Excerpts from
Tabernacle
By Niels Frank
The parrot kicks. You can say
that. The parrot answers himself
in a profound voice. You
can say that. In his own way
the parrot is a genius. But nobody is
in his own way and least of all
him. But how do you tell him that.
My coffee hides
in the cup. You can say that.
But from whom? Steam rotates vaguely
as I look into the depths, a kind of horror
that makes itself invisible
before me, the purest nothingness
which in reality is water. But
how do you tell it that.
And that many mediocre dreams
just rumble blindly through a darkness.
And that the stars bloom high up
in it. And that all the consequences of this
begin to quote themselves brilliantly
as soon as you turn your back on them.
In the most taciturn language, as for example
this, such atrocities take place
all the time. The parrots squawk.
The coffee is silent. To my credit I repeat
its silence, a conduct of life I loudly
proclaim. In this way the incantations
fail to recognize each other, but are continually
combined. Yes. You can say that.
They're combined into a powerful theory.
Forgive me for constantly proving it.
Translated by Anne Born and the Author
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