New Selected Poems by Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Author:Hans Magnus Enzensberger [Enzensberger, Hans Magnus]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780372518
Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
Published: 2015-05-21T03:00:00+00:00

The Frogs of Bikini

Nagging questions, taunting remarks, objections:

He’d stop short, listen attentively,

take stock, take notice.

The demands made upon him, fully justified,

were impossible to comply with;

to refute the recriminations

was out of the question.

Just one thing he’d rather not have mentioned:

his problems.

That sort of talk was getting too much for him –

only the day before yesterday,

on his way home,

amongst cement mixers and ambulances,

through the half-open door of a phone box:

‘My personal problems’ –

a croaking sound from the earphone,

or at conventions:

‘Our path to self-awareness’

(by way of therapy) –

apparently all these animals

were beyond comparison

with other vertebrates!

No, he couldn’t care less

about ‘being aware’,

and as far as he was concerned,

there were no problems to speak of,

at least not ‘personal’ ones.

Just the sudden attack of nausea,

unaccountably, at night,

the sense of ‘repression’ (in general),

or else the chalk-marks seen in the glare

of the head-lights round a dark spot

on the motorway: the chalk-marks

gave him food for thought, but to his mind

there was nothing ‘personal’ about them.

He’d have to listen to the Voice in his head,

that was all.

Certain skeletons in cupboards, certain addresses –

out there, on a dusty bench,

Berlin, Mariannenplatz –

a Pakistani shuffling by –

on the corner of Oranienburger Straße

something will choke, privately, unnoticed,

be quietly throttled, not to get up again.

While I, he says, am harkening,

since I cannot help it, to the Voice,

hoping to be told where to go,

with whom, what for – my Voice,

he says, which I cannot hear,

and that’s where I differ from the insane –,

Fräulein Bausch will weep

in front of the looking-glass,

anorectic, Ansbacher Straße,

fourth floor, rear wing –

he’d rather not enlarge on the subject.

All too many losses, sweet isolation,

things which have ceased to concern him,

not to mention his age, those recurrences

and money. It is true, he goes on,

I have searched and toiled, insulted everybody,

I was keen like an idiot,

I deserted and was deserted,

I had a mind to smash everything.

I used to be hungrier then. In the event

nothing much got smashed.

Whether recurrence was such a bad thing

he’d now be less sure.

As far as he could see, without idées fixes

there would be neither work nor love.

That’s what I always say! Engelchen cries,

my very words! Exactly!

Stoned, with red spots on his cheeks,

he throws the book away, paints his face,

tears his hair. What is this smell

from the bedroom? Ammonia? Gas?

Quick! Open the windows

or break down the door – where are the neighbours?

Don’t they realise what’s going on?

Not a soul in sight.

Droysenstraße lies deserted.

Then again, in August, and in remote places,

full of bulrushes, duckweed, etcetera,

he’d listen, after all stations have closed down,

to his heart’s content, in the gleam of a satellite,

to the frogs. Residues.

His predilection for old houses,

old liberties, animals on the brink of extinction.

Nothing personal. Just the right

to croak or not to croak –

he’d insist on it.

Somewhere else again, in the afternoon,

a shuttered room. The thick curtains,

the glittering needles, the wall chart

with the twisted lines basking

in the smoke, the camphor fumes.

Deep forays beneath the skin,

all, of course, to the ultimate good

of the patient, and at the last twist

the acupuncturist’s bloodless smile.

Or he’d remember the caucus sessions

where it was customary

to bash in each other’s nasal bones

in the name of the working class –

figuratively speaking, of course.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.