The Inner World of the Outer World of the Inner World

by Peter Handke

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I wake up asleep:

I don't look at the objects, and the objects look at me;

I don't move, and the ground under my feet moves me;

I don't see myself in the mirror, and I in the mirror see myself;

I don't pronounce words, and words pronounce me;

I go to the window and I am opened.

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I lie there upright:

I don't open my eyes, but my eyes open me;

I don't listen to sounds, but sounds listen to me;

I don't swallow water, but water swallows me;

I don't reach for objects, but objects reach for me;

I don't take off my clothes, but my clothes take me off;

I don't talk words into myself, but words talk me out of myself;

I go to the door, and the handle presses me down.

The shutters are rolled up and it becomes

Night, and to catch a breath of air I dive under water.

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I step on the stone floor and sink in ankle-deep;

I sit on the box of the coach and put one foot before the other;

I see a woman with a parasol and break out in a cold sweat;

I raise my arm in the air and it catches fire;

I reach for an apple and I am bitten;

I walk on bare feet and feel a stone in my shoe;

I tear the bandaid from the wond and the cut is in the bandaid;

I buy a newspaper and I am scanned;

I fighten someone to death and am left aghast;

I stuff cotton in my ears and scream;

I hear sirens wailing and the Corpus Christi procession passes by;

I open the umbrella and the ground singes my feet;

I run into the open and am arrested.

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It is over the floor that I trip,

and with a wide open mouth that I make conversations,

and with the palm of my hand that I scratch myself,

and with the police whistle that I laugh,

and out of the ends of my hair that I bleed,

and on opening the newspaper that I choke,

and caviar that I regurgitate,

and I tell about the future,

and I talk to things,

and it is through myself that I see,

and corpses that I kill.

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And I see sparrows firing at cannons;

and I see catatonic in ecstasy;

and I see the newborn baby actually having wishes;

and I see the milkman at night.

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and the letter carrier? asks for the mail;

and the preacher? rolls on the ground;

and the firing squad? lines up against the wall;

and the clown? flings a grenade among spectators;

and the murder? does not occur until the eyewitnesses appear.

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And the mortician cheers his soccer team;

And the head of state attempts to assassinate the baker's apprentice;

And the feild marshal is named after a side street;

And nature is faithfully reproduced after a painting;

And the Pope is counted out standing up -

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And listen! The watch ticks outside itself!

And look! The guttering candles are growing! 

And listen! The scream is whispered!

And look! The wind petrifies the grass!

And listen! the folk song is bellowed!

And look! The raised arm points down!

And listen! The question mark is commanded!

And look! The starved man is fat!

And smell! The snow is rotting!

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And it is morningfall,

and the table stands on one leg,

and the escapee assumes the lotus position,

and the trolley stops on the forty-ninth floor.

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Listen! It is deathly quiet! - It is rush hour.

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I fell asleep awake

and fled the unbearable dream for gentle reality

and am humming hue and cry to myself, merrily as they say -

listen to my mouth watering; I see a corpse!

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Translated from German by M.Roloff

Theatre of Sleep by Guido Almansi & Claude Beguin

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