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Raoul Schrott (Austria, 1964)

Raoul Schrott (Austria, 1964)

M’onna Lisa

what it looked like when he painted it is anyone’s
guess • the dark gauze of the varnish the lines
of the craquelure she wears as centuries of tiny
wounds that do not heal but only cut more deeply
into her indeterminate face • the sketch
of all love’s derelictions • nothing to expect
nothing to hope for all memory made to wait
and yet how composed • whether mother too young
wife mistress or much-wooed courtesan
she raises her brows • the veil however signifies
grief’s retreat inward • the days
falling about her are all she retains • her smile grown
vapid sometimes affectedly ambiguous wearies
of surrender and is full of night: what is left
of names whispered to her nape • but a haven
rare • both arms pressed to her belly until
she wakes fitfully reluctant and yet drawn to all
whose undoing she has been • but clinging still
knowing she has been loved less for herself alone
than because she has betrayed herself to no-one

Paris 18. 2. 01

Tranlated by Iain Galbraith

Raoul Schrott was born in 1964 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Lyric poet, essayist, novelist and translator. He grew up in Tunisia and in Landeck. He studied literature and Philology in Norwich, Paris, Berlin and Innsbruck. Master graduate in philosophy in 1986. From 1986 to 1987 he was secretary of Philippe Soupault. From 1990-1993, he was university reader of Germanistics (Germanic philology) in the Oriental Institute in Naples. Publisher of the series South-North. He has received, among others, the following awards: Award from the State of Kärnten of the Award Ingeborg Bachman, 1994; Friedrich- Hölderlin Award for Literature support of the city of Hamburg, 1996. In 1996 he received the scholarship Robert Musil. He actually lives in County Cork, Ireland.
Última actualización: 28/06/2018