O Homeland, Cynical Euphone

For Thomas Kling

So many glinting images in artists' brains,

The power exorcized by mirror shards-

We naked whelps, the higher foreheads' heirs,

Tattooed while young, already, with carnation

nerves.

The ailing fathers' brood, the walls' precipitate

Birth: that's us. Drowned . . . "Deep, deep in

German."

Grandkids of urban planners, inspectors of meat:

To each the strange reality. ("Sure, man.")

"More scraps of bombs?!" That's good for spiny

gums

Installed into the babies' violet skulls.

O tell us please which sister pressed her thumbs

Unmoved into our tender fontanelles?

In awful bondage to the German double clone,

We're tamed in the womb, X-rayed, vaccinated,

Eyes broken, we long to be far-sighted.

"Germany?" . . . O homeland, cynical euphone.

Translated by Andrew Shields