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118 Hamburger Contradiction, Counterpoint As one it whizzes, the four-season wheel Towards its destination now, to crash, So fast his once responsive landmarks flash Past a strapped driver’s slowed-down recognition. Pedestrian by nature, when not by choice – Footslogging carrier of a rifle, kit, Still at that route march slowness could rejoice: Things out of bounds purloined, reserved in it, Though the condition made him less than one, Mere number there, subsumed, so more than one With luck, to be released, allowed to feel – No matter how, where, when: war was transition . . . New speed detracts, leaving the real outrun If he sits motionless, Dashed, bumped from stress to stress. His lost companions – are they luggers, trussed, Of their equipment yet? Or are they dust? While, time confounded, still I lurk in time Random as is time’s measure I will rhyme. For what? For timelessness That can make more of less. Whizzbang prevails, become the common lot, But the ground bass sustains a different plot Which, deaf, I hear, the players, listeners gone And in this lagging rhythm can trudge on.
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RobertWalser TwelvePoems TranslatedbyMichael Hamburger [Michael Hamburger did these translations for a leaflet includedinanECMCDof Heinz Holliger’s settings of the poems.Hewastohavewrittenanintroduction,butdiedbefore he could. However, ina letter of 22May2007he sketched out whathewantedtosay;and ratherthanamplifythosenotes, weprint themhere. Theysayagooddeal about Walser, who died in 1956 after three decades in confinement, and are characteristicof Michael.] All these poems are earlyones, fromthe one bookof poems thatWalser publishedinhislifetime. Thefirst, titlepoemof Holliger’scomposition[inGerman: ‘Beiseit’], alonemakesone thinkof Walser’s later confinement inclinics andanasylum; but, thoughhe wrotemanymorepoems inlater decades, he waswhollyhimself fromthestart. . . Walser’sworkwasdone ontheperipheryof literature, sohadnothingtodowiththe varioustrendsandmodesofthetime. Nordidhecarewhether he was a poet or writer of occasional verse. (For most of his readers he remained a writer of prose which couldn’t be classifiedeither.) I couldalsoaddsomethingabout Holliger’s

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118

Hamburger

Contradiction, Counterpoint

As one it whizzes, the four-season wheel Towards its destination now, to crash, So fast his once responsive landmarks flash Past a strapped driver’s slowed-down recognition. Pedestrian by nature, when not by choice – Footslogging carrier of a rifle, kit, Still at that route march slowness could rejoice: Things out of bounds purloined, reserved in it, Though the condition made him less than one, Mere number there, subsumed, so more than one With luck, to be released, allowed to feel – No matter how, where, when: war was transition . . .

New speed detracts, leaving the real outrun If he sits motionless, Dashed, bumped from stress to stress. His lost companions – are they luggers, trussed, Of their equipment yet? Or are they dust?

While, time confounded, still I lurk in time Random as is time’s measure I will rhyme. For what? For timelessness That can make more of less.

Whizzbang prevails, become the common lot, But the ground bass sustains a different plot Which, deaf, I hear, the players, listeners gone And in this lagging rhythm can trudge on.

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