Lesson on method — Helmut Heissenbuttel

for the Stolterfoht bookshop -Lisi Drascher and Pym Stolterfoht — transalted from textbuch 11

Rhythm flows from one gem-adorned phrase to the next; however much we may think, the music carries us, and that has nothing to do with cracking codes

the title of this piece is the title of this piece doesn’t matter

Work developing a life of its own, a life of its own kind, not necessarily what the author planned

lower boundary: body; upper boundary: dance; lower boundary: dance; upper boundary: speech; lower boundary: speech; upper boundary: music; lower boundary: music; upper boundary: mathematics; a desire for learned matters

the refusal to be the God of the written word invents readers

I must reread several times until I know what I mean; only after a while does the fact I was striving for return

symbiotic poem

music of the blood calls cellar door

obsessed with metamorphosis

seascape mingles with landscape

I am not one to bring together but for metaphors if they are not dissimilar, they exist

where do leopard and dragon come together? that is the constellation leopard glowing, spotted the summer river beneath why constellation

interest in collecting strange words unusual spaces free-flowing punctuation

Punctuation as action

the innocent eye

precedence of the eye over the erring brain poem beginning the

I am a crocodile dil half man half horse

how do you catch such a bird, caller

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even if he is responsible for his words, he is not for their arrangement

doves of the imagination, clusters of the imagination, clusters of dove-clusters imitated

the sleeping mind of the verses writes, stores golden words within them

old in a greenhouse, sometimes sings; superior thoughts foster quotations

Redskins of the West speak older grammar than those of the East Tongues lark-wings when no Redskin craves white wisdom in a red tongue

near him, wages when near him, life when near him, a lowly door, together

unveiling only a foreboding future Iron horse, I see them scratching Swan or stork Fish wriggling in the weir We are ensnared by our knowledge

Words work together to generate meaning

Bitch through stallion from bitch

Wind Yahweh Iyyob

what I have written is not planned; if it takes shape, that is the return to the beginning; it has themes where it digresses; if it has unity, then that which precedes follows

make it clear that the nooks and crannies of the poem are the places where its essence resides

every author writes a long poem whose text he is not fully aware of, whose recurrence follows him, cradle and drink of its source, which is its cadence; he has gone

I am someone who is needed but not wanted

he had gone out of fashion without ever having been in it

more and more a living fossil

night upon the face of white rock, lake; then I said, I live forever

tear-poisoned eye

Aaron’s rod

what have you of the boats out there or the lights, always the same lights and boats, evening after evening

how much one is needed, however, is very hard to perceive in all these years