ODER AND NEISS
(or else)
Don't take the key from the doorway,
don't write your name on the ledge.
Right there, where the cat sleeps, that's
from where Jezebel jumped. She landed
the three floors down, right to the
pavement below. Two broken legs
and all painful as Hell.
-
But that was long ago. When Berlin
had two sides. When Regensburg was
new. When the girls in Bonn were still
speaking 'Bonn' - which is not German
at all. I remember laughing at that when
someone asked Gertag what people spoke
in Bonn. 'They speak Bonn!' she said -
something of the equivalent of a southern,
country, hick town local dialect in Amerika.
I said 'I thought you all spoke Kafka.'
-
I make tricks. I can put a cigarette through
a quarter. But what I cannot do, Goddamn it,
is make your memory disappear.
(or else)
Don't take the key from the doorway,
don't write your name on the ledge.
Right there, where the cat sleeps, that's
from where Jezebel jumped. She landed
the three floors down, right to the
pavement below. Two broken legs
and all painful as Hell.
-
But that was long ago. When Berlin
had two sides. When Regensburg was
new. When the girls in Bonn were still
speaking 'Bonn' - which is not German
at all. I remember laughing at that when
someone asked Gertag what people spoke
in Bonn. 'They speak Bonn!' she said -
something of the equivalent of a southern,
country, hick town local dialect in Amerika.
I said 'I thought you all spoke Kafka.'
-
I make tricks. I can put a cigarette through
a quarter. But what I cannot do, Goddamn it,
is make your memory disappear.
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