Catcrow Grotto
illustration by Dale Houstman
Console
Their overheated interior hangars are fixed about
a decorative wire ring. I believe Victorian. Or there are hooks
on functional salt-toughened seahoods. Fixed about
the collapsible rungs of the hospice cot or shafts cheaply fitted
with human heads. Places have grown larger since then.
Remember one ember in her prison water. The iron apron. The lily
housed in its wire shaft, that finicky shaft, cheaply fitted
with human heads. Places have grown richer since then.
Revolution can be boiled away. Frozen cheapness
for night grazing. The shafts cheaply fitted
with human heads fixed on gold panels but
windows are just windows in Coventry. Not here.
the government bawdyhouse can no longer afford curtains.
Or do I see heavenly blue curtains. Do I see shafts cheaply fitted
with human heads fixed on gold panels and panels fixed
to the collapsible rungs of the hospice cot.
-Dale Houstman
Flesh Fall
A wind blasted her body. Her eyes rolled upwards and blue blossoms
erupted upon her breasts. The laughter from the woods decreased as she
shivered, broke apart, and blew away. There would be rumors of her,
already downwind - of her skin granulated or slit into overlapping
foliates, her hair red and viscous with pollen, her pupils obscure,
moist like cherries. Left behind is a fusty panther-scent mixed with
corrupted leaves - an odor I roll in as a dog and carry home to the
family. Always she is darkening the way, always the path free of the
woods is blocked by the remnants of her.
-Dale Houstman
tr. by Tim Kahl
Involuntary Study
In the beginning the untrustworthiness of my mirror amused me, now it troubles
me.
At the end of winter, I realized that my mirror (the only one I own, it
hangs in the hallway) reflected objects only partially, both stationary
and portable objects, which bid the mirror to reflect their image. The bedroom
faces the mirror and in the bedroom has a window with a view of the Warsaw
Dam. The drama began when the window did not appear in the mirror. It did
not appear piece by piece nor later on, the window remained invisible. The
place where the window should have been was empty. I believed it was an
optical illusion (therefore I looked within myself for the error ), and
I let the matter be. Then Sylvia advised me that the mirror's glass was
dull. She said she couldn't see herself in it. We stood almost invisibly
before its sound clear glass (it wasn't dull) and expected a reaction from
the mirror. It adjusted after a minute, Sylvia's left hand (with the silvery
ring) appeared as a normal reflection and faded after about two minutes.
Besides the hand, nothing else was seen, nothing but the reflection of the
left hand. Sylvia laughed (I appeared: without reason) and spoke of the
mirror's mood. My mirror is an ordinary one, a meter tall, framed by black
wood, its steady glass has no damages, tricks or secretive regions. I bought
it for next to nothing in a furniture warehouse, it had a previous owner,
but it isn't old (I don't know anything about how old the mirror is). I
love worn-out plate glass with specks and fragile areas, a mirror lives
and dies like every other thing, it is destroyed by choice or chance, and
it gets lost.
Sylvia expects me to remove the mirror, that is to say to place it somewhere
new, but I have gotten used to it, its condition engages me (it stipulates
nothing of me). The mirror as a thing or an absurdity is like me, this one
piece of furniture. There are no words for what goes on inside it -- why
not. Perhaps it riots against its own function (it exhausts itself in permanent
passivity), it protests against matter and against me? Sylvia amuses herself,
she laughs at me. She reproaches me about taking the drama personally. I
do not take the drama personally (what does that mean personally!). It doesn't
concern me -- but it is the mirror in my apartment, my mirror, my property,
without the right to have moods. Day and night it is the same, at any time
of day in any season it is the same, it distinguishes light without judging,
and it shows no prejudice against snow or sun, bulbs, or candles. I shine
the flashlight at it at night, and it either reflects the light or it doesn't.
It reflects me as a splendor and in detail, or it remains blank. Sylvia
patiently indulges it. She sits down in front of it in a chair and waits--one
should give it time, give it a chance, it is distracted or simply spoiled,
it is absorbed in itself and about the destroyed world, and a complicated
physical nature. And if she undresses in front of it, will it seduce her
so to speak? She has done this and found out nothing (o mirrors and women!).
It leads me to think it is immune to Sylvia. Has it been programmed to be
unprincipled or vicious by an evil creator, a technical demon, or does it
find reality reproachful, it prefers to be like it is -- transient, mysterious
and very mixed up -- it loathes, what appears in front of it, it can not
endure people, who come and then go again, it denies their bodies, scorns
their movement and lives. Is this humorlessness or irony? I have inquired
with caution (it does not want to be suspected of madness, what next!) about
the characteristics of other mirrors, in the houses and the vehicles of
my friends, in the beauty salons and the theaters, but I never hear about
similar dramas. A mirror is a mirror, it is always the same, it is the same
wherever one places it and whatever one shows to it, indoors or out in the
open, it assumes without exception each object, it reflects everything available
and its colors, and it leads to where there is nothing, where there is nothing
false in front of it. The mirror does not lie, it does not invent. I have
seen birds, that flew into mirrors--they bounced against the glass and fell
dead to the floor.
I say: the mirror is an invention of the person, a commodity and no magic
stuff, it is a piece of furniture without magic, through which a familiar
illusion comes about, it is timely, reliable and without expense. Those
are the facts, over which no one loses sleep, but what am I doing with my
mirror. What has happened to the mirror, what is important to it, that it
confuses the facts, perhaps as an instrument it does not recognize the powers
which it should serve, that's funny isn't it, although Sylvia is still always
amusing herself with it. A new mirror is bought quickly. I don't take the
drama personally (it is too far removed to take it personally), but it is
the mirror in my apartment, it is my opponent, it drives me crazy, perhaps
it is my enemy? I do not know whether the mirror is contagious. It does
not fall from the wall and it does not break into pieces. I stoned it, for
no reason, it didn't crack--the idea is not to laugh. I can leave it unseen
in the cellar or put it out on the street--it can't do anything to me. Svlvia
doesn't feel like asking it a question. Laughing Sylvia. Everything is welcome
that amuses. If the mirror is not a mirror, what is it then. One could give
it a name, which one.
--Christoph Meckel
tr. by Tim Kahl