greatpoetry | Entries tagged with hans magnus enzenzberger

crabwise-son.livejournal.com

Song for Those Who Know

Something must be done right away
that much we know
but of course it's too soon to act
but of course it's too late in the day
oh we know

we know that we're really rather well off
and that we'll go on like this
and that it's not much use anyway
oh we know

we know that we are to blame
and that it's not our fault if we are to blame
and that we're to blame for the fact that it's not our fault
and that we're fed up with it
oh we know

and that maybe it would be a good idea to keep our mouths shut
and that we won't keep our mouths shut all the same
oh we know
oh we know

and we also know that we can't help anybody really
and that nobody really can help us
oh we know

and that we're extremely gifted and brilliant
and free to choose between nothing and naught
and that we must analyze this problem very carefully
and that we take two lumps of sugar in our tea
oh we know

we know all about oppression
and that we are very much against it
and that cigarettes have gone up again
oh we know

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a-healing-mind.livejournal.com

At first it was only an imperceptible quivering of the skin-
'As you wish'- where the flesh is darkest.
'What's wrong with you?'- Nothing. Milky dreams
of embraces; next morning, though,
the other looks different, strangely bony.
Razor-sharp misunderstanding. 'That time, in Rome-'
I never said that. A pause. And furious palpitations,
a sort of hatred, strange. 'That's not the point.'
Repetitions. Radiantly clear, this certainty:
From now on all is wrong. Odourless and sharp,
like a passport photo, this unknown person
with a glass of tea at table, with staring eyes.
It's no good, no good, no good:
litany in the head, a slight nausea.
End of reproaches. Slowly the whole room
Fills with guilt right up to the ceiling.
This complaining voice is strange, only not
the shoes that drop with a bang, not the shoes.
Next time, in an empty restaurant,
slow motion, bread crumbs, money is discussed,
laughing - The dessert tastes of metal.
Two untouchables. Shrill reasonableness.
'Not so bad really.' But at night
the thoughts of vengeance, the silent fight, anonymous
like two bony barristers, two large crabs
in water. Then the exhaustion. Slowly
the scab peels off. A new tobacconist,
a new address. Pariahs, horribly relieved.
Shades growing paler. These are the documents.
This is the bunch of keys. This is the scar.

grammarfight.livejournal.com

Model Toward a Theory of Cognition

Here is a box for you,
a large box
labeled
Box.
Open it,
and you will find
a box in it,
labeled
Box from a box
labeled Box.
Look into it—
I mean this box now,
not the other one—
and you will find a box
labeled
And so on,
and if you go on
like this,
you will find,
after infinite efforts,
an infinitely small
box
with a label
so tiny
that the lettering,
as it were,
dissolved
before your eyes.
It is a box
existing only
in your imagination.
A perfectly empty
box.

—Hans Magnus Enzenzberger