Stambul

by Joachim Sartorius

Heruntergekommen

sieht der Mond aus

durch das lange Rohr

auf wackligem Stativ,

aufgestellt am Rand des Taksim-Platzes;

aber der Blick kostet nur 500 Lira,

der Mann dreht an Rädern,

du beugst dich über eine kleine Linse

und siehst ihn, nah,

weiß und kühl, Krater und Täler,

selbst den schwarzen Fleck de beauté –

heruntergekommen etwas,

aber nicht halb so schäbig und wirklich

wie der Taksim mit seinem Verkehr,

den verwelkten Büchern auf staubigen Ständern

und klingelnden Mandelverkäufern.

Du gehst in den Menschen über den Platz.

Die Oleanderbüsche stehen

in ihrem runden Schatten

unter dem Neonlicht.

Der Mond ist klein, eine helle Scheibe

ohne Relief im Dunst der Sommernacht.

Nur du weißt, wie er aussieht,

ohne Leben,

präzis weiß und kühl, fast blau.

Stambul

by Joachim Sartorius

The moon looks

the worse for wear

through the long cylinder

on a shaky frame

set up at the edge of Taksim Square;

but the view costs just 500 lira,

the man swivels the wheels,

you bend over a small lens

and see it, near,

white and cool, craters and valleys,

even its black mark de beauté–

somewhat the worse for wear,

yet not nearly as shabby or real

as Taksim and its traffic,

the withered books on dusty racks,

the noisy almond vendors.

You walk across the square through the crowd.

Oleander bushes bask

in circular shadows

under halos of neon.

The moon is small: a bright disc

without contour in the haze of summer night.

You alone know what it looks like,

lifeless,

precisely white and cool, almost blue.

translated from German by Pauline Fan

Joachim Sartorius is one of the most distinguished poets of the German language. Born in Fürth, Germany, he grew up in Tunis, Congo, and Cameroon, and spent many years as a diplomat in New York, Prague, Istanbul, and Nicosia. He has served as the Secretary General of the Goethe Institute worldwide, as the head of the DAAD’s Artists-in-Berlin Programme, and was the Artistic Director of the Berliner Festspiele from 2001 to 2011. He has received fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation and Collegium Budapest and was elected a member of the German Academy for Language and Literature in 2002. Sartorius’ poetry has been collected in seven volumes, and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. He has also published a book of essays and two travelogues. Joachim Sartorius was awarded the Paul Scheerbart Prize for his translations of contemporary American poetry. He was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2011.

Pauline Fan is a writer and literary translator from Malaysia. Her writings and translations have been published in Princeton University’s Inventory, Bonn University’s Orientierungen, Zeitzug, Axon: Creative Explorations and elsewhere. She has translated works by Brecht, Kafka and Kant from German into Malay, and is currently translating the poetry of Paul Celan. She has also translated poems by Georg Trakl and Else Lasker-Schüler into English. She co-edited the special volume Malay literary journal Obscura: Merapat Renggang. She is Editor of the new English-Malay literary journal, Kisah, and is the Malaysia Editor of the Berlin-based international poetry archive and network, Lyrikline. She serves as creative director of the Malaysian cultural heritage organisation, Pusaka.