Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...

political opportunism of those indifferent to human fate and only attentive to their
own success and advancement (cf. Kaspe 43).
The next part thematizes the artist: “unter Bäumen steht der Maler, auf /
den Schultern schwarze Raben” (“Under trees stands the painter, on / His
shoulders black ravens,” ll. 27-28). These ravens try to pick the painter’s eyes,
and millepedes crawl over the musician’s hands, thus indicating the menace to
artistic creation by attacking that body part which is most vital to it. But the poem
also extends this thematization of the artist to the writer, an aspect prefigured in
Goya’s etching, in which the sleeping man has a piece of paper in front of him
and is tendered a pencil by the owl at his right shoulder.
Der Mensch wacht auf und streckt
Den Leib und reckt die Arme, erhebt
Den Kopf. Zu End der Schlaf.
Mit einer Feder bannt der
Erwachte die Ungeheuer aufs Papier.
Da sinken sie zurück ins Wesenlose,
Die Fledermäuse schrumpfen ein, die Eulen
Weinerlich und kahl, fallen zu Boden, rollen
In die dunklen Ecken, wo sie der
Schatten schluckt. Die bösen Augen schließen
Sich, und die drohenden Schnäbel zerfallen wie verbranntes Paper,
Das noch die Form bewahrt bis es ein
Hauch trifft. (ll. 39-52) 114
By using a deliberately ambiguous term, “Feder,” which can also refer to a
writer’s pen, the poem’s speaker puts himself in the position of the artist. Unlike
114 “The man awakes and stretches / His body and extends his arms, lifts / His head. Over is his /
sleep. / With a quill the awoken / Bans the monsters onto paper. // There they sink back into
immateriality, / The bats shrivel, the owls / Whining and shorn, fall to the ground, roll / Into the
dark corners, where they are devoured / By the shadow. The mean eyes / Close and the menacing /
Beaks crumble like burned paper, / Which retains its form until scattered by a / Breath.”
89