I have, for a month now, been a member of the Hogs amateur theatrical society. I play an angel. It’s not a speaking part, or hardly, but they assure me the role is crucial: I am the angel (fire) who refuses to kneel before Adam (earth). I wear black tights that have been sewn onto a black top to which two black wings have been attached, made of a non-specified fabric—doesn’t matter what. When I was standing in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom trying the costume on for size, overenthusiastically as it turned out, one of the wings broke off.
This morning I picked it up, the mended angel costume (from a tailor’s on Eulenspiegel Street, between the Nefertiti Snack Bar and the Shoe Giant). The invisible bell tinkled and a headscarf-wearing girl slid shyly out of the back room.
Good . . . after . . . morning? Afternoon? I said, curious to hear her voice.
She nodded at a clock high on the wall behind me.
Morning, she said, with a hint of mischief in her voice.
I handed her the ticket. We looked at each other, one second. She smiled, I—we clicked! Unafraid of our eyes. Bodies. Triumph!
I saw the angel suit on a rack next to the doorway that led to the back room; the door had been removed, replaced with a curtain of orange plastic beads. I pointed, she was about to slide over to it—the overwhelming urge to accompany her, arm-in-arm!—when the tailor loomed in the doorway, an apparition draped with strings of orange beads.
Like an idol. A strange idol. I saw him taking me in. Appraising me with a mixture of contempt and disappointment. Panic! I gradually began to panic.
The girl took the angel suit off the hanger, came back and laid it out on the counter. With eyes averted! Confidently, as if it was something she did often, she folded the costume up, wings on the inside like sleeves, and slid it into a large plastic bag. Time to make my escape! I snatched the bag, ready to flee—but it was too late. The idol was already behind me. He laid a hand on my shoulder and gestured at a sign high above the girl and then I saw it, white with a red border, the sign: Flirting with my daughter strictly prohibited.
Graduation Project
She’s not really in the mood tonight,
my Jewish fiancée,
abruptly turning her back,
flicking on the light.
In the bright patch around the mattress,
half buried under the clothes we kicked off:
Primo Levi’s short stories,
Schwarz’s Imagining the Holocaust,
Celan’s poems.
Of course, you can’t both be in the mood all the time.
And what’s more, the focus of our love
has always been our love of the conceptual,
of playing God the Clockmaker.
—The truth comes out:
it’s not going well
with her graduation project,
my fiancée is stuck.
I calm her down,
telling her about a poem I’ve written,
“Revelations, Anecdotes,” and that maybe by combining
the unsayable with the banal—the irreconcilable—
in a flurry I pick up the Celan,
look up “Death Fugue,” my eyes
boring into the final lines
your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Shulamith
Golden, ashen, golden,
ashen—wigs, why not do something with that?
She’s silent. Thoughtful. And in this silence
I bend my mouth towards hers
but off she shoots, as if remembering something,
a bright idea, off to her studio
without a word.
In the dead of night
the truth comes out.
I switch off the light, wounded, cut to the quick.
I can kiss her body goodbye!
Apart We Separate Darkness and Light
*
you’re talking a man my fingertips soft
on your temples I spread my fingers though
that’s not necessary cradling your skull
a man fleeing death hid in vain
in the stomach of a dead horse
thinking death has already been here
*
this is no song I am your secretary
translating facts watching over your interests
saying the purpose of facelessness is equality
you are a number in a system like everyone else
nobody gets to be holy nobody
that’s why we have it so good here
*
there is no escaping
death not even in the stomach
of a dead horse
*
your heart checked again your blood inspected
bowels scanned your pain a conundrum
but we are a team together we drive the doctors
to despair
*
having fled hunger and humiliation
selected on brawn and by dental inspection
but no talent for old age
like the rest of your generation and no
historian to ask about your histories
an almost extinct pack of anonymous
illiterate adventurers
*
when your wrath flares your grandchildren giggle
*
willing slave laborers stacked
bricks kept furnaces burning
swept ballrooms clean
*
and no escaping death
not even in the stomach of a dead horse
*
declaring women daughters holy but gagging them
not wrestling with the god but kneeling out of habit
betting secretly on wealth like the merchants
your prophet prophesied against you brought forth
hordes of uprooted hedonists forgive me I am just
your barber cradling your skull with my hand your ashen hair
I am your secretary saying this as your secretary it is nothing
*
there are men
men of fire they beget
sons of fire and there are men
who beget only ash
I begot a son of ash
and I sneered between my teeth
your god forgot a virtue
having a hobby
*
your terrifying father
died when you were a child
and your mother died when you were a child
and your brothers
children of a different mother
hated you they are no longer alive
except for a madman in the burning sun the whole day long
a spade on one shoulder
what kind of god does not command
you to put your wounds into words
to see the other
*
the greed with which you save
that maniacal frugality three pairs of pants
a pair of shoes per decade what are you
scared of what are you exorcising tell me see me
*
I am your secretary forgive me I say this as your secretary
we are a team I cut your hair I cut your toenails
together we drive doctors to despair your skull
in my hand your ashen hair I say this
as your secretary it is nothing
*
the way you look in photos
why do I cry when I see you like that
unapproachable
frozen
*
and no escaping death not even
in the stomach of a dead horse but
what kind of god
would begrudge you a hobby
*
the coldness she comes up against in me my current lover
the kernel of emptiness I talk and talk around
she blames on your absence the emptiness I am
just saying for your information saying
it as your secretary
*
we are a team driving
doctors to despair a team
but in my hellish dreams
you turn away from me
have turned away from me
*
apart
we separate darkness
and light
apart
darkness and light
*
and forgive me because I am innocent
and I forgive you because you are innocent
I’m just saying it is nothing
*
you turn away from me
in my hellish dreams
we are a team but
apart we separate
darkness and light
apart darkness
and light
*
a man wanting to flee the land of the mortals
hid in the stomach of a dead horse
thinking death has already been here
both man and fable amuse you
you say you are going back because dying is more practical there
being buried too and I am not fond of lamentations either
I cut your hair I cut your toenails I am your secretary
Affirmations
I can give up smoking and even if I can’t
I love myself I am not fat not small not round
I have a soft dick plenty of love in my pigeon chest
no longer do I fear your wrath father I do not fear
your wrath any longer Father your wrath is naturally cloudy
what is hidden is not what is hidden Father
it is the dazzle on animals people things
so why kneel to pray
when I myself am the prayer?
I can give up smoking and even if I can’t
I love myself I am not fat not small not round
I have a soft dick plenty of love in my pigeon chest
Nietzsche mourned what he destroyed and lost his mind
Darwin became a machine in his old age I have
a soft dick plenty of love in my pigeon chest I can
give up smoking and even if I can’t
I love myself I am not fat not small not round
goodbye false teachers of the past I will grow a belly
on which tomorrow I will tattoo First Corinthians thirteen
excellence of love verses four five six and seven
I can give up smoking and even if I can’t
I love myself I am not fat not small not round
I have a soft dick plenty of love in my pigeon chest
I cannot fall from the world my strange
mother will always pick me up
when I look in my Jewish fiancée’s eyes
butterflies flutter in and out of my mouth
I can give up smoking and even if I can’t
I love myself I am not fat not small not round
I can give up smoking it is no fiasco
as cheerless as Libyan state television
it is no fiasco I am a biological fact
but I can masturbate
masturbate from nostalgia and I draw
like I drew seven winters old
I can give up smoking and even if I can’t
I love myself I am not fat not small not round
one day I will snatch away yes I will
the scarf from my strange
mother’s head
she always picks me up
I can give up smoking and even if I can’t
I love myself I am not fat not small not round
it is no fiasco that I am finite body
this afternoon in the tram I saw
a child
with the face of a Roman emperor
goodbye false teachers of the past it is no fiasco
I have a soft dick plenty of love in my pigeon chest
plenty
of love
I can give up smoking and even if I can’t
I love myself I am fat
I am small
I am round
