Translated
by
Clark Mills and Ivan Goll
JOHN LANDLESS CROSSES THE ATLANTIC
At last it fails and drops away in dust
This land of so much fear and fallen stone
Old Europe's pantheons are but a crust
A nameless cape a ragged heap of bone
And now no longer on the antique shores
Will one pursue the stars of
lov~
he lost
The golden kursaals and the useless stores
Of sentiment are permanently closed
0 sea-whore: garmented in lace of foam
Why do you draw me outward towards your bed
That velvet-bolstered ever open tomb
Where coral grows that coldest blood has fed?
Within your gardens rich with iodine
Longing you look for any clumsy mate
Who drunken with your salty emerald-vine
Might waken the old shudders you await
The naked drowned who plunge to your demesnes
And through whose breasts the silver sturgeons swim
Their guts alive and wriggling with sardines
Come down to love you winged like cherubim
I captain of your sea-horse squadron will
Command your passions and your secret dreams
I plant my masts on every waving hill
And slumber calmly on your nervous streams
In vain you call me with your glittering face
And with the chemical power of your eyes
My bolted armor balks your false embrace
My ears are sealed against your drunken sighs
291
