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    AC Benus
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Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

Miracles - 1. . . . to swing in the storm . . .

.

. . . to swing in the storm . . .

Part One of

 

 

“THOU”

Lover Poems

by August Stramm

Translated by AC Benus

 

 

 

Love Struggles

 

The want’s erect

You beg and beg

Don’t stop

Don’t drift

It’s

Not

You

I want!

The want’s erect

And ebbs the tides away

The want’s erect

And contracts miles upon itself

The want’s erect

And chugs and chugs

And pants

Before you!

Before thee

And detests

Before thee

And resists

Before thee

And bows down low

And

Sinks

Kicking

Caressing

Cursing

Blessing

Around and around

The round-round manic world!

The want’s erect

Then events proceed!

In joint climax

Our hands press

And our tears

Crest

Upon

The same torrent.

The want’s erect!

Not Thou!

Not Thee!

Not

I.

 

 

 

Assignation

 

Gateway demarcated by striped ribbons

My stick-strike

Alights

Upon the jaunty curbstone

While chuckling

Startles

Through darkness

Deceptively

Into

Warm tremors

Stumbling

Hastily

With thoughts.

A blackish kiss

Steals shyness through the gate

And brights

The lantern light

To flare up

After

Him

In the alley.

 

 

 

Moon Wink

 

My eyes tighten upon the glow.

The sleeping glints out from your chamber

Ambered up high

And

Swelters me!

Mute

Remains the bed

Till

Shedding the covers

Turns up your shirt

Refreshed

In moonlight.

Now

You take a shine to you

Thou

Glowest glowest!

Blue

Glows the hand

In radiant depletion

Snatching at the heavens

At moon and stars

Spilling

Strikes around me

Gyrating

Buttons

Wait Wait Wait!

And

Withdrawing to rest

In the old position.

At

Thy window overhead

Yawning tired

The night winks.

 

 

 

Fulfillment

 

My spurs come to tease your bluish toe-tips

While the capillaries mockingly

Giggle away safely

In

The shimmering

Soft, boisterous hills where it is desire

Steadily, steeply, raising up little heads.

The lip seizes itself!

Golden strangles curl down and lace up

Upon your throat as your blood

Palpates all around my fingertips

And seethes with struggle.

The souls curl down then and rumble apart!

Wide do the skirts open the eyes –

Gold light, red

Red-soft, red

Flame hissing through the brain

To cut me off from sight!

Sinking sinking

Floating while sinking

To swing in the storm

In the storm

In the screeching sea!

Brick-red

Over us, we’re blessed by Death

Death ever sowing.

 

 

 

Fickleness

 

My searching seeks!

I convert them by scores!

I feel Myself

And fix on Thou

And grasp Thyself!

Forlorn am I!

And Thou and Thou and Thou

By thousands Thou

And ever Thou

Whirled

Whirling

Whirl

Ever whirled

Through

The tangling

Thou

Thyself

Am I!

 

 

 

_

Copyright © 2023 AC Benus; All Rights Reserved.
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Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

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Chapter Comments

5 hours ago, Aditus said:

Someone labeled August Stramm's poetry as radical art of language.  It's miles away from the so-called Hurrah-Patriotismus that was often customary in his day. You might call it pure expressionism?

Translation is always interpretation. I'm lucky that I'm able to read and compare both versions. I like your interpretation. Choosing thou for du is an interesting choice.

Thanks for reading, I guess. 

 

"Wo nicht, ihn tadeln oder ihn beklügeln,

Er wird sich keinem, als nur einem, neigen.

 

Im Guten mögt ihr schwelgen oder Schlimmen,

Doch nur Gestalt entzücke den Gestalter,

Und jeder soll sein eignes Ziel erklimmen."

--Platen

 

[Yet, chiding or drinking his sorrows with him,

He cares not, and will bend to no one, but one.

 

You may revel as judge of the good or bad,

But creation only delights creators,

And each must set the goals upon which they climb.]

 

Edited by AC Benus
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On 4/6/2023 at 10:31 PM, raven1 said:

Going out on a limb here.  The poems felt rushed and sexual like a person in the midst of sexual passion.  Each poem had a distinct difference of relationship between the author and the other.  It is almost like he's describing a different person as the other in each poem.  The last one would then imply the authors is engaged with himself.  A very intriguing group of poems.  Thanks AC!

Thank you, Terry. The question might be turned around: not who the "THOU" is (or, are), but whether the "I" changes in each poem. In the end, I decided to both use "Lover Poems" as the subtitle (as opposed to the less complex alternate of "Love Poems"), and come to see the "I" of Stramm's POV as one that does not change. That's why I list these poems with tags of "Gay", "Bi" and "Pan" -- I believe we as readers are invited to imagine our own desire reaching beyond the mere limitations of body morphology, grasping for the ever universal "THOU" of love itself.

At lease, lol, that's my story and I'm sticking to it :P  

Edited by AC Benus
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On 4/6/2023 at 1:05 PM, Parker Owens said:

I would echo @Backwoods Boy, for the word breathlessness is perfect to describe these.  I felt most drawn to Moon Wink, though to say so in no way takes anything from the other poems in the collection. Thank you for giving these and Stramm a wider audience.

Thanks, Parker. I'd share the information that somehow I became drawn to this collection of Stramm's poems before I knew much intimate detail about their content. In Moon Wink, for example, I was pleasantly supersized to have the poet use the word "shirt." This items turns up in the poet's rumpled bedsheets, and the original German term is only ever applied to men's shirts. So, here is clear indication that poems like the one that opens the series are set between two males in love. The theme of "Love Struggles" is later, wonderfully realized in another poem called Wunder -- the "Miracle" of the title selected for my posting.

One could look for published references to Stramm's Queerness online and totally fail to find any open-minded comments on his orientation. And yet, as is so often the case, the artist's work speaks well enough for itself    

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4 hours ago, Mrsgnomie said:

Wonderful. I was particularly drawn to fulfillment. It was such a high and a rush, that came crashing down. Very emotionally charged. 

Thank you. Mrsgnomie! Fulfillment happened to be one of the most difficult to translate. Meaning balancing art is the goal, along with a faithfulness to how the same ideas would be (or could be) expressed comfortably to an English-speaking mind. Sometimes it's really hard work, and so it was in this case, although I believe the end result flows naturally.

Thank you for singling out this poem for comment! I appreciate it

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I don't know of this poet at all, but these were interesting poems/translations, AC. I don't find the form used unique, surprisingly. In fact, it is a form similar to ones I have used myself, something I consider a stream of consciousness with (oft singular) words as tools for carving and displaying thoughts. He is adept at this, and I like phrases like "The night winks" and 

"Blue

Glows the hand

In radiant depletion"

 

The passions are very evident in these poems, though I won't pretend to understand all he speaks of, but I very much like some of the moments throughout. For some reason, this will likely stick with me a while...

A blackish kiss

Steals shyness through the gate

And brights

The lantern light

To flare up

 

I see beauty and maybe furtiveness hinted at here, but it is probably open to interpretation. Cheers!

 

 

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Thanks, A.C. for translating them in English. The first time I read them, i had one set up impressions that they brought to mind. Second time another, and so on. This thing is, I don't think I felt the first time was wrong in any way, any more than other readings.

Very thought provoking.

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There is little I can add to what the others haven't already said.  The poems exude passion and longing and are very descriptive, and very easy to relate to as well.  Thanks for sharing these with us, AC. 

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On 4/17/2023 at 12:57 PM, wildone said:

Thanks, A.C. for translating them in English. The first time I read them, i had one set up impressions that they brought to mind. Second time another, and so on. This thing is, I don't think I felt the first time was wrong in any way, any more than other readings.

Very thought provoking.

Thank you, wildone! Yes, even now, when I re-read them, differing thoughts and sights appear. I suppose that's the mark of all 'good' poetry: that interpretations are not set in stone. It's a blessing and curse to try and translate a work like Stramm's "DU" (blessing + curse = madness? -- yes). Few are foolish enough to try and bring them to another language and its limitations, and those who do, can expect mixed reactions at best. And so it goes. 

Thanks again for reading and sharing your thoughts. They're greatly appreciated

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9 hours ago, Bill W said:

There is little I can add to what the others haven't already said.  The poems exude passion and longing and are very descriptive, and very easy to relate to as well.  Thanks for sharing these with us, AC. 

Thank you, Bill. You've said something quite important here -- easy to relate to. Some readers of this collection say to themselves "I can feel the emotions, but I don't get the poems." To such people I'd say, feeling them is what matters. Why should the head and its reasons get in the way of the heart and its understandings?

Thanks for taking the plunge with these!

Edited by AC Benus
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