Walking in a Shadow

/, Blesok no. 55/Walking in a Shadow

Walking in a Shadow

Walking in a Shadow
The Emigration of Night from Day
Another Pillow
Coffee and Water
Leaden Words
Masks
The Bull
The Broken Shadow

A hundred times a day, he says,
“I’ll have to return. Here, there is no mercy.
There, there is kindness and warmth and …”
Then he falls silent.

I ask him, “There?
Where is that?”
He points somewhere.
His face is expressionless,
and he does not say anything anymore.

I take his hand.
We go to a café
and sit down at a quiet corner table.
I order coffee for him
and water for me.

I speak to him in Arabic
and mix water into the coffee.
He is annoyed, “Are you crazy?”

He tries to remove the water
from the coffee.

He tries to.

He tries to get the water back
into the water.


Vienna, Café Griensteidl, June 27th, 1997

(translated from the German by Wolfgang Astelbauer;
from “Ein mit Tauben und Gurren gefüllter Koffer,” edition selene, Vienna 1999)

2018-08-21T17:23:07+00:00 August 3rd, 2007|Categories: Poetry, Blesok no. 55|0 Comments