https://www.albany.edu/offcourse
http://offcourse.org
ISSN 1556-4975
Published by Ricardo and Isabel Nirenberg since 1998
"DER KRIEG VERBRENNT DAS HERZ" by Ute von Funcke
WOHIN?
Alarm – nichts wie weg!
Stolpere über Röcheln.
Verfange mich im Gedärm unseres Nachbarn.
Seine Katze streicht um Beine,
die es nicht mehr gibt.
Sie wirbeln in der Luft.
Der Fluss nimmt sie auf, wäscht sie.
Er beruhigt die aufgebrachten
Leichen. Schaukelt sie
hin zur Mündung.
Ihre neue Heimat.
Datteln fallen aus den
Taschen des Nachbarn.
Klebrig meine Finger wie das
Fell der Ratte, die ich fing.
Ich suche ihren Bau.
"War Sears the Heart"
Where to go?
Alarm! Run!
I trip over death rattles
Get tangled in the guts of our neighbor.
His cat prowls around legs
That are no longer there.
They are whirling in the air.
The river gathers them, washes them.
It soothes the outraged
corpses. Cradles them
to the water's mouth.
Their new home.
Dates fall from the
neighbor's pockets.
My fingers sticky as the
fur of the rat I caught.
I am looking for its hole.
Translated by I. Nirenberg with the author.
Ute von Funcke, who wrote plays for children before turning to poetry in 2004, has published four collections of poems, most recently “in den rissen der zeit” (“in the fissures of time”), both by scaneg Verlag, Munich. Her new collection, "Schneisen Schlagen / Plötzlich Anders", appeared in Fall 2021, also by scaneg Verlag. The first selection of her poetry, translated by Stuart Friebert, “Between Question & Answer”, appeared in 2018 from Pinyon Press; the companion volume, “Shadow of Shadows” from Black Mountain Press, followed in Spring 2020.