AUDIO OF THE DAY: Danie Maraiss Sunday, Late Barcelona (trans. Richard Jürgens) bit.ly/1uhvuCR SUNDAY LATE, BARCELONA Rambla de Catalunya at a festive little table with a red tablecloth; late everywhere full, everywhere the sound of Spanish – Spanish with people in it, full of far away, cold beer and tapas that smells so tasty that everything must taste of another life after this, but you say would I please “bitte keine Witze machen” because you’re going to cry, you eyes are already swimming. You don’t know what’s suddenly gone so wrong, probably hormones, but the whole day you’ve been seeing yourself getting fatter in these shining shop windows if every woman gets old like you in this beautiful city and your hair failing out and your bright suit on and I’m not to tell you that I think you’re beautiful because how would I know because look I just don’t really look for you in a crowded room anymore. The problem’s with me, you see? I’m always somewhere else, I always act as if all vanity is nonsense. And I also think that everything is made of rotting ruins, but I shouldn’t think that I’m helping you because anyway other men are “überhaupt nicht” totally unlike me and you also want to be beautiful for other men, so that they have to look at you, so that you can feel good with me and I say but they do look at you, they do look I swear, but you’re not convinced because you swallow your sorrow so absolutely, so irrationally, you look so abandoned by me and it makes me want to become irrationally angry, out of powerlessness, but I just take a serious sip of beer, try to look sympathetic, try to take your hand, but you pull away and we just sit there until you can’t do it anymore and say that we should ‘bitte’ go to the hotel and bed you feel nauseous with misery you have a stone in your stomach, “einen Stein im Bauch”, you’re sorry you don’t know, maybe nothing, “es geht schon wieder” but now you’re really crying and I I sit and look at you jut sit and look at you. © Translation: 2007, Richard Jürgens Publisher: Poetry International Festival, Rotterdam, 2007
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 08:00:16 +0000
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