Volker Braun
An Account of Despair
When she entered
And set down her empty bags on my tabletops
I felt caught out in my
Missed deeds.
The evening news dripped bloodily from the screen
And the bed stood encircled
Aside in the uninhabited zone.
She approached and embraced me
At once as though she could not be wrong
And fastened shut the door
With a black twine that had no end
And took the pictures from the wall, but there was worse:
She took the pictures out of the windows
And stopped dead in their tracks
My other friends
With her voice on the breeze
Of birds torn all to pieces.
I saw there was no arguing with this woman
She is right
Like a ruling
ONCE AND FOR ALL
I saw all the things she held in her hands
And rose quietly like a planet that does not belong
And vanishes from the screen.
Unfinished
And set down her empty bags on my tabletops
I felt caught out in my
Missed deeds.
The evening news dripped bloodily from the screen
And the bed stood encircled
Aside in the uninhabited zone.
She approached and embraced me
At once as though she could not be wrong
And fastened shut the door
With a black twine that had no end
And took the pictures from the wall, but there was worse:
She took the pictures out of the windows
And stopped dead in their tracks
My other friends
With her voice on the breeze
Of birds torn all to pieces.
I saw there was no arguing with this woman
She is right
Like a ruling
ONCE AND FOR ALL
I saw all the things she held in her hands
And rose quietly like a planet that does not belong
And vanishes from the screen.
Unfinished
Translated by David Constantine
Page(s) 69-70
magazine list
- Features
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- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
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- Atlas
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- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
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- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The