New in Berlin translated by Donald Gardner

Translated from the Dutch by Donald Gardner

I
It’s the day I’ve started writing
in books in pencil admittedly
but one with a sharp point
and ineradicable in various ways.

It’s Der Untergeher the first novel     
that I read in German
in which I keep on writing possible meanings,
like fragile vases, in the margin.

It’s the language that I make my own
as I gather words in Kreuzberg.

It’s in the Nostitzstraße that I find plenty.
Gute Nacht Einsamkeit ich bin so gern allein mit dir
someone has written in neat letters on the wall
by the cocktail bar where men don’t enter
only women who look like girls.

It’s the city I don’t mind living in
...