Matthias Göritz

2, 3 REVOLUTIONS

translated from German by Mary Jo Bang

Oh you,
who once began
a ballad
with a breezy cakewalk.

You are prudent,
and pleasant, barely hidden
behind the moleskin hedge
just spotted. A brave heart that

a dog is knocking about.
And over you
a sky that is stretching,
its broad face,

when it speaks:
a zeppelin,
a cloud over Lake Alster,
something that’s true,

and you know it is true;
on the lake
perhaps one of the boats;

say something,
and you will know
no longer whether it is true.

We believe in the light.
We believe in you.
We believe in you
for the other.

Still what we believe
will not be,
and what we don’t believe
will be

breaking in-
to the darkroom
of our minds.

It will develop:
the lonely archaic
friendship and the detachment,
that lets you let loose,

lets loose

like a thunderbolt,
shooting right through the city,
the rain falling

on all the inconceivable ways
of searching for the means
out of all the mundane,

whatever?
Don’t even
minor songs soar aloft?
Songs

without any grand sentiment?
And why shouldn’t you
be taken in

into the lit shell
of the shooting gallery
and its owners,

the carnival, and its bliss
sought
in 2, 3 revolutions.

Those who are content
with circling,
and existing?

A human carousel
filled with chains,
to turn around

and quickly
over and out
cycling beyond

until the next lamp,
left behind the night.
From afar. Still the stars.

MATTHIAS GÖRITZ is the German author of three volumes of poetry, two novellas, and three novels. He teaches comparative literature at Washington University in St. Louis.

MARY JO BANG is the author of eight books of poems, including A Doll for Throwing, Louise in Love, and Elegy, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the translator of Dante’s Inferno, illustrated by Henrik Drescher, and Purgatorio, both published by Graywolf. She teaches creative writing at Washington University in St. Louis.