World History
In time, history crumbles
into stories,
each ending so tragically that the reader,
though he be
no statistician,
turns the page,
pausing at length,
before he closes the book
on secular misunderstandings.
Elbows propped upon the cover,
he stares into the future,
a sphinx on the graves
over the hollow groves
of a past—
dark as always,
infiltrating into the present.
(translated from the German by Marc Vincenz)
***
[The above translation appears in Secret Letter (Cervena Barva Press, 2015) and is reprinted here with permission from the translator.]
As It Ought To Be 