breathturn

Who knows, perhaps poetry travels this route - also the route of art - for the sake of such a breathturn? Perhaps it will succeed, as the strange, I mean the abyss and the Medusa's head, the abyss and the automatons, seem to lie in one direction- perhaps it will succeed here to differentiate between strange and strange, perhaps it is exactly here that the Medusa's head shrinks, perhaps it is exactly here that the automatons break down for this single short moment. Perhaps here, with the I - with the estranged I set free here and in this manner- perhaps here a further Other is set free. 
The whole it tightens compacts \turns poem \ around the pain, so much with so much that has been spiritualised clarified into spirit to no avail tighten the unworthy one to have stepped to have come to you; it silences you;
I had survived some things, - but survival hopefully isn't "everything"- I had a bad conscience; I was looking for- maybe I can call it that? - my breathurn.

paul celan