Fin de siècle Poem by Lutz Seiler

i walked in the snow those nervous
post-war whip lamps in my neck
across the mozart bridge in vienna
where there still hunched on a rope a tired
irish setter he

was dead and was waiting for me
that is to say I untied the rope
from the base of the railings and began
to swing the animal a little
to & fro skin & bone-light
peal of bells flurry of snow
set in I sang

a little song across the Danube
& back (I was a child) the dead
setter now spun on my
right arm over the pretty
balustrade he rotated
lightly & huge into the nervous
post-war lamplight a rip
on his neck deepened a whistling

set off and his stiff
eyeshells flapped
faintly up & down: you

would have loved the mechanics of this gaze
and would have been even lonelier
above the snow the bridge & the old song

Translated by Hans-Christian Oeser & Gabriel Rosenstock