Monday, August 28, 2017

Ingeborg Bachmann in Translation

Giuseppe Barberi
Elevation for bed alcove
ca. 1790
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
Elevations for bed alcoves
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
Two bed canopies
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

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But where are we going
carefree be carefree
when it grows dark and when it grows cold
be carefree
but
with music
what should we do
cheerful and with music
and think
cheerful
in facing the end
with music
and to where do we carry
best of all
our questions and dread of all the years
to the dream laundry carefree be carefree
but what happens
best of all
when dead silence

sets in

Giuseppe Barberi
Bed alcove with standing figure
ca. 1790
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
 Bed alcove detail
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

THE LIBRARY

The shelves sing.
The volumes are weighted down with the past.
Their sweat is dust.
Their impulse is rigidity.
They no longer struggle.
They have saved themselves
upon the island of knowledge.
Sometimes they've lost their conscience.
Here and there, protruding
from them, human fingers
point directly towards life
or towards heaven.

Giuseppe Barberi
Canopy bed
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
Canopy bed
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

ENIGMA

At the Nile at night, at the Nile,
where the stars hang down into your mouth
and your dry heart is moist once again,

in the Egyptian night,
where you have never been before, but soon will be,
in order to give the Sphinx your answer.

In the blue night,
as in an eternally open mouth the desert's tongue
seeks your moisture.
If it burns you up,
your exhausted grasp
will resemble my answer.

Life of my life,
savage mouth
that takes the breath away
and no longer allows a memory,
let me be myself,
let me be with you.

Giuseppe Barberi
Elevation for bed alcove
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
 Elevation for alcove
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
Crest of canopy
ca. 1790
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

CURRENT

So far in life and yet so near to death
that there's no one I can argue with now,
I rip from the earth my separate part;

I thrust its green wedge into the heart
of the calm ocean, as I wash aground.

Tin birds rise and cinnamon scents!
With my murderer, Time, I'm alone.
Drunk and blue we spin our cocoon.

Giuseppe Barberi
Design for royal tent
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
 Stage design - Pavilion with trophies of war
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
Chair
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
Family eating melons
ca. 1800
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

 from Darkness Spoken: Collected Poems of Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973), translated by Peter Filkins (Brookline, Massachusetts : Zephyr Press, 2006)