A few more Celan poems
TWO AT BRANCUSI'S
If one among these stones
were to tell
what conceals it:
here, nearby
on the old man's crutch-stick
it would open, as a wound
into which you'd have to dive,
lonely,
far from my scream, the already also
hewn, white one.
TO A BROTHER IN ASIA
The auto-transfigured
cannons
drive towards heaven,
ten
bombers yawn,
a running fire blooms
as surely as peace,
a handful of rice
expires as your friend.
TREK-SCOW-TIME
the half-transformed drag
at one of the worlds,
the dis-elevated one, intimated,
speaks under the foreheads on the bank:
Quits with death, quits with
God.
If one among these stones
were to tell
what conceals it:
here, nearby
on the old man's crutch-stick
it would open, as a wound
into which you'd have to dive,
lonely,
far from my scream, the already also
hewn, white one.
TO A BROTHER IN ASIA
The auto-transfigured
cannons
drive towards heaven,
ten
bombers yawn,
a running fire blooms
as surely as peace,
a handful of rice
expires as your friend.
TREK-SCOW-TIME
the half-transformed drag
at one of the worlds,
the dis-elevated one, intimated,
speaks under the foreheads on the bank:
Quits with death, quits with
God.