gives place to our speech,
infamous birds as we are
Solomon bows to us, for
our simultaneous cries
are something more than a dream!
And into the hollow waves of
darkness – hunched and level –
without trace – in silence –
something sinks like a ship.
1924
An Attempt at Jealousy
How is your life with the other one,
simpler, isn’t it? One stroke of the oar
then a long coastline, and soon
even the memory of me
will be a floating island
(in the sky, not on the waters):
spirits, spirits, you will be
sisters, and never lovers.
How is your life with an ordinary
woman? without godhead?
Now that your sovereign has
been deposed (and you have stepped down).
How is your life? Are you fussing?
flinching? How do you get up?
The tax of deathless vulgarity
can you cope with it, poor man?
‘Scenes and hysterics I’ve had
enough! I’ll rent my own house.’
How is your life with the other one
now, you that I chose for my own?
More to your taste, more delicious
is it, your food? Don’t moan if you sicken.
How is your life with an image
you, who walked on Sinai?
How is your life with a stranger
from this world? Can you (be frank)
love her? Or do you feel shame
like Zeus’ reins on your forehead?
How is your life? Are you
healthy? How do you sing?
How do you deal with the pain
of an undying conscience, poor man?
How is your life with a piece of market
stuff, at a steep price.
After Carrara marble,
how is your life with the dust of
plaster now? (God was hewn from
stone, but he is smashed to bits.)
How do you live with one of a
thousand women after Lilith?
Sated with newness, are you?
Now you are grown cold to magic,
how is your life with an
earthly woman, without a sixth
sense? Tell me: are you happy?
Not? In a shallow pit? How is
your life, my love? Is it as
hard as mine with another man?
1924
To Boris Pasternak
Distance: versts, miles…
divide us; they’ve dispersed us,
to make us behave quietly
at our different ends of the earth.
Distance: how many miles of it
lie between us now – disconnected –
crucified – then dissected.
And they don’t know – it unites us.
Our spirits and sinews fuse,
there’s no discord between us.
though our separated pieces
lie outside
the moat – for eagles!
This conspiracy of miles
has not yet disconcerted us,
however much they’ve pushed us, like
orphans into backwaters.
– What then? Well. Now it’s March!
And we’re scattered like some pack of cards!
1925
New Year’s Greetings
i.m. Rainer Maria Rilke
Happy New Year – new sphere – horizon – haven!
This is my first letter to your new address,
– notorious region, misunderstood, unsettled –,
as clamorous and empty as the Aeolian tower;
my very first letter to you from the yesterday
in which I suddenly found myself without you,
my own homeland become one of the stars…
Shall I tell you how I heard the news?
No earthquake or avalanche announced it,
only someone – might have been anyone – said
he’d read it in a daily paper. ‘Show me the article –
where did it happen?’ ‘The mountains.
(I think of pine branches in a window)
Don’t you ever read newspapers?’
‘Where did it happen?’ ‘In a sanatorium.’
(A rented paradise.) ‘Please tell me when.’
‘Yesterday, or the day before, I can’t remember.
Will you write something for us?’ ‘No, I won’t.
He’s family. I’m not treacherous.’
Happy New Year, then, which begins tomorrow!
Shall I tell you what I did when I heard
of your – no, that’s a slip of the tongue.
I don’t use silly words like Life and Death –
So tell me, Rainer, how was your ride?
How was it when your heart burst open?
Was it like riding Orlov’s horses – wild
and fast as eagles fly – as you once told me?
Did it take your breath away? Was it more intense –
sweeter? Russian eagles have a blood tie
with the other world, and in Russia
you see the other world in this.
It belongs to us, that long night of stars
I speak of with a secret smile…
You timed your crossing well.
Dear friend,
if Russian script replaces German letters here
it’s not because the dead have to put up with
everything, as a beggar does, – it’s because
the world you live in now is ours.
– I knew as much when I was thirteen…
Am I digressing? No, that isn’t possible.
Nothing can distract my thoughts from you.
Every one of them, du Lieber, every syllable
leads me towards you in whatever language.
German is as native to me as Russian,
and most of all the language Angels speak.
There is no place where you are not.
Except the grave…
Do you ever – think about me, I wonder?
What do you feel now, what is it like up there?
How was your first sight of the Universe,
a last vision of the whole planet –
which must include this poet remaining in it,
not yet ashes, still a spirit in a body –
seen from however many miles stretch
from Creation to eternity, far above
the Mediterranean in its crystal saucer –
where else would you look, leaning out
with your elbows on the edge of your box seat
if not on this poet, with her many griefs…
I live in Bellevue: these suburban outskirts,
have birds’ nests in the branches. Glance
at your tour guide: Bellevue is a fortress
with a good view of Paris and its palaces.
How absurd we must seem as you lean out
on the crimson velvet edge of your theatre box,
looking down from an infinite height
on our Bellevue and Belvederes!
Skip the details. Here’s an urgent fact.
The New Year is already on my door step.
With whom can I clink a glass across
the table tonight? And with what?
Cotton wool? I have no champagne froth.
The New Year is striking. Why am I here?
What is there to do in this New Year?
If such an orb of light as you can go out
then neither life nor death has any meaning.
I shall only understand when we meet again.
What joy to end with you, begin with you.
Let us clink across th
e table, not with pub
glasses, but as if our souls fused.
I look upon your cross. Everywhere
outside time and place belongs to us.
Leaves and conifers. Months and weeks
in rainy city fringes without people!
And mornings – all of them spent together.
Of course I see poorly down here in a pit
Of course you see better from up there.
Nothing turned out between us. That is the truth:
Nothing happened. Nothing.
We know our roles, and both are large enough
not to mention that. Don’t wait
for the one who stands out from the crowd
– or the one who stands inside it either.
An eternal tune:
don’t speak of the one on death row
cut from the same cloth and remembered
by the same mouth. Only one world
was ours, and that was where we shone;
exchanging everything else to do so.
So, from these outskirts: Happy new world,
Rainer! Happy new sounds!
Everything once seemed to stand in your way,
even passion and friendship. No longer.
Happy new echoes, Rainer!
I used to dream at my school desk about rivers
and mountains. How is your landscape without tourists?
Was I right, Rainer, to think of heaven as stormy
and mountainous – not the way widows imagine?
With terraces? Something like the Tatra?
Heaven must resemble an amphitheatre.
Was I right to think of God as a Baobab?
Is there only one God – or another over Him?
I know wherever you are, there are poems.
How do you write without a table for your elbow,
or even a forehead for your cupped hand?
Drop me a line in your usual scrawl!
Death must offer many occasions for poetry.
Are you pleased, Rainer, with your new verse?
I can’t go any further, now I’ve learned
a language with so many new meanings.
Goodbye. Until we meet each other
– if we do – face to face. Look
at the whole earth and the oceans, Rainer.
Look at all of me.
If you can, drop me a scribbled line
– Happy new writing, Rainer – and
I’ll climb a staircase bearing gifts to you
hoping to feel your hand on my head,
I’ll carry my New Year’s glass, without spilling
a tear-drop, over the Rhone and Rarogne
– your resting place – which marks our final parting.
Put this into the hands of Rainer – Maria – Rilke!
from THE RATCATCHER
from Chapter 1
Hamelin, the good-mannered
town of window-boxes,
well-stocked with
warehouses
Paradise Town!
How God must love
these sensible
townspeople. Every one
is righteous:
Goody-goody, always-right, always-provided-for,
stocked-up-in-time. It’s Paradise Town!
Here are no riddles.
All is smooth and peaceable.
Only good habits in
Paradise
Town.
In God’s sweet
backwater
(The Devil turns his
nose up here):
It’s goody-goody Paradise (owned by Schmidt and Mayers).
A town for an Emperor. Give way to your elders!
Everywhere is tranquil.
No fire. The whole place
must belong to Abel.
Isn’t that
Paradise?
Those who are not
too cold or too hot
travel straight to Hamelin
straight into Hamelin:
Lullaby and ermine-down, this is Paradise Town!
Everywhere is good advice and go-to-sleep on time Town!
First watch!
First watch!
With the world all contact’s lost!
Is the dog out? And the cat in?
Did you hear the early warning.
Take your servants out of harness
Shake your pipe – you’ve time for that –
but leave your workbench now because
‘Morgen ist auch ein tag’
Ten to ten!
Ten to ten.
Put your woolly earplugs in.
In the desk with all your schoolbooks
Set your clocks to ring at five.
Shopkeeper, leave your chalk,
Housewife, your mending.
Look to your feather bed:
‘Morgen ist auch ein tag’
Ten o’clock.
Ten o’clock
No more interruptions.
Keys turned? Bolts drawn?
That was the third call.
Cl-o-ose your Bible, Dad.
Housewife, put your bonnet on.
Hus-band, your nightcap.
‘Morgen ist…’
All asleep.
That’s the Hameliners!
from Chapter 2
Dreams
In all other cities,
in mine, for instance, (out of bounds)
husbands see mermaids, and
wives dream of Byrons.
Children see devils,
and servants see horsemen.
But what can these, Morpheus,
citizens so sinless
dream of at night – Say what?
They don’t need to think hard.
The husband sees – his wife!
The wife sees her husband!
The baby sees a teat.
And that beauty, fat of cheek,
sees a sock of her father’s
that she’s been darning.
The Cook tries the food out.
The ‘Ober’ gives his orders.
It’s all as it ought to be,
all as it ought to be.
As stitches go smoothly
along a knitting needle
Peter sees Paul (what else?).
And Paul sees Peter.
A grandfather dreams of
grandchildren.
Journalists – of some full-stop!
The maid – a kind master.
Commandments for Kaspar.
A sermon for the Pastor.
To sleep has its uses,
it isn’t really wasteful!
The sausage-maker dreams of
poods of fat sausages;
a judge of a pair of scales
(like the apothecary).
Teachers dream of canes.
A tailor of goods for sale.
And a dog of his bone?
Wrong! He sees his collar!
The Cook sees a plucked bird.
The laundress sees velveteen.
Just as it’s been laid down
in the prescription.
And what of the Bürgermeister?
Sleep is like waking
once you are Bürgermeister
what else can you dream about?
Except looking over
the citizens who serve you.
That’s what the Bürgermeister
sees: all his servants!
That’s how things have to be!
That’s how they are arranged!
That’s the prescription!
That’s the prescription!
(My tone may be playful – yes,
the old has some virtue)
So let us not use up
our rhymes over nothing.
As the Bürgermeister sleeps, let’s
slip into his room (Tsar
of Works and Constructions!)
How solidly the building stands…
It’s worth our attention.
from The Children’s Paradise
To live means – ageing,
turning grey relentlessly.
To live is – for those you hate!
Life has no eternal things.
In my kingdom: no butchers, no jails.
Only ice there! Only blue there!
Under the roof of shivering waters
pearls the size of walnuts
girls wear and boys hunt.
There’s – a bath – for everyone.
Pearls are a wondrous illness.
Fall asleep then. Sleep. And vanish.
Dry twigs are grey. Do you want
scarlet? – Try my coral branch!
In my kingdom: no mumps; no measles,
medieval history, serious matters,
no execution of Jan Hus. No discrimination.
No more need for childish terrors.
Only blue. And lovely summer.
Time – for all things – without measure.
Softly, softly, children. You’re
going to a quiet school – under the water.
Run with your rosy cheeks
into the eternal streams.
Someone: Chalk. Someone: Slime.
Someone calling: Got my feet wet.
Someone: Surge. Someone: Rumble.
Someone: Got a gulp of lake!
2
Diving boys and swimming girls
Look, the water’s on their fingers.
Pearls are scattered for them!
The water’s at their ankles,