Read Ashes for Breakfast Online
Authors: Durs Grünbein
the hot, dusty wind that eradicates,
and I care. And in the name of what happened there
one gives up the Vermeer (burned)
and the Bach (disappeared).
Was it worth it? That whole cities,
from which the death transports rolled
became wastelands on Lethe's banks.
The plowing is done with bombs here, and no farmer
is familiar. Dandelion
chews up the figures on the frieze.
What does the mole care about the damage he does?
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IX
Dresden, leftover city ⦠a death trap
for angels, left stranded here by the War
before they could fly back. Buried under sandstone
and basalt. Circus animals
were the last creatures they saw fleeing
into the fire. A horse that could count,
and Blake's tyger. None of them a monster,
compared to the smart boys, the pilots,
who went after man and beast on diving raids.
They did their stunts without a net or trapeze
above the arena. The charred
apostles on the roofs stand there in dismay.
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X
After no more than a second, it was as though
she'd been gone for hours.
â
PROUST,
SWANN'S WAY
City in the blizzard beyond your misted glassesâ
your first visit home, you lost them and didn't miss them.
You'd have to go to Christmas carols
to find silence as thick as that outside the station.
A pair of red ears and a pale face in the snow, and that was you.
At liberty, thanks to an army exeat.
The uniform restricted you to small jumps for joy.
But for a kangaroo you showed a lot of patience, out in the deep freeze.
No one was there to meet you. In your own city,
you were a stranger at last. The life behind net curtains,
the burlesque that carried on till the last one said, that's it, I've had itâ¦,
from your standing seat, it looked like a big panto.
Never again would you have prayed so fervently
for the beauty in the streetcar, used to orders, to flash
you a smile. Anyway, as you soon saw, family
life went on without the prodigalâwhat was he now?
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XI
Im Ernst,
Maxâno kidding nowâyou can dream
of a city like that till you're blue in the face.
You can watch the colors dissolve, without even crying.
Above the slashed brocade,
even the sky is infantile, and pouts.
But what's the use, they've stopped weaving tapestries
in the new waterproof marquees.
Only the old black and yellow favors continue to
poke through the material, as though nothing had happened.
If there's a zeppelin hanging aloft,
should the sight of the Elbe make you melancholy?
No one, in a hundred years, would go that far.
âºDu kannst ja nach Berlin fahren. Da bist du schon einmal gewesen.â¹
KIERKEGAARD, DIE WIEDERHOLUNG
Dezembermorgen. Im Taxi, an Friedhofsmauern vorüberfahrend,
Ãberrascht dich dein Neid. âº
Die
haben's geschafft.â¹
In den Augen, vom Licht aufgestemmt, reibt es wie nasser Sand.
Der Fahrer nestelt am Rosenkranz. Du siehst nur die Bahren
In den Schaufenstern, Trödel, hinter gelben Gardinen, gerafft.
Dann beginnst du zu zählen. Die Finger an jeder Hand
Reichen nicht aus â so viele Bestattungsfirmen gibt es entlang
Der Strecke von der Haustür zum Bahnhof. Schamlos ihr Werben,
Schwarz auf weiÃ, um die Toten von morgen, in harten Sätzen.
Alles ist rechtwinklig hier. Kreuze und Gitter brechen den Drang,
Als Samurai, ein Schwert in der Magengrube, zu sterben.
Die Bäcker haben den Brotteig verrührt. Die Metzger wetzen
Die Klingen vor Arbeitsbeginn. Obst glänzt in Stiegen, sortiert.
Das Taxameter, in Zwanzigerschritten, springt mit dem Geld um,
Das sich unendlich langsam verdient, mit elegischen Zeilen.
Fröstelnd das Hirn, exklusiv vom Zynismus der Zeit penetriert,
Reagiert mit Schläfrigkeit. Der Fahrgast erwidert stumm
Im Rückspiegel den Blick des Chauffeurs. Er muà sich beeilen,
Wenn er den Zug nicht verpassen will. Im Autoradio raunt
Eine sachliche Stimme die Weltnachrichten um sechs Uhr drei.
Irgendwo steigt jetzt ein Börsencoup, irgendwo platzt ein Scheck.
âºSchon mal vorausgedacht?â¹ pöbelt in Fettschrift ein
Sarg Discount.
Am StraÃenrand blitzt ein Leben auf, einzeln und â schon vorbei.
âºLange trauern hat keinen Zweck. Wir schaffen die Leiche weg.â¹
You can always go to Berlin. Remember, you've been there before.
KIERKEGAARD,
REPETITION
December morning. Driving past the cemetery walls in the taxi,
You feel a strange pang of envy. “
Their
worries are over.”
In your eyes, forced apart by light, you have a sensation as of wet sand.
The driver is fingering his worry-beads. You see nothing but biers
In the windows, junk, behind yellow drawn curtains.
And then you begin counting. The fingers of both hands
Are not enough for all the undertakers on the stretch
Between your front door and the station, all hustling shamelessly
For the dead of tomorrow. A cutthroat business, evidently.
Everything here is right angles. Crosses and latticework cure you
Of your yen to die as a samurai with a sword in your guts.
The bakers have kneaded their dough. Different fruit gleams in flats.
The butchers are whetting their blades before getting to work.
The taximeter skips ahead twenty cents at a timeâmoney it takes
Forever to earn if what you do for a living is turn hexameters.
A delicate shiver in your brain, the effect of so much cynicism
Taken on an empty stomach, first thing in the morning.
Silently you catch the eye of the driver in the rearview mirror.
He will have to step on it if you're not to miss your train.
6:03, a low voice gabbles financial news on the car radio.
A raiding party on some stock exchange, someone else's credit rating dives.
“Ever considered the future?” the bold print mugs you in
Coffins for all the Family.
On the pavement edge, a life flashes byâa blur and gone.
“What's the sense in
endless moping
. Just leave us to do the coping.”
Nicht nur das Zentrum, menschenleer am Sonntagvormittag,
Die Briefe, gestempelt mit dem Vermerk
Empfänger unbekannt,
Das Meeresrauschen im Telephonhörer, in die Stille das âºBitte?â¹
Die tausenden Autos, von den Besitzern verlassen am StraÃenrand,
Auch die Reklametafeln mit den Dichterplagiaten, die keiner liest,
In den Parks, grell beschmiert, die Monumente der Schulbuchidole,
Dies alles und manches, wovor man die Augen gern schlieÃt,
Nährt den Verdacht. So also sieht, aufgeschwollen zur Metropole,
Der Ort aus, an dem man den Gott einst begrub wie einen Hund.
Arkadien, Friedhof der Himmlischen, ihm gleicht jede Stadt,
Wo der Tod ein- und ausgeht, das Leben auf privatisiertem Grund.
Von wegen Idylle, Landschaft der Seligen, bukolisches Reservat.
Was immer Hirten besangen, wovon die Reisenden träumten â
Dies ist der Schauplatz.
City
und
gorod, metropolis
oder
ville.
Hier geht man, sein eigener Geist, unter stoischen Bäumen,
Ein gläserner Mensch, schlaflos, sich spiegelnd im Vielzuviel.
Den Takt geben Blicke, urbane Reflexe, nicht die Eklogen,
In denen Daphnis flirtete, Milon und Lakon einander beschützten.
Man spürt sein Skelett, Vertebrat im Vibrato der Brückenbogen,
Verliert das Gesicht, geblendet vom metallischen Glanz der Pfützen,
Und ist doch nirgends so heimisch. Erst hier, im gewohnten Exil,
Wo man nachs in sein Mauseloch kroch, gab es Krümel von Glück.
Wann sonst, wenn nicht im dichten Verkehr, unterwegs ohne Ziel,
War man je so vital, so dem faulen posthumen Frieden entrückt?
It's not just the city center, deserted on Sunday morning,
The letters, branded with the stamp
not known at this address,
The sea-surge in the phone, and the irked yell of “Pardon?”
The thousands of cars abandoned at the roadside by their owners;
It's also the advertising hoardings with the poetic borrowings that no one reads,
The defaced monuments to boyhood heroes in the parks,
All this and much more, from which you prefer to avert your gazeâ
Well, it gives you pause. This, then, swollen to metropolitan dimensions,
Is what it looks like, the place where they buried god like a dog.
Arcadia, celestial cemetery, a model for every city
Where death comes and goes, and life stutters on privatized astroturf.
Forget your idylls, your landscape of the blest, your bucolic reservations.
Whatever the shepherds sang, or travelers dreamedâ
This here's the place for you.
City
and
gorod, metropolis
or
ville.
Here you promenade your own soul, beneath stoical trees,
A glass man, insomniac, reflected in so much excess.
The tempo's set by glances, flashing eye-contacts, not eclogues
Of flirtatious Daphne, Milon and Lakon closer than a pair of brothers.
You can feel the buzz in your bones, your spine in the judder of the arcades,
Lose your face, dazzled from the metallic upgleam of the puddles,
But where else is home? It was only ever here, in this familiar exile
When you crept into your rathole at night, that you tasted a few crumbs of joy.
When else, if not in the human flock, maundering without purpose,
Did you feel so alive, so cut adrift from the moldering posthumous peace?
“PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG BORDER DOG (NOT COLLIE)”
“THE MISANTHROPE ON CAPRI”
“(OF INNER UNREST)”
“BERLIN ROUNDS”
“IN FRONT OF AN OLD X-RAY”
“VITA BREVIS”
“EUROPE AFTER THE LAST RAINS”
“BERLIN POSTHUMOUS”