Winfried Sebald - Across the Land and the Water - Selected Poems, 1964-2001

I lie sleepless
in a stone-built
house. The last
revelers have
abandoned the streets
and, save for
the Regnitz rushing
over the weir
there is hush.
Whirlpools drag me
under the water
and I roll along
the bed of the river
with the stones
a gasping fish
I return to the
surface, my eyes
wide with fear.
The passage of dreams
is haunted by ghosts
the Little Hunchback
for example standing
by the sluice hut
on the Ludwig Canal. He
wears glasses
with uncannily
thick lenses and
a blue baseball
cap
with the logo
MARTINIQUE
back to front
on his head.
Empress Kunigunde
has been waiting
for ever
at the foot
of the Katzenberg
and on the bridge over
to the old Town Hall
of which an oleograph
always hung
in our sitting-room
the dog Berganza
crosses my path
for the third time.
A little way
further upstream
up at the Hain
Park Schorsch
and Rosa are taking
a stroll one August
afternoon in ’43
she in a light
dust-cloak he
with his traditional jacket
slung over his
shoulder. They
both seem happy
to me, carefree
at least and a good
deal younger than
I am now.
Thus, thinks
Kara Ben Nemsi
son of the German,
floweth time
a ruby red
cipher leaping
from digit to digit
trickling
in silence
from the dark
of night
to the gray
of dawn
just as sand
once ran
through
the hour
glass.
Mai 1996

Mai 1997

I can see him now
striding through the suite
of three south-westerly
facing rooms in his
cinnamon-colored
coat pondering
diverse matters
for example his long —
harbored plan
for a treatise on clouds
& yet somewhat
troubled too
& testy on account of
his passion for Ulrike
who is the reason
for his third visit
to this up-&-coming
resort. He looks
out at the little
rotund trees
evenly spaced around
the square in front of
the Kebelsberg Palais,
sees a gardener
pushing a barrow
uphill, a pair of blackbirds
on the lawn. He has slept
badly in the narrow
bed & felt like some
beetle or other strange
creature till outside
dawn spread
its wings & he could
rise & continue
his work. True, he’d
give anything now to
rest again but any
minute now they would
call him to table.
Perhaps they’ll serve
a pike, then escalope
& to finish a compote
of wild berries.
Bohemians know a thing
or two about cooking:
the sweet dumplings with
his morning coffee were a joy
& his dearest beloved seemed
so gentle again, of such
delicate humor &
fondness for himself he
all but died of
loving hope & felt his
heart throb in his throat.
Thus the days pass.
He gazes into
her eyes & twists
his finely embroidered
napkin wallet
once to the left
once to the right.
When his request for
her daughter’s hand
is met with reluctance
by her mother & after
the last cruelly sweet
kiss he departs
in a sombre mood
through the mountains &
still in his coach composes
the famous elegy
of twenty-three stanzas
which in the manner
of his own telling
is said to have leapt from
a tempest of feeling
the ripest creation
of his old age.
As for me however
I have never really
liked this gorgeous
braid of interwoven desires
which the poet upon
arriving home
had transcribed in his
most elegant hand
& personally bound
in a cover of red
morocco tied
around with a ribbon
of silk. I saw its
facsimile in the Marienbad
Museum this morning
along with several other
objects which meant
much more to me
& among which was
a wick trimmer
& a set of sealing
waxes, a little
papier-mâché tray
& an ink drawing
on pasteboard by Ulrike
showing in somewhat uncertain
perspective the North —
Bohemian village of
Trebívlice where she lived
as a spinster until her
death. Further
a China-yellow
tulip-poplar leaf
from her herbarium
inscribed in black ink
across its thin veins
then the sad remains
of black lace to which
Czech gives the lovely
name krajky , a kind of
choker or cravat &
two wristlets not
unlike muffetees &
so narrow that her wrist
cannot have been
much stronger than
a small child’s. Then
there is a steel engraving
showing Fräulein
Levetzow in her declining
years. By now her
former suitor has
long lain under the soil
& here she stands
in a gray taffeta
dress next to a book
table, with an abominable
bonnet-ful of
corkscrew curls &
a ghostly-white face.
Marienbad, 14. viii. 99

At the edge
of its vision
the dog still sees
everything as it was
in the beginning

towards the East
the corn
blindingly white
like a firn-field
at home

on that
January morning
the towers
of Frankfurt
soared
into the ice-cold
air

behind Türkenfeld
a spruce nursery
a pond in the
moor on which
the March ice
is slowly melting

small hours
of Sunday 16th
January last
year in the hideously
rustic Hotel
Columbus in Bremer
haven I was set
upon with whoops
& squawks by the four
Town Musicians. The
terror still in my
limbs I sat on
the dot of eight
alone but for my
morning coffee &
jaundiced by the light
coming in through
the bull’s-eye panes
of the guest house.
Past the window
on the wet cobbles
outside filed the
shadows of emigrants
with their bundles & packages
people from Kaunas
& Bromberg from the
Hunsrück & Upper
Palatinate. Over the
loudspeaker came the soft
strains of that same
old accordion the
same old singer’s
voice quavering
with emotion forgotten
poesy of our people
the home star &
the sailor’s heart. Later
from the train the Powder
Tower from Nibelung
days the coffee
silos block-hoards of
brown gold on the
horizon a satellite
town before it a colony
of allotments once
maybe known as Roseneck
Samoa or Boer’s
Land. And over
the North German
plains motionless for
weeks now these
low blue-black
clouds the Weser
flooding its banks
& somewhere around
Osnabrück or Oldenburg
on a patch of grass
in front of a farm
a lone goose
slowly twisting its
neck to follow
the Intercity
careering past.

Hotel Schweizer
hof, in Hinüber
Straße Hannover
a table-top
composed like a jig —
saw of various
exotic & home —
grown timbers
finished with a cover
of marbled faux
leather. On the walls
greenish dotted
textured paper &
a picture composition
by Karsten Krebs with
Sogni di Venezia
beneath it in silver
script. The carpet
is spotted with midnight
blue the velvet
curtain is claret the
sofa ultra
marine the bedspread
calyx motif
turquoise with a
dizzying arabesque
in lilac & violet
on the bedside rugs.
Through the gray
net curtain the
view of an ugly
tower block the
TV-tower
the coal-black
Sparkasse-building
its top story
with the S-logo
& saver’s penny.
Nothing happens
all day until
towards evening
stretched across
the entire re
inforced glass
window a ragged
flight of crows
makes wing
to its roost.