deserter angels humming like snow / welcome in the new world
as through bottomless pits / radiating they leap lengthwise through the other
sawing lightning on the sawhorse / liberating chained flowers
and throwing the stones into the sea
the stones cling desperately to their lungs
like shipwrecked syllables to the leaves of the green / addition
behind a barricade of songbooks the angels call / triumph
take each other by their gloved hands
falling asleep on four-legged liquids
and changing into circular soul rags
sticking out by an inch beyond infinity
presenting itself as a nameless body on an atheist shopfloor
that's how things are in the year one / in the year two the flight of the flags will finish
the call welcome to the new world
is only uttered at rip-rap-ritual acts
for example when a saucepan filled with time is taken off / the ring of the world
in the year three the new world will be old / the angels will paginate their wings
trying to vanish into thin air / like a mass of vase-skinned scholar wind
this scent though will be so
powerfully outscented
by a certain stronger scent
that the angels will fall apart / into two equal cold portions
following black suit / and subsequently add on in the name of amen
the end of the song to the beginning of the chant
while in the unwashed original version
the angels are eventually strapped into the harness of the stars where
together with the mirage
they disappear
never to return



Less poetic minds ought to read All My Angels (Alle meine Engel), edited by Heike Kraft (Sammlung Luchterhand, 1992). [I might even translate one or two of the pieces in this book, but not all! - Your panicking translator.]