Dieter M. Gräf [Germany]

Poems translated by Andrew Shields

Break of the Upper Palatinate-

half-moon-shaped tips of broad,

four-sided iron nails, the Orient, the Mount

of Olives, which means: breaking of her

Upper Palatinate voice into Old Aramaic,

an extra miracle. Mooing of cows.

Water for rinsing her mouth, monitored.

Excrement, checked and measured.

Television, nourishment with light;

Friday passion while she broadcasts

the Crucifixion: drops of blood in corners

of eyes, stigmata on hands and feet,

spear and nail wounds. Her

headband, now bleeding, while

the Savior, her Galilean master,

crown of thorns in scalp skin,

martial eavesdropping of hammer

blows in front of fainting:

listeners to his shattering bones;

outside, those drawn by blows

revoke her ration card.

-Dom. Semi-

your music: semi

truck to the kingdom

of heaven, elegant

limousine driving

up, a man

gets out of

the Fieseler

Stork, in

uniform; people

are naked,

gold

broken from

every face;

strictest silence.

Group Photo with Unknowns

wolf who wolfs

down the sun;

the table set

for men.

The white

still goes to

the dog, then

further: heavily

closed cur

tain, striking

white of collar,

of horizontal

cigarettes. Black

bottle in middle

of the table;

dark half

circle round

the one at its head:

wolf-dog, spot on

his face blackening

everything. To obey

him until

obeying stops.

Kalm

the dawns dried

hard, spot

on the ground:

nightly cleaning

lady of equalized

days; behind advent

doors: rooms,

the light, to be turned

off, of childhood

diseases, were

the best, were all —

Kalm

cathedral of light. Pillars of smoke,

orchards in

the outskirts;

bitter struggle

for a slight rise.

Banners of dust; advent

wreaths woven from brown

yellow steppe grass:

blond Christ, mess

iah, periodically

bleeding chalice, the

chosen people dripping

in, then the choosers.

Dog whip, wolf's escutcheon.

Starving horses, how they

chewed wood; beneath

a great peach tree

the hidden command

post, machine

gun nests.

They can form a hedge

hog and then blow their.

Violet feet, stump stench

of comrades, black

lips, eye's white

turning pink;

contraction

of the heart. Urine

yellow ice, licked-up

condensation. Ratten

huber, Todt, Uncle Wolf,

here are your Fritzes,

in millennia: oil.

Copyright ©2007 by Dieter M. Gräf, English language copyright ©2007 by Andrew Shields

Gräf was born in Ludwigshafen in 1960 and now lives in Berlin. His three volumes of poetry with Suhrkamp are Rauschstudie: Vater + Sohn (1994), Treibender Kopf (1997), and Westrand (2002). He recently edited th anthology Das leuchtende Buch: Die Welt als Wunder im Gedicht (Insel, 2004) and published the CD Taifun (with the composer Volker Staub; Accademia Tedesca Roma Villa Massimo; 2005). He received the Leonce and Lena Prize from the City of Darmstadt (1997) and held several fellowships, including one at Villa Aurora in Los Angeles (1999) and one at Villa Massimo in Rome (2004). He was appointed writer-in-residence at the German Festival in India in 2001 and at the Deutsches Haus at New York University in 2005.