ferdinand schmatz
phenomenal poems on fritz ruprechter
(Translated from the German by Peter Waugh)


haste entangled
conclusively drawn in a standstill
(foolhardily value-free) on the flatiron
divides certain things into their opposite
(nothing)
folding that away
that which spools strips
without closing gaps
interlocks in a bowing sign
layer for cardboard layer
of strips (thick with value)
of fashioning left natural
down
the cut into that
where will is the choice of a slant
where wax is, it only flares
up with the colour in afterglow


the cut into the wax only flares up. the colour,
grey, is in afterglow. and after that something is found
in the black (like a wick, washing-up hands, waxen)


in this wood without tree-trunks
bare hardness is
slanty, most grossly fine
it formally bows to the flame
seeks consolation
- cedaring rather than oaking -
the whole grows together in wax
cut instead of push (easy to divide)
so wildly unelevated


rough is shiny only so
briefly always that which radiates
quenches time here in
between melts
- trickling away -
what once were the wax
tables of memory


library of strokes, archive of cuts right up to the edge,
unsteady wall inside, the sides between the cracks,
the storage space branded, eye and brain expiration,
that draws out a while and bows off only to return striking
("and even if your paper burns, you could not burn
what it contains, I bear it in my breast", Juan Goytisolo),
starts out there open there then silence closes here, nothing
grows together in grey, no smoke, ashes, rather a rushing,
chirping (bamboo = bamboo, quotes f. s. the one and
always other self)


(other once again):
table: what's missing is
discovered laid, grows always only
that way entered (closes here)
on the sign-cloth something
impressive pursues itself
bendedly and spreads something
up and down layers it
stain watch it observe it look
away from the incline
in the (forest of) colour
undivided grove it is already sprinkled quite