Ingeborg Bachmann
Gedichte 1962-1963
Toteninsel

Ingeborg Bachmann
The Collected Poems
Poems 1962-1963
Island of the Dead
I have to believe that
this insanity, this imprisonment
will last an eternity,
those many hours it took
to choose my pope
as the dark smoke
rose
(not the white
of a candle)
when all of my dreams
were locked up in the conclave
and everything seemed
against my most franzied broken
dream,
which should not have believed
itself but knew
that above all it must prevail
over filth, gold,
semen, islands of the dead.

transl. by Peter Filkins