Grazer Damm

From the Insulaner to the city motorway

Grazer Damm

Tiled stoves, laundry room in the attic

Air-raid shelter in every house

Grazer Damm

The Senate stockpiles briquets for dark times

Grazer Damm

Our apartment, although right at the top.

I cannot sleep. On the other side of the street people in costumes make a racket.

They’re drumming and they’re yelling.

It’s supposed to be something festive. Festively costumed turmoil.

Grazer Damm

My brother is there, like me, at the window, still a child.

I am annoyed: because it is all going on beneath the window

of my sleeping little sister.

The police arrive. People scatter. Grazer Damm

Directly in front of our window falls a curious man,

took one step too many, drops straight down from the roof.

A parachutist in full astronaut gear smacks down on the pavement, without

a chute. An ambulance, an ambulance

Grazer Damm

More jumpers hit the ground, pick themselves back up

– It’s not possible, we’ve not reached the bottom yet –

They try over and over to drop from low altitude

but have long since hit the bottom; injured

Grazer Damm

A suicide with the gas oven blasts a hole in the façade

Grazer Damm

Trains and death travel by night

beside the rain gutter across the roof.

My little sister… my little sister

Friedenau

Grazer Damm

Grazer Damm

Grazer Damm