Commentary
by Doc Cuddy, Editor

The electronic transom brings, in addition to spam, almost daily wonders, the latest being this bit of oddness from east of the Rhine. The writer in a brief attached note expressed determination that he (or she) remain anonymous, saying only that repeated exposure to the strange mix of serious/funny, east/west in Magellan's Log had stirred him (or her) to produce these lines.

The poem, by the way, was a graphic attachment to the email in the form of a jpeg image, exactly as you see it above.

For those whose Fraktur is rusty, here are the words in a normal font:

For those whose German is rusty, here's a translation:

Jeez!
That's one fucking big wall, huh?

Slowly and improbably like Chinese
hitchhikers, mute fingers scrabble
around cold plastic key-stones.
There are no holes, never were any.
Break through such a shiny
wall? Oh, yes, daily beyond
the mouths of the stars. You want to go there too?
Age-old artifical angst!
Exactly through this cute little wall
(me here, everybody and everything over there)
is where paths of mystery lead for you and for me.

Magellan's Log, as you may have noticed, is not exactly a hotbed of lit crit, and we're not about to start now. Explications we leave to the tenured masses. We will point out that, according to a local Germanist, the poem contains at least two neologisms: "Tastensteine," and "stammalt." Viel Spaß.

END

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