WHIRRING OVER THE MOON FIELD
On a Monday,
with fruity schnapps
boring away in my gut,
I scraped along,
through a bloodstained subway,
into a grizzly Tübingen play.
Through this fine mist,
the blessed slugs slid
in the park of
lovers and drifters;
with the clap of a scream,
the hungover day
came dawning
into our lives.
The stretch of Wilhelmstrasse
poked out my eye,
my tongue slurped around
in my brain,
looking for verse
to drown the old pain
in the mouth
of a beautiful
waitress.
‘Kiss me out of my misery,’
I breathed in her delicate ear;
she gave me a flash
of a Swabian smile,
a hint of Wurttemberg lace.
I stared at her eyes the whole morning,
alone by the cafe door;
I injected my coffee with whisky
as crazy clouds winked
through dark blinds.
‘Eines Tages als die Gurke sirrend über das Mondfeld haspelte.’
(‘One day when the cucumber reeled whirring over the moon field.’):
I had had too much to think,
needed the touch
of a swallow in sunlight;
the love of a sky blue hostess
on the wings
of this wasted day.
KEITH ARMSTRONG
WHIRRING OVER THE MOON FIELD
On a Monday,
with fruity schnapps
boring away in my gut,
I scraped along,
through a bloodstained subway,
into a grizzly Tübingen play.
Through this fine mist,
the blessed slugs slid
in the park of
lovers and drifters;
with the clap of a scream,
the hungover day
came dawning
into our lives.
The stretch of Wilhelmstrasse
poked out my eye,
my tongue slurped around
in my brain,
looking for verse
to drown the old pain
in the mouth
of a beautiful
waitress.
‘Kiss me out of my misery,’
I breathed in her delicate ear;
she gave me a flash
of a Swabian smile,
a hint of Wurttemberg lace.
I stared at her eyes the whole morning,
alone by the cafe door;
I injected my coffee with whisky
as crazy clouds winked
through dark blinds.
‘Eines Tages als die Gurke sirrend über das Mondfeld haspelte.’
(‘One day when the cucumber reeled whirring over the moon field.’):
I had had too much to think,
needed the touch
of a swallow in sunlight;
the love of a sky blue hostess
on the wings
of this wasted day.
KEITH ARMSTRONG
Street Art on Wilhelmstrasse, Tübingen on a wall which separates Osiander Bookshop (no 12) from Cafe Schöne Aussichten (no 16)
