from études

Friederike Mayröcker



                                                                                   »almost whiled out the whole
                                                                                   day in the garden with BUBI
                                                                                   and find flower and  
                                                                                   blindworm ceremoniously,   
                                                                                   in thicket or thistle
                                                                                   shrubbery . . . «

and all of them ask, what are you reading at the moment etc., while the skullets = beaklets, on the floormat. Pill potpourri of the night, etc., aussi the disblossomed deepblue Hyacinths in the glass . . . . . . back then '54 in Salzburg as I set out for London, 1 heavy spring, we found a hotelroom where we could say goodbye : my memories paled, etc., don't remind me what happened there . . . . . . I didn't want to, you know, to travel, I didn't want to be away from you, but I didn't cry about that, when will I be like 1 swallow. Rolled up the dirtylaundry on the piano, ach wandered about while the leafy corridors : this abandonment of my eyes, all is mere bricolage

11.1.11





                                                                                   Kiki's lips by Man Ray

The sprigs, the rougiating, 1 alluring red in the glass, 1 alluring red in the glass in the meadow on the sideboard, itself exfoliating first in the hair then on the belt then on the black braided pouch which I slung around my neck

March 2011







the throat of the PRIMAVERA the stems of the Snowdrops, should we loosen the twine around the neck of the bunched Snowdrops

so the nodding bundledtogether flowers in the glass in this sparkling early hour as if the deathbell = GLAS (fr.) as if strangulating, these sparkling sprinkling heralds of the early spring, etc., there where short grass sprouts graze in floods of tears, the dawn 1 rosy veil over the rock flank/face of . . . . . .

March 2011







ach the wafting meadow saffron in the valley, as they in grey coat leave the township, strolling, at the fields the wild appletrees, ach with Mother back then and talking little, passed by the garden where with blue apron and garden shears. Resedas, and sub-jected, I say, the winking woman etc., what conversations with Mother, tiresome walks the weather lukewarm the eyes of
          the
meadow saffrons, the wafting of the meadow saffrons in the wind the
          exercises
»études« . . . . . . 1 pair of flowers from Kurtág on the way back, the exercises of the season »études«, namely 1 mountain called Piano, etc.

for Marcell Feldberg
March 2011







Earlyspring's Aquilegia = gloves of our lady
2 white pebbles and brushwood in the flower pot 1 bushel of moss white Forgetmenot eye you my blood corpuscle I say this little Silver tree of tinfoil on the floor with wild scruff or skull cut stem or neck accordingly with knifelet, carries yellow string at the rootstock, glints like sun—on your pansy I bedded myself on your coat : how it MOUTHS, I say, when your branches tend themselves toward me steaming hands : gloves in the corridor like Mimmo Paladino drew them (fleeing slopes) this rose astonishment like bugle buried into the pillow burrowed into the down pillow rose astonishment pigtail bow silkenhair I say tender child fine lambkin Michi M.

14.3.11







the blushing flower : my sibling tongue in the morning I awake green lances of sky Lenz's stalks of grass : ghostling »greenripped with red« = Bernadette H., with the sickle of the moon in my hand through the gardens fantasy, how it mouths, in your quiet searching words while the rain tears at the window, this ensemble light in the eyes, today 5 in the morning composed in the floodplains of the southwind or streamer goldrain, enchants me . . . . . . (the spare notebook etc.)

16.3.11







Radius, tiniest of beautiful language, blushing flower up to the neck, drops Snowdrops in the cup in the glass namely the headling almost suffocating namely in the glass in the cup TEEMING handed over by friend's hand radius with red thread bow (history) of by friend's hand TEEMING in the glass in the cup that the tears namely Johann Sebastian Bach's Invention No. 6 in E-Major through the airs. 1 dark open wing grand piano, hornbeam's bark at the edge of the alleyway, he says, the blushing flower he says, roughly TEEMING Snowdrops, roughly head to head, with whispering headling roughly and how they touch each other namely TEEMING : flattening hairstyles, with white hands body to body, he says, threadlet to threadlet in the cup in the glass ie musicbooklet with rosy sleeve isn't it : tearflood or so, the tears the teeth namely farrowling . . . . . . Judasthinker and -shutter musicbooklet fiery rain, the green lances of the skyshore, skysprigs of Lenz's etc.
Blown out Föhnlet, how it mouths

17.3.11


translated from the German by J. D. Larson