Click. It where began to turn
show up on banks and thus
the river. Anorganic, luminescent,
anger merely on the surface where
raged and unattainably shrill
turned, and light sprayed,
spattered, therefore while I must laugh,
to lick the banks began, light, gentle.
The eyes done started it.
Mouth, naw, don't get a thing. Is fulla
hairs, they fight the tongues
for recognition, demanding
the attention of the eyes. No go.
When mere extension tries to stretch to ecstasy
each sentence must stand fast, eyes peeled,
must widen the horizon into ground,
on which these wild expansion-thoughts entwine
small, perhaps white stones.
The eye chews long on this mirage,
on glints that flit across the surfaces
and say what we can never get our tongue
around repeating. Here, lungs,
hold still and watch how it goes to
the head of your, yes, clientele. How
the grey cells pant after the correspondences
that haunt your shticks and search
for kicks. Hey, lungs, wanna do something fun?
Go breathe the glistening water, lungs.
(Translated by Rosmarie Waldrop
in collaboration with the author)
33 Extension, Ekstase
Klick. Wo begann zu drehen es
sich zeigte an den Ufern so
den Fluss an. Anorganisch lumenesk,
bloß an der Oberfläche Wüten, wo
wütete und unerreichbar schrill
sich drehte und das Licht, zerstieb,
zerdröselte, und darum, wo ich lachen will,
zu laben Ufern anfing, hell und lieb.
Und so von Augen angefangen,
Mund, ah, kapiert nix, in ihm
befinden Haare sich und ringen
mit Zungen um der Blicke Augenmerk,
anfangend, heischend Blicke? Nix da. Wenn
es gilt, durch Extension Ekstase zu erlangen,
muss stehen jeder Satz und schaun,
erweitern Horizont sich aus zu Boden
für wüste Expansionsgedanken,
die sich um kleine, beispielsweise weiße Steine ranken.
Hat Auge dann an dieser Spiegelung zu kaun,
an Lichtreflexen, die an Oberflächen toben
und sagen, was zu repetieren nie
von Zungen geht. So, Lungen, steht
still und seht, wies dabei geht
zu Kopfe eurem, ja, Klienten. Wie
da hecheln graue Zellen den Entsprechungen
nach, die eure Reime hier besuchen
und Reize suchen. Hey, wollt ihr was unternehmen?
Atmet doch glänzendes Wasser, Lungen!
Bio
Ann Cotten is an Austrian poet, born in Iowa, United States in 1982.
Her family emigrated to Europe when she was a child, and she
grew up in Vienna. She studied German literature, with an emphasis
on Concrete Poetry and the work of the Vienna Group.
In 2007, the prestigious German publishing house Suhrkamp Insel
released her first collection of poems called 'Fremdwörterbuchsonette',
for which she received the Clemens Brentano Prize.
Hilda Magazine shows a video made by the poet, the Sonnet 33
from her first book, with an English translation by Rosmarie Waldrop,
and a series of images.
Ann Cotten lives and works in Berlin.* *
