Autor: Martina Pfeiler

Ein fiktionaler Extrakt einer Autobiographie

Zuggeschichte

Sie studierte Literatur. Aber viel lieber studierte sie das Leben. So saß sie eines Tages im Zug nach Graz, nahm ihre Mappe über Britische Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts heraus und tat so, als ob sie lernen würde. Im Abteil, einem geschlossenen Abteil der Österreichischen Bundesbahnen, saßen außerdem drei Frauen, eine wesentlich jünger als sie, mit pinkgefärbten, kurzen Haaren und einigen Piercings, und eine Braunhaarige (aber irgendwie auch nicht naturecht ), die scheinbar etwa gleich war alt wie sie, was man heutzutage ja nicht mehr so genau schätzen kann. Die dritte Frau war wesentlich älter, mit ersten grauen Haaren – naturecht. Diese unterhielt sich mit der Frau mit den braunen Haaren über Schwarze. Afrikaner. “Ja, das is halt so wie bei uns. Da gibst auch schöne und net so schöne Männer. Der von Herzblatt, der Moderator, der g‘fällt mir.“ Wobei die jüngere Frau meinte: “Schweizer sind fesch“. „Zuggeschichte“ weiterlesen →

She works for the Secret Lover Industry,
the SLI,
creeps out at night to do her job in
cheap hotels, or luxury ones
– depending –
meeting him at
secret corners,
secret park benches
on a rainy day,
in foggy nights.
She works with more or less delight.
Her code name is ‘business meeting’,
‘sports club’, ‘traffic jam’,
‘exhaustion’.
Her working dress is stunning,
her lip-stick less deceptive
than a contraceptive.
She’s always needed, when she is there.
Her rewards are flirtations, sex,
or bar-seat-chats, a ride into the
country-side, a bundle of
compliments to feed on
in lonely nights.
Her contract may expire,
but never her desire for
the man she will never earn.
Their love is not meant to
be sanctioned, by the church,
or children, if they knew,
by spouses, who pretend
to have no clue.
But there she walks, or takes the bus,
the tube, the tram, or even plane,
clinching to her hand-bag filled with contraceptives,
make-up, tissues – for potential
break-ups.
She works in the most unexpected places.
Sometimes her work is art, when she
mends lonely heArts with pieces of
her own that will never be replaced.
She works for the Secret Lover Industry,
like so many others, who could not
find a better job, or did not want to,
or never cared, or had no choice.
They are Love’s outcasts, Love’s slaves,
Love’s part-time-only.
But they are devoted and
sometimes, sometimes,
they are truly loved.

(W)VORT(D)EX

(Am Anfang war das Wort)

What vortex of images and sounds

My brain contains

Like a tornado it sweeps across my

Mental landscape and

Leaves me unsettled

Off the coast and off the

Shores ship-wrecked in my

own cacophonious songs

I drown in my bewilderedness

of silent dissonance

I burst my lungs with

vocal disasters

my chest explodes

explodes

I  ->  dIe(ye)

no sign

no song

remains

but

in my dreams I shelter opera stars

haunted by Verdi, the  good old chap,

lurking

behind the curtains

“Applause” “Applause”

ClapClapClapClapClapClap

“Bravo”

I scream:

“Ice cream“

I laugh

And fill my lungs with air

I look at the sky and

suck in the atmosphere and

shout:

B L U E

And the sky reddens

And darkens

And the stars shine

And speak to me of

Their existence in the distance

And I see each of them

Children of the Evolution

Blasted too

And I start  out  to eat them and

Taste their  Milky Way substance and

Giggle and get hungry for the planets

And I eat them too:

one by one, two by two, by three

Mercury

Venus

Earth, Mars

Jupiter, Saturn

Uranus, Neptune, Pluto

SUN I ate you too

MOON, how I loved you!

And everything stops spinning

And       everything    succumbs

And everything disappears

Into the vortex of

Images

and

Sounds

I

D

R

O

W

N

© Martina Pfeiler 2002