I Walked Through a Building the Size of a City E-Book

Andreas Korte

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 54

Beschreibung

A robot jogging, a politician traveling abroad, a woman in the mirror of her social media account: In his poems, Andreas Korte addresses a contemporary reality that has become almost omni-present in recent years. It is a world in which the private becomes political, the boundaries between virtuality and reality become blurred, and technology can reveal both its utopian potential or its dark side at any moment. This volume brings together various series of poems from the last two years that examine the linguistic and visual phenomena from which we naturally construct our concept of the world. Scenes from film, the Internet and computer games make their appearance, as well as works of art from past centuries, travel memories, and political snapshots.

Leseprobe

A robot jogging, a politician traveling abroad, a woman in the mirror of her social media account: In his poems, Andreas Korte addresses a contemporary reality that has become almost omnipresent in recent years. It is a world in which the private becomes political, the boundaries between virtuality and reality become blurred, and technology can reveal both its utopian potential or its dark side at any moment.

This volume brings together various series of poems from the last two years that examine the linguistic and visual phenomena from which we naturally construct our concept of the world. Scenes from film, the Internet and computer games make their appearance, as well as works of art from past centuries, travel memories, and political snapshots.

Using an extremely direct and unadorned language, Andreas Korte takes a look at our time in a way that is as surgical as it is poetic.

Contents

I

Startup

To Peter Higgs

A Building the Size of a City

Dickinsonia

To Joseph Brodsky

Triangles and Rhombuses

The Barcelona Pavillon

#NoFilter

Heroes' Square

II

Atlas Running

Mountain Tour

Romeo of Rimini

Chopin

Red Roses

Shrubs

Day of Glass

Science Fiction

The End of the 20th Century

III

Autumn in Berlin

Winter Approaching

The Reputation of the Artist

To Gilles Deleuze

Death on Honeymoon

To Steph

The Return

Petri Dish

To Boris Vian

Long Loop

IV

A Small German Town

Berlin 1

Berlin 2

Berlin 3

Berlin 4

Spray

Ischtar

First Dream

Everything is OK in USA

To Rex Tillerson

V

Swaying

Cosmic Answers

Silver

To Rudi Dutschke

Call of Gravity

A Boy

Hello Sophia

My Autonomous Car

Four Men of Today

Einstein

The Sky Disc

In the Yellow Light of a Club

Dangerous Woman

Butterfly

10 Rules for Authors

VI

The Mountain Hut (to George Michael 1)

Grove Tower (to George Michael 2)

VII

Guang Dong

One Day in September

Facades

Second Dream

Josephine

Sad Young Man on a Train

The Flynn Effect

Somewhere in Germany

The Churches of Kreuzberg

Luxury, Silence, Lust

Anti-Andreas

Hanna and the Simulated Men

Bielefeld

Just Another Day in January

To Peter

To Christa

IX

Draft for a Series

The Last Days of Mankind

Hero of the Story

Assassins of Athens

Draw

Attempt to Write a German Schlager

At Night in Berlin

Porto

Darknet

The Apple

Third Dream

Florence

Opportunity

Autocorrect Until the End of Time

Dark Matter

Couple

Yellow Fever

Twilight

The Violinist

Bauhaus Dessau

I Am Not a Robot

I

Start-up

For a long time he wanted

to launch a start-up,

just like people in Berlin

or San Francisco.

On various Internet forums

he carefully informed himself

about capital requirements

and business plans.

The civil war forced him to flee

and he lived for a while

with relatives in Ghana,

but his idea stuck with him.

Three years later he returned

to Mogadishu,

with some savings

and the will to make it.

It became very hot

quite early that day,

and like every morning he

opened the door to his shop.

To Peter Higgs

SUPERSYMMETRY: the jacket carefully folded,

placed over a chair, designed by Marcel Breuer,

tubular steel combined with leather,

modern, comfortable and transparent.

SUSY MODEL: the left pocket of his deep blue shirt

was very practical. He always used it for

a pencil and a black ballpoint pen.

The books on the shelf next to his desk

also had deep blue covers.

SUPERSPIN: he had read his emails at home in the

morning, even though he typically refused to do so.

For breakfast a slice of bread with honey

and a cup of coffee without sugar.

SUPERPARTNER: his own theory

often seemed unlikely to him,

but it was useful as a hypothesis

and carried him through the days.

STANDARD MODEL: the view of the streets of Edinburgh,

business as usual. Cars driving to and from the city center

towards the periphery.

A pedestrian on his way.

A Building the Size of a City

I was waiting at

a traffic light.

Endless red.

Neither a pedestrian

nor a car to see.

I sat in an Italian

restaurant and waited.

No waiter,

no olive oil,

no coffee.

I walked through a building

the size of a city,

between countless concrete pillars

of hexagonal layout.

For a long time now,

no production of ammunition.

Dickinsonia

She had swum

quite far, unusually far,

even by her standards.

Floating between countless

layers of water,

feeling the moment of

transition from warmer

to colder regions.

The gentle wave-like movements

of her transparent body,

which she had perfected over the years,

felt a little less easy today.

She dived deep down,

nestled against a stone,

to rest for a while and

to enjoy the darkness.

Hard to say how much

time had passed,

but she knew she never wanted

to leave this place again.

To Joseph Brodsky

Reddish shimmers

of afternoon light

in a bathtub.

A foil has been attached

to the window,

completely reinterpreting the sun.

A few black and white photos

swim just below the

water’s surface.

The wooden floor tells stories

as you walk over it.

The walls are covered with stucco elements

that herald the victory of socialism.

But more than anything the space

proudly presents 32 types of mold,

each more gorgeous than the last,

living together in perfect harmony,

joyfully welcoming the breath and sweat

of new visitors.

Triangles and Rhombuses

First order geometries

for a new kind of people,

the people of the future.

Crossing diagonals connect to

triangles and rhombuses

of different shades.

Where they meet walls

they morph into stucco and wallpaper,

the craze at the time.

The combination of Rococo and

Modernism culminates in

a white armchair for statesmen.

The ladies have their own chamber,

full of portraits, and

a bathroom in purple.

Che Guevara parading outside,

giving friendly greeting,

waving his right hand.

The Barcelona Pavilion

Seven fragments of an orange