POETRY
Peter Handke
NONSENSE AND HAPPINESS
ForJean-Mane Straub
On a cold, indescribable day,
when it does not want
to
become dark and not bright,
the eyes neither want to open nor shut
and familiar sights don't remind you
ofyour old familiarity with the world,
nor as new sights magick a feeling for the world,
-the Two
&
One poetic world-feeling-,
when there exists no When and But,
no Earlier and still no Then,
dawn sweaty and evening still unimaginable,
and on the motionless trees only quite rarely a single twig snaps
-as if it had become slightly lighter,
on an indescribable day like that,
on the street,
between two steps,
the sense is suddenly lost:
the black man walking toward you in his leather coat–
you want to slug his face,
or throttle the woman reading off her list before you in the shop.
And more and more often the thought frightens you
how you nearly did it,
-a jolt was still lacking, the mysteriousJOLT
with which love set in at one time
or the wild resolve ro lead life your way,
or again between two steps,
" Die Sinnlosigkeit und das Glueck" from ., Als das Wuenschen noch geholfen hat"
©
Suhrkamp Verlag ,
Frankfurt am Main 1974.
