day 64

in need of material, i tried to translate one of my very own poems. i wrote the original entitled 'what may' in english last year. sadly, the very complex title of the poem is untranslatable, as there is no double entendre of the name of the month may and the verb may in the german language.

what may/ from a roofed platform/ i watch horizon suck in your train/ that red and white train/ that pulls you/ winds you away/ into a trail maze/ industrial grey/ and panic slurps/ radiant days/ doze notions/ of us intertwined/ of your leg on mine/ for an instant last night/ a valiant vagrant/ i mumble goodbyes/ and you/ perhaps/ wonder if life/ makes its mad debut twice.

unter dem bahnsteigdach/ stehend sehe ich den horizont atmen/ tief ein deinen zug/ sehe dem rotweißen zug nach/ der sich aufspult und/ dich mir entwindet/ in ein graues labyrinth/ aus gleisen industrie/ da ist die panik die/ hellgelbe tage stürzt/ die halbschlafahnung/ unsrer körper/ deines beines auf meinem/ eines kurzen moments/ in der nacht/ ich die nichtsesshafte/ flüstere abschied/ du zeitgleich/ fragst dich vielleicht/ ob das leben/ sein irres debüt/ zweimal gibt.

while this poem springs from an actual situation (and chances are the person spoken to here reads this blog once in a while), not every text i write is a factual report. often i embellish rather small ideas on a grand scale or use other people's awkward situations as inspiration. so please, people, refrain from feeling addressed, interpreting this or that, relating this to that or whatever. ein halbes lilienleben ('half a lily's life'), for example, exists for the sole reason of me liking the sound of the word 'lilienleben'. at the moment i couldn't even tell you what made me think of that expression in the first place.