Michael Hofmann

You don’t have to leave the house. Stay at your desk and listen. Or don’t even listen, wait for it to bother you. Don’t even wait, be completely quiet and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked, it cannot do otherwise, it will writhe in front of you in ecstasies

Away from here, away! Don’t tell me where you’re taking me. Where is your hand, I can’t find it in the dark. If I were holding it, I think you wouldn’t try and lose me. Do you hear me? Are you even in this room? Perhaps you’re not here

I have buried my reason happily in my hand, I carry my head upright, but my hand is hanging down, my reason is dragging it down to the ground

As in a children’s game, I can ask myself: which hand am I holding my reason in, no one will be able to guess, because through the wrinkles in my hands, I can straightaway transfer my reason from hand to the other