as you yourself would like to fade out,
perhaps not forever,
nonetheless, on the spot ...
In the old stories the taken-for-dead strain to be noticed
trying to crook their little finger-
bur how to make yourself noticed the other way,
if everything crooks of itselffor you
in the illusion of an expressionless liveliness?
How to express expressionlessness
when the going on,
but also the stopping,
the looking up,
but also the looking away,
the talking,
bur also the not-talking-anymore
feign life with none of your doing?
As I said, rhetorical questions.
, ,At any moment the coffin lid would close above him for all eternity, ' ,
it says in the stories abour the taken-for-dead:
and only a first-person-story would still have an awakening.
"At any moment you would again skirt a puddle; at any moment you
would again stop at a traffic light."
It is not a first-person-story:
so you skirt puddles forever
and stop at all traffic lights .
What an effort the indifferent sleepers still make
in the subways ,
lying on papers,
covering themselves with rags!
What an effort just to imagine
that after all these years they still have the strength
to reach for half-empty wine bottles!
Perhaps you will now meet someone
whom you know,
, 'from earlier on, ' , you think
even if you first met him only yesterday-
that's how much nonsense already has its own time .
Any moment now you will simulate shaking hands ..
