from V

Daniela Danz

from “limen”

WELL NOW JACKDAW!
are footsteps on gravel so bad?
like a boy in the rushes
who stands there in his pajamas
playing the violin and freezing
no time to get dressed in the mornings
when the sun’s first rays shine on hotel balconies
I want to become a wooden shingle
on the roof of this house
when the helicopters are on patrol
the motor drowns out the footsteps on the gravel
the people who walk here
have free time they are relaxing
patrolling is work?
practicing the violin is like saluting
when you are not yourself ringing with the sound
but just practicing woodenly in the rushes

so!
let’s get this behind us jackdaw
the beginning
you first

I hear a buzz saw
that has hit a nail
I hear the V-belt snapping
and hitting the table
I hear pausing
stopping
swearing
the motor revving up again
the high-pitched sound

a throat-clearing riddle
fatherland

on, jackdaw!
we are still just at the beginning

don’t hop
fly

the loss of
don’t stutter
der Verlust von
gubitak

gubitak nacionalne nezavisnosti
excuse me?
the loss of borders

they come from a small country
you could almost say tiny
at the periphery

the loss of sacrifices
is that how you say it?
I meant the loss
of being able to offer sacrifices

not mine







JACKDAW YOU TUCK YOUR HEAD IN YOUR PLUMAGE
you dream fly a stretch fly sleep
in flight for us we have no time
we have to set out hourly

your plumage is a variety of greens
sleep jackdaw—your colors go glowing
behind you across the meadows by the harbor
a wingshining by the warehouses

let us begin to head toward
the slag heap in your shadow
if in the grit your beak
pecks out a binary code: beginning/end

where is time? it buries the code
time as if on cones the slag trickles
the downslipping of an avalanche now
and before—does it happen if we are not there?

when we sleep does time slip like this
in small avalanches? your shadow
and the night are two different things?
down underground in the potash mine it is roomy

and there are palaces and school groups
ride in subterranean cars
in the evenings they whisper in bunk beds
perhaps the beginnings exist without us

 
 




AND WHERE THE FATHERLAND BEGINS
is a dark place
like snow
that shows the outlines
just like everything that ends







WE WALK UP CLOSE
to the frozen lake but one
of us says: not a lake danger

a trap perhaps: a three-legged dog
comes across the field
dragging his chain behind him where is his master?

how does he belong to the lake? let’s go!
let the lake break open on its own
we never considered:

the different degrees of freedom
chain and ice
ice and inclination
obligation

translated from the German by Monika Cassel