The Brooklyn Rail

MAY 2023

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MAY 2023 Issue
Poetry

from “All this is a continuation of the lie, but . . . if I remain consistent, it comes close to the truth”


a poem found in kafka's notebooks, for title Ibid, 416.


i          "I'm supposed to serve as a nude model for a Saint Sebastian": Ibid., 186.
i          "emotionally impossible, for how could one even": Ibid., 317.
i          "have a little toy hammer in place of a heart": Ibid., 323.
ii         "look at the floor": Ibid., 334.
ii         "its neckline is filled with tulle": Ibid., 370.
iii        "am sad that a shirt is pinching my neck, am damned": Ibid., 335.
iii        "decaying and falling over": Ibid., 319.
iii        "The Virgins etc.": Ibid., 132
iii        "bound to a tree until they turn blue": Ibid., 367.
iii        "everything can be risked": Ibid., 240.
iii        "on a beautiful horse": Ibid., 262.
iii        "this is": Ibid., 256.
iii        "not nearly so great as the lament led one to believe": Ibid., 373.
iv        "The torment": Ibid., 169
iv        "covered with filth and slime": Ibid., 257.
iv        "prolonged, inexorable dissatisfaction": Ibid., 223
iv        "Long torment." Ibid., 224.
iv        "all the torment": Ibid., 233.
iv        "because she lifted her skirts like this and like this and like this": Ibid., 239.
v          "This is how it is in all bedrooms." Ibid., 389.
v          "her hands through her hair": Ibid., 346.
v          "illuminated by the gaslight": Ibid., 120.
v          "this filth": Ibid., 382.
v          "dripping with": Ibid., 382.
v          "this wretched little happiness": Ibid., 389.
v          "this burden": Ibid., 382.
v          "this clenching:" Ibid., 256.
v          "this contempt": Ibid., 385.
vi         "Each has only the experience that his affliction grants": Ibid., 281.
vi         "but I'm afraid to write about it": Ibid., 217.
vii        "the ruin": Ibid., 371.
vii        "pacing in a ravine": Ibid., 403
vii        "the back of a chair in terror": Ibid., 122.
vii        "her skirt with my little finger": Ibid., 121.
vii        "vague surge": Ibid., 298.
vii        "red sofa": Ibid., 376.
vii        "heart palpitation": Ibid., 473
vii        "Playing with the thoughts of F": Ibid., 359
vii        "wind blows through": Ibid., 417.
vii        "noise in the next room": Ibid., 208.
vii        "we remain upright, because it relieves us": Ibid., 11.
vii        "the same spot on the floor": Ibid., 343.
vii        "the door": Ibid., 344.
vii        "the accusation": Ibid., 456.
vii        "Salvation or exacerbation": Ibid., 468.
viii       "I in my craving": Ibid., 391
viii       "to arouse historical interest": Ibid., 161.
viii       "patent leather boots": Ibid., 213.
viii       "the girl's voice in the choir": Ibid., 376.
viii       "a little ball": Ibid., 217
viii       "blown up": Ibid., 399.
viii       "like little fires": Ibid., 195.
viii       "doing needlework": Ibid., 420.
ix         "Strauss’ ‘Fruhlingsstimmen’”: Ibid., 596.
ix         "Short fainting spell": Ibid., 194.
ix         "a paw close to my face": Ibid., 149.
ix         "silhouette of": Ibid. 324.
ix         "an unshakeable judgment": Ibid., 226.
ix         "seen with small binoculars": Ibid., 568.
ix         "rainless and still": Ibid., 421.
x          "I have lost myself to F.": Ibid., 263.
x          "The window was open": Ibid., 282.
x          "the moonlight fell through": Ibid., 343.
x          "the skylight": Ibid., 343.
x          "almost": Ibid., 343.
x          "Herder’s wife": Ibid., 210.
xi         "a baby is crying": Ibid., 355.
xi         "I stand there with my evil eye": Ibid., 286.
xi         "like a bagpipe": Ibid., 408.
xi         "growing muddled": Ibid., 313.
xi         "I": Ibid., 482.
xi         "ruin": Ibid., 371.
xi         "everything that doesn't relate to literature": Ibid., 298.
xii        "Nothing else can ever satisfy me." Ibid., 286.
xii        "but the onslaught": Ibid., 298.
xii        "the all-too-great": Ibid., 129.
xii        "inner need for it": Ibid., 291.
xii        "two as I am:" Ibid., 134.
xii        "Today I got Kierkegaard": Ibid., 303.
xiii       "I mounted my horse and sat down firmly in the saddle." Ibid., 353.
xiii       "all the signs of dilettantism": Ibid., 444.
xiii       "aberrations with girls despite all headaches": Ibid., 416.
xiii       "always the same": Ibid., 440.
xiii       "rat hole of wretched ulterior": Ibid., 382.
xiii       "marriage or Berlin": Ibid., 263.
xiii       "This feeling of falseness I have when writing": Ibid., 168.
xiii       "burned by it": Ibid., 194.
xiv        "L. confessed his gonorrhea to me": Ibid., 47.
xiv        "maliciously": Ibid., 323.
xiv        "trembling like a sick animal": Ibid., 275.
xiv        "in light of:" Ibid, 326.
xiv        "ulterior motives": Ibid., 382.
xiv        "a band of little golden beads around a tanned neck": Ibid., 296.
xiv        "The other view: saved for later": Ibid., 473.
xiv        “dirty, oldish, complete stranger with wrinkled thighs": Ibid., 489.
xiv        "irretrievably abandoned": Ibid. 326.
xiv        "The third view: already forgotten.": Ibid., 473.
xv         "hovering somewhere in emptiness": Ibid., 313.
xv         "the inkwell": Ibid., 313.
xvi        "hold on to the toes of the corpse and at the same time ask forgiveness": Ibid., 165.
xvi        "in lust and defiance": Ibid., 143.
xvi        "only what happens is possible": Ibid., 326.
xvi        "everything that is possible": Ibid., 326.
xvi        "our snake tolerates": Ibid., 437.
xvi        "like a sheep that is running after this sheep": Ibid., 312.
xvii       "the story of the kiss": Ibid., 330.
xvii       "the sixth strophe of which": Ibid., 593.
xvii       "extracts his semen": Ibid., 489.
xvii       "the original sin": Ibid., 456.
xvii       "that the original sin was committed against": Ibid., 456.
xvii       "his own forehead bone": Ibid., 453.
xviii       "table music:" Ibid., 348.
xviii       "she is again the center of it all": Ibid., 358.
xviii       "torn pants": Ibid., 349.
xviii       "tribunal in the hotel:" Ibid., 347.
xviii       "asphalt like the apparatus": Ibid., 504.
xviii       "three times ": Ibid., 234.
xviii       “lamps in the asphalt as in a river": Ibid., 504.
xix        "exciting statues of saints on the Karlsbruecke": Ibid., 417.
xix        "The invention of the devil." Ibid., 223.
xix        "in a corner": Ibid., 313.
xix        "to run one little finger over one’s eyebrows": Ibid., 194.
xix        "as with a furiously torn-open tin can." Ibid., 307
xix        "striving": Ibid., p. 159.
xx         "I am lost": Ibid., 348.
xx         "I can no longer go on writing.": Ibid., 370.
xx         "I am turning into stone": Ibid., 348.
xx         "I make ghosts for myself": Ibid., 208.
xx         "I have finally made F. unhappy": Ibid., 371.
xx         "I am completely alone": Ibid., 355.
xx         "a moment I thought": Ibid., 208.
xx         "when I woke up": Ibid., 343.
xx         "I saw something real in the description of the landscape": Ibid., 208.

Contributor

Alina Stefanescu

Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her partner and several intense mammals. Recent books include a creative nonfiction chapbook, Ribald (Bull City Press Inch Series, Nov. 2020) and Dor, which won the Wandering Aengus Press Prize (September, 2021). Her debut fiction collection, Every Mask I Tried On, won the Brighthorse Books Prize (April 2018). Alina's poems, essays, and fiction can be found in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, World Literature Today, Pleiades, Poetry, BOMB, Crab Creek Review, and others. She serves as poetry editor for several journals, reviewer and critic for others, and Co-Director of PEN America's Birmingham Chapter. She is currently working on a novel-like creature. More online at www.alinastefanescuwriter.com.

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The Brooklyn Rail

MAY 2023

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