Gottfried Benn
Someone hands you an English thriller,
highly recommended.
You don’t read English.
You’ve worked up a thirst
for something you can’t afford.
You have deep insights,
brand new and they sound
like an academic glossing Hoelderlin.
You hear the waves at night
ramping against the shore
and you think: that’s what waves do.
Worse: you’re asked out
when at home you get better coffee,
silence, and you don’t expect to be amused.
Awful: not to die in summer
under a bright sky
when the rich dirt
falls easily from the shovel.
Gottfried Benn
German expressionist poet, essayist and novelist
1886-1956
“This Is Bad’ translated from the German by Harvey Shapiro
From the ECCO Anthology of International Poetry.
