15 Commentaries on Photographs
The Family of Man (1962)
Three decades after his death in West Berlin, where he relocated following the political unrest of March 1968 (and, with it, renouncing his membership of Poland’s Communist Party), the world seems finally to be catching up to Witold Wirpsza (1918–85). Though never quite ignored, the critical response to his poems, novels and essays were, in his lifetime, remarkably consistent in their inconsistency. Despite early work in socialist realism, to readers intent on toeing the official line Wirpsza’s stylistic accessibility foundered against an ideological heterodoxy bordering on outright cynicism. Quick to challenge the most fundamental features of the national narrative, whether the focus was on Polish martyrdom or the virtues of socialism, his book-length essay Pole, wer bist du? (Pole, Who Are You?, 1971; written in German) made him an easy target for the political establishment. He was nevertheless hardly a darling of the proponents of the so-called ‘poetry of witness’ – a minor irony, given that his lyric method is largely observational. During a half-century when Polish poetry enjoyed global visibility through the likes of Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) and Zbigniew Herbert (1924–98), poets prized for their verbal elegance and the clarity of their moral vision, Wirpsza’s often rough language and deep scepticism of truths declaimed, whatever their stripe, all but ensured that he would remain something of a poet’s poet during his lifetime.
If the collapse of Poland’s Communist regime in 1989 has brought renewed attention to Wirpsza’s work, it has less to do with a relaxation of state controls than with the direction Polish poetry has taken in the interim. The last three decades have seen an increasing interest in those poets who defied easy political or aesthetic categorization during the Communist period, poets who often couch commentary on everyday life in language that blossoms into unexpected wordplay. Versions of this approach appear in every generation, from Wirpsza’s own – especially in the work of Miron Białoszewski (1922–83) – to that of Krystyna Miłobe˛dzka (b. 1932), Piotr Sommer (b. 1948) and Andrzej Sosnowski (b. 1959). The conversation that has arisen around these poets has made a new home for Wirpsza as well.
The lyric cycle that Wirpsza composed in response to The Family of Man provides an excellent introduction to his work, as well as an essential tonic to Carl Sandburg’s exuberant commentary to the original exhibition (see illustration 48). Wirpsza was hardly alone in expressing his misgivings about the exhibition, as readers of the present volume have already discovered. What is special about his response is that it successfully turns the performance of distrust, even outright jadedness, into its own object of aesthetic contemplation. For Wirpsza, whose distaste for propaganda is visceral, images distort at least as much as they reveal, and the significance we attach to them, always imposed from outside the frame, can quickly become the illusion by which we deceive ourselves. This is especially the case when we are told in advance what these images should mean – thus the dedicatory poem’s caustic address toward those who want to improve the lot of mankind, especially ‘pedagogues’. Wirpsza’s poems enact the dialectical interplay of attraction to the image and disgust at its mendacity, an interplay from which some ‘truth’ may emerge, though it cannot be declared such without immediately collapsing back into deception. These poems demonstrate what Roman Jakobson, writing on the antilyrics of the Czech poet Víteˇzslav Nezval, called a ‘carefully thought-out, mercilessly logical exhibitionism’.1
It would then seem a reinforcement of his own ironic stance, both within the frame and well beyond it, that Wirpsza allows his misgivings to lead him into error. The poet who is so preoccupied with the possibility of being manipulated (‘Birds and Shadows’) – with what Wit Pietrzak calls, in a recent article on Wirpsza’s cycle, ‘the dangerous process of ideologizing reality’ – is also likely to perceive only what he has preconceived.2 Thus the poet sees a pathetic image of staged grieving, a ‘second-rate / Actor’ flooded in ‘artificial / Illumination’ over a grave (‘Grief’), in what a higher-quality reproduction clearly shows is a busker smiling with his violin in front of parked cars. More minor infelicities abound in the poems when read against the same photographs they read. Yet these interpretive failures do nothing to diminish the poems’ artistry or the new meanings that arise from their collision, notably in the three ‘contrapuntal studies’ that place the photographs and poems into direct, if contradictory, conversation. Wirpsza wants nothing more than for us to doubt ourselves, not to believe what we are told, and perhaps also to question whether, if truth in representation is a contradiction in terms, there can be any way of sorting what’s a mistake from what is not.
1 Roman Jakobson, Language in Literature, ed. Krystyna Pomorska and Stephen Rudy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 376.
2 Wit Pietrzak, ‘Anty-mitologia Witolda Wirpszy. Komentarz do Komentarzy do fotografii’, Ruch literacki 60, no. 4–5 (2014): 505.
48 Original page layouts from Witold Wirpsza, Komentarze do fotografii, The Family of Man. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1962.
Dedication
There once was a guy
In a tropical country
Who avenged himself on his friend:
Which is to say, he got hold of
A parasite he knew of, a white, threadlike worm
Roughly five centimeters long, and during some serious drinking
Placed it on the other’s collar, and then, calmly and with satisfaction,
Now and then plying his comrade with drink
(The warm wine smelled of yeast – you know the kind), watched as
(The other guy didn’t feel so much as a tickle, the parasite, so fine,
Weighed next to nothing), in wormy slow motion, this creature
Crawled into the bristly opening of his ear; good, it had disappeared into the balmy canal:
After which they drank another, and another, and another, until, blissful
In the glow of their mutual friendship, a bit drowsy, they parted ways.
The friend’s unbearable headaches lasted several weeks, two
Months, let’s say, something along the lines of a hot, moving rod
In the brain, which had an unusually stimulative effect on the imagination. For example:
Flaming fishes boring through ships from beneath the waterline, oh so quiet; or else:
Air hard as ice (the temperature correspondingly low) filling the lungs (each
alveolus in turn); or:
Instrumental polyphony, no dissonance (sound solely consonant),
Only it is mind-meltingly loud, ending in a deafening, univocal trumpeting.
And a great many similar things, and all of it amidst the increasing
Aching of his entire skull. The perpetrator, however,
Nursed his friend devotedly; he came daily: when it was the fishes
He brought a net, when it was ice-air he made hot compresses, to
Harmonious sounds he sang shrilly and off-key, and thus he strove
To bring relief to every notion.
There came a day, and his (the other guy’s) pain
subsided,
And the friend was happy, he laughed and poured the wine. And then
Looked hard at the other guy’s shirt, got hold of the hair-thin creature
And said: Here’s the culprit. He looked even harder and said: it’s
A female, it’s sure to have left eggs. (Which was untrue.) Then
The friend started crying, his cry turned to wailing, and that wail has lasted
Five years now, with pauses for meals, almost without sleep, though
Without pain (since it was untrue).
What was behind this revenge was natural enough. For the afflicted
Had wanted his friend to become a better person, nobler,
Wiser, etc. Whereas I, the author of this dedication, offer it
To all those who desire the same for humanity (e.g., pedagogues, especially
If in this respect they are drumming up a so-called animated effort), and I do
So while paying them humble thanks for the benefits I’ve enjoyed.
1. Birds and Shadows
49 Pages 96–7 extracted from The Family of Man: 60th Anniversary Edition.
If a bird’s body carries a rhythm within, it knows nothing of it; that’s just something
We say. A flock of flying birds likewise knows nothing
Of the rhythm of its configuration: that it’s in groups, three, four, three again, and then
Two (half of four). Anyway, if you look at that flock
From the other side, nothing will come of it, the same as
With the shadows on water arranging themselves into a rhythmic
Counterpoint. Furthermore: one must affirm the evocation of cheap
Romantic associations: man – bird.
Birds flap their wings, nothing more. So
the photographer
Has employed a trick, has shifted his slides (beneath the sun)
To the point of falsehood: to the point of showing a rhythm
That nature (the birds) has not created. The smartypants, he’d falsified
Natural truth (availing himself of the laws of optics, i.e., nature),
And he convinces us that this nature’s beauty comes through its rhythm. It’s
A sham, nothing more, the kind of sham that
Suits our aesthetic needs, a denaturing of the highest order,
Lyric hypocrisy, a sense
of beauty wondrousness rapture delighting one-
Self self self self. The smartypants, con artist, pimp, falsifier in glass.
2. Around the Stove
50 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Family of Man’. Photograph by Nina Leen.
The children have been told to be happy, so they do what they can (children
Are superb comedians), especially great at it are the
Middle-school-age (10–14, give or take) girls, only the thirteen-
Year-old boy seems not to have understood, hence the surprised look. The grownups
Smile stiffly, posed around the stove, beneath the wallpaper: the convention
Of group photography (the family keepsake), i.e., of socio-social
Life. There’s a low level of feigned
Happiness. The slack muscles and skin
Of the old-timers no longer bend to their (insincere) will or imaginations
(Compelled by familiar cohabitation to arise), so:
A bit of truth breaks through, it might be truth, because how else would we get that mocking
Sneer? The decay of the body is in the service of truth. Whereas the photographs
In heavy frames, against the wallpaper, express nothing, mere
Hieratics (what’s that mean?); just that the retoucher
Has enhanced their severity (strict morals, perhaps as it had to be).
We therefore conclude that shortly before death, due to the body’s disobedience,
One could speak the truth: mockery, posed around a stove.
3. Thirst
51 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Labour’: Lennart Nilsson (cropping).
Mouth agape; two front teeth missing from the upper jaw (both
Incisors); water from the spigot splashes against
The bottom lip; the stream splits: some pours in, some
Crashes against the oral cavity (palate, tongue, larynx). Broad
Grimace of the eyes; what do these eyes see,
Turned upward (not the water)? a wall behind the spigot? and if there is
None (the photograph suggests nothing), what? a jet
Plane (the photograph is mute) diving straight
Into the pupils? the knife blade (no hand) slowly nearing
The unprotected (defenseless) mucosa of the throat? the two golden needles
Of Oedipus, they intend: drill (i.e., needles being knife-like in their autonomy,
Absolutely unavoidable)?
Well, no: in the photograph we see merely
The grimace of the eyes: suffering; from which it follows that quenching thirst
Is as painful as thirst itself. What’s more: this pain is
Static. After all: thirst is unquenchable, only:
The stomach (not shown) is filling up with the water’s gurgle.
4. The Law
52 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Justice’: (from left to right) Nat Farbman and Dan Weiner.
The majority of furrows on his face; symmetrically; they’re arranged
In an inverted V; from the eyes, from the nose, from the mouth. The hands, too; symmetrically; in the letter
V, uninverted (on open volumes of codices, i.e., on
Very broadly stretched V’s). Attorney? Prosecutor?
Judge? Toga: lawyer. A concerned (exhausted?) actor. Acting,
In the old parlance: comedia (intending no
Offence) is recorded in the little black flecks
In the horizontal furrows of his forehead (from heavy lifting; symmetrically;
The eyebrows). But in comedia (how else to save mankind from
Evil? The punishment ennobles the society, does it not? Everything
Depends upon the crumpled little aluminum idol of interpretation, right,
Friend?), and so, in comedia (several times repeating
The word: comedia), so in comedia he fades, he melts away;
Without symmetry; concern; then only an exhausting (formerly
In parentheses) remains: this gerund is not spelled
With a ‘V.’
At his neck the photograph shows a very
Busy tie.
5. Hands. Helplessness
53 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Household and office work’: Russell Lee (above), Gjon Mili.
Absolute helplessness. Reflexively, just looking at them,
They (the hands) arouse our respect: for work, for so many years (70? 80?),
For the arthritic swelling (poor earnings, damp
Apartment), the veins, look, bulging, the skin, look
(But sorry, you can’t see it, sorry, you have to
Picture it), in spite of everything, look: cracked; for, what’s more,
Facing death. So, reflexively: ohhhh (exactly). In reality, however,
Absolute helplessness, i.e., the helplessness of cruelty, since:
1) ‘Just look,’ says she, ‘at the weariness of an old woman; how I labored,’
Says she, ‘just look,’ says she, ‘such is my fate, the misery,’ says she,
‘I’m spent, these long years.’ Obviously, this old-lady helplessness
Is the cause behind the helplessness of cruelty.
2) Whereas: ‘So what was it you did?’ I ask. ‘What
Effort? Maybe corpses at midnight,’ I ask (balladic), ‘at the cemetery,
Only your accomplice, right?, took everything, and too bad? Or maybe
Day after day,’ I ask, ‘the concern, when your husband’s a cutthroat,
Your son a cutthroat? Maybe even,’ I ask, ‘it’s just: milking the cows,
There’s the kids, the grandkids,’ I ask, ‘honesty, dependability, just the stuff
Of old age and poverty, no?’ I ask. Thus, again, helplessness.
The face is outside the frame. What kind of face? Honest
Exhaustion? Clever exhaustion? Peevish peevishness? Oh, senti-
Mental helplessness of mine! Besides the old hands on 1/3
Of a threadbare garment: terror? tenderness?
People who, like women, are single-minded (politicians, priests,
Imbeciles, etc.) in their goals, pragmatic, as we say, they’ll say: young ones,
Young ones – kneel before this sacred image (while they themselves are on
The pulpit).
We will flee. Helplessness. The hands
Of the Mighty Strangler.
6. Drying
54 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Household and office work’: (from left to right) Simpson Kalisher, David Duncan, Elliott Erwitt and Emil Obrovsky.
Day, maybe; in the foreground a box (vending machine?)
Emblazoned TYDOL ETHYL; maybe sunny, all this billowing
(Shirts, handkerchiefs, school smocks, dishrags, gym
Shorts, dresses, long johns, pillowcases, towels, skirts,
Bras, sweaters, I’ve probably covered
Everything, there are a few others I can’t
Recognize by shape), so, billowing (TYDOL ETHYL metallic, not
Billowing): a breeze. The lines sometimes oblique, sometimes level
(More often) 2–3 floors up. From this, bit by bit, the damp
Steams off (along with the fragrance of detergent), the underwear dries.
These are the things close to the body (what does TYDOL ETHYL mean?), wherefore
Must they dry, thus one trains (moralizes) underwear;
No humidity; sun and breeze; delightful (beyond the things
Close to the body); it moralizes into delightedness, dryness, into
No trace of detergent left. It dries. TYDOL
ETHYL (sheet metal? plastic?) is always dry: an ideal, i.e.:
A vending machine. Oh, it dries, eyes, eyes, eyes (the echo of drying), close
To the body; maybe sunny; eyes; day.
To keep the body
(Breakdown: stomach, lungs, kidneys, nerves, arteries, pancreas,
Adrenal glands, lymph nodes, genitals, brain, etc., etc.) hanging out
On lines; eyes; evaporating from it; eyes; damp, and then:
Training; TYDOL; moral education; ETHYL; sunny; TYDOL;
Day; ETHYL; delightedness. TYDOL ETHYL (thank God I
Don’t know what it is) ETHYL TYDOL (what’s it mean?) eyes eyes eyes.
First Contrapuntal Study
55 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Family of Man’. Photograph by Nina Leen.
Day, perhaps; the decay of the body is in the service
Of truth. Slack muscle and skin; it’s swelling,
All of it, so it’s swelling; they obey neither the will, nor imaginations.
Wherefore must they dry, especially the teenage
Girls, that’s how to train them, moralize them
Into delightedness: into socio-social life. An
Excellent comedian (les comédiens, in French there’s
No pejorative connotation)? And no trace left
Of detergent? Is it on this basis that the retoucher
Enhances the severity in the photograph? The severity in the eyes, in
The brow? Resulting from the body’s disobedience,
Perhaps; near to death; to express
Mockery. It’s drying, on a sunny day, on lines: it’s
Close to the body; the disobedient body, near
To death; on lines; on the wind.
56 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Household and office work’: (from left to right) Simpson Kalisher, David Duncan, Elliott Erwitt and Emil Obrovsky.
7. Music
57 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Folk-singing’: (left to right, top row) Barbara Morgan, Bradley Smith, Sol Libsohn; (bottom row) Robert Doisneau, N. Kolli and Sam Falk.
They read the notes attentively. Mother: upright piano; father: flute; first
Son: bass; second son: clarinet; third son: cello. No daughters
in this family. The furnishings a bit old-fashioned;
A saxophone hangs on the wall, next to it a clock with weights. The father
(Flute) is surely tapping out the rhythm with his foot. They read the notes attentively;
(The transcription for piano is visible in outline, the upright
Piano in the foreground, no doubt: nineteenth century); the reading
Of notes (close attention) lends the faces an air of torpor.
They take it in; expressiveness; beauty; torpor. Wherefore
These notes (sticks with knobs) will any moment now drill
Into their skulls, and they’ll walk around with their heads thus stuffed;
The notes protruding with their knobs; as one might say of round-quilled
(All around town, even to work) hedgehogs; in the brain, however,
The little sticks’ points evoke a tickling. ‘And what’s tickling
You, son?’ ‘I’m tickled, Mother, by the A, the G-sharp, the B, the E-
Major chord.’ ‘And what tickles you, Father?’ ‘Son, the B, it’s the
B that tickles me, the tone that takes us to C.’ One of the most
Sublime; music is the most perfect; of ways
Of speaking; the shape of beauty; of falsehood.
They read the notes attentively, finger
Them precisely; if only; with their fingertips; not to err.
8. Hole in the Sand
58 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Youth’: Ralph Crane.
That’s just how it seems; all around, a garland of people enjoying
Themselves; that the pair are (he, smiling, she; there’s a word for it; pensive), that they’re
Into each other. Yet all you can see is half the torso: his arm
Across her shoulder, her temple against his brow (it’s going to rhyme),
All this affection in a sandy hole somehow (there’s the rhyme).
The hole is bottomless, despite their having dug it themselves to suit their
Size; it reaches to the center of the world, to the world’s underworld,
Where the projections of all (the erotic idyll) longitudes and
Latitudes come down to a single point. Their legs, too, have
Extended accordingly; the ends of these legs (no longer feet, too thin),
Run together at this point, too, thus becoming the very same
Point (a period). And there: a temperature of several thousand degrees C,
Aside from that; the psychology of ends reduced to ‘a point has no center
And is bounded by nothingness,’ that’s what’s needed; so aside from that,
Hell, in the theological sense (the erotic idyll): they arise from hell,
From solitude, suffering, and hubris. So these quasi-feet are a piece
With magma and original sin. Have they been informed? Can they feel
Those degrees C? They have to be (the erotic idyll) told.
Or else pull them out, flip them around, rest their heads on feet that have no
(Geometric) center; heads; may their feet flutter
At the mouth (idyll) of the hole (erotic) in the sand above them;
May the tips of their toes nestle into each other, while the brain (idyll):
May it plunge (erotic) into hubris, suffering, solitude.
Whereas within the tunnel
There could be (inside: at 1/3 their length)
An act that affords (idyll) a beginning (erotic) to later
Generations of the ‘family of man’.
Second Contrapuntal Study
59 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Justice’: (from left to right) Nat Farbman and Dan Weiner.
The psychology of ends: ‘A point has no center and is
Bordered by nothingness.’ Everything depends on the crumpled
Aluminum idol of interpretation; in the theological sense
(Erotic idyll) this is an asymmetrical concern,
An ennobling punishment, a thing recorded in tiny
Black flecks on the horizontal furrows
Of the brow; otherwise: man emerges from
The magma (several thousand degrees C) of original
Sin, the judge: compelled toward the old parlance,
He inverts (the idyll), through the long tunnel he plunges (erotic)
Human heads into magma, and of this is comedia made;
Comedia, concerned exhaustion, the overcooking of heads
In original sin; in the geometric center; in
The definition of a point (degrees C!); thereby attaining
Appropriate insight (the thing recorded in tiny black
Flecks); into exhaustion; justice; the verdict.
60 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Youth’: Ralph Crane.
9. Hunger
61 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Hard times and famine’: Cas Oorthuys.
Were the wedding band gold, she’d have sold it long ago.
Just a couple months back the nails were still well kept,
Now they’re black at the edges. The eyes are sunken,
If still open wide enough to express sadness.
A hungry person has a right to sadness. She avails herself of this right.
This woman will go and eat. She’ll eat the crust of bread and
Go on eating, more and more voraciously, doing so with the help
Of the movement of her jaws and, in swallowing, the bump in the throat;
In this manner the things (one mustn’t forget the voraciousness) will make their way from oral cavity
To stomach (ravenousness). She’ll go and eat. After eating the bread
The dirt from under her fingernails will end up in her stomach. She’ll go on
Eating. Then it’ll be her fingers; hands next; then,
In turn, forearms (which gives her some practice
At eating bones) (voraciousness); after the forearms, the upper arms. She’ll go on
Eating. It’ll be the left leg’s turn, she’ll drive it right into
Her mouth, she’ll get along swimmingly on the right. And she will eat
The right leg, and by then she’ll move (ravenousness) on the air, un-
Tethered; she’ll; with her body; go on; earthly; and eating. Next
The torso; she’ll keep eating; the torso, to the height of the stomach,
And after that she’ll just go on eating the air, she’ll go on
At the head of the procession (voraciousness) of freaks. She’ll lead the freaks
To heaven. And she’ll travel; she’ll walk; the whole sky;
Eating; and; (ravenousness); she’ll eat; doing so with
The help of the movement of her jaws.
10. Grief
62 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Hard times and famine’: Robert Frank.
One must assume that this sad
Person (in a poor coat, with a bare head) leaning
Against a straight iron (damp, autumn) cross reaching
To the height of his liver is a second-rate
Actor, ctor, tor, or, r; (r, ro, rot, rotc, rotca); for
Why else would he allow the photographer his artificial
Illumination of the face with a floodlight (don’t mention
A flash, the photo’s rushed); aside from that, in the background,
A quite well-composed (welcome; posed)
Light; flashlights, maybe; with chimneys’ silhouettes
Way back; he must have been positioned (r, ro, rot,
Rotc, rotca), actor.
And even if this
Person really had; lost someone; (dear); then
In light of the above (ongoing) analysis:
Now he wants to be an actor; who; hoo; if but
For a moment, since he wants to be
(Ctor, tor, or, r) on his own side
As he displays (plays, imposes) himself to (on) the photographer,
I.e., he wants: to be; (r, ro, rot;).
11. Obstruction
63 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Ansel Adams.
Nature unanimated, by appearances cohesive (granite
Boulders), disintegrates, like everything that
Appears cohesive, disintegrates (it’s apparently
Cohesive) into fragments, hard to pass, these
Fragments (and more granite boulders, only
Smaller), these fragments (likewise
Appearing cohesive) become obstructions, that is:
Unanimated nature of this kind (by appearances cohesive)
Will obstruct our paths, the globe (being,
Apparently, cohesive) disintegrates, obstructs the way
In the brilliance (apparently cohesive) of the sun, only
Non-cohesive, unanimated matter (in the photo:
Clouds, whisps), only such matter
Blocks no way, our hatred of coherence
(Demoralization of community of motes and atoms)
Blocks not our way, demoralization.
Of community (by appearances cohesive), of course,
In unanimated nature.
12. Guesswork
64 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Disturbed children’.
We’ll show you, the universe
Is ours, our imagination is
Shattered, our brains dominated by majestic
Satiety, (none of which we know how to
Say, this satiety; to sate oneself; eat; it’s
The kielbasa of the brain), we have brain kielbasa,
We’ll let you taste it, squished kielbasas, sausages, franks,
These are our mushy grimaces, this the majesty
Of Victors; smashed kielbasa innards; it is we
Who are triumphant, we have brought about
Synthesis; the sausage of synthesis; synthesis of lamp and fish,
Which means, it swims, it illuminates the frank; frankly,
We’re steaming; blah, blah, blah; (that’s the proper way
Of expressing oneself); eternal bliss, the order of the bulging
Kielbasa, we, underdeveloped, triumphant,
We; frankly, we’re steaming; we’ll bring about; the universe;
To the blissfulness of the frank, the kielbasa, amen, the great gnashed
Deal, a blessing, the gods, amen,
It’s growing into us, ever stronger, triumphant,
An exploding, all-encompassing, trampled kielbasa (frank,
Sausage) amen.
13. Work
65 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Labor’: Lennart Nilsson (above), Alfred Eisenstaedt and Allan Grant.
There, the trident oars splash; real good muscle
On the back; beneath the skin; they splash, glistening. So far,
Glistening; there are lines, there are nets; oh, into the distance; for fish;
They splash; oh how they glisten.
At a certain spot at sea
There’s a hole, an opening more or less two meters
In diameter, a whirlpool, but not funnel-like, on the contrary: shaped
Like a cylinder (2m in diameter), its watery greenish
Walls whirling (oh how they splash; how they glisten). This hole, then,
Is where it leads; oh, glistening; the rowers’ rowing (that is:
Useful work; oh how they splash). They slide some-
Teen, tens, hundreds of kilometers down (the hole), into the under-
World, more precisely: -water. Hell (no splashing, no
Glistening). Now hundreds of kilometers (square). And in one
Place (oh, hell; oh, glistening) stands a pillar (country
Fair) of enflamed copper, and the fish they were supposed to catch
Will tell them: Climb up; thus they’ll climb
Up (their skin will hiss) the enflamed
Copper to the top (real good muscle on the
Back); (oh how it hisses; oh, the glistening); enflamed (skin pressed to pillar),
Single file; chest toward; on the back; enflamed; real good
Muscle; single file. The everlastingness of hissing; it splashes; glistening;
Single file; it hisses. The pillar then zigzags through the universe,
A pillar in nooses, useful; infinitude; work; there they are
Splashing; the muscles; the chest; hell; it hisses; single-file.
Third Contrapuntal Study
66 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Folk-singing’: (left to right, top row) Barbara Morgan, Bradley Smith, Sol Libsohn; (bottom row) Robert Doisneau, N. Kolli and Sam Falk.
They’ll climb the enflamed copper,
Up; notes (sticks with knobs) drilled into skulls;
Rowers (who knows), musicians (who knows), (hell;
Oh how it glistens), The Fish they were supposed to catch: ‘And
What’s tickling you, Son?’ Music tickles, zigzagging through
The universe, as a pillar of flaming copper: a trumpet,
Tuba mirum; a sound, a watery, greenish, whirling slide down.
The possessing of everlastingness occurs in a room with
Old-fashioned furnishings, there: the skin hisses,
Chest hard against the enflamed metal, the skin
Smokes, round-quilled hedgehogs with a tickle in their brains blow
Into the flute’s opening, file across the strings
Of the cello, bang their little fingers on the keys, file
Across the strings of the bass, blow on the clarinet’s
Reed; the rowers have taken the plunge; explorers; real
Good muscle on the back; of the maw of hell.
67 The Family of Man installation at Clervaux Castle. Theme ‘Labor’: Lennart Nilsson (above), Alfred Eisenstaedt and Allan Grant.
On the Last Page, Where There are No More Photographs
Monologue:
‘I’ll someday be – the great educators, you see,
O Poet, they’re shaping me ideally for life and I’ll someday
(Maybe quite soon, in a hundred years) someday
Be exactly, which is to say without remainder, without friction, without
Misunderstandings, and thus exactly, included in the perfect
Society, i.e., my own and society’s
Good fortune: two geometric figures fitted tightly together,
O Poet, they (the educators) will intervene with shots
(Of all manner, these are exact calculations, oh the precision) shots
Into my pregnant mother’s womb (that is, my body), and in this way
They will shape my bones, muscles, nervous system and brain and
I’ll be highly gifted, Poet, you see, I’ll have
A character in no way impeachable, i.e., the I who
Will be will in no way betray itself, I’m not
Here yet, Poet, you see, I’m not here, thus
I’m afraid, I’m trembling, slack atoms in air or wherever, you see,
Poet, you too will be – the great educators – prepared, and thus will
I, a preparation, be for you, a preparation: oh sing,
(Such must be my speech), the world’s mild beauty, abandon
(You must), abandon, you see, Poet, this original
Sin, you’ve parted ways, I know, the beauty of the world, the good
(Falsified; with shots) of humanity, that’s when I won’t be afraid, now
I’m afraid, I’m not here, Poet, you see, we’ll be
Happy, and you, Poet, you see, with beauties you’ll prepare
(You lie up a storm of sinlessness) us for
The blessing of beatification.’
That’s the monologue. My dear sweet educators, by original
Sin, by this, my hubris, I bring my loved ones to despise
Your beloved mankind; your blind eyes
(Your love); you won’t see; educators.
68 Poster for The Family of Man exhibition at Haus des Deutschen Kunsthandwerks, Frankfurt.