Friday, 27 May 2011

Seele im Raum by Michael Hofmann

Found in Selected Poems Michael Hofmann

I could probably
just about have swung a cat
in that glory-hole -

Maybe a Manx cat
or that Cheshire's gappy grin -
and for a fact I could open the dorr

And perhaps even the window
without raising myself
off the plumded-in sofa

But what really hurt
was the rugby football
deflating from lack of use,

A pair of void calendars
and the pattern of my evenings
alone on the slope

Overlooking the playground
the pladdling pool
gradually drained of childern

The bullying park attendant
crows sipping from beer cans
as if they'd read Aesop,

Sun gone, a nip in the air,
the grass purpling
and cold to the touch,

And later on, in near darkness,
watching a man's two boomerangs
materialise behind him

Out of the gloom,
like the corners of his coffin
on leading-strings.

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