Der Koloss - Gedichte

feierlichen
    April-Spaziergangs mit dem neuesten Verehrer
    Auf einmal unerträglich getroffen
    Vom regellosen Gewirr der Vogelstimmen
    Und dem Durcheinander der Blätter.
    Von diesem Tumult geplagt, beobachtete sie,
    Wie die Gesten ihres Geliebten die Luft aus dem Gleichgewicht brachten
    Und ihr Gang unstetig abirrte
    Durch eine wuchernde Wildnis von Farnen und Blumen.
    Sie verurteilte die Blütenblätter-Anarchie,
    Die ganze Jahreszeit, Schlampe.
    Wie sie sich da nach dem Winter sehnte! –
    Peinlich streng in seiner Ordnung
    Von Weiß und Schwarz,
    Eis und Stein, jedes Gefühl in Begrenzung,
    Und akkurat wie eine Schneeflocke
    In frostiger Disziplin das Herz.
    Doch hier – alles schlägt aus,
    Unbändig genug, ihre fünf Königinnen-Sinne
    In vulgäre Kunterbuntheit zu schleudern –
    Ein Hochverrat, der nicht geduldet werden konnte.
    Sollen Idioten albern taumeln im Frühlingstollhaus:
    Sie kehrte dem säuberlich den Rücken.
    Und um ihr Haus, gegen das meuternde Wetter,
    Richtete sie auf aus Stacheln und Sperren
    Solch eine Barrikade,
    Wie kein rein dreister Mann hoffen konnte zu durchbrechen,
    Mit Fluch, Faust, Drohung entweder,
    Oder Liebe.

Frog Autumn
    Summer grows old, cold-blooded mother,
    The insects are scant, skinny.
    In these palustral homes we only
    Croak and wither.
    Mornings dissipate in somnolence.
    The sun brightens tardily
    Among the pithless reeds. Flies fail us.
    The fen sickens.
    Frost drops even the spider. Clearly
    The genius of plenitude
    Houses himself elsewhere. Our folk thin
    Lamentably.

Froschherbst
    Der Sommer altert, kaltblütige Mutter,
    Die Insekten sind knapp und mager.
    In diesen moorigen Heimstätten quaken
    Und verkümmern wir nur.
    Die Morgen zerrinnen in Schlaftrunkenheit.
    Die Sonne wird allzu langsam hell
    Zwischen marklosem Schilf. Fliegen lassen uns
    Im Stich. Der Sumpf kränkelt.
    Frost lässt gar die Spinne fallen. Zweifellos
    Suchte der Geist der Fülle sich nun
    Eine andere Bleibe. Unser Volk dünnt
    Sich beklagenswert aus.

Mussel Hunter at Rock Harbour
    I came before the water-
    Colourists came to get the
    Good of the Cape light that scours
    Sand grit to sided crystal
    And buffs and sleeks the blunt hulls
    Of the three fishing smacks beached
    On the bank of the river's
    Backtracking tail. I'd come for
    Free fish-bait: the blue mussels
    Clumped like bulbs at the grass-root
    Margin of the tidal pools.
    Dawn tide stood dead low. I smelt
    Mud stench, shell guts, gulls' leavings;
    Heard a queer crusty scrabble
    Cease, and I neared the silenced
    Edge of a cratered pool-bed.
    The mussels hung dull blue and
    Conspicuous, yet it seemed
    A sly world's hinges had swung
    Shut against me. All held still.
    Though I counted scant seconds,
    Enough ages lapsed to win
    Confidence of safe-conduct
    In the wary otherworld
    Eyeing me. Grass put forth claws;
    Small mud knobs, nudged from under,
    Displaced their domes as tiny
    Knights might doff their casques. The crabs
    Inched from their pygmy burrows
    And from the trench-dug mud, all
    Camouflaged in mottled mail
    Of browns and greens. Each wore one
    Claw swollen to a shield large
    As itself – no fiddler's arm
    Grown Gargantuan by trade,
    But grown grimly, and grimly
    Borne, for a use beyond my
    Guessing of it. Sibilant
    Mass-motived hordes, they sidled
    Out in a converging stream
    Toward the pool-mouth, perhaps to
    Meet the thin and sluggish thread
    Of sea retracing its tide-
    Way up the river-basin.
    Or to avoid me. They moved
    Obliquely with a dry-wet
    Sound, with a glittery wisp
    And trickle. Could they feel mud
    Pleasurable under claws
    As I could between bare toes?
    That question ended it – I
    Stood shut out, for once, for all,
    Puzzling the passage of their
    Absolutely alien
    Order as I might puzzle
    At the clear tail of Halley's
    Comet coolly giving my
    Orbit the go-by, made known
    By a family name it
    Knew nothing of. So the crabs
    Went about their business, which
    Wasn't fiddling, and I filled
    A big handkerchief with blue
    Mussels. From what the crabs saw,
    If they could see, I was one
    Two-legged mussel-picker.
    High on the airy thatching
    Of the dense grasses I found
    The husk of a fiddler-crab,
    Intact, strangely strayed above
    His world of mud – green colour
    And innards bleached and blown off
    Somewhere by much sun and wind;
    There was no telling if he'd
    Died recluse or suicide
    Or headstrong Columbus crab.
    The crab-face, etched and set there,
    Grimaced as skulls grimace: it
    Had an Oriental look,
    A samurai