by Tom Kuhn
Said Jakob Apfelböck: I don’t know why.
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The milkwoman, however, said next day
Who knows in the near or distant future maybe
The child, Jakob Apfelböck, might he not pay
His poor parents a visit in the cemetery?
The infanticide Marie Farrar
1
Marie Farrar, born in the month of April
Rachitic, minor, distinguishing features: none
Not known, till now, to have done any evil
Asserts she murdered a child in this fashion:
She says in her second month she went to see
A woman in a basement flat who tried
With two injections, allegedly painful,
Aborting it but it stayed put, inside.
But you, I beg of you, contain your wrath for all
God’s creatures need the help of all.
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But still, she says, she paid up there and then
As was agreed, and after that laced tight
Drank spirits too with ground-up pepper in
But they went through her, nothing else came out
She says her belly swelled so that it showed
And often hurt a lot, washing the dishes
Back then she hadn’t done growing herself, she says
She prayed to Mary, put much hope in this.
You also, I beg you, contain your wrath for all
God’s creatures need the help of all.
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But, so it seems, her praying profited
Her nothing. It was a lot to ask. When she got fatter
At early mass she felt she was going to faint. She sweated
Often, and in fear, often at the altar
But still managed to keep her condition secret
Until the birth befell her. Doubtless no one
Could have imagined her, so unattractive,
Ever being led into temptation.
And you, I beg of you, contain your wrath for all
God’s creatures need the help of all.
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That day, she says, very early on, while she
Was doing the stairs, it was as though
Nails were clawing in her belly. It shook her. But she
Still hid the pain so nobody would know
And all day long, pegging the washing out
She thought and thought till it came into her head
She must be giving birth and around the heart
At once was very heavy. She went up late to bed.
But you, I beg of you, contain your wrath for all
God’s creatures need the help of all.
5
They fetched her down again from where she lay:
Snow had fallen which they made her clear.
That lasted till eleven. A long day.
Only in the night was she left free to bear
The child of hers, which was, she says, a son.
This son was much like other sons but she
Was not like other women although
No grounds for scorning her are known to me.
You also, I beg you, contain your wrath for all
God’s creatures need the help of all.
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Accordingly I’ll go on with the tale
Of what became of this said son and her
(None of it, she says, did she wish to conceal)
So we shall know what I’m like and you are.
Only just in bed again, she says, she felt
Most terribly sick and being all alone
Not knowing what would happen, she hardly
Could keep herself from screaming with the pain.
And you, I beg of you, contain your wrath for all
God’s creatures need the help of all.
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With what strength she had left, she says, she then
Since even in her bedroom it was ice-cold
Dragged herself to the privy and there (but when
She can’t tell now) she bore the child
Without more ado, towards morning. She was
She says quite at a loss by then and barely
Able to hold him, being half stiff with cold
Because the snow blows in the servants’ privy.
You also, I beg you, contain your wrath for all
God’s creatures need the help of all.
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Between the toilet and her bedroom (before that
She says, there was nothing) the child began
Crying and this annoyed her so badly she hit
With both her fists at it at again and again
Blindly, she says, till it was quiet
But thereupon took this dead thing just the same
Into bed with her for the rest of the night
And hid it in the wash house when the morning came.
But you, I beg of you, contain your wrath for all
God’s creatures need the help of all.
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Marie Farrar, born in the month of April
Died in the prison house in Meissen
Child single mother, sentenced criminal
Shows you the frailties of all creation.
You who give birth in clean beds properly
And call your pregnant bellies blessed
Do not condemn the weak in their depravity
Whose sins are heavy but their suffering vast.
Therefore, I beg of you, contain your wrath for all
God’s creatures need the help of all.
The ship
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Drifting through the clear waters of many seas
Loosing myself from goal and heaviness
I swung away with the sharks under a red moon
Timbers rotting, sails threadbare
The ropes have perished that tugged me to the shore
Further off and also whiter is my skyline.
2
Since it whitened, since the distant skies
Let me go into these seas
I feel deep in me that I shall pass.
Knowing I need not resist
Knowing in these seas I shall be lost
I gave myself to the waters without bitterness.
3
And the waters came and they washed numerous
Creatures into me and there as strangers
Creature with creature lodged in amity.
Sometimes sky fell through the rotten deck
Acquaintances were made in every crack
And the sharks had house and home in me.
4
Into my timbers in the fourth moon
Seaweed drifted, the joists blossomed green:
Again my face became another while
Green and wafting in the guts slowly
I voyaged on, not suffering much, heavy
With moon and vegetation, shark and whale.
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To gulls and weed I was a place of rest
Not rescue, guiltless nevertheless.
Heavy and full I’ll be when I go down.
Now in the eighth month oftener
Waters trickle into me. My face is paler
And I ask that it will finish soon.
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Foreign fishers testified they saw
Something nearing, nearing in a blur
An island, was it? Floating ruins?
Shimmering with gull-shit, something slid
Full of seaweed, water, moon, the dead
Mute and fat towards the ghastly heavens.
Song of the Red Army soldier
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Because our land is eaten up
And scant sun in its skies
It spat us out on the dark streets
And down the roads, to freeze.
2
In spring the army washed with snow
They are the red summer’s progeny.
Snow fell on them in October
Their hearts froze
in the winds of January.
3
In those years the word “freedom” fell
From mouths in which the ice cracked
And many were seen with tiger fangs
Following the red, the inhuman flag.
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Often with the horses, evenings
In the fields of oats where the red moon swam
They spoke together of the times to come
And slept, for the long march wearied them.
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Sleep in the rain and the dark wind
Was sweet to us on hard stone.
Of dirt and many sins the rain
Washed our dirty vision clean.
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Often at nights the heavens were red
They thought it the morning breaking red.
Then fire. And the red dawn also came
But freedom, children, never did.
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And therefore wherever it was they were
This is hell, they said. Time passed.
And this hell might be the latest hell
But never was it the very last.
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Very many hells came after that
But never, children, did freedom come.
Time passes. But if heaven came now
That heaven would not be for them.
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And when our bodies are eaten up
And it’s little heat our hearts still yield
The army will spit our skin and bones
Into shallow holes where it is cold.
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And with our bodies, hardened by rain
And with our hearts, devoured by ice
And with our bloodstained empty hands
Grinning we’ll enter your paradise.
Liturgy of breath
1
Came once upon a time an old woman
2
The bread she had to eat was all gone
3
That bread had been eaten by the military
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She fell down in the gutter, it was chilly
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And then she wasn’t hungry anymore.
6
And the birds in the trees kept shtumm
Over all the treetops it is peaceful
In all the mountaintops you feel
Scarcely a breath.
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Then along came a death-doctor
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The old dear wants her certificate, he said
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And they buried the hungry old woman
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Who said nothing more, being dead
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But the doctor, how he laughed at her.
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But the birds in the trees kept shtumm
Over all the treetops it is peaceful
In all the mountaintops you feel
Scarcely a breath.
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Then a man came along, just one
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He had no sense of order, this man
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It seemed to him that things weren’t as they should be
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He was a sort of friend of the old woman
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He said, A person has to eat, excuse me—
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And the birds in the trees kept shtumm
Over all the treetops it is peaceful
In all the mountaintops you feel
Scarcely a breath.
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All at once came along an officer
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And he carried a rubber truncheon
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And he bashed the man’s back of the head in
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So this man said nothing more either
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But the officer said in a very loud voice:
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Now the birds in the trees will hold their peace
Over all the treetops will be still
In all the mountaintops you will
Feel scarcely a breath.
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And then along came three bearded men
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And they said it wasn’t just one man’s affair.
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And they said this until there were gunshots
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After which they were food for maggots
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And the bearded men said nothing more
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And the birds in the trees kept shtumm
Over all the treetops it is peaceful
In all the mountaintops you feel
Scarcely a breath.
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And all at once many red men came along
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With the military they sought a conversation
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But the military talked with a machine gun
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And the red men said nothing anymore.
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But every man’s brow still had a frown on.
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And the birds in the trees kept shtumm
Over all the treetops it is peaceful
In all the mountaintops you feel
Scarcely a breath.
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Then along came a big red bear
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He knew nothing of the customs here, he came from overseas
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And he ate the birds in the trees
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Then no longer did the birds in the trees keep shtumm
Over all the treetops it is unquiet now
In all the mountaintops you do
Now feel a breath.
Prototype of a bad man
1
Bruised with frost and blue as slate
He, before the charnel house
Slept, and cold laughter fell out
Through the teeth of his black mouth.
Oh he gobbed it forth like spit
At the tabernacle between
Fish-heads, cat-cadavers: while yet
Lingered a cold sunshine.
2
But
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Where will darkness falling find him
Drenched with his mother’s tears, this man
Who slaughtered the widow’s lamb
And swigged the milk of the poor orphan?
Will he, veal in his intestines
Approach the Good Shepherd? Will he
Hung with the little scalps of virgins
Approach Our Lady, sweet Mary?
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When he combs his seaweed-vile
Hair with fingers over his eyes
Does he think his lewd and senile
Battered mug no longer shows?
Poor and naked, lets his dirty
Jaws tremble, is it for cold?
Must God warm him up with mercy?
Or does terror have him hold?
5
Dying he for the last time shat
On his deathbed, quick. However
Over there will he still know what
Things he gobbled over here?
Coldly life allowed him only
Stuff on which the reptiles feed.
Will they tell him there, Say nicely
Thank you very much indeed?
Herewith now therefore I pray for mercy
On the swine and on the troughs their snouts are in!
Aid my prayers that even these poor wretches may be
Allowed to enter into heaven.
Morning address to the tree, Green
1
Last night I was grievously unfair to you;
I couldn’t sleep, the wind was so loud.
When I looked out I remarked that you were swaying
Like a drunken ape. I felt ashamed for you, Green.
2
Let me simply admit I was wrong:
You have fought the hardest fight of your life.
Vultures took an interest in you.
Now you know what you are worth, Green.
>
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This morning the yellow sun is glistening on your naked branches
But you are still shaking off tears, Green?
You live rather alone, Green?
Indeed, we are not ones for the crowd . . .
4
I slept well after I had seen you.
But you must be tired now? Forgive my foolish words.
Surely it was no small thing to rise up so high between the houses
So high, Green, that the storm could reach you as it did last night?
On François Villon
1
François Villon was a poor man’s son
The cool föhn rocked him in his cradle
Of his youth in the wind and the snow not one
Thing but the sky above it was beautiful.
François Villon whom no bed ever cabined
Found early and easily that he liked cool wind.
2
Bleeding feet and bitings in the nethers
Taught him that rocks are not so sharp as stones.
Early he learned to chuck stones at the others.
They took the pains for him, he took the gains.
And living as his means allowed him to
He found early and easily he liked such making do.
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