back toJacket2

Jacket 18 — August 2002   |   # 18  Contents   |   Homepage   |  Catalog   |



Ingeborg Bachmann

Three poems


translated by Johannes Beilharz


Bruderschaft

[Brotherhood]

Each and every thing cuts wounds,
and neither of us has forgiven the other.
Hurting like you and hurtful,
I lived towards you.

Every touch augments
the pure, the spiritual touch;
we experience it as we age,
turned into coldest silence.


Verordnet diesem Geschlecht keinen Glauben

[Do not decree faith on this race]

Do not decree faith on this race,
stars, ships and smoke are enough;
it is concerned with things, determines
stars and mathematical infinity,
and a trait, call it trait of love,
emerges more purely from it all.

The heavens hang limp, and stars come loose
from the juncture with moon and night.


Nach dieser Sintflut

[After this deluge]

After this deluge
I wish to see the dove
saved,
nothing but the dove.

I would drown in this sea
if it did not fly away,
if it did not return with the leaf
in the final hour.




Jacket 18 — August 2002  Contents page
Select other issues of the magazine from the | Jacket catalog | read about Jacket |
Other links: | top | homepage | bookstores | literary links | internet design |
Copyright Notice: Please respect the fact that this material is copyright. It is made available here without charge for personal use only. It may not be stored, displayed, published, reproduced, or used for any other purpose

This material is copyright © Ingeborg Bachmann and Johannes Beilharz and Jacket magazine 2002
The URL address of this page is
http://jacketmagazine.com/18/bachm.html