Truck

Hans Arnfrid Astel
translated by Eric Dickey

eric_dickey@yahoo.com

THE MUSSEL

STARTS DOWN THE PATH

AS A SNAIL,

OR:

THE TRICK

  

MUSSELS,

houses

of happiness

poems.

HIERonymus

in the house

of the holy script.

AT Bingen am Rhein

Mother of pearl

in the river bed

of the father.

  

UNIO PICTORUM

Water colors

in mussel shells.

The rainbow

in the Painter’s Mussel.

THE mussel

shuts itself away

in its shell.
THE falling folds,

casts

of Mussel shells.

IN the sea

Sparrows

over-winter

as mussels.

HEART mussel,

the swell

in mussel chalk.

EAR OF VENUS

The tumbling

wave

lingers

in mussels

on the beach.

ABALONE

The first sign,

Mother of Pearl

the ear

the mussel

of Venus.

DOLL DISHES

Ever smaller heart mussel halves

stacked upon each other, doll dishes,

come to a point, the pearl

in your mussel, ever growing

heart mussel halves, doll dishes.

THE world, a pearl

in whose mussel?

YOUR mussel,

a hot-blooded snail.

MOTHER OF PEARL

The mussel

unfolds

heaven.

The mussel opens,

heaven lets me in.

In the heaven of lust,

always Mother of Pearl.

PSYCHE,

the soul of the mussel,

Mother of Pearl butterfly.

MOTHER of Pearl butterfly,

mussels glide

downstream.

PEARL MATTER

Glinting,

the mussel leaves

a lasting place.

CAT’S EYE SHELL

The moment of love

embodied in Mother of Pearl.

MOTHER of Pearl,

a glint from within

grows only in the lap

of queens.

COPPER

Kypris

from Cyprus.

CYPRAEA,

mussel money

in my pocket.

COWRY mussel.

The currency of love.

STAR MONEY,

coins

in the fountain.

WINGED wheel,

winged foot of Tyche,

be-wing my penis

to your mussel-Psyche.

PORCELLA

The pool of water

reflects your sex.

Do you like to take

soap from the mussel?

The eye shimmers.

And the bear’s eye?

Take me also

into your moist lips!

THE mother purls

in your parlor.

You are not here,

I live in the house.

PORCELLA

Cups in the cupboard.

This early, the wet

sex is sick.

WRECKED

on the cliff

of his nymph,

the well-traveled

Odysseus.

CHICKEN GOD

The mussel

bores through stone.

Angels

fly with ivory bone.

APLYSIA DEPILANS L.

Shards for a mosaic,

rays fly through the sea.

But even snails

have not always crept.

Take the cowry mussel.

She coats her house,

porcella, puella, adorns it with

Mother of Pearl all around.

She makes porcelain.

In the end, the intimate bone

bothered her.  This is how she

crept along without it.

WINGED lips.

Shame grips me

when I find sea hares.

The colorless sea hares

devour green algae.

How does the Aplysia look?

Like a big

cowry snail without a house.

HOMELESS, weightless

she wiggles in the waves.

HEAD and fuckle

between the lobes.

And on the mark, they fly.

This is how it looks

when Sea Hares mate.

THE snail has four feelers.

Five, counting the fuckle.

TO name Aplysia

the cleanest of all

means to mistake dirt

for cleanliness as well.

APLYSIA NATANS

Inspired

by the lips

of original sin,

an angel,

the flying phallus

naked in the water,

a snail, flying

with vulva lobes

and angel tongues,

a delta wing

with sack and flute,

the old hermaphrodite.

WITH knives in the sand

the fisherman searches

for razor clams.

HE kills limpets

with his fingernail.

Devours them raw.

Leaves a heap of Mother of Pearl

beneath him.

THE mother

of this pearl

is a snail.

THE spiral,

the screw

in the maker.

A screw

in the mother,

the snail

in the shell.

THE winged mother

on the bicycle hub.

INvoluted

the evolution

of the snail

from the mussel.

THE mussel rolls itself up.

The mirror shell

becomes the cover stone.

COVER and shell,

the Jacob scallop.

THE snail cover,

the shell of the other mussel.

THE snail

winds itself

out of the mussel.

THE TRICK

The mussel

starts down the path

as a snail.

FELIX helix,

porcella puella.

HELIX POMATIA

Who here explores whom,

you ask,

the snail you

or you the snail

while it sails around

your hand.

ONE in a million,

the snail king,

the reverse wound

vineyard snail.

HAND ON THE HEART

I hit my hand on my heart,

there in my breast pocket

the lime cover crumbles.

FELIX

You have found

the snail cover.

Search now for cupid’s arrow.

YIN & Yang,

two snails

paired up.

In the looking glass,

Cupid’s arrow

a vineyard snail.

THE film

the trail

of a snail.

I was the snail.

This was my house.

Come in!

Brittle,

like the lime cover

of a vineyard snail.

The house

is the only thing

that remains brittle.