural History

  In Man it is

  the Quadruped

  in Woman the Amphibian

  who has the upper Hand

  Ballad

  Is Carl Löwe’s

  heart

  really

  immured

  in a column

  in the Church of St. James

  in Stettin?

  Obscure Passage

  Aristotle did not

  apprehend at all
/>
  the word he found

  in Archytas

  Poetry for an Album

  Feelings my friend

  wrote Schumann

  are stars which guide us

  only when the sky is clear

  but reason is a

  magnetic needle

  driving our ship on

  till it shatters on the rocks

  It was when my palsied

  finger stopped me playing

  the piano that calamity

  came upon me

  If you knew every cranny

  of my heart

  you would yet be ignorant

  of the pain my happy

  memories bring

  Carnaval time for the children

  with friends dressed up

  as Ormuzd and Ariman

  fleecy clouds of gold

  melting in the pure ether

  For years now I’ve had

  this same whistling

  sound in my ears

  and it troubles me greatly

  Walking by the Rhine

  I know I shall steer

  for the North I have yearned for

  though it be colder there

  even than the ice on

  geometry’s intersecting lines

  Eerie Effects of the

  Hell Valley Wind on My Nerves

  In the cathedral square

  of a town he left

  many years ago

  the emigrant sits

  reading the secret history

  of Judge Dr. Daniel Paul Schreber

  Events of war within

  a life cracks

  across the Order of the World

  spreading from Cassiopeia

  a diffuse pain reaching into

  the upturned leaves on the trees

  The black holes

  of ghosts flying about

  in the sky above

  conceal as I know

  li più reconditi principii

  della naturale filosofia

  Come lacklustre times, you

  in the midst of beauty

  of obscenity my nights

  will help you remember

  a pale block of ice

  slowly melting

  The judge speaks

  I am the stony guest

  come from afar

  and I think I am dead

  Open these pages, he says,

  and step smartly

  into hell

  Unidentified Flying Objects

  Late last night

  I was standing in the garden

  when a space ship

  sparkling with lights

  passed incredibly

  slowly

  over our roof

  What can you do

  but watch the ocean giant

  pull away beyond the trees

  and head for another galaxy

  In sixty-nine

  on Pwllheli beach

  in Wales I saw a small

  glimmering object

  sink gently humming

  in the air as it floated

  down from the top

  of a mountain that was printed

  entirely in Japanese colors

  finally vanishing

  over the vast sea

  What on earth it was

  or what that ship was

  yesterday in the sky

  I cannot imagine

  perhaps it was the soul

  of the Welsh prince

  slain by his brother

  by the lake of Idwal

  over which no bird

  has flown since

  The Sky at Night

  A belated excursion to

  the stone collection

  of our feelings

  Little left here

  worth showing

  alas

  Is there

  from an anthropological perspective

  a need for love

  Or merely for

  yearnings easy

  to disappoint

  Which stars

  go down

  as white dwarfs

  What relation

  does a heavy heart bear

  to the art of comedy

  Does the hunter

  Orion have answers

  to such questions

  Or are they

  too closely guarded

  by the Dog Star

  A Peaceable Kingdom

  Like an early geographer

  I paint a lion or two

  or some other

  wild animal

  in my white

  memory fields

  Porcupine, chameleon

  flounder and grouse

  jackal and unicorn

  xanthos and mouse

  Outside with the real

  birds screaming in the dark

  they stand guard

  figuring with their

  tiny heads what is

  still to come

  before the sun

  goes out

  Crocodile, monkey

  buffalo, hare

  dromedary, leopard

  mud turtle, bear

  Is it enough

  to be overcome

  by feeling

  at a few words

  in our children’s

  school primer

  Are these the emblems

  of our love

  Trigonometry of the Spheres

  In his year of mourning

  Grandfather moved

  the piano to the attic

  and never brought it

  down again

  With his brass telescope

  he now explores

  the arcs of the heavens instead

  His logbook records

  a comet with a tail

  and the categorical proposition

  that the moon is the earth’s work of art

  From him I also know

  of the holy man who sits

  where night turns to day

  roaring like a lion

  And once he said do not forget

  the north wind brings

  light from the house of Aries

  to the apple trees

  Day Return

  I

  Feeding carefully through the junctions

  the early train slips

  through the station precincts

  a tatzelwurm en route for the city

  Riveted gray of the iron bridges

  and coming through mist

  a peaceful canal

  with a barque

  from which the Hunter Gracchus

  has already stepped ashore

  Views to the rear

  of inferior housing

  wooden sheds tin roofs

  dog kennels gutted

  cars and tiny

  home-made crystal palaces

  hung with tomato plants

  last year’s hopes

  The power station in the outskirts

  lying on its back

  a sick elephant

  still just breathing

  through its trunk

  The little gold-toothed priest

  facing me buries himself

  in the news of the day

  the ink of the godless

  staining the little pink fingers

  of a furry day-blind animal

  Who scrawled the warning

  Hands off Caroline

  across the fire-wall

  in Ipswich who knows the names

  of our brothers the ducks

  under the willow on the island

  in Chelmsford Park pond

  Who knows the noises

  made by the animals

  in Romford at night

  and who will teach

  the King’s starling

  to whistle a new song

  Pulling into the north-easterly

  quarters of the metropolis

  Gilderson’s Fune
ral Service

  Merton’s Rubbish Disposal

  the A1 Wastepaper Company

  Stratford the forest of Arden

  and the first colonists

  on the platform at Maryland

  heavenly Jerusalem

  skyline of the City

  brick-wall catacombs

  Liverpool Street Station

  II

  The city sinks behind me

  as I head home in the evening

  reading Samuel Pepys’s diary

  of the Great Fire of London

  People taking to boats

  many pigeons killed

  panic on the river

  looting near Lincoln’s Inn

  Bishop Baybrooke’s corpse exposed

  fragments blown to Windsor Park

  The tatzelwurm passes through the country

  nightly shadows hedges and fields

  and in the darkness gently

  glowing the elephant now

  so utterly different

  New Jersey Journey

  Spent two hours at the end of December

  on the Garden State Highway

  In the ancient Ford’s trunk

  nothing but my heart grown

  heavier year by year

  A protracted catastrophe:

  the constant river of traffic

  the endless business of overtaking