ABSENTIA ANIMI (Nathan 1982, pp.53)
In the fall
In the fall when you say goodbye
In the fall when all gates stand open
toward meaningless pastures
where unreal mushrooms rot
and watery wheel ruts run on their way
to nothing, and a snail is on its way
a tattered butterfly is on its way
to nothing, which is a bloomed-out rose
the smallest and homeliest. And the daddy-long-legs,
those idiotic devils
delicate-limbed, drunken in the evening lamplight
and the lamp itself softly hums
in the light’s negative sea, thought’s polar sea
in long waves
silently frothing foam
of series divided by series
from nothing through nothing to nothing
thesis antithesis synthesis abrasax abraxas Thesis
(like the sound of a sewing machine)
And the spiders spin their webs in the quiet night
and crickets chirr
Meaningless.
Unreal. Meaningless.
In the fall
It rustles in my poem
Words do their duty and lie there
Dust falls over them, dust or dew
till the wind swings up and drops (them) down
(and) elsewhere
he who partout seeks the meaning of everything
long ago found
that the meaning of rustling is rustling
which in itself is something quite distrinct from
wet rubber boots in leaves
distracted footsteps through the carpet of the park
of leaves, affectionately sticking
on wet rubber boots, absent-minded steps
You are wandering off, losing yourself
Don’t be in such a rush
Stop a little
Wait
in the fall when
in the fall when all gates
then it happens that in the last slanted ray
after a day’s rain
with long pauses hesitating
as if caught in the act
a left-over thrush sings in a tree top
for nothing, for the sake of his throat. You see
his tree top rise against the pale fond of the sky
beside a solitary cloud. And the cloud floats
like other clouds but also left over, hors saison
and its very essence long since elsewhere
and in itself (like the song) already something
other than
Eternal rest
Meaningless. Unreal.
Meaningless. I
sing sit here
about the sky about a cloud
I wish nothing more for myself
I wish myself a long way off
I am far off (among the echoes of evening)
I am here
Thesis antithesis abrasax
You also I
O far far away
there swims in the bright sky
a cloud over the crwn af a tree
in happy unawareness!
O deep down in me
from the surface of the eye of black pearl
is reflected in happy half-awareness
a picture of a cloud!
It is not this that is
It is something else
It exists in what is
but is not this that is
It is something else
O far far away
in what is distant
there is something close!
O deep down in me
in what is near
there is something distant
something remotely near
in what is here yet remote
something neither nor
in what is either or:
neither cloud nor picture
neither picture nor picture
neither cloud nor cloud
neither neither nor nor
but something else!
The only thing that is
is something else!
The only thing that is
in what is
is something else!
The only thing that is
In this that is
Is what in this
Is something else!
(O lullaby of the soul
the song of something else!)
O
non sens
non sentiens non
dissentiens
indesinenter
terque quaterque
pluries
vox
vel abracadabra
Abraxas abrasax
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis which becomes thesis again
Meaningless.
Unreal. Meaningless.
And the spider spin their webs in the quiet night
And the crickets chirr
In the fall
NON SERVIAM
STROUNTES
OPUS INCERTUM
