Poem
Ann Cotten
THE CLASS EXCURSION
I feel complicitywhen standing by smart art
I am not always funny
then I fart.
No f** perm
just a dirt dreck like a Danube
winding over German stubble fields
like coffee over stairs
and the sad sound of my souls
makes me go mad
plonk plonk plonk
plenny plenny plo
what a manhole it is, really
not a cigarette butt in sight
just viagra, viagra, viagra
through the ICE, over the plain
goes my sad refrain, my bellyache
the blues of a fucking tapir
in a horse plush costume
flush it, it’s a head
whisk it literature
down in your pocket
up through the drain
and the faz says
faz faz faz
all night long
and I cannot dream anything
any longer
Then, ten minutes on,
my phone rings? Nooo
His nose is running? Nary a thought.
Some one has woken me up
he says to me “Endstation”
I was drooling in my sleep
I knew that
Everybody knows
All the people have to get out here.
I’m a pisspot, my darling,
so what do you want?
The guest shampoo
falls in the toilet
I wanted to kill you
but you said no
so what are we for?
Now we’re sitting here
and sadly cry
and no one is happy
because
it isn’t true
That we aren’t in jail
we are in the hotel
and the town is a toilet
We are in hell
and the beach is a toilet
the seals are dead
the sea urchins stickly
the sea garbage bloody
the vacationists mad
the bulls nude
the sharks empty
the dippers evil
the crabs empty
the worm holes empty
(desire you total tirade?)
the black holes empty
the bikinis empty
the nuclear tests empty
the fish empty
the sea empty!
the ships empty
the captain drunk
the models flaked up
the sharks flaked up
the sea stars sad
the sea cucumbers also sad
the catamarans as I said
no I didn’t
but had written first
the aluminum cans empty
the laver empty
the krill empty
all the krill, all the way empty
peninsula Krim empty,
reefs, oil tanks, plane wrecks
all empty
the otters, the whales, the catamarans
empty, empty, empty, or at least half empty
even the galleys are empty
and the galleries are empty
the bows are empty
the months are full but it doesn’t help
the pockets are empty
the inner pockets empty
the luminescent egg sacs of the catfish are empty
the sea cucumbers (o we had them already)
so the sea cucumbers
the sea cucumbers
the sea cucumbers
o, o
o, where is my spaceship?
o, where is my spaceship?
It was so small, but it was
better than all this, man
Avoid decisions
but nevertheless
undress women
said my brother
Seven times I did so
seven times my blouse
was pulled over my head
and my head was beaten up
with the decisions left lying around
I was only beginning to count the moles
when I had no more freckles to call my own.
Am I smarter now?
Not in the least
just beat up soft, hazy and angry
at all my brother’s enemies
She rears: And if the beamer had not been so wobbly
I wouldn’t have had done all those few shots
A poet is better in a blackbox
He may believe he has a radio connection but has none,
erratically wobbles, seen from the outside, semantically for all I care
Underlay a dribble-mat – ah, never mind.
You are impermeable anyway, precisely because you
could be otherwise, you must at all cost
hide yourself, deny everything, pat everybody, improve whatever.
Yes! Why do you creep into the corners of the reception
and scatter yourselves up the walls? Why are you looking for God
in a way that leaves him standing in the middle of the room?
Step onto your dribble-mat
lift it up and
make yourself a monument
make hundreds of monuments
I don’t care
I won’t remember
Come in, my mind is your bungalow
and that is good. Here, drink vodka.
Anyway you are unrespectable
My mind is your Broadway
obscene and empty
You may have farts for faces but
at least you are not here
Your faces are scary
7000 tons of make-up
can’t get you to sleep
Sleep! Sleep! Sleep! You wives and cretins, sleep!
Animal movies . . .
I’ll be damned!
The sheep has a hat
and no face or no head
fucks in their mid-thirties approach it
they want to buy single cigarettes off it
a whole handful of them
ripe falls
are fine to see
but the sheep in its hat
fumbles and fumbles
To be Abraham, to kill them and go down with them. Oh, what blue sky. What a skin cute young leaf. Oh for the blood of a lamb, I should drink this nachmittag and evening aus.
Then I woke up.
Wetlands . . .
High is the handle!
Sleep on tiptoe
not going, not stopping
only this unerring wind
endlessly this unnerving wind
subtext
the gaseous nausea of the prom
the nostalgia of the party
gets butter on her ketchup package
eating funny things for breakfast
can’t find her sea cow poem
looks again and again
decision about reaching to bag
deteriorating her gestures
by and by
trying to make a funny drawing on the napkin
she kills her pen in the soft folds
the soft folds of fame
to fold her inflammation in
folds of fame
funny animal of thought
funny animal where have you gone among the folds
if you would fold me it would be ok
Wants to be a mess-making-artist
makes a mess
with a package of ketchup and a fork
hardly anything comes out
the hole is too small
again and again she tries
until something like a globe
beside and under the package
butter still under the thumb
between the thumb and the ketchup package
everything else falls on her trousers
total breakfast I mean the tomatoes, cucumbers and all that,
scrambled eggs, with ketchup also,
all that had come out
hole to fill
comes not out
not goes out
and yet are we inside
and yet are we inside
© Translation: 2010, Ann Cotten
Publisher: First published on PIW, , 2010
Publisher: First published on PIW, , 2010
DIE KLASSENFAHRT
DIE KLASSENFAHRT
Ich fühl mich so komplizigmit blitzgescheiter Kunst
Nicht immer bin ich witzig
dann sag ich blauen Dunst
No fucking Dauerwelle
just a dirt Dreck like a Donau
wälzt sich über deutsches Flachland
like a Káffee over Fliesentreppen
and the sand sound of my souls
makes me go mad
plonk plonk plonk
plenny plenny plenny plo
what a manhole it is, really
not a cigarette butt in sight
just viagra, viagra, viagra
through the ICE, over the plain
goes my sad refrain, my bellyache
the blues of a fucking tapir
in a horse plush costume
flush it, it’s a head
whisk it literature
down in your pocket
up through the drain
and the faz says
faz faz faz
all night long
and I cannot dream anything
any longer
Then, ten minutes on,
my phone rings? Nooo
His nose is running? Nary a thought.
Some one has woken me up
he says to me "Endstation"
I was drooling in my sleep
I knew that
Everybody knows
All the people have to get out here.
Ich bin ein Pechvogel, darling
was willst du von mir
Das Gastschampoo
fällt ins Klo
I wanted to kill you
but you said no
so what are we for?
Jetzt sitzen wir da
und weinen bitterlich
und niemand ist froh
weil nämlich
es stimmt gar nicht
Dass wir nicht im Gefängnis sind
Nein wir sind im Hotel
und das Dorf ist ein Klo
Wir sind in der Hölle
und der Strand ist ein Klo
Die Robben sind tot
die Seeigel stachlig
der Seemüll blutig
die Urlauber nackig
die Stiere böse
die Haie leer
die Strandläufer böse
die Krabben leer
die Wurmlöcher leer
(Ihr wollt eine Polonaise?)
die schwarzen Löcher leer
die Bikinis leer
die Atomversuche leer
die Fische leer
Das Meer leer!
die Schiffe leer
die Schiffer besoffen
die Models angekokst
die Haie angekokst
die Seesterne traurig
die Seegurken auch traurig
die Katamarane wie gesagt
nein hab ich noch nicht gesagt
aber zuerst geschrieben gehabt
also die Aludosen leer
der Seetang leer
der Krill leer
der ganze Krill leer leer leer
die Halbinsel Krim leer
Riffe, Öltanks, Flugzeugwracks
alles leer
die Otter, die Wale, die Katamarane
leer leer leer oder zumindest halb leer
sogar die Galeeren sind leer
und die Galerien sind leer
die Maschen sind leer
die Mäuler sind voll aber hilft auch nichts
die Taschen leer
die inneren Taschen leer
die lumineszenten Reproduktionstaschen der Katzenhaie sind leer
die Seegurken (o hatten wir schon)
die Seegurken also
die Seegurken
die Seegurken
o, o . . .
O wo ist mein Raumschiff hin?
O wo ist mein Raumschiff hin?
Es war so klein, aber es war
besser als das hier
Entscheidungen meiden
aber trotzdem
Frauen entkleiden
riet mir mein Bruder
Sieben Mal tat ichs
sieben Mal wurde mir die Bluse
über den Kopf gezogen
und der Kopf wurde mit den
noch herumliegenden
Entscheidungen kurz und klein geprügelt
Ich war erst dabei, die Muttermale zu zählen
Da hatte ich schon keine Sommersprossen mehr
die ich mein Eigen nennen konnte
Bin ich jetzt klüger?
Nicht im Entferntesten
nur windelweich, benommen und sauer
auf alle Feinde meines Bruders
Sie bäumt sich auf: Und wenn der Beamer nicht wackeln würde
hätte ich nicht all diese paar Shots getan haben
Ein Dichter ist besser in einer Blackbox
Er darf glauben, dass er Radioverbindung hat, hat aber keine
Wackelt erratisch von außen gesehen, von mir aus auch semantisch
Unterlegt einen Besudelungsschutz, aber lasst es.
Ihr seid sowieso impermeabel, eben weil ihr
anders könntet, müsst ihr um jeden Preis
euch verbergen, verleugnen, alle vertatschern, alles verbessern.
Ja! Was kriecht ihr in die Winkel des Frühstücksraums
und flieht die Wände hoch? Was sucht ihr Gott haargenau so,
dass er unauffindbar in der Zimmermitte steht?
Steigt auf den Besudelungsschutz und
hebt ihn hoch und
macht euch ein Denkmal
macht euch hunderte Denkmäler
mir egal
ich denk nicht mit
Kommt herein, mein Hirn ist euer Bungalow
und es ist gut so. Hier, trinkt Wodka.
Ihr seid sowieso unrespektabel
Mein Hirn ist ein Burgtheater
obszön und leer
ihr habt zwar Fürze als Gesichter
aber ihr seid dafür wenigstens nicht da
Ihr habt Gesichter zum Fürchten
Siebentausend Tonnen Schminke
bringen euch nicht zum Einschlafen
Schlaft! Schlaft! Schlaft endlich, Weiber, Cretins, schlaft! Schlaft!
Tierfilme . . .
Hol mich der Henker!
Das Schaf hat eine Mütze auf
und kein Gesicht oder keinen Kopf
Mittdreißiger und Mittdreißigerinnen gehen es an
sie wollen ihm einzelne Zigaretten abkaufen
und zwar eine ganze Handvoll
Reife Abstürze
können sich sehen lassen
doch das Schaf in seiner Mütze
fummelt und fummelt
Abraham sein, sie töten und mit ihnen den Bach runtergehen! Ah welch blauer Himmel. Was fleischniedliches junges Blatt. Oh for the blood of a lamb, I should drink this nachmittag and evening aus.
Dann wachte ich auf.
Tiefebene . . .
Hoch ist der Henkel!
Der Schlaf auf den Zehenspitzen
und kein Gehen und kein Stehenbleiben
nur dieser elendige Wind
endlos dieser ewige Wind
subtext
the gaseous nausea of the prom
the nostalgia of the party
She gets butter on her ketchup package
eating funny things for breakfast
can’t find her sea cow poem
looks again and again
decision about reaching to bag
deteriorating her gestures
bye the bye
trying to make a funny drawing on the napkin
she kills her pen in the soft folds
the soft folds of fame
fold her inflammation in
folds of fame
funny animal of thought
funny animal where have you gone among the folds
if you would fold me it would be ok
möchte ein Besudelungskünstler sein
drückt Ketchuppackung mit Gabel aus
geht kaum was raus
Loch zu klein
probiert immer wieder
streicht mit der Gabel die Packung runter
wieder und wieder
bis ein halbwegs Globus
neben und unter Packung
Butter noch immer unter Daumen
zwischen Daumen und Ketchuppackung
alles andere fällt auf die Hose das ganze Frühstück meine ich
Tomaten, Gurken und so, Eierspeise, auch mit Ketchup
halt dem, was rausgegangen ist
Loch zu kleben
kommt nichts raus
geht nichts raus
wir sind aber drin
wir sind aber drin
From: Florida-Räume
Publisher: Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin
Published with kind permission of Suhrkamp Verlag
Publisher: Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin
Poems
Poems of Ann Cotten
Close
THE CLASS EXCURSION
I feel complicitywhen standing by smart art
I am not always funny
then I fart.
No f** perm
just a dirt dreck like a Danube
winding over German stubble fields
like coffee over stairs
and the sad sound of my souls
makes me go mad
plonk plonk plonk
plenny plenny plo
what a manhole it is, really
not a cigarette butt in sight
just viagra, viagra, viagra
through the ICE, over the plain
goes my sad refrain, my bellyache
the blues of a fucking tapir
in a horse plush costume
flush it, it’s a head
whisk it literature
down in your pocket
up through the drain
and the faz says
faz faz faz
all night long
and I cannot dream anything
any longer
Then, ten minutes on,
my phone rings? Nooo
His nose is running? Nary a thought.
Some one has woken me up
he says to me “Endstation”
I was drooling in my sleep
I knew that
Everybody knows
All the people have to get out here.
I’m a pisspot, my darling,
so what do you want?
The guest shampoo
falls in the toilet
I wanted to kill you
but you said no
so what are we for?
Now we’re sitting here
and sadly cry
and no one is happy
because
it isn’t true
That we aren’t in jail
we are in the hotel
and the town is a toilet
We are in hell
and the beach is a toilet
the seals are dead
the sea urchins stickly
the sea garbage bloody
the vacationists mad
the bulls nude
the sharks empty
the dippers evil
the crabs empty
the worm holes empty
(desire you total tirade?)
the black holes empty
the bikinis empty
the nuclear tests empty
the fish empty
the sea empty!
the ships empty
the captain drunk
the models flaked up
the sharks flaked up
the sea stars sad
the sea cucumbers also sad
the catamarans as I said
no I didn’t
but had written first
the aluminum cans empty
the laver empty
the krill empty
all the krill, all the way empty
peninsula Krim empty,
reefs, oil tanks, plane wrecks
all empty
the otters, the whales, the catamarans
empty, empty, empty, or at least half empty
even the galleys are empty
and the galleries are empty
the bows are empty
the months are full but it doesn’t help
the pockets are empty
the inner pockets empty
the luminescent egg sacs of the catfish are empty
the sea cucumbers (o we had them already)
so the sea cucumbers
the sea cucumbers
the sea cucumbers
o, o
o, where is my spaceship?
o, where is my spaceship?
It was so small, but it was
better than all this, man
Avoid decisions
but nevertheless
undress women
said my brother
Seven times I did so
seven times my blouse
was pulled over my head
and my head was beaten up
with the decisions left lying around
I was only beginning to count the moles
when I had no more freckles to call my own.
Am I smarter now?
Not in the least
just beat up soft, hazy and angry
at all my brother’s enemies
She rears: And if the beamer had not been so wobbly
I wouldn’t have had done all those few shots
A poet is better in a blackbox
He may believe he has a radio connection but has none,
erratically wobbles, seen from the outside, semantically for all I care
Underlay a dribble-mat – ah, never mind.
You are impermeable anyway, precisely because you
could be otherwise, you must at all cost
hide yourself, deny everything, pat everybody, improve whatever.
Yes! Why do you creep into the corners of the reception
and scatter yourselves up the walls? Why are you looking for God
in a way that leaves him standing in the middle of the room?
Step onto your dribble-mat
lift it up and
make yourself a monument
make hundreds of monuments
I don’t care
I won’t remember
Come in, my mind is your bungalow
and that is good. Here, drink vodka.
Anyway you are unrespectable
My mind is your Broadway
obscene and empty
You may have farts for faces but
at least you are not here
Your faces are scary
7000 tons of make-up
can’t get you to sleep
Sleep! Sleep! Sleep! You wives and cretins, sleep!
Animal movies . . .
I’ll be damned!
The sheep has a hat
and no face or no head
fucks in their mid-thirties approach it
they want to buy single cigarettes off it
a whole handful of them
ripe falls
are fine to see
but the sheep in its hat
fumbles and fumbles
To be Abraham, to kill them and go down with them. Oh, what blue sky. What a skin cute young leaf. Oh for the blood of a lamb, I should drink this nachmittag and evening aus.
Then I woke up.
Wetlands . . .
High is the handle!
Sleep on tiptoe
not going, not stopping
only this unerring wind
endlessly this unnerving wind
subtext
the gaseous nausea of the prom
the nostalgia of the party
gets butter on her ketchup package
eating funny things for breakfast
can’t find her sea cow poem
looks again and again
decision about reaching to bag
deteriorating her gestures
by and by
trying to make a funny drawing on the napkin
she kills her pen in the soft folds
the soft folds of fame
to fold her inflammation in
folds of fame
funny animal of thought
funny animal where have you gone among the folds
if you would fold me it would be ok
Wants to be a mess-making-artist
makes a mess
with a package of ketchup and a fork
hardly anything comes out
the hole is too small
again and again she tries
until something like a globe
beside and under the package
butter still under the thumb
between the thumb and the ketchup package
everything else falls on her trousers
total breakfast I mean the tomatoes, cucumbers and all that,
scrambled eggs, with ketchup also,
all that had come out
hole to fill
comes not out
not goes out
and yet are we inside
and yet are we inside
© 2010, Ann Cotten
From: Florida-Räume
Publisher: 2010, First published on PIW, Berlin
Published with kind permission of Suhrkamp Verlag
From: Florida-Räume
Publisher: 2010, First published on PIW, Berlin
THE CLASS EXCURSION
I feel complicitywhen standing by smart art
I am not always funny
then I fart.
No f** perm
just a dirt dreck like a Danube
winding over German stubble fields
like coffee over stairs
and the sad sound of my souls
makes me go mad
plonk plonk plonk
plenny plenny plo
what a manhole it is, really
not a cigarette butt in sight
just viagra, viagra, viagra
through the ICE, over the plain
goes my sad refrain, my bellyache
the blues of a fucking tapir
in a horse plush costume
flush it, it’s a head
whisk it literature
down in your pocket
up through the drain
and the faz says
faz faz faz
all night long
and I cannot dream anything
any longer
Then, ten minutes on,
my phone rings? Nooo
His nose is running? Nary a thought.
Some one has woken me up
he says to me “Endstation”
I was drooling in my sleep
I knew that
Everybody knows
All the people have to get out here.
I’m a pisspot, my darling,
so what do you want?
The guest shampoo
falls in the toilet
I wanted to kill you
but you said no
so what are we for?
Now we’re sitting here
and sadly cry
and no one is happy
because
it isn’t true
That we aren’t in jail
we are in the hotel
and the town is a toilet
We are in hell
and the beach is a toilet
the seals are dead
the sea urchins stickly
the sea garbage bloody
the vacationists mad
the bulls nude
the sharks empty
the dippers evil
the crabs empty
the worm holes empty
(desire you total tirade?)
the black holes empty
the bikinis empty
the nuclear tests empty
the fish empty
the sea empty!
the ships empty
the captain drunk
the models flaked up
the sharks flaked up
the sea stars sad
the sea cucumbers also sad
the catamarans as I said
no I didn’t
but had written first
the aluminum cans empty
the laver empty
the krill empty
all the krill, all the way empty
peninsula Krim empty,
reefs, oil tanks, plane wrecks
all empty
the otters, the whales, the catamarans
empty, empty, empty, or at least half empty
even the galleys are empty
and the galleries are empty
the bows are empty
the months are full but it doesn’t help
the pockets are empty
the inner pockets empty
the luminescent egg sacs of the catfish are empty
the sea cucumbers (o we had them already)
so the sea cucumbers
the sea cucumbers
the sea cucumbers
o, o
o, where is my spaceship?
o, where is my spaceship?
It was so small, but it was
better than all this, man
Avoid decisions
but nevertheless
undress women
said my brother
Seven times I did so
seven times my blouse
was pulled over my head
and my head was beaten up
with the decisions left lying around
I was only beginning to count the moles
when I had no more freckles to call my own.
Am I smarter now?
Not in the least
just beat up soft, hazy and angry
at all my brother’s enemies
She rears: And if the beamer had not been so wobbly
I wouldn’t have had done all those few shots
A poet is better in a blackbox
He may believe he has a radio connection but has none,
erratically wobbles, seen from the outside, semantically for all I care
Underlay a dribble-mat – ah, never mind.
You are impermeable anyway, precisely because you
could be otherwise, you must at all cost
hide yourself, deny everything, pat everybody, improve whatever.
Yes! Why do you creep into the corners of the reception
and scatter yourselves up the walls? Why are you looking for God
in a way that leaves him standing in the middle of the room?
Step onto your dribble-mat
lift it up and
make yourself a monument
make hundreds of monuments
I don’t care
I won’t remember
Come in, my mind is your bungalow
and that is good. Here, drink vodka.
Anyway you are unrespectable
My mind is your Broadway
obscene and empty
You may have farts for faces but
at least you are not here
Your faces are scary
7000 tons of make-up
can’t get you to sleep
Sleep! Sleep! Sleep! You wives and cretins, sleep!
Animal movies . . .
I’ll be damned!
The sheep has a hat
and no face or no head
fucks in their mid-thirties approach it
they want to buy single cigarettes off it
a whole handful of them
ripe falls
are fine to see
but the sheep in its hat
fumbles and fumbles
To be Abraham, to kill them and go down with them. Oh, what blue sky. What a skin cute young leaf. Oh for the blood of a lamb, I should drink this nachmittag and evening aus.
Then I woke up.
Wetlands . . .
High is the handle!
Sleep on tiptoe
not going, not stopping
only this unerring wind
endlessly this unnerving wind
subtext
the gaseous nausea of the prom
the nostalgia of the party
gets butter on her ketchup package
eating funny things for breakfast
can’t find her sea cow poem
looks again and again
decision about reaching to bag
deteriorating her gestures
by and by
trying to make a funny drawing on the napkin
she kills her pen in the soft folds
the soft folds of fame
to fold her inflammation in
folds of fame
funny animal of thought
funny animal where have you gone among the folds
if you would fold me it would be ok
Wants to be a mess-making-artist
makes a mess
with a package of ketchup and a fork
hardly anything comes out
the hole is too small
again and again she tries
until something like a globe
beside and under the package
butter still under the thumb
between the thumb and the ketchup package
everything else falls on her trousers
total breakfast I mean the tomatoes, cucumbers and all that,
scrambled eggs, with ketchup also,
all that had come out
hole to fill
comes not out
not goes out
and yet are we inside
and yet are we inside
© 2010, Ann Cotten
Publisher: 2010, First published on PIW,
Publisher: 2010, First published on PIW,
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