Klaus Høeck Palimpsest on a century Translation John Irons 2013© 2 3 THE PICTURES 4 5 seedbed (1972) restoration’s tak ing place under the paper while these words are being read and up in the left corner of the poem there’s a so ny loudspeaker but what’s become of the artist himself (the poet if you like) try and this hint: the year’s 1972 i’m too sad to tell you (1970) the picture’s implo sion into the poem and the poem’s into itself as a sec ret code from the previous century perhaps from another po et or from cape cod where there is still a fragrance of mandarins and salt from the ship’s cemete ry of miracles 6 7 the angel of mercy study for homage to the square: beaming (1934) (1963) what is a centu let us pay tribute ry – a container of noth to squares rectangles and all ingness or a black box that is full of (also those from the curios the angel of sixties in neon colours) mercy for exam to parallelo ple created out grams that have been drawn in the sand at blåvands huk ed stars and plaster the green rhombuses four years before my that gleam in the night own appearance in the twen from cyberspace as well as tieth century from computer screens portrait of naaotwa swayne the large transparent things (1988) (1958) i haven’t got the already here things faintest idea who the per begin to go wrong (and they son in question is began to go wrong) i have never met already as far her nor does she know me so i am the person transparency cap who is anonym sized into blue and ous in relation to her white on the great expanses farewell then we of the sky the in shall never meet a visible stranded gain on the bonny bonny in the obscurity of banks of the poem private collections 8 9 tree bones standing nude (1974) (1921) could one imagine carved out of pali a track (a railway track that sander mahogany or consisted of thir teak which were the pre teen sleepers that had ferred types of wood back been impregnated with cre then – long live the twenties which osote) could one by the way i know imagine such a absolutely bug track running from the footboard ger all about but i re of childhood up to ly on art which in its historical brief glimpses shows us terminus in ace galle much more of the truth than his ry in vancouver? tory ever does hip hip hooray sam’s spoon (1949) (1990) if astral bodies ah well it can hard are what are haunting these ver ly be my own baptismal ses then they are ap paritions from au ver for that was pawned schwitz or buchenwald without (i refer you to: in nom shoes and without rose ine page twenty bushes unshaven eight) – it is in ac ghosts that are in search of a tual fact not a spoon at sylum which they have all neither on its hereby been granted imagined handker and therefore in chorus shout: chief nor on paper – sam’s spoon hip hip hooray? is not sam’s spoon 10 11 crusaders joseph stalin gazing (1949) (1979) we were the ones who up along the top otherwise thought we were com edge of the picture there are traces of green and and actually black enamel paint we’re as like each other as as if the whole surface had one brush is the next been sprayed with varnish one we’re the ones there one could almost think behind ideas’ plexiglass we were dealing here with some united right in kind of car paint shop the eye of the re but it is joseph volution of silverglue stalin who’s gazing at le and polyester nin over the edge metamorphosis the totem (1935) (1945) this poem is proof – there is a contact proof that a piece of poe on this side put the plug in tic writing is not and let us see what organic and does happens did you get not belong to any dy an electric shock or did namic system this the poem simply poem will never change it will never under get onto the same wavelength go any meta as another world morphoses it will full of unknown ob never die and thus it will jects did you have this great sense never be buried of liberation? 12 13 house walkers by the sea (1966) (1954) there’s no question of come with me to it being our house – that is the sea to the sea of love called cyborg and it lies here on this side stone for you my be of the millennium tang loved where all time reigns (and led up in paper where all the time it streamers whereas that is of course now) come house over there has been paint with me to the sea to the ed in acrylic sea of love to and has been placed on the sea of orchids the boundary between two to the sea of jason to and three dimensions the sea of baal head of eow: profile hinba (1972) (1978) it could possibly raspberry marme lade all over the place and ive terror bombard i mean everywhere ments of hanoi it have you got the mess age raspberry marmela de prince smeared right in shot of absolute a whole decade dunked ly nothing at all it could in raspberry marmela possibly be that de the universe but in fact it turns the heart raspberry out to be the head of the marmelade smeared in rasp artist’s own mistress berry marmelade 14 15 triptych four men (with guns pointed at their heads) (1972) (1988) i found myself in can in other words this year of the lord in pur (these) an art of terror be created no mat cle raised high above ter whether the vic generalities between tims happen to have black plas three mirrors that were tic bags pulled right down over their heads or which i decided to call their faces are merely hid my home while i stu den behind four large died to become an white plates mostly for idiot in a prince of the sake of the onlookers wales chequered jacket zat iz ze kvestion? costume design for ‘oriental fantasy’ 190 x 30 x 7.190 x 30 x 7.50 x 42 x 1 (1915) (1993) if i stack elev french soldiers were falling and en blocks of magnolia wood (that measure 19cm german soldiers were in height 27cm in width doing likewise in the win and 38cm in length) on top of ter battle at cham each other will they pagne this costume was together then weigh drawn in pencil and gouache a total of 73kg? – i the intention be don’t know but they will ing for the hero then reach a height of to wear it in an ori 209 centimetres which is ental fantasy higher than i am 16 17 abstract speed the singing man (1913) (1930) as if something has can bronze sing and if passed by at a fearful vel ocity or as ative in what key? if something’s just be we are at any gun to accelerate as rate dealing here with one of if two forces that are mutually op of ‘entartete posed are holding each other kunst’ which the nazis never in check as if green theless did not man and blue cancel each age to destroy e other out in a double ven though the song of that name saltomortale is by mendelssohn sleeping girl transsexualis (1943) (1991) ‘joy division’ is the clinical light the snap hooks from the lifted that occurs to me in this particu full of epo and lar context ‘the east front’ the second one – what does ment the plasma as the jewish woman well as all the sur dream who is about to be raped in some german amputation i left the last decen er? – and ‘atrocity exhi nium without a trace of bition’ the third one sadness and remorse 18 19 first and third the gleaner (1987) (1978) my own projections when i was small i from back then are far more beau used to turn the mirror up tiful than the green side down so as to video portrait see whether i too of a vietnamese woman came to be upside down la on the back wall of ter I would try to the staircase far more put everything in beautiful because they are its right place so as to see of you beloved whether i had found dressed in a red o my own just like the pera hat and otherwise woman who is gleaning corn sweet fanny adams in the picture here yellow and black boats zydeco (1985) (1984) i take out a piece ing is a philosophi of paper and draw with a cal problem which won’t coloured pencil a black board which i then either in my taking the attempt to erase once a gain and i then write and reading aloud the word ‘zydeco’ on the board with various reading the poem ly coloured letters aloud i’m reading aloud’ – it’s only the po poem which ends as follows: em’s trompe l’œil ‘don’t read this poem’ 20 21 eidos industrial facades (1940) (1975) there is no danger the castles and temp afoot and everything breathes les of our time: the cooling peace which is a lit towers camelots might tle unusual y hourglass on the since the inner and the out horizon the ilion er picture have a of the terminals marked tendency to agrees with dunker olysis the a que and mussel shells cropolis of the with the battle of britain shipyards like vine leaves over there is something wrong the sky’s espalier culture – nature performers (1971) (1948) i have myself found why can animals a dead moth lying in my not act comedy? – because right trainer which turns they’re incapable out to be a small of duplication do not know themselves and there moth (ephestia fore cannot ima kuehniella) which gine themselves as the has perished so far from home female snake charmer and the in its fateful en clown as you or i counter with culture can – who for exam and its sarcophagus made ple has seen a st bernard out of foam rubber play charlie rivel? 22 23 mille filles for darkness (1939) (1971) a thousand girls born it was here – not in and portrayed on a lacquer to the hell of judecca tray in gold bronze in that lucifer plum the same year that war meted – just look at broke out and was then scattered the enormous wings that un to the four corners fold from the wall com of europe like arms ical and majes and legs of dolls that had been tic at one and the same time almost like kitsch at capitated head night they