8
4.16.1994
nearby the
curtainless window display and I have to look
commenced is
still not recalled what takes place buzz-thinking
sober-fluttering
is still falling for drink bitterness as in falling down night
field of
vision shining knuckled-under racing rapper-head stray-thinking patter of
hearts
unturned I
give you words my word unturned draw
me out to
you to dream whirled up is still not recalled
drift
bewildered condition to marked one blown up in brazen beauty
disabled
uncompassing of your arms dreadfill hush of your speaking
heart-blasting
I sit in front of the device and cry
tinny-wind
reading to pieces listening to looked at seen
also plastic
sheets firmly established not sound proof but anyway
encompassed
nearby the curtainless feeling and you have to look away
stunned
indignant us a hesitation tenderly ridiculous
(translated from German by Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright)
(from “controcantos”)
Weather/Kissing
(what can be said)
Outside, there was weather. She took note of
it. She took note of that. She didn’t take it. She took it in, and did the
other one take it in that weather going on, weather meaning rain and some wind
was nice. She took it from there. Finally she came closer and she and she came
closer toward her facing her she came toward her and if it’s worth mentioning
there was this weather outside not bad weather and inside this room, within
this otherwise hardly remarkable room, without any weather when there was
sunshine there was shadow for days. She and she came toward her facing her and
kissed. She kissed her and her as only she could kiss, as she kisses when she
does not care about someone else’s feelings, she kissed her carelessly, not
caring, she said without saying it, she didn’t say care how could she talk like
that how could she talk, she kissed, she was still kissing and kissed and how
sweet it was to kiss in such a careless manner and the other one did the same
thing and she too did it they did it carelessly the other one the same thing,
although this is of minor importance as well, the other one kissed her again,
and finally you might say there was kissing and that’s all kissing with weather
changing, with dusk rising and a small strip of light announcing some different
weather some different feast for the eyes
(translated from the German
by Maria Schoenhammer)
(from “Hold It, She Says”)
it’s Bach’s chorales again
1-9
that is, sitting down on benches it’s
Bach’s chorales again 01
Being totally satiated, she says, and the most urgent hunger pangs, word
attacks. In the familiar environment, she says. He says he doesn’t know how she
lives in this neighbourhood. Does he want to fly, does he intend to jump out,
does he smoke or drink. I arrange scraps of paper, scrap work every day in the
early morning, being Bach’s chorales a
model again.
that is, sitting down on benches it’s
Bach’s chorales again 02
Half-time and thus break-time enough now! inner honey names, my inner
modulations my models, that is, combing through files every day dissipation of
notes lipstick at the rim of cups every day different colorations or an urge
for repetition attached to the radiator cyclamen pink yellow tulip dusty roses
or refractory rosy tubes, they call each other names they call each other by
their elder names elderberry or something like it feverish growth. Sections of
wall painted pink, she says, do you remember, our love names spray painted, you
thought, she supposes he won’t want to admit it to her and so forth wanting to
maintain clarity of expression, preferring to comment on other things, she
might be bewildered by his visual statements refractory and irritating to the
retina and now and then she might therefore feel a desire to hit him violently and therefore might start
talking about China faraway land or something like that, an unknown beloved
land to her, and thus enough now! on the screen half-time flickering she
wouldn’t be silent any longer, she might say „China“, make him make do with
China hand cup China bluish ear spattering.
that is, sitting down on benches it’s
Bach’s chorales again 03
They call each other by their names. And he always doing two things at
once they call each other names prayer house dance hall or like contemporary
performance pieces everyone does something and everyone gives herself up.
Always doing two things at once. The rock band doubles its speed. A turning
point in the biography? In the hall? Exterior spaces are for birds
irregularities in the foundations, she shouts, there are displays figures
acting doll-like and so forth an earth-quake denied yet everyone supposedly
felt it. A leap in time traverses the facade at the left a turn and meanings
vacillating only a little chipped off at the eastern base of the columns. At
the top, everything stays in its frame. Is beautification failing? That is,
does the image fail, that is, the inner frame of the aspect of the image, does
it fail its attribution? Name? Place of birth? Date? Of death? To go through
with an interment, planned when it was forbidden? Machinations of knowledge,
that is? Satiation? The site of a satiation industry? Interred? To leave
satiated? Why so stagey? A small backlash might be decisive, yet still
tumultuous. Knowledge and ignorance displaced and displayed, this insistence of
the stones on both sides a figure is it you?
that is, sitting down on benches it’s
Bach’s chorales again 04
A spattering of time the status of the building shifted by physics its
desire for rotundas or a cognizance a connivance, that is. Here the stone joint
is so strong, he says, that it held out. A magnificent lion already tumbling
you know what this means we must destroy the program feathered cold analysis an
intake, that is, an interment site implied. Deep excesses, she shouts. Cinnamon
feast and fodder for goats’ eyes how beautiful and furthermore. Cinnamon bark
tanbark, she says, good to have, I already see you walking over the foreskin,
that is, the meadow in front of the entrance gate delightful scents, I’m all
excited now, peeling the bark off the cinnamon tree, getting closer to the
scent, the sweet cinnamon scent and so quickly and thus cinnamon starlike
chiselled into the stone, where did we see that, two stars to the left and to
the right and in between a two-tailed mermaid.
that is, sitting down on benches it’s
Bach’s chorales again 05
Favors of the choirmaster who shows us the building. Lost labor of love,
you say it and so forth blooming eye traps cuckoo-flowers purple colorations
decaying stones or are these lichens. We laugh at each other and therefore
didn’t interrupt anyone’s laughter. We saw what he pretended. Conscience, that
is, a connivance, a science of confluence maybe? It is a perspective a shifting
of perspective, he says, you shift and lift your proven word, do you make offers? Shifts of
power? Each section of this building had to do with a different power? Thus
sometimes something surfaces but what? Can you tell me that? Oscillating
structures, says the choirmaster. Not stopping to oscillate between fortune and
fortress. Could it be fortress feast or freedom? Having disappeared later by its
own efficiency? Bach chorales aren’t usually performed around here. What do you
want. I am the tour guide.
that is, sitting down on benches it’s
Bach’s chorales again 06
In the four corners above they notice at the very top, the moment I
mention it, four heads only different from anyplace else are these the eastern
bases? A misunderstanding of pillars turned upside down? Shifted to the top
again these visual aberrations half a tower a bird facade caved inwards? Are
there any clues? Constellated (consternated) momentarily enraged, why now
again, silly fuss I can see you promenading in the forefront, suntanned or bark
tanned, you fussbudget you buck-hide you. Any documentation for the beginning
is missing, Seitter says. In addition, a round or central structure was a
frequent feature long before the crusades: especially for baptistries and
funeral chapels. Then, offside the ball park.
that is, sitting down on benches it’s
Bach’s chorales again 07
Choir loft. Every one does something different. At the southeastern base
pictorial outburst two entangled snake-heads a punching or a recoiling and
other cautious beginnings or probing in the interior against the exterior two
birds swim oh how I like to copy therefore I take from the pages disturbed
notes frontispieces that is the snake-heads copied souls or where is this going
to lead. Today someone emerges from the thicket. Times have changed that is the
circumstances or something it is quite nice though. A case of Neo-Romanesque art. Deposits of
debris. The construction doesn’t stop oscillating between fortune and fortress.
The stratification (or collapsed desire for rotundas at the suspension the
series of lipsticks, bird carcasses, firing pins, toiletry bags) two or three
stones’ throw away a boundless vista but next to Kain there’s another figure
kneeling as well as crane in wolf. A two-fold or four-fold variation. Who isn’t
joining in the singing? Crowding towards the middle a pictorial service prayers
overturned pictures pushed and lifted skies of words clouded over with high
flying fog chorales spreading out, it’s a perspective, says the prompter, that
credits seeing with understanding.
that is, sitting down on benches it’s
Bach’s chorales again 08
And again staggered indentations and small dents. What kinds of
encounters must have taken place between people, texts, plans, stones and this
meadow for this structure to come about? I copy entire sentences, she says. And
yet, says the prompter, all the time looking for her own way of thinking,
that’s what they say, she says, to have your own thoughts, to be an independent
thinker and so forth that’s why she goes to this ball park, this football or
foot-fall park, offside of that grave or interment site, of those images of
lions or imaginations of sphinxes and two-tailed mermaids. Was she hungry, did
she want a sandwich, a ham sandwich. He could get her cigarettes. Beyond or at
most fragments of actions or bringing those to mind to your mind (training
program; logic in parentheses). That is, bringing that match to mind.
that is, sitting down on benches it’s
Bach’s chorales again 09
that is, sitting down on benches. Having sat down. Having sat down
where. Having fallen momentarily enraged. Favors of the choirmaster. They ate
eat an apple, an orange, a gum drop, the number of the competing antagonists
protagonists on the field they make a few steps. An offside favor very few long
steps, a very small step into a very close offside an obvious offside evidence
(the audience on the television screen) a conscience as she wanted to get up as
she wanted to remain seated might she get up. And again it’s the Bach chorales
rotundas caved inwards screaming and rondos. A private insinuation to the left
corner of the playing field opposite from us! do it someone shouts football
notes and newspaper clippings etc. pleasure scraps cyclamen pink paper logic
finally inventing the high sound of a whistle for the ball park a shrill sound
might become the football stadiums memory of the ball.
(Translated into English by
Maria Schönhammer)
Author’s Bionote:
*Elisabeth
Wandeler-Deck was born in Zurich, Switzerland
in 1939. After studying architecture at ETH Zurich, she pursued further studies
in sociology and clinical psychology. She was involved in establishing a
psychological counseling center for women and maintained her own private
practice. Since 1976, she has also worked as a writer, musician, and performer.
In 1998, she co-founded the Office for Gender Issues in Zurich. She closed her
private practice in 2006. As a writer, following her initial attempts at poetry
in the late 1960s, she cultivated the connection between text and music. Her
work has received numerous awards, including the City of Zurich's Recognition
Prize in 2012 and the Basel Poetry Prize in 2013.
