a Glass Floor Underfoot - 15. desire breathing in enrapt motions

As always, the terms that seem the simplest to translate are the hardest. Here, the title of Die Bäder can be accurately rendered as The Baths, but our culture has changed to the point that The Baths does not convey what the poet wants. 

Before the building codes changed to require running water for every house or unit in a building, public baths were common in cities of any size. These were later evolved into what North Americans typically think of as bathhouses.

But the setting Jentzsch is musing about in this very erotic collection of verse he called Die Bäder is in fact an indoor public pool. This is where he sees young men (as he himself was at the time) engage in activities we might expect to see at a gym -- working out; wrestling; goofing off. These unguarded moments of the bros being bros with one another inspires Jentzsch to dream about being close to them in sensual ways, although he assumes these studs are out of his league.

The Sutro Baths in San Francisco, circa 1910

Sutro Bath "bros", circa 1915

I am struck by Jentzsch’s poem - the watching and desire he clearly describes have so many echoes in so many of our lives. Too many what ifs linger down the road where those reverberations still sound. 

On 8/28/2022 at 6:56 PM, Parker Owens said:

I am struck by Jentzsch’s poem - the watching and desire he clearly describes have so many echoes in so many of our lives. Too many what ifs linger down the road where those reverberations still sound. 

Thanks for reading and commenting, Parker. Be sure to check out chapters 13 and 14 above. They're "must read"