lOOphOle (translated by Wally Keeler)

– The mineral springs are dry. The gold mines are exhausted;
the roof/ribs collapse one after another.
What once was enriching, is now impoverished –

– Our open grave is a wound in the Earth —
to be buries is to be covered
by a scab of soil –

– For the prisoner the day breaks out earlier
or the prisoner merely observes it earlier.
The prisoner can guess nothing about the times –

– The border is a barbed-wire rosary;
each bead is a surveillance station along the way.
There is no escape from the guard-dogs –

– What the detective detects can detect him.
This reflection of detection is symmetrical;
surveillance is subversion —
to counter surveillance, counter-subvert –

– A white ambulance in the snowfall.
Trains are coming from far, their roofs are crusted by snow.
Somewhere it had been snowing; perhaps it also snows just now.
You can be rescued –