SELF-PORTRAIT

 

 

 

I’m standing with my body in a shop-window

and it says:

               ‘I have lost my memory.’

 

 

They’ve taken my brains out of my head –

              simply along one ear.

I can hear

              now better than I could before,

                     but don’t look anything up.

I don’t need to look anything up.

All I have to do is stand in a shop-window.

 

 

Complete and utter strangers pass me by.

Everyone is a stranger to me – my children

                                              their mother,

                                              my mother.

Yesterday,

               or the day before,

                                          I thought

               that I had no children,

               that they had no mother,

                                                    and no more did I.

 

 

Of what the visit refers to as death

I have a vague recollection.

 

 

After waking up from the profoundest sleep,

I’m standing here as a talking doll

                                                  in a shop-window

and the first words that I say

are ‘body’,

                ‘contact’,

                               ‘flashing lights’,

in this order,

                   connected with nothing,

                                                       devoid of any meaning.

 

 

I’m standing in a shop-window

as the known result

                             of a hushed-up experiment.

I have been under the knife,

                  with my knee in Siena,

                  with my hip in Houston,

                  with my arm in Amsterdam.

 

 

People have racked

           their brains about my brains –

I have forgotten in what town

                                            this took place.

 

 

No matter what,

                        behind ruler-straight scars

                        unsuccessful operations hide away.

Where

          scars have a serrated pattern

          healing is a slow process.

 

 

Of what the visit refers to as death

I have a vague recollection.

 

 

I’m standing in a shop-window with my head

that has been refashioned into a vegetable garden.

On my head

                  strawberries now grow, then tomatoes,

                  and always long-stalked leeks galore.

I’m just not with it any more.

 

 

I fiddle away at the wires

                                      in my head

and pull one of them,

                               two,

                                     loose,

                                             over,

                                                   out.

 

 

My arms are bound to the bars of the bed,

my feet to each other,

my rump round the bedstead.

 

 

 

I cannot escape

                        my punishment.

 

 

Of what the visit refers to as death

I have a vague recollection.

 

 

I’m standing in a shop-window

like a fleshed-out shadow

                                      of myself

that can scarcely stay standing

                                              on fragile legs

and internally continually washes itself

                                                          with blood.

 

 

The forward steps will

                                 come

                                         perhaps

                                                    a little

                                                              later.

 

 

 

Who is ever able

                        in whatever situation

to say out loud

                      the towering words

                                                   now or never?

 

 

Of what the visit refers to as death

I have a vague recollection.

 

 

I’m standing in a shop-window

like a swimmer

                      in swimming trunks

and am hoisted into the pool

                                           sitting in a chair.

 

 

I cannot swim,

                     but have to stand

                                               and tread.

With tardy trampling

                               I score success,

                                                     confirm my existence.

I’m getting there.

 

 

After practising with partners

I’m standing like an ensign-bearer

                                                  in a shop-window,

I give a cell call

                        with the remote control

                                                           of the TV

and call up charladies,

                                 carers

                                          and nurses.

Everyone is at my disposal.

 

 

Of what the visit refers to as death

I have a vague recollection

 

 

I’m standing with my body in a shop-window

and am surrounded

                            by limbs

                                        in plaster,

                            by chairs

                                         that have wheels,

                            by empty heads

                                                   that are bursting with uselessness.

I cannot lose myself.

 

 

* * *

 

 

By circumstances I have –

                        completely time and again,

                        the state soso,

                        the present now –

            against better judgment

            and not of my own free will

been transformed into the weary schizophrenic

            I probably now am.

 

 

Every time I get used to my new form –

                        with hooks and with eyes,

                        with screws and with plates

                        put back together

every time I more or less accept

that I am as I now am,

I rediscover

something different.

I no longer function

as I thought

I would function,

as if that was what I wanted,

      as if I had been chosen for this.

 

 

I will attempt to abandon

being

        as I was.

 

 

I look full of doubt around me and find

perhaps something

in my shadow

about which I think:

                             this could come in handy.

 

 

I grow along unresisting for the most part

           with what I will become.

 

 

 

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Joris Iven