F Minor - D 940

Of these two pianos one must surely be
the other's misgiving. Play it at night
before bed, it's blood, play it first thing in the morning,
one is the other's phantom. Naked, wet,
woman, how did it ever happen
that a man struck up these sounds:
of the two pianos, at least one feels broken.

Enis Batur, New European Poets, Clifford Endres, Selhan Savcigil-Endres (trad.), Wayne Miller, Kevin Pruffer (eds.), Graywolf Press, 2008

Dear Bartleby

You loved Wakefield, my young friend, and there's more
to it as welll, if I'm not reading too much
into what you've written, you're overly affected
by my odd tale. "I was surprised,"
you're saying somewhere, but in truth it's you
who surprised me with your astonishing remark:
you plainly think I write what I live,
the lives woven into my books you see
as nectar gathered from my own days.
No! Don't be downhearted, the stale life you think
you lead is a hurricane next to the undeviating
flow of my hours. Friend, I never had a life.
And in view of the perfectly empty years
of the past I never will: my body
is a boat adrift on a calm lake surrounded
by mountains: everything, yes everything
begins and ends on the precarious stage
at the bottom of my mind. If I stopped
I'd go crazy, but I can't stop:
without letters tumbling down to my fingertips,
I'd cracked up in nothing flat.

Enis Batur, New European Poets, Clifford Endres, Selhan Savcigil-Endres (trad.), Wayne Miller, Kevin Pruffer (eds.), Graywolf Press, 2008