Thursday, November 3, 2022

Paul Perry : Macht Nichts (for Gregory Betts

from Report from the Betts Society, Vol. 1 No. 1

 

 

 

Lightning,
This time in Weimar,
A balcony. There.
 

Imagine anything you want for all I care.
Wust. East of nowhere.

(Consider the train tracks.
Or the sunshine to come.)

Or I could say
Shadows make up the past

And what was your life.
Lament it in song.

Please don’t. I was only joking.
In the morning after a storm …

Jesus, there was carnage, all manner of
Deceit had gone on, and there was a sing song too.

And a fire if I’m not mistaken.
And Brecht, let’s not forget him.

Insects do harm.
I was very sick that summer.
The wind passed through me.
 

The sun too.
I wrote poems,
Which have been destroyed or lost.
 

Jealous city,
In your ruins I consecrate their remains.

There is a self
Seeking direction, and a fortune,
If you please.
 

My soul trod wearily
The road to you know where …

Tangermünde to Rathenow.

Look it.
I’d do it all again.

I’d do it differently though.

Without God.
Without you, too.

 

 

 

 

Paul Perry is an award-winning poet and novelist. He has published several collections of poetry, most recently Blindsight (above/ground press, 2020). He has also co-authored four international bestselling novels as Karen Perry, including The Innocent Sleep with Penguin Random House. He directs the Creative Writing Programme at University College Dublin. The Garden is his debut novel as Paul Perry. A new collection from Salmon, Jamais Vu, appears in 2022, and a new novel The Emperor of Hummingbirds in 2023.