Wednesday, November 16, 2016





Hans Arnfrid Astel
translated by Eric Dickey
eric_dickey@yahoo.com




THE MUSSEL
STARTS DOWN THE PATH
AS A SNAIL,
OR:
THE TRICK
  


MUSSELS,
houses
of happiness
poems.

HIERonymus
in the house
of the holy script.

AT Bingen am Rhein
Mother of pearl
in the river bed
of the father.

  
UNIO PICTORUM

Water colors
in mussel shells.

The rainbow
in the Painter’s Mussel.

THE mussel
shuts itself away
in its shell.
THE falling folds,
casts
of Mussel shells.

IN the sea
Sparrows
over-winter
as mussels.


HEART mussel,
the swell
in mussel chalk.


EAR OF VENUS

The tumbling
wave
lingers
in mussels
on the beach.


ABALONE

The first sign,
Mother of Pearl
the ear
the mussel

of Venus.

DOLL DISHES

Ever smaller heart mussel halves
stacked upon each other, doll dishes,
come to a point, the pearl
in your mussel, ever growing
heart mussel halves, doll dishes.

THE world, a pearl
in whose mussel?

YOUR mussel,
a hot-blooded snail.


MOTHER OF PEARL

The mussel
unfolds
heaven.

The mussel opens,
heaven lets me in.

In the heaven of lust,
always Mother of Pearl.


PSYCHE,
the soul of the mussel,
Mother of Pearl butterfly.

MOTHER of Pearl butterfly,
mussels glide
downstream.


PEARL MATTER

Glinting,
the mussel leaves
a lasting place.


CAT’S EYE SHELL

The moment of love
embodied in Mother of Pearl.

MOTHER of Pearl,
a glint from within
grows only in the lap
of queens.


COPPER
Kypris
from Cyprus.

CYPRAEA,
mussel money
in my pocket.

COWRY mussel.
The currency of love.


STAR MONEY,
coins
in the fountain.

WINGED wheel,
winged foot of Tyche,
be-wing my penis
to your mussel-Psyche.



PORCELLA

The pool of water
reflects your sex.
Do you like to take
soap from the mussel?
The eye shimmers.
And the bear’s eye?
Take me also
into your moist lips!

THE mother purls
in your parlor.
You are not here,
I live in the house.


PORCELLA

Cups in the cupboard.
This early, the wet
sex is sick.

WRECKED
on the cliff
of his nymph,

the well-traveled
Odysseus.


CHICKEN GOD

The mussel
bores through stone.
Angels
fly with ivory bone.

APLYSIA DEPILANS L.

Shards for a mosaic,
rays fly through the sea.
But even snails
have not always crept.
Take the cowry mussel.
She coats her house,
porcella, puella, adorns it with
Mother of Pearl all around.
She makes porcelain.
In the end, the intimate bone
bothered her.  This is how she
crept along without it.


WINGED lips.
Shame grips me
when I find sea hares.

The colorless sea hares
devour green algae.



How does the Aplysia look?
Like a big
cowry snail without a house.

HOMELESS, weightless
she wiggles in the waves.

HEAD and fuckle
between the lobes.
And on the mark, they fly.
This is how it looks
when Sea Hares mate.

THE snail has four feelers.
Five, counting the fuckle.

TO name Aplysia
the cleanest of all
means to mistake dirt
for cleanliness as well.



APLYSIA NATANS

Inspired
by the lips
of original sin,
an angel,
the flying phallus
naked in the water,
a snail, flying
with vulva lobes
and angel tongues,
a delta wing
with sack and flute,
the old hermaphrodite.

WITH knives in the sand
the fisherman searches
for razor clams.

HE kills limpets
with his fingernail.
Devours them raw.
Leaves a heap of Mother of Pearl
beneath him.



THE mother
of this pearl
is a snail.

THE spiral,
the screw
in the maker.

A screw
in the mother,
the snail
in the shell.

THE winged mother
on the bicycle hub.

INvoluted
the evolution
of the snail
from the mussel.



THE mussel rolls itself up.
The mirror shell
becomes the cover stone.

COVER and shell,
the Jacob scallop.

THE snail cover,
the shell of the other mussel.

THE snail
winds itself
out of the mussel.


THE TRICK

The mussel
starts down the path
as a snail.

FELIX helix,
porcella puella.



HELIX POMATIA

Who here explores whom,
you ask,
the snail you
or you the snail
while it sails around
your hand.

ONE in a million,
the snail king,
the reverse wound
vineyard snail.


HAND ON THE HEART

I hit my hand on my heart,
there in my breast pocket
the lime cover crumbles.


FELIX

You have found
the snail cover.
Search now for cupid’s arrow.



YIN & Yang,
two snails
paired up.

In the looking glass,
Cupid’s arrow
a vineyard snail.

THE film
the trail
of a snail.

I was the snail.
This was my house.
Come in!

Brittle,
like the lime cover
of a vineyard snail.

The house
is the only thing
that remains brittle.















1 comment:

  1. Ric, the poet is Hans Arnfrid Astel, translated from the German by Eric.

    ReplyDelete