Nightwalk
10-15-2006, 08:49 AM
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Here is an excellent prose-poem from the talented Austrian poet.
Revelation and Decline
Strange are the paths of mankind in the night. Somnambulist, I moved through stony rooms, and in each there burned a quiet little lamp in a copper bracket. And here, freezing, I sank onto a couch - across its head the stranger casting again her dark shadow - and wordless I hid my face in unsteady hands. And at the window, the hyacinth had blossomed blue and ancient prayers issued from the mortal creature's livid lips - from under eyelids crystal tears, shed over a bitter world. In that hour was I the pale son of my father's death. In blue gusts a nightwind came from the hill, mother's dark complaint - dying away again - and I saw the black hell in my heart: a moment of resplendent stillness. An ineffable figure came indistinctly out of the chalky wall, a young man dying, in the beauty of a race going to seed. White like the moon, cold stones surrounded my sleepless temples; shadowy footsteps faded from ruined stairs, a ring-around-a-rosy in garden plot.
.
Silent I sat in the deserted bar under smoke-up rafters, lonely over my wine, a phosphorescent corpse over a shadow - and a dead lamb lay at my feet. Out of the tainted blue stepped Sister's pale form, and her bleeding lips spoke: Prick me, black thorn. How my silver arms still thunder with violent storms. Flow, blood, from moon-feet blooming in paths of night, over which rats scurry, shrieking. You stars, ignite in the arches of my eyebrows - in the night my heart tolls softly. A red shadow with flaming sword broke into the house, fled with my snowy brow. Bitter death!
And an obscure voice spoke from within me: I broke the neck of my black horse in the woods at night, as delirium welled from his livid eyes.The shadow of the elms fell across me, blue laughter of springs and dark cool of the night, as - rough hunter - I startled a snow-white deer. My countenance , in this rocky hell, went dead.
And a drop of blood fell shimmering into the wine, and I drank of it, more bitter than poppies, and a dark cloud shrouded my head, crystal tears of the fallen angel. And blood ran gently from Sister's silvery wounds and fell on me, a rain of fire.
.
I would go along the edge of the woods, a mute creature from whose sleepless hands the sun has fallen, a stranger on the evening hill who, weeping, lifts his eyelids to the stony city. A deer poised in the peace of old elders. How restlessly my head hearkens in the twilight, or else my faltering steps follow blue clouds to the hill, and also grave stars. Alongside, green fields come with me motionlessly, shyly the roe accompanies on mossy paths through the woods. The huts of the villagers are closed and quiet, and in the dark still of the wind the blue complaint of the torrent terrifies.
But as I followed the path down the cliff, madness seized me and I cried aloud in the night, and with silvery fingers I bent above the silent waters and saw there that my face had vanished. And the white voice said to me: Destroy yourself! Sighing, the shadow of a boy rose up in me and smiling gazed on me from crystal eyes, so that I sank down weeping under the trees, under the prodigious vault of stars.
.
Ceaseless travel through rocky wilds, far from evening hamlets, herds headed homewards - the setting sun grazes a distant crystal meadow and its wild song, a bird's lonely cry, unnerves, dying into blue calm. But you come in the night, either gently, as I lie sleepless on the hill, or raging under a spring thunderstorm. And melancholy ever more darkly clouds my departed head. Dread lightning strikes terror in the night of my soul. Your hands are rending my breathless chest.
.
At dusk, as I went into the garden, evil's dark form having withdrawn from me, night threw around me its hyacinth quiet. And I went in a crescent boat over the still pool, and sweet peace softened my stone-hard brow. Speechless I lay under an old willow and heaven over me was blue and filled with stars, and as I lost myself in the view, my fear and the deepest of my sorrows died. And the boy's blue shadow rose radiant in the darkness, a gentle song. Over crystal cliffs and the tops of green trees, on wings of the moon rose Sister's face.
.
The soles of my feet silver, I descended thorny steps and walked into the whitewashed room. In here a lamp burned soundlessly and without sound I hid my head in purple linen. And the earth disgorged the corpse of a child, lunar form, which stepped slowly out of my shadow, fell broken-legged down stony precipices, snowflakes falling.
Translation from the German by Keith Waldrop
Here is an excellent prose-poem from the talented Austrian poet.
Revelation and Decline
Strange are the paths of mankind in the night. Somnambulist, I moved through stony rooms, and in each there burned a quiet little lamp in a copper bracket. And here, freezing, I sank onto a couch - across its head the stranger casting again her dark shadow - and wordless I hid my face in unsteady hands. And at the window, the hyacinth had blossomed blue and ancient prayers issued from the mortal creature's livid lips - from under eyelids crystal tears, shed over a bitter world. In that hour was I the pale son of my father's death. In blue gusts a nightwind came from the hill, mother's dark complaint - dying away again - and I saw the black hell in my heart: a moment of resplendent stillness. An ineffable figure came indistinctly out of the chalky wall, a young man dying, in the beauty of a race going to seed. White like the moon, cold stones surrounded my sleepless temples; shadowy footsteps faded from ruined stairs, a ring-around-a-rosy in garden plot.
.
Silent I sat in the deserted bar under smoke-up rafters, lonely over my wine, a phosphorescent corpse over a shadow - and a dead lamb lay at my feet. Out of the tainted blue stepped Sister's pale form, and her bleeding lips spoke: Prick me, black thorn. How my silver arms still thunder with violent storms. Flow, blood, from moon-feet blooming in paths of night, over which rats scurry, shrieking. You stars, ignite in the arches of my eyebrows - in the night my heart tolls softly. A red shadow with flaming sword broke into the house, fled with my snowy brow. Bitter death!
And an obscure voice spoke from within me: I broke the neck of my black horse in the woods at night, as delirium welled from his livid eyes.The shadow of the elms fell across me, blue laughter of springs and dark cool of the night, as - rough hunter - I startled a snow-white deer. My countenance , in this rocky hell, went dead.
And a drop of blood fell shimmering into the wine, and I drank of it, more bitter than poppies, and a dark cloud shrouded my head, crystal tears of the fallen angel. And blood ran gently from Sister's silvery wounds and fell on me, a rain of fire.
.
I would go along the edge of the woods, a mute creature from whose sleepless hands the sun has fallen, a stranger on the evening hill who, weeping, lifts his eyelids to the stony city. A deer poised in the peace of old elders. How restlessly my head hearkens in the twilight, or else my faltering steps follow blue clouds to the hill, and also grave stars. Alongside, green fields come with me motionlessly, shyly the roe accompanies on mossy paths through the woods. The huts of the villagers are closed and quiet, and in the dark still of the wind the blue complaint of the torrent terrifies.
But as I followed the path down the cliff, madness seized me and I cried aloud in the night, and with silvery fingers I bent above the silent waters and saw there that my face had vanished. And the white voice said to me: Destroy yourself! Sighing, the shadow of a boy rose up in me and smiling gazed on me from crystal eyes, so that I sank down weeping under the trees, under the prodigious vault of stars.
.
Ceaseless travel through rocky wilds, far from evening hamlets, herds headed homewards - the setting sun grazes a distant crystal meadow and its wild song, a bird's lonely cry, unnerves, dying into blue calm. But you come in the night, either gently, as I lie sleepless on the hill, or raging under a spring thunderstorm. And melancholy ever more darkly clouds my departed head. Dread lightning strikes terror in the night of my soul. Your hands are rending my breathless chest.
.
At dusk, as I went into the garden, evil's dark form having withdrawn from me, night threw around me its hyacinth quiet. And I went in a crescent boat over the still pool, and sweet peace softened my stone-hard brow. Speechless I lay under an old willow and heaven over me was blue and filled with stars, and as I lost myself in the view, my fear and the deepest of my sorrows died. And the boy's blue shadow rose radiant in the darkness, a gentle song. Over crystal cliffs and the tops of green trees, on wings of the moon rose Sister's face.
.
The soles of my feet silver, I descended thorny steps and walked into the whitewashed room. In here a lamp burned soundlessly and without sound I hid my head in purple linen. And the earth disgorged the corpse of a child, lunar form, which stepped slowly out of my shadow, fell broken-legged down stony precipices, snowflakes falling.
Translation from the German by Keith Waldrop