Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 14:46:54 +0100
From: Hollister <william-AT-ns.terminal.cz>
Subject: Albert Marencin



"Write a Picture"

(This is a prose poem by Albert Marencin, translated from Slovak according
to principles outlined by Walter Benjamin.)

I imagined a large, uncolored surface.

Then I placed it in a black frame,  then divided it into various unequal
sections reminiscent of Mondrian's geometric compositions.

It will be a picture such that no human eye has ever seen, I thought.

Onto the largest rectangle, I placed the perfume of my beloved, sleeping
in a boat surrounded by seagulls under late September moonlight.

In the second, I placed A December Sunday afternoon, when I was still in
the womb of my mother who sat alone in an obscure chamber, listening to the
vague screaching of hawks circling above a snowy orchard, and resting on
the bare branches among the aging apples and walnut trees.

In the third field, a square form, was one I left empty such that it
resembled a window, through which I could see the universe with flying
blocks and packs of fat rats and indigo waterfalls spilling gently to the
ground.

The fourth field, I left for my friends: they were seated, without moving
in some sort of old hanger on potato and grain sacks, with gazes fixed such
that they resembled wax figures in a panoptcium. Among them could be found
Kafka, Breton, Dostojevski and many others who, I'm sure, have long since
passed away. The panoptikum effect was disrupted only by a man whose
gesticulations called  me ceaselessely towards him, and I eventually
realized was me.

The fifth field... no, that's enough: I should leave some of the fields
free, feeling that the picture is complete.

Yes, in front of me,  stands a picture that could certainly never be seen
by human eyes, and will never be seen. Because in this very instant  burst
into flames like a leaf of celluloid to be lost in the sparkle and clouds
of black smoke.


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wh/Marencin