Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Translator's Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Neue Gedichte / New Poems
- Part II Der neuen Gedichte anderer Teil / The New Poems: The Other Part
- Archaic Torso of Apollo
- Cretan Artemis
- Leda
- Dolphins
- The Island of the Sirens
- Lament for Antinoüs
- The Death of the Beloved
- Lament for Jonathan
- The Consoling of Elijah
- Saul amongst the Prophets
- Samuel Appears before Saul
- A Prophet
- Jeremiah
- A Sibyl
- Absalom's Defection
- Esther
- The Leprous King
- The Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead Men
- The King of Münster
- Death-Dance / Danse Macabre
- The Last Judgment
- The Temptation
- The Alchemist
- The Reliquary
- Gold
- The Stylite
- The Egyptian Mary
- Crucifixion
- The Resurrected One
- Magnificat
- Adam
- Eve
- Madmen in the Garden
- The Lunatics
- From the Life of a Saints
- The Beggars
- Foreign Family
- Corpse-Washing
- One of the Old Ones
- The Blind Man
- A Faded One
- Communions
- The Site of the Fire
- The Group
- Snake-Charming
- Black Cat
- Before Easter
- The Balcony
- Emigrant Ship
- Landscape
- Roman Campagna
- Song of the Sea
- Night Drive
- Parrot Park
- The Parks
- Portrait
- Venetian Morning
- Late Autumn in Venice
- San Marco
- A Doge
- The Lute
- The Adventurer
- Falconry
- Corrida
- Don Juan's Childhood
- Don Juan's Election
- St. George
- Lady on a Balcony
- Encounter in the Chestnut Allée
- The Sisters
- Piano Practice
- Woman in Love
- The Rose Interior
- A Portrait of a Lady of the Eighteen-Eighties
- Lady before the Mirror
- The Old Woman
- The Bed
- The Stranger
- The Arrival
- Sundial
- Opium Poppy
- The Flamingos
- Persian Heliotrope
- Lullaby
- The Pavilion
- The Abduction
- Pink Hydrangea
- The Coat of Arms
- The Bachelor
- The Solitary
- The Reader
- The Apple Orchard
- Mohammed's Summoning
- The Mountain
- The Ball
- The Child
- The Dog
- The Scarab
- Buddha in Glory
- Index of Titles and First Lines in German
- Index of Titles and First Lines in English
Corpse-Washing
from Part II - Der neuen Gedichte anderer Teil / The New Poems: The Other Part
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Translator's Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Neue Gedichte / New Poems
- Part II Der neuen Gedichte anderer Teil / The New Poems: The Other Part
- Archaic Torso of Apollo
- Cretan Artemis
- Leda
- Dolphins
- The Island of the Sirens
- Lament for Antinoüs
- The Death of the Beloved
- Lament for Jonathan
- The Consoling of Elijah
- Saul amongst the Prophets
- Samuel Appears before Saul
- A Prophet
- Jeremiah
- A Sibyl
- Absalom's Defection
- Esther
- The Leprous King
- The Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead Men
- The King of Münster
- Death-Dance / Danse Macabre
- The Last Judgment
- The Temptation
- The Alchemist
- The Reliquary
- Gold
- The Stylite
- The Egyptian Mary
- Crucifixion
- The Resurrected One
- Magnificat
- Adam
- Eve
- Madmen in the Garden
- The Lunatics
- From the Life of a Saints
- The Beggars
- Foreign Family
- Corpse-Washing
- One of the Old Ones
- The Blind Man
- A Faded One
- Communions
- The Site of the Fire
- The Group
- Snake-Charming
- Black Cat
- Before Easter
- The Balcony
- Emigrant Ship
- Landscape
- Roman Campagna
- Song of the Sea
- Night Drive
- Parrot Park
- The Parks
- Portrait
- Venetian Morning
- Late Autumn in Venice
- San Marco
- A Doge
- The Lute
- The Adventurer
- Falconry
- Corrida
- Don Juan's Childhood
- Don Juan's Election
- St. George
- Lady on a Balcony
- Encounter in the Chestnut Allée
- The Sisters
- Piano Practice
- Woman in Love
- The Rose Interior
- A Portrait of a Lady of the Eighteen-Eighties
- Lady before the Mirror
- The Old Woman
- The Bed
- The Stranger
- The Arrival
- Sundial
- Opium Poppy
- The Flamingos
- Persian Heliotrope
- Lullaby
- The Pavilion
- The Abduction
- Pink Hydrangea
- The Coat of Arms
- The Bachelor
- The Solitary
- The Reader
- The Apple Orchard
- Mohammed's Summoning
- The Mountain
- The Ball
- The Child
- The Dog
- The Scarab
- Buddha in Glory
- Index of Titles and First Lines in German
- Index of Titles and First Lines in English
Summary
They'd gotten used to him. But when the lamp
arrived, and guttered with a nervous flame
the dark draft blew, then he was one whose name
grew utterly unknown. They washed the damp
throat then, and went about inventing, out
of lies — because that's all they knew — his fate.
While washing, one, succumbing to a bout
of coughing, laid the eiseled sponge's weight
down on his face. The other chose to pause
as well, while from the stiffened bristles fell
some drops. His hand's clenching, so like a claw's,
tried terribly to show the house,
the whole house, thirst was gone — he tried to tell
them — and it worked: with some embarrassment,
almost, they coughed again, and got to work
for real. And on the wall, their shadows — bent
and rolling hard — began to writhe and jerk,
netted in muted-paper-pattern seas,
until the end of all this washing came.
Night, caught in the uncurtained window frame,
grew pitiless. Devoid of any name,
he lay there clean and bare, and passed decrees.
Eine von den Alten
Paris
Abends manchmal (weißt du, wie das tut?)
wenn sie plötzlich stehn und rückwärts nicken
und ein Lächeln, wie aus lauter Flicken,
zeigen unter ihrem halben Hut.
Neben ihnen ist dann ein Gebäude,
endlos, und sie locken dich entlang
mit dem Rätsel ihrer Räude,
mit dem Hut, dem Umhang und dem Gang.
Mit der Hand, die hinten unterm Kragen
heimlich wartet und verlangt nach dir:
wie um deine Hände einzuschlagen in ein aufgehobenes Papier.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- New Poems , pp. 249 - 250Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2015