Evening Society, Matthias Politycki, Germany

EVENING SOCIETY

This evening you appeared
so precious and vulnerable
amongst all those well off people,
celebrating a luxurious life.

You were so tiny, so frightfully finite,
while around you, seekers of pleasure, preposterous
and never satisfied, what a commotion!
I feared that you would irreversibly

become even smaller, ever
more transparent, if only to fade finally
out of sight like a last glimmer,
till you quit silently this world
since obviously you did not fit in.
And what would remain instead,
if not the cunning talk of women,
and the boisterous noise
made by men, as if nothing happened just now.

MATTHIAS POLITYCKI, Germany (1955-)
Translation Hatto Fischer

ABENDGESELLSCHAFT//Du sahst den ganzen Abend heute/so kostbar und zerbrechlich aus,/inmitten wohlgenähten Leute,/die feierten in Saus und Braus//So schmal warst du, erschreckend endlich,/und um dich Lebenslust, so prall/und nimmersatt, welch ein Krawall!/Ich hatte Angst, du würdest unabwendlich//Nur immer schmaler werden, immer/noch transparenter, bald verblassen/vor meinem Aug‘ /um letzten Schimmer/und still und leis die Welt verlassen,/in der du offensichtlich deplaziert./Und das gerissene Gegirre/der Damen würde bleiben, das/Drumrumgeschwirre/der Herren, als wär‘ gerade nichts passiert.