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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:23:22 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4369.txt b/4369.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1db207e --- /dev/null +++ b/4369.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2370 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein, by Alfred Lichtenstein + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein + +Author: Alfred Lichtenstein + +Posting Date: July 26, 2009 [EBook #4369] +Release Date: August, 2003 +First Posted: January 18, 2002 +Last Updated: February 6, 2008 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VERSE OF ALFRED LICHTENSTEIN *** + + + + +Produced by Michael Pullen + + + + + + + + + + +The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein + +(a critique by Lichtenstein himself) + + + + + +I + +Because I believe that many do not understand the verse of +Lichtenstein, do not correctly understand, do not clearly understand-- + + + + +II + +The first eighty poems are lyric. In the usual sense. They are not +much different from poetry that praises gardens. The content is the +distress of love, death, universal longing. The impulse to formulate +them in the "cynical" vein (like cabaret songs) may, for example, +might have arisen from the wish to feel superior. Most of the eighty +poems are insignificant. They were not presented to the public. All +except one (one of the last) That is: + + I want to bury myself in the night, + Naked and shy. + And to wrap darknesses around my limbs + And warm luster. + I want to wander far behind the hills of the earth. + Deep beyond the gliding oceans. + Past the singing winds. + There I'll meet the silent stars. + They carry space through time. + And live at the death of being. + And among them are gray, + Isolated things. + Faded movement + Of worlds long decayed. + Lost sound. + Who can know that. + My blind dream watches far from earthly wishes. + + + + +III + +The following poems can be divided into three groups. One combines +fantastic, half-playful images: The Sad Man, Rubbers, Capriccio, The +Patent-Leather Shoe, A Barkeeper's Coarse Complaint. (First appeared +in Aktion, in Simplicissimus, in March, Pan and elsewhere). Pleasure +in what is purely artistic is unmistakable. + +Examples: The Athlete: in the background is a demonstration of a +view of the world. The Athlete... means that it is terrible that a +man must also intellectually move his bowels.--Rubbers: a man wearing +rubbers is different without them. + + + + +IV + +The earliest poetry forms a second group: + +Twilight + +The intention is to eliminate the difference between time and space +in favor of the idea of poetry. The poems want to represent the +effect of twilight on the landscape. + +In this case the unity of time is necessary to a certain degree. +The unity of space is not required, therefore not observed. In +twelve lines the twilight is represented on a pond, tree, field, +somewhere... its effect on the appearance of a young man, a wind, a +sky, two cripples, a poet, a horse, a lady, a man, a young boy, a +woman, a clown, a baby-carriage, some dogs is represented visually. +(The expression is poor, but I can find nothing better) + +The author of the poem does not want to portray a landscape that is +thought to be real. The poetic art has the advantage over painting +of offering "ideal" images. That means--in respect to the Twilight: +the fat boy who uses the big pond as a toy, and the two cripples on +crutches in the field and the woman on the city street who was +knocked down by a cart-horse in the half-darkness, and the poet who, +filled with desperate longing, is thinking in the evening (probably +looking through a skylight), and the circus clown in the gray rear +building who is sighing as he puts on his boots in order to arrive +punctually at the performance, in which he must be funny--all these +can produce a poetic "picture," although they cannot be composed like +a painting. Most still deny that, and for that reason recognize, for +example, in the "Twilight" and similar pictures nothing but a +mindless confusion of strange performances. Others believe, +incorrectly, that these kinds of "ideal" pictures are possible in +painting (for example, the Futurist mish mash). + +The intention, furthermore, to grasp the reflex of things +directly--without superfluous reflections. Lichtenstein knows that +the man is not stuck to the window, but stands behind it. That the +baby-carriage is not screaming, but the child in the baby-carriage. +Because he can only see the baby-carriage, he writes: the +baby-carriage cries. It would have been untrue lyrically had he +written: a man stands behind a window. + +By chance, it is conceptually also not untrue: a boy plays with a +pond. A horse stumbles over a lady. Dogs swear. Certainly one must +laugh in an odd way when one learns to see: that a boy actually uses +a pond as a toy. How horses have a helpless way of stumbling... how +human dogs express their rage... + +Sometimes the representation of reflection is important. Perhaps a +poet goes mad--makes a deeper impression than--a poet stares stiffly +ahead-- + +Something else compelling in the poem: fear and things that resemble +reflection, like: all men must die... or: I am only a little book of +pictures... that will not be discussed here. + + + + +V + +That Twilight and other poems take things strangely (The comic is +experienced tragically. The representation is "grotesque"), to +notice the unbalanced, incoherent nature of things, arbitrariness, +confusion... is not, in any case, the characteristic of "style." +Proof is: Lichtenstein writes poems in which the "grotesque" +disappears, without notice, behind the "ungrotesque." + +Other differences between older poems (for example, Twilight) and +later ones (for example, Fear) in the same style are detectable. One +might observe that ever increasing idiosyncratic reflections about +landscape clearly break through. Certainly not without artistic +purpose. + + + + +VI + +The third group consists of the poems of Kuno Kohn. + +Alfred Lichtenstein + +(Wilmersdorf) + + + + The Athlete + + + A man walked back and forth in his torn slippers + In the small room + He inhabited. + He thought about the events + About which he was informed by the evening paper. + And sadly yawned, the way only that man yawns + Who has read much that is strange-- + And the thought suddenly overcame him, + Like a timid person who gets gooseflesh, + And the way the person who stuffs himself + Starts to burp, + Like a mother in labor: + The great yawn might perhaps be a sign, + A nod from fate, + To lie down to rest. + And the thought would not leave him. + And then he began to undress... + When he was stark naked, he lifted something. + + + + Rubbers + + + The fat man thought: + In the evening I gladly walk in rubbers, + But also when the streets are clean and spotless. + I am never entirely sober in rubbers. + I hold the cigarette in my hand. + My soul skips in little rhythms. + And all one hundred pounds of my body skips. + + + + The Patent-leather Shoe + + + The poet thought: ah, I have enough trash! + The whores, the theater, and the moon in the city, + The dress-shirts, the streets, and smells, + The nights and the coaches and the windows, + The laughter, the street-lights and murders-- + I'm really fed up now with all the crap, + Damn it! + Whatever will be will be--it's all the same to me: + The patent leather shoe Hurts me. And I take it off-- + People might turn around, surprised. + Only it's a shame about my silk socks... + + + + Smoke on the Field + + + Lene Levi went out in the evening, + Mincing, her skirt bunched up, + Through the long, empty streets + Of a suburb. + + And she spoke weeping, aching, crazy, + Strange words, + Which the wind tossed, so that they popped, + Like pods. + + They made bloody scratches on trees, + And, shredded, hung on houses + And in these deaf streets + died all alone. + + Lene Levi went out, until all + The roofs made their crooked mouths grimace, + And the windows and the shadows + Made faces + + They had a completely drunken good time-- + Until the houses became helpless + And the mute city passed + Into the broad fields, + Which the moon smeared... + + Little Lene took out of her pocket + A box of cigarettes, + Weeping took one + Out and smoked. + + + + Dreaming + + + Paul said: + + Ah, but who wouldn't want to drive a car forever-- + We burrow our way through high-stemmed woods, + We pass by spaces that seem endless. + We pass through the wind and attack the towns, which speed up. + But the odors of the sluggish cities are hateful to us-- + Ah, we are flying! Always alongside death... + How we despise and scorn him who sits on our lives! + Who lays out graves for us and makes all streets crooked--ha, we + laugh at him, + and the roads, overcome, die with us-- + Thus we shall auto our way through the whole world... + Until, on some clear evening + We find a violent ending against a sturdy tree. + + + + The Sad Man + + + No, I have no capacity for life. + I could be considered foolish-- + Today I am not going to the restaurant. + I am after all this time weary of the waiters, + Who scornfully bring us, with their smug grimaces, + Dark beer and make us so confused + That we cannot find our home + And we must + Use the foolish street lights + To prop ourselves up + with weak hands. + Today I have bigger things in mind-- + Ah, I shall find out the meaning of existence. + And in the evening I shall do some roller skating + Or go at some point to Temple. + + + + Capriccio + + + Here is the way I shall die: + It's dark. And it has rained. + But you can no longer detect the imprint of the clouds + Which up there cover the sky in soft silk. + All streets are flowing, black mirrors, + Over the piled up houses, where streetlights, + Strings of pearls, hang shining. + And high above thousands of stars are flying, + Silver insects, around the world-- + I am among them. Somewhere. + And sunken, I watch very seriously, somewhat pale, + But rather thoughtful about the refined, heavenly blue legs of a + lady, + While an auto cuts me to pieces, so that my head rolls like a red + marble + At her feet... + She is surprised. And swears like a lady. And kicks it + Haughtily with the dainty heel + Of her little shoe + Into the gutter. + + + + The Turk + + + A totally perverse Turk bought for himself, + Out of grief for the recent death + Of plump Fatme, his favorite wife, + From his white-slaver, two former mannequins, in quite good + condition-- + You could almost say: brand new-- + Just imported from France. + When he had them, he sang, in celebration of himself: + + Sit down on my thighs. + Hold me around my loins. + With your sweet tongues + Stroke my tearful cheeks. + Ah, you have such beautifully bejeweled + Eyes and such clear hands, + Weariest of my wives, + And such long, gentle legs. + Tomorrow I buy six pairs of new + Stockings of the thinnest silk + As well as very small, black silk shoes. + And in the evening you will dance + Soft, false dances + In the new silk shoes + And new silk stockings. + In the garden. In the sun. + Close to the water. + But at night I'll have you whipped + By four smiling eunuchs. + + + + Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Barber + + + I stand this way on cloudy winter days + From dawn to dusk and I soap heads, + Shave them and powder them and speak + Indifferent words, stupid, foolish. + Most heads are completely shut, + They sleep limply. And others read again + And look slowly through long lids, + As though they had sucked everything dry. + Still others open the red cracks of their mouths wide + And tell jokes. + For my part, I smile courteously. Ah, I hide + Deep under these smiles, as though in a coffin, + The terrible, repressed, wise complaints + About the fact that we are forced into this existence, + Jammed in, firmly and inescapably trapped + As though in jail, and we wear chains, + Confusing, hard, that we do not understand. + And the fact that each man is distant and estranged from himself + As though from a neighbor whom he does not know at all, + And whose house he has always only seen from the outside. + Sometimes, when I am shaving a chin, + Knowing that a whole life + Is in my power, that I am now master, + I, a barber, and that a missed stroke, + A slice too deep, cuts off the round, cheerful head + That lies before me (he is thinking of a woman, + Books, business) from his body, + As though it were a loose button on a vest-- + I am overcome. Then the feeling came over me... this animal. + Is there. The animal... both my knees knock. + And like a small boy tearing paper + Without knowing why, + And like students who kill gas lamps, + And like children who turn so red + When they tear the wings of captured flies, + So I would like to do the same, + As if it were a slip, + To make a scratch with my knife on such a chin. + I would too gladly watch the red stream of blood spray. + + + + Spring + + + A certain Rudolf called out: + I have eaten too much. + Whether it's healthy is very questionable. + After such a greasy lunch + I really feel uncomfortable. + But I belch beautifully and smoke + Cigarettes now and then. + Lying on my heavy belly, + I chirp nothing but songs of spring. + Longingly, as though on a ramp + The voice squeals from the throat. + And like an old lamp + The wind blackens the bitter soul. + + + + A Barkeeper's Coarse Complaint + + + It's enough to make me throw the chair through the panes of the + mirror Into the street-- + There I sit with raised eyebrows: + All bars are full, + My bar is empty--isn't that terrific... + Isn't that strange... isn't that enough to make you puke,,, + The damned jerks--the miserable phonies-- + Everyone goes right by me... + Bloody mess... + Here I am burning gas and electricity-- + May God and the devil damn me to hell: + Damn It all... why is my bar the only empty one... + Grumpy, reproachful waiters standing around-- + It is my fault-- + Not one damned person comes to the door-- + Cramped in a corner I sit with a hopeful face. + No customers come.-- + The food rots, the wine and bread. + I might as well shut the joint. + And cry myself to death. + + + + A Trouble-making Girl + + + It's certainly late. I must earn something. + But they're all going right by today with smug expressions on their + faces. + They don't want to give me a single good-luck penny. + It's a miserable life. + If I come home without money + The old lady will throw me out. + There is hardly anyone on the street any more. + I am dead tired and freezing. + I was never so miserable in my life. + I move around here like a piece of meat. + Finally someone comes over: + An extremely well-dressed man-- + But in this life one can't tell much + By appearances. + He's also quite older. (they have more money, + Young ones tend to cheat you.) + We are face-to-face. + I raise my clothes above the knee. + I can get away with that. + That's the big draw.. + Like flies to the light + The guys are drawn to us goats... + The John is certainly standing over there. + He is staring. He winks. Now I'll go right by him... + I think: he will give me a big piece of gold. + Then I get drunk in secret on expensive liquor, + That's still the best: sometime--alone + To be drunk quietly, for myself-- + Or I can buy new shoes... + I won't have to go around in mended socks-- + Or... sometime I won't go out walking the streets. + And take a rest from the guys-- + Or... I'm already looking forward to this... + I'm so happy-- + Here comes Kitty. + And scares the man off. + + + + The Drunkard + + + One must guard oneself ever so carefully against + Howling, without any reason, like an animal. + Against pouring beer over the faces of all the waiters, + And kicking them in their faces. + Against shortening the disgusting time + Spent lying in a gutter. + Against throwing oneself off a bridge. + Against hitting friends in the mouth. + Against suddenly, while dogs bark, + Tearing the clothes off a well-fed body. + Against hurling into any old beloved woman's + Thighs one's dark skull. + + + + A Lieutenant General Sings + + + I am the Division Commander, + His Excellency. + I have attained what is humanly possible. + A lovely consciousness. + In front of me + Important people and chiefs of regiments + Bend their knees, + And my generals + Obey my commands. + God willing, my next command will be + An entire military corps. + Women, drama, music + Do not interest me much. + Compared to parades and battles, + That does not amount to much. + Would that there were an endless war + With bloody, howling winds. + Ordinary life + Has no charm for me. + + + + + Falling in the River + + + Drunk, Lene Levi walked + In the neighboring streets nightly + Back and forth, screaming, "auto." + Her blouse was opened, + So that one saw her fine, fascinating + Underclothing and skin. + Seven horny little men ran + After Lene. + + Seven horny little men chased + Lene Levi for her body, + Thinking about what it costs. + Seven men, otherwise very respectable, + Forgot their children and art, + Science and factory. + And they ran as though possessed + After Lene Levi. + Lene Levi stopped + On a bridge, catching her breath, + And she lifted her blurred blue + Drunken glances in the wide + Sweet darkness above + The street lamps and the houses. + Seven randy little men though + Caught Lene's eye. + + Seven randy little men tried + To touch Lene Levi's heart. + Lene remained unapproachable. + Suddenly she jumped up on the railing, + Turns up her nose at the world for the last time, + Joyfully jumps into the river. + Seven pale little men ran, + As quickly as they could, out of the place. + + + + A Poor Man Sings + + + Those were fine times, when I still + Walked in silk socks and wore underpants, + Sometimes had ten marks to spare, in order + To hire a woman, bored in the day + Night after night I sat in the coffeehouse. + Often I was so sated that I + Did not know what to order for myself. + + + + Twilight + + + A fat young man plays with a pond. + The wind has caught itself in a tree. + The pale sky seems to be rumpled, + As though it had run out of makeup. + On long crutches, bent nearly in half + And chatting, two cripples creep across the field. + A blond poet perhaps goes mad. + A little horse stumbles over a lady. + A fat man is stuck to a window. + A boy wants to visit a soft woman. + A gray clown puts on his boots. + A baby carriage shrieks and dogs curse. + + + + The Night + + + Sleepy policemen waddle under streetlights. + Broken beggars grumble when they sense people. + On some corners powerful streetcars stutter. + And plush cabs drop into the stars. + Among rough houses whores hobble back and forth, + Sadly swinging their ripe behinds. + Much sky lies broken in these dried-out things... + Whiny cats painfully shriek bright songs. + + + + The Cabaret in the Suburbs + + + The sweaty heads of waiters tower above the room + Like lofty and powerful capitals. + Lice-ridden boys giggle nastily. + And shining girls give painfully beautiful looks. + And distant women are so very excited... + They have hundreds of red, round hands, + Still, large, without end + Placed around their high, motley bellies. + Most people are drinking yellow beer. + Grocers, their cigarettes burning, gape. + A fine young woman sings vulgar songs. + A young Jew plays the piano with great pleasure. + + + + The Trip to the Mental Hospital + + + Fat trains go down loud tracks + Past houses, which are like coffins. + On the corners wheelbarrows with bananas squat. + Just a bit of shit makes a tough kid happy. + The human beasts glide along, completely lost + As though on a street, miserably gray and shrill. + Workers stream from dilapidated gates. + A weary person moves quietly in a round tower. + A hearse crawls along the street, two steeds out front, + Soft as a worm and weak. + And over all lies an old rag-- + The sky... pagan and meaningless. + + + + Into the Evening + + + Out of crooked clouds priceless things grow. + Very tiny things suddenly become important. + The sky is green and opaque + Down there where the blind hills glide. + Tattered trees stagger into the distance. + Drunken meadows spin in a circle, + And all the surfaces become gray and wise... + Only villages crouch glowingly: red stars-- + + + + Interior + + + A large space--half dark... deadly... completely confused... + Provocative!... delicate... dream-like... recesses, heavy doors + And broad shadows, which lead to blue corners... + And somewhere a sound that clinks like a Champagne glass. + On a fragile rug lies a wide picture book, + Distorted and exaggerated by a green ceiling light. + How--soft little cats--piously white girls make love! + In the background an old man and a silk handkerchief. + + + + Morning + + + ... And all the streets lie smooth and shining there. + Only occasionally does a solid citizen hurry along them. + A swell girl argues violently with Papa. + A baker happens to be looking at the lovely sky. + The dead sun, wide and thick, hangs on the houses. + Four fat wives screech in front of a bar. + A carriage driver falls and breaks his neck. + And everything is boringly bright, healthy and clear. + A gentleman with wise eyes hovers, confused, in the dark, + A failing god... in this picture, that he forgot, + Perhaps did not notice--he mutters this and that. Dies. And laughs. + Dreams of a stroke, paralysis, osteoporosis. + + + + Landscape + + + (for a picture) + With all its branches a slender tree casts + The shine of darkness around poor crosses. + The earth stretches out painfully black and broad. + A small moon slips slowly out of space. + And next to it strange, unapproachable, huge + Airplanes hover heavenward! + Sinners filled with longing look up, with belief + And tear themselves out of their tombs. + + + + The Concert + + + The naked seats hearken strangely + Alarming and quiet, as though there were some danger. + Only some are covered with a person. + A green girl often looks into a book. + And someone else finds a handkerchief. + And the boots are disgustingly encrusted. + A sound comes from an old man's open mouth. + A young boy looks at a young girl. + A boy plays with the button on his trousers. + On a podium an agile body rocks + To the rhythm of its serious instrument. + On a collar lies a shiny head. + Screeches. And tears. + + + + Winter + + + A dog shrieks in misery from a bridge + To heaven... which stands like old gray stone + Upon far-off houses. And, like a rope + Made of tar, a dead river lies on the snow. + Three trees, black frozen flames, make threats + At the end of the earth. They pierce + With sharp knives the rough air, + In which a scrap of bird hangs all alone. + A few street lights wade towards the city, + Extinguished candles for a corpse. And a smear + Of people shrinks together and is soon + Drowned in the wretched white swamp. + + + + The Operation + + + In the sunlight doctors tear a woman apart. + Here the open red body gapes. And heavy blood + Flows, dark wine, into a white bowl. One sees + Very clearly the rose-red cyst. Lead gray, + The limp head hangs down. The hollow mouth + Rattles. The sharp yellow chin points upward. + The room shines, cool and friendly. A nurse + Savors quite a bit of sausage in the background. + + + + Cloudy Evening + + + The sky is swollen with tears and melancholy. + Only far off, where its foul vapors burst, + Green glow pours down. The houses, + Gray grimaces, are fiendishly bloated with mist. + + Yellowish lights are beginning to gleam. + A stout father with wife and children dozes. + Painted women are practicing their dances. + Grotesque mimes strut towards the theater. + + Jokers shriek, foul connoisseurs of men: + The day is dead... and a name remains! + Powerful men gleam in girls' eyes. + A woman yearns for her beloved woman. + + + + Sunday Afternoon + + + Packs of houses squat along rotten streets, + Around whose hump a gray sun shines. + A perfumed, half crazy little poodle + Casts exhausted eyes at the big world. + In a window a boy catches flies. + A badly soiled baby gets angry. + On the horizon a train moves through windy meadows: + Slowly paints a long thick stroke. + Like typewriters hackney hooves clatter. + A dust-covered, noisy athletic club comes along. + Brutal shouts stream from bars for coachmen. + Yet fine bells mix with them. + On the fairgrounds where athletes wrestle, + Everything is dark and indistinct. + A barrel organ howls and scullery maids sing. + A man is smashing a rotting woman. + + + + The Excursion + + + (Dedicated to Kurt Lubasch, July 15, 1912) + + You, I can endure these stolid + Rooms and barren streets + And the red sun on the houses, + And the books read + A million times ago. + Come, we must go far + Away from the city. + Let us lie down + In this gentle meadow. + Let us raise, threatening yet helpless + Against the mindless, large, + Deadly blue, shiny skies, + The fleshless, dull eyes, + The cursed hands, + Swollen from crying. + + + + Summer Evening + + + All things are seamless, + As though forgotten, light and dull. + From the sacred heights the green sky spills + Still water on the city. + Glazed cobblers' lamps shine. + Empty bakeries are waiting. + People in the street, astonished, stride + Towards a miracle. + A copper red goblin runs + Up towards the roof, up and down. + Little girls fall, sobbing + From the poles of street lights. + + + + The Trip to the Mental Hospital (II) + + + A little girl crouches with her little brother + Next to an overturned barrel of water. + In rags, a beast of a person lies gulping food + Like a cigarette butt on the yellow sun. + Two skinny goats stand in broad green spaces + On pegs, and their ropes sometimes tighten. + Invisible behind monstrous trees + Unbelievably at peace the huge horror approaches. + + + + Peace + + + In weary circles a sick fish hovers + In a pond surrounded by grass. + A tree leans against the sky--burned and bent. + Yes... the family sits at a large table, + Where they peck with their forks from the plates. + Gradually they become sleepy, heavy and silent. + The sun licks the ground with its hot, poisonous, + Voracious mouth, like a dog--a filthy enemy. + Bums suddenly collapse without a trace. + A coachman looks with concern at a nag + Which, torn open, cries in the gutter. + Three children stand around in silence. + + + + Towards Morning + + + What do I care about the swift newspaper boys. + The approach of the late auto-beasts does not frighten me. + I rest on my moving legs. + My face is wet with rain. + Green remains of the night + Stick to my eyes. + That's the way I like it-- + Even as the sharp, secret + Drops of water crack on thousands of walls. + Plop from thousands of roofs. + Hop along shining streets... + And all the sullen houses + Listen to their + Eternal song. + Close behind me the burning night is ruined... + Its smelly corpse burdens my back. + But above me I feel the rushing, + Cool heaven. + Behold--I am in front of a + Streaming church. + Large and quiet it takes me in. + Here I shall stay for a while. + Immersed in its dreams. + Dreams out of gray + Silk that does not shimmer. + + + + Bad Weather + + + A frozen moon stands waxen, + White shadows, + Dead face, + Above me and the dull + Earth. + Throws green light + Like a garment, + A wrinkled one, + On bluish land. + But from the edge + Of the city, + Like a soft hand without fingers, + Gently rises + And fearfully threatening like death + Dark, nameless... + Rising + Without sound, + An empty slow sea swells towards us-- + At first it was only like a weary + Moth, which crawled over the last houses. + Now it is a black bleeding hole. + It has already buried the city and half the sky. + Ah, had I flown-- + Now it is too late. + My head falls into + Desolate hands. + On the horizon an apparition like a shriek + Announces + Terror and imminent end. + + + + The Sick + + + Evening and grief and lamp light + Bury our death-face. + + We sit at the window and drop out of it, + Far off day still squints at a gray house. + We scarcely touch our life... + And the world is a morphine dream... + Blinded by clouds the sky sinks. + The garden expires in dark wind-- + The watchmen enter, + Lift us up into bed, + Inject us with poison, + Kill the lamp. + Curtains hang in front of the night... + They disappear gently and slowly-- + Some groan, but no one speaks, + Our buried face sleeps. + + + + Cloud + + + A fog has destroyed the world so gently. + Bloodless trees dissolve in smoke. + And shadows hover where shrieks are heard. + Burning beasts evaporate like breath. + + Captured flies are the gas lanterns. + And each flickers, still attempting to escape. + But to one side, high in the distance, the poisonous moon, + The fat fog-spider, lies in wait, smoldering. + + We, however, loathsome, suited for death, + Trample along, crunching this desert splendor. + And silently stab the white eyes of misery + Like spears into the swollen night. + + + + The City + + + A white bird is the big sky. + Under it a cowering city stares. + The houses are half-dead old people. + A gaunt carriage-horse gapes grumpily. + Winds, skinny dogs, run weakly. + Their skins squeel on sharp corners. + In a street a crazed man groans: You, oh, you-- + If only I could find you... + A crowd around him is surprised and grins derisively. + Three little people play blind man's bluff-- + A gentle tear-stained god lays the grey powdery hands + Of afternoon over everything. + + + + The World + + + (Dedicated to a clown) + + Many days tread upon human animals, + In gentle oceans hunger-sharks fly. + Heads, beers glisten in coffee-houses. + Girls' screams shred on a man. + Thunderstorms come crashing down. Forest winds darken. + Women knead prayers in skinny hands: + May the Lord God send an angel. + A shred of moonlight shimmers in the sewers. + Readers of books crouch quietly on their bodies. + An evening dips the world in lilac lye. + The trunk of a body floats in a windshield. + From deep in the brain its eyes sink. + + + + Prophecy + + + Some day--I have signs--a mortal storm + Is coming from the far north. + Everywhere is the smell of corpses. + The great killing begins. + The lump of sky grows dark, + Storm-death lifts its clawed paws; + All the lumps fall down, + Mimes burst. Girls explode. + Horses' stables crash to the ground. + Not a fly can escape. + Handsome homosexuals roll + Out of their beds. + The walls of houses develop fissures. + Fish rot in the stream. + Everything meets its own disgusting end. + Groaning buses tip over. + + + + Winter Evening + + + Behind yellow windows shadows drink hot tea. + Yearning people sway on a hardened pond + Workers find a soft woman's corpse. + Glowing blue snows cast a howling darkness. + On high poles a scarecrow, implored, hangs. + Stores flicker dimly through frosted windows, + In front of which human bodies move like ghosts. + Students carve a frozen girl. + How lovely, the crystalline winter evening burning! + A platinum moon now streams through a gap in the houses. + Next to green lanterns under a bridge + Lies a gypsy woman. And plays an instrument. + + + + Girls + + + They cannot stand their rooms in the evening. + They creep out into deep starry streets. + + How gentle is the world in the streetlights' wind! + How strangely buzzing life melts away... + They go by gardens and houses, + As though very far off there might be a light, + And they look upon every horny man + As a sweet gentleman savior + + + + After the Ball + + + Night creeps into the cellars, musty and dull. + Tuxedos totter through the rubble of the street. + Faces are moldy and worn out. + The blue morning burns coolly in the city. + How quickly music and dance and greed melted... + It smells of the sun. And day begins + With trolleys, horses, shouts and wind. + Dull daily labor cloaks the people in dust. + Families silently wolf down lunch. + At times a hall still vibrates through a skull, + Much dull desire and a silken leg. + + + + Landscape + + + Like old bones in the pot + Of noon the damned streets lie there. + It's a long time since I saw you here. + A young man pulls at a girl's pigtail. + And a couple of dogs wallow in filth. + I would like to go arm and arm with you. + The sky is gray wrapping paper + On which the sun sticks--a spot of butter. + + + + Moonscape + + + The yellow mother's eye burns up there. + Everywhere night lies like a blue cloth. + There is no question that I am sucking air. + I am only a little picture book. + Houses capture dreams of motley sleepers + As though in nets in the windows. + Autos creep like ladybugs + Up luminous streets. + + + + Landscape in the Early Morning + + + The air is gray. Who knows something good for soot? + Next to an ox grazing on the ground + Stands an astonished deeply serious mountaineer. + Soon there is a powerful downpour of rain. + A young boy who is pissing on a meadow + Will be the source of a small river. + What should one do when nature calls! + Be natural. Be yourself. + A poet roams around in the world, + Observes for himself the orderly flow of traffic + And rejoices about sky, field, and dung. + Ah, and he takes careful notice of everything. + Then he climbs a high mountain + Which happens to be close by. + + + + Return of the Village Boy + + + In my youth the world was a small pond, + Grandma and red roof, lowing + Of oxen and a clump of trees. + And all around the huge green meadow. + How lovely was this dreaming into distance. + This absolute nothingness as bright air and wind + And bird cries and fairy-tale books. + Far off the fabled iron snake whistled-- + + + + Summer Freshness + + + The sky is like a blue jellyfish. + And all around are fields, rolling meadows-- + Peaceful world, you great mousetrap, + Would that I might finally escape from you.. O if I had wings-- + One plays dice. Guzzles. Chatters about future countries. + Each person puts in his own two cents. + The earth is a succulent Sunday roast, + Nicely dunked into a sweet sun-sauce. + If only there were a wind... that ripped + The gentle world with iron claws. That would amuse me. + But if a storm comes... It would shred + The lovely blue eternal sky into a thousand pieces. + + + + Afternoon, Fields and Factory + + + I can no longer find a place for my eyes. + I cannot hold my legs together. + My heart is hollow. My head is going to burst. + Mushiness all around. Nothing wants to take shape. + My tongue breaks. And my mouth twists. + In my skull there is neither pleasure nor goal. + The sun, a buttercup, rocks itself + On a chimney, its slender stalk. + + + + Rainy Night + + + The day is ruined. The sky is drunk. + Like false pearls, little stumps + Of chopped up light lie around and reveal + A glimpse of streets, a few clumps of houses. + Everything else is rotten and devoured + By a black fog, which, like a wall, + Falls down and is rotten. And the rain + Crumbles like rubble in the grip--thick--gray-- + As though the whole contaminated darkness + Wanted at every moment to sink. + Down in a swamp you see an auto flash, + Like a strange, drunken plant. + The oldest whores come crawling + Along out of wet shadows--tubercular toads. + There goes one creeping by. Over there a pig is being stabbed. + The gushing rain wants to wipe out everything. + But you are wandering through the waste lands. + Your dress hangs heavy. Your shoes are soaked. + Your eye is mad with greed and screaming. + And this urges you on--and you have no peace: + Perhaps in the midst of dark fire + The devil himself appears in the form of a pig. + Perhaps something completely horrible, + Foolish, brutal, nasty is happening. + + + + Period + + + The deserted streets flow in gleaming light + Through my dull head. And hurt me. + I clearly feel that I shall soon slip away-- + Thorny roses of my skin, don't prick like that. + The night grows moldy. The poison light of the lampposts + Has smeared it with green muck. + My heart is like a bag. My blood freezes. + The world is dying. My eyes collapse. + + + + Reflecting upon a Human Lung in Alcohol + + + Without horror you devour dead flesh every day. + And dead blood is a sweet syrup for you. + Aren't you afraid?-- + Indeed your earliest fathers also had, + And before you awoke, + Crammed thousands of the dead into your body. + + However, how deeply frightened must the first person who killed + An animal have been-- + Because, when he saw that what roamed about, + What could jump and cry out and in the moment of death + Still could watch the beseeching world, + In a moment + Was not there. + + + + In the Tuberculosis Sanitarium + + + Many sick people are walking in the garden + Back and forth and lying in the porches. + Those who are the sickest burn with fever + Every wretched day in the hot + Grave of their beds. + Ah, Catholic sisters float + Around wearily in black clothes. + Yesterday someone died. Today another can die. + In the city Fasching is being celebrated. + I would like to be able to play the difference + On the piano. + + + + Signs + + + The hour moves forward. + The mole moves out. + The moon emerges furiously. + The ocean heaves. + The child becomes an old man. + Animals pray and flee. + It's getting too hot for the trees. + The mind boggles. + The street dies. + The stinking sun stabs. + The air becomes scarce. + The heart breaks. + The frightened dog keeps its mouth shut. + The sky lies on its wrong side. + The tumult is too much for the stars. + The carriages take off. + + + + The End + + + Like a white fungus, a lump of wind covers + The green corpse of the lost world. + Frozen rivers form an iron dam + Which holds together the rotten remains. + In a small rainy corner stands + The last city in stony patience. + A dead skull lies--like a prayer-- + Slanted on the body, the black penitential bench. + + + + + My End + + + Half hands hold my fate. + Where will it sink... + My steps are tiny, like those of a woman. + One evening lay waste all dreams. + Sleep does not come to me-- + + + + Song of Kuno Kohn's Longing + + + The folds of the sea crash like whips on my skin. + And the stars of the sea tear me apart. + The evening of the sea is one of screaming wounds for the lonely, + But lovers find the good death of their day dreams... + Be there soon, you with pain in your eye, the sea hurts. + Be there soon, you who suffer in love, the sea is killing me. + Your hands are cool saints. Cover me with them, + The sea is burning on me. + But why don't you help me! But help!... Cover me. Save me. + Cure me, friend and woman. + Mother... you-- + + + + Invasion + + + Decline already-- + But that was quick... + Hardly a trace of rising-- + I have grown above the whole world. + I have become the complete God + And horribly awake. + And now I must cast away death. + My death is mute + And without images... + Without redemption-- + + + + Pathos + + + You don't love me... I have never appealed to you... + Was never your type... + And my hard eyes annoy you, my darling... + I'm too dark for you. And too coarse-- + And my white teeth have such a brutal shine + And my bloody lips are so terribly like sickles. + Ah, what you say-- + Yes you are really right. I set you... free. + ... And early in the morning I am going to an ocean + That is blue and eternal... + And lie on the beach... + And play with a smile on my face, until a death grabs me, + With sand and sun and with a white + Slender bitch. + + + + Love Song + + + Your eyes are bright lands. + Your looks are little birds, + Handkerchiefs gently waving goodbye. + In your smile I rest as though in bobbing boats. + Your little stories are made of silk. + I must behold you always. + + + + The Suicide + + + White, I lie + On the remains of an amusement park + Between jagged buildings-- + Burning flower... shining sea... + Toes and hands + Reach out into emptiness. + Longing tears the weeping body to pieces. + The little moon glides above me. + Eyes grope + Gently into the deep world, + Sunken hats + Wandering stars. + + + + Touched + + + I gladly left + The noisy death of the city, + With its thousands of leering faces, + The yellow night of the alleys. + I stride into the broad, + Silver sky; + The pious limbs glide + Deep into gently being. + I am in the white brightness + Of cloud, meadow, wind. + Am tree, am town, am child... + How wet are my eyes! + Soon the green evening will stand + At its silver end... + I raise blessed hands-- + I want to go to meet it-- + + + + Prayer to People + + + I go through the days + Like a thief. + And no one hears + My heart lament to itself. + Please have pity. + Like me. + I hate you. + I want to embrace you. + + + + Wanderer in the Evening + + + Kuno Kohn sings: + Dusty Sunday + Lies burned to pieces. + Charred coolness + Mothers the land. + Dissolute longing + Gapes once again. + Dreams and tears + Stream upward. + + + + Evening + + + Houses stand stiffly next to their fences. + Let your eyes, last sparrows, flutter. + Bluebottles alight on your face. + Don't you, Kuno, feel the eternal mills-- + The unfeeling one bores holes in your head. + Look once more at the moon, the mustard-pot murderer. + + + + Spring + + + All men are now greedy, + All women are shouting, + Hide yourself in your hump, + Remain alone-- + + + + Kuno Kohn's Five Songs to Mary + + + First Song: + + So many years I sought you, Mary-- + In gardens, rooms, cities and mountains, + In dumps, whores, in acting schools, + In sick beds and in the rooms of mad people, + In kitchen maids, screaming, celebrations of spring, + In every kind of weather and every kind of day, + In coffee houses, mothers, dancers-- + I did not find you in bars, motion pictures, + Music-cafes, excursions into the summer mist... + Who knows the agony, when I, in the night on the streets, + Cried out for you to the dead sky-- + + + Next Song: + + He who looks for you in this way, Mary, becomes quite gray. + He who looks for you in this way, Mary, loses his face and legs. + The heart crumbles. Blood and dream escape. + If I could rest... if I were in your hands... + Oh, if you would take me up in your eyes... + + + Song of Praise + + Mary you--to think of how + I felt about you... my heavy head sinks-- + Sea only and moon--sea-moon and wind and world-- + White sand encircling your white skin, Mary-- + Your hair... your smile--all around is sea and distress + And shouts and longing and a gentle happiness-- + All this singing, that makes for such weariness... + Doesn't heaven come to us slowly like a mother's song + To the forehead of her child again and again-- + + + Sad Song + + Now I go once again among days, animals, + Rocks and thousands of eyes and sounds-- + The most foreign one. I had to lose you... + Your sinful body, Mary, was so lovely-- + Now I once again in vain look among days, animals, + Rocks and sounds for a trace of you. + Now I also know: I had to lose you... + I did not find you--it was only your name-- + + + Last Song + + Only come, my rain... fall against my face + Yellow street lamps... overturn the houses-- + I don't want unbroken, smooth roads. + Now it is lovely... only in the light of street lamps... + Mary... surrounded with dark rain-- + This is the way it should be. I would like to be with you. + What are mountains and the flat land to me-- + What are cities to me and colorful hypnotic nights-- + Back to the ocean... back to the starry shore. + You are not entirely Mary, whom I sought. + But you are also Mary--boundless... + Beloved... a fool... cursed with longing... + + + + Kuno's Nocturne + + + Every day, when it gets so very dark + That I can read no more, + I walk along the street singing, + Look at every girl... + Whether perhaps--who knows-- + Today of all days a miracle will take place: + That I shall come home redeemed, + Peaceful and forever free... + From such pursuits I come back + To the house tired and confused, + I know a secret remedy + That can extinguish all suffering-- + + + + Going for a Walk + + + Evening comes with moonshine and silky darkness. + The roads become weary. The narrow world widens. + Winds of opium move in and out of the field. + I widen my eyes like silver wings. + I feel as though my body were the whole earth. + The city lights up: thousands of street lamps sway. + Now the sky also piously enkindles its candlelight. + ... Huge above everything my human face wanders-- + + + + Ash Wednesday + + + Yesterday I still went powdered and addicted + Into the many-colored sounding world. + Today everything has long since drowned. + Here is a thing. + There is a thing. + Something seems like this. + Something seems otherwise. + How easily someone blows out + The whole flowering earth. + The sky is cold and blue. + Or the moon is yellow and flat. + A forest has many individual trees. + There's nothing more to cry about. + There's nothing more to scream about. + Where am I-- + + + The Son + + + Mother, don't hold me, + Mother, your caress hurts me, + See through my face, + How I glow and wane. + Give the last kiss. Let me go. + Send a prayer after me. + That I broke your life, + Mother, forgive me. + + + + To Frida + + (Dedicated to L.L.) + + + Walls separate us. + Strange spider webs. + But I often fly, gaunt in my sinking + Hand wringing room, a bleeding chirping twit. + If only you were there. + I am so murdered. + Frida. + + + + Lonely Watchman + + + City and beloved are far behind. + I am so betrayed and alone. + Slowly I move from one + Leg to the other. + Around me strange doors screech. + I reach for dagger and gun. + Ah, if I were only at home + With my mother. + + + + Soldiers' Songs + + + 1 + + It's good and beautiful to be a soldier for a year. + You live longer that way. And one is certainly pleased + With each scrap of time that one snatches from death. + This poor brain, shredded by longing for the city, + Bloody from books, bodies, evenings, + Inconsolably sad and filled with every sin, + Three quarters destroyed already--can only, + Standing at attention and marching on parade, + Swinging arms and legs, + Rust gently in a corner of the skull. + Oh, the stink in a marching column. + Oh, speed-marching across a lovely land in the spring. + + + 2 + + I must come one hour before the others, + Because I have shot badly. + I certainly won't be promoted. + And I must do extra drills as punishment, + Because, while the others, in accordance with orders, + Looked steadily at the caps of those in front of them, + As we were marching under the red sun + Across the shining fields, + I squinted carefully at the little pilot + Who was humming above me like a bee + In the glowing evening sky. + + + 3 + + I know, I know; this life is healthy. + My rifle drill is hardly heard, + But I cut my hand badly. + Instead of the damned barracks yard + I could now be in a meadow. + In front of the assembled troops a man begins + To cry bitterly. + + + 4 + + Sometimes I am afraid: a year is long, + Endlessly long. And always legs swinging... + The whole lovely day spent molding bodies + And parade marching, and firing blanks. + To have to forget the world... that in the evening + One is still senseless, drinking beer, when one goes to sleep + One still feels the heavy helmet on his forehead-- + And at night dreams of sergeants-- + + + 5 + + Even when Sundays and evenings come, + Completely empty and listless I move about, + I am completely glassy-eyed, play with dogs for fun, + Ah, or with little stones that I find, + Weary, without a thought, drag myself through the streets. + I often also stand around at my window, + At loose ends; should I just hang out at the local bar + With my dull comrades, kill my weary + Miserable hours in flickering movie houses + And, to pass the time of day + Look for willing girls: or should I merely + Go back and forth in my room. + I, who ran through the nights like a fool, + Shrieking to the sky, sought a thousand miracles. + + + + Songs to Berlin + + + 1 + + O you Berlin, you colorful stone, you beast. + You cast me with street lamps like briars. + Ah, when one flows in the night through your lamps + After women, silky, plump. + A man gets dizzy from the eye-play. + The little moon-candy sweetens the sky. + When the days struck the steeples. + The head still glows, a red Chinese lantern. + + + 2 + + Soon I must leave you, my Berlin. + Must again travel into the desolate cities. + Soon I shall sit on the distant hill tops. + In dense woods carve your name. + Farewell, Berlin, with your bold fires. + Farewell, your streets full of adventures. + Who has known as much as I have of your pain. + Saloons, you, I press you to my breast. + + + 3 + + In meadows and in pure winds peacefully + Cheerful people may glide along gleefully. + We, however, rotten and poisoned long ago, + Would deceive ourselves with this stepping into heaven + In strange cities I move about without direction. + The strange days are hollow and like chalk. + You, my Berlin, you opium rush, you bastard. + Only he who knows longing knows what I suffer. + + + + Monday in the courtyard of the barracks + + + The heat sticks closely to the gun and to the hand. + It pricks the eyes. Nothing remained forgotten. + The troops stepped, half drunk, into the fire. + The non-coms stand rigidly in front. + The glaring earth is a dead carousel. + Nothing stirs. No one drops down. No streaked sky flies. + Only rarely a hoarse barking tears apart the blue sow + Which lies on the stone barracks. + Now the army leaves me alone. + Who still pays attention to me. They got used + To my strange civilian eyes long ago. + On maneuvers I am half dreaming, + And as we march I compose poems. + + But war comes. There was peace too long. + No more good times. Trumpets screech + Deep into your heart. And all the nights are burning. + You freeze in tents. You're hot. You're hungry. + You drown. Explode. Bleed to death. Fields rattle noisily. + Church towers fall. Flames in the distance. + Winds twitch. Large cities crash. + On the horizon cannons thunder. + Around the hill tops a white vapor rises, + And grenades burst at your head. + + + + Now of course + + + Now of course I put on my straw hat. + Rain has washed the evening blue. + How the world glows! I look up piously, + My hands deep in my trouser pockets. + If the morning drives me home with screams and stones, + Half dead, stripped of my skin, + Yet I'm ready for the night! I shall soon be happy! + Street lamps blaze. Kitchen maids screech! + + + + Elegant Morning + + + The street looks like eternal Sunday. + Lightly summerhouse rests against summerhouse. + Chauffeurs wheel by grandly. + Three fine citizens glide by quietly. + A song flies coolly out a window. + From a distance the wind carries a child's shout. + And in front of the villa of a duke stands, + All dressed up, like a stiff doll, + In a brightly colored scarf, red as a poppy, + The royal Bavarian legal apprentice, + Doctor of Jurisprudence Kuno Kohn. + + + + Farewell + + + It sure was fine to be a soldier for a year. + But it is finer to feel free again. + There was enough of depravity and pain + In these merciless human mills. + Sergeants, Barrack walls, farewell. + Farewell canteens, marching songs. + Lighthearted, I leave the city and capitol. + Kuno is leaving, Kuno is never coming back. + Now, fate, drive me where you will. + I am not tugging on my jacket from now on. + I lift my eyes into the world. + A wind is starting up. Locomotives roar. + + + + Farewell + + + (Shortly before departing for the theater of war) + + for Peter Scher + + Before dying I am making my poem. + Quiet, comrades, don't disturb me. + We are going off to war. Death is our cement. + If only my beloved did not shed these tears for me. + What am I doing. I go gladly. + Mother is crying. One must be made of iron. + The sun sinks to the horizon. + Soon I shall be tossed into a gentle mass grave. + In the sky the fine red of evening is burning. + Perhaps in thirteen days I'll be dead. + + + + Romantic Journey + + + Thousands of stars twinkle in the gentle sky. + The landscape glows. From the distant meadow + Mute marching men slowly come closer. + Only once a young Lieutenant, a page boy in love, + Steps out--and stands lost in thought. + The baggage train waddles along at the rear. + The moon makes everything much stranger. + And now and then the drivers cry out: + Stop! + High up on the shakiest munitions truck, + Like a little toad, finely chiseled + Out of black wood, hands gently clenched, + On his back the rifle, gently buckled, + A smoking cigar in his crooked mouth, + Lazy as a monk, needy as a dog + --He had pressed drops of valerian on his heart-- + In the yellow moon, ridiculously mad, + Kuno sits. + + + + Warrior's Longing + + + I would like to lie in my bed + In a white shirt, + Wished the beard was gone, + The head combed. + The fingers were clean, + The nails also, + You, my tender woman, + Might provide peace. + + + + Prayer before Battle + + + The troops are singing fervently, each for himself: + God, protect me from misfortune, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, + That no grenades strike me, + That the bastards, our enemies, + Do not catch me, do not shoot me, + That I don't die like a dog + For the dear fatherland. + Look, I would like to go on living, + Milk cows, bang girls + And beat the bastard, Sepp, + Get drunk often + Until my blessed death. + Look, I eagerly and gladly recite + Seven rosaries daily, + If you, God, in your grace + Would kill my friend Huber or Meier, + And not me. + But if the worst should come, + Let me not be too badly wounded. + Send me a slight leg wound, + A small injury to the arm, + So that I may return as a hero, + With a story to tell. + + + + The Grenade + + + First a bright, brief drum roll, + A bang and explosion into the blue day. + Then a noise, like rockets climbing on + Iron rails. Fear and long silence. + Then suddenly in the distance smoke and a fall, + A strange hard dark echo. + + + + After Combat + + + In the sky the howitzers no longer explode, + The cannoneers rest next to their guns. + The infantry pitch tents now, + And the pale moon slowly rises. + On yellow fields in red trousers, the French are ablaze, + Ashen pale from death and powder. + Among them German medics squat. + The day becomes grayer, its sun redder. + Field kitchens steam. Towns are put to the torch. + Broken carts stand at roadsides. + Panting cyclists, hot and tanned, loiter + At a scorched wooden fence. + And orderlies are already moving + From regiment to division. + + + + The Battle at Saarburg + + + The earth grows moldy in fog. + The evening is as oppressive as lead. + Electric sparks crackle and whimper all around, + Breaking everything in two. + Like wretched hobos + Cities are smoking on the horizon. + I lie, God-forsaken, + In the rattling front line of defenders. + Many copper enemy birds + Buzz around heart and brain. + I stand firm in the grayness + And defy death. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein, by +Alfred Lichtenstein + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VERSE OF ALFRED LICHTENSTEIN *** + +***** This file should be named 4369.txt or 4369.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/6/4369/ + +Produced by Michael Pullen + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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They were not presented to the public. All +except one (one of the last) That is: + +I want to bury myself in the night, +Naked and shy. +And to wrap darknesses around my limbs +And warm luster. +I want to wander far behind the hills of the earth. +Deep beyond the gliding oceans. +Past the singing winds. +There I'll meet the silent stars. +They carry space through time. +And live at the death of being. +And among them are gray, +Isolated things. +Faded movement +Of worlds long decayed. +Lost sound. +Who can know that. +My blind dream watches far from earthly wishes. + + + + +III + +The following poems can be divided into three groups. One combines +fantastic, half-playful images: The Sad Man, Rubbers, Capriccio, The +Patent-Leather Shoe, A Barkeeper's Coarse Complaint. (First appeared +in Aktion, in Simplicissimus, in March, Pan and elsewhere). Pleasure +in what is purely artistic is unmistakable. + +Examples: The Athlete: in the background is a demonstration of a +view of the world. The Athlete... means that it is terrible that a +man must also intellectually move his bowels.--Rubbers: a man wearing +rubbers is different without them. + + + + +IV + +The earliest poetry forms a second group: + +Twilight + +The intention is to eliminate the difference between time and space +in favor of the idea of poetry. The poems want to represent the +effect of twilight on the landscape. + +In this case the unity of time is necessary to a certain degree. +The unity of space is not required, therefore not observed. In +twelve lines the twilight is represented on a pond, tree, field, +somewhere... its effect on the appearance of a young man, a wind, a +sky, two cripples, a poet, a horse, a lady, a man, a young boy, a +woman, a clown, a baby-carriage, some dogs is represented visually. +(The expression is poor, but I can find nothing better) + +The author of the poem does not want to portray a landscape that is +thought to be real. The poetic art has the advantage over painting +of offering "ideal" images. That means--in respect to the Twilight: +the fat boy who uses the big pond as a toy, and the two cripples on +crutches in the field and the woman on the city street who was +knocked down by a cart-horse in the half-darkness, and the poet who, +filled with desperate longing, is thinking in the evening (probably +looking through a skylight), and the circus clown in the gray rear +building who is sighing as he puts on his boots in order to arrive +punctually at the performance, in which he must be funny--all these +can produce a poetic "picture," although they cannot be composed like +a painting. Most still deny that, and for that reason recognize, for +example, in the "Twilight" and similar pictures nothing but a +mindless confusion of strange performances. Others believe, +incorrectly, that these kinds of "ideal" pictures are possible in +painting (for example, the Futurist mish mash). + +The intention, furthermore, to grasp the reflex of things +directly--without superfluous reflections. Lichtenstein knows that +the man is not stuck to the window, but stands behind it. That the +baby-carriage is not screaming, but the child in the baby- carriage. +Because he can only see the baby-carriage, he writes: the +baby-carriage cries. It would have been untrue lyrically had he +written: a man stands behind a window. + +By chance, it is conceptually also not untrue: a boy plays with a +pond. A horse stumbles over a lady. Dogs swear. Certainly one must +laugh in an odd way when one learns to see: that a boy actually uses +a pond as a toy. How horses have a helpless way of stumbling... how +human dogs express their rage... + +Sometimes the representation of reflection is important. Perhaps a +poet goes mad--makes a deeper impression than--a poet stares stiffly +ahead-- + +Something else compelling in the poem: fear and things that resemble +reflection, like: all men must die... or: I am only a little book of +pictures... that will not be discussed here. + + + + +V + +That Twilight and other poems take things strangely (The comic is +experienced tragically. The representation is "grotesque"), to +notice the unbalanced, incoherent nature of things, arbitrariness, +confusion... is not, in any case, the characteristic of "style." +Proof is: Lichtenstein writes poems in which the "grotesque" +disappears, without notice, behind the "ungrotesque." + +Other differences between older poems (for example, Twilight) and +later ones (for example, Fear) in the same style are detectable. One +might observe that ever increasing idiosyncratic reflections about +landscape clearly break through. Certainly not without artistic +purpose. + + + + +VI + +The third group consists of the poems of Kuno Kohn. + +Alfred Lichtenstein + +(Wilmersdorf) + + + +The Athlete + + +A man walked back and forth in his torn slippers +In the small room +He inhabited. +He thought about the events +About which he was informed by the evening paper. +And sadly yawned, the way only that man yawns +Who has read much that is strange-- +And the thought suddenly overcame him, +Like a timid person who gets gooseflesh, +And the way the person who stuffs himself +Starts to burp, +Like a mother in labor: +The great yawn might perhaps be a sign, +A nod from fate, +To lie down to rest. +And the thought would not leave him. +And then he began to undress... +When he was stark naked, he lifted something. + + + +Rubbers + + +The fat man thought: +In the evening I gladly walk in rubbers, +But also when the streets are clean and spotless. +I am never entirely sober in rubbers. +I hold the cigarette in my hand. +My soul skips in little rhythms. +And all one hundred pounds of my body skips. + + + +The Patent-leather Shoe + + +The poet thought: ah, I have enough trash! +The whores, the theater, and the moon in the city, +The dress-shirts, the streets, and smells, +The nights and the coaches and the windows, +The laughter, the street-lights and murders-- +I'm really fed up now with all the crap, +Damn it! +Whatever will be will be--it's all the same to me: +The patent leather shoe Hurts me. And I take it off-- +People might turn around, surprised. +Only it's a shame about my silk socks... + + + +Smoke on the Field + + +Lene Levi went out in the evening, +Mincing, her skirt bunched up, +Through the long, empty streets +Of a suburb. + +And she spoke weeping, aching, crazy, +Strange words, +Which the wind tossed, so that they popped, +Like pods. + +They made bloody scratches on trees, +And, shredded, hung on houses +And in these deaf streets +died all alone. + +Lene Levi went out, until all +The roofs made their crooked mouths grimace, +And the windows and the shadows +Made faces + +They had a completely drunken good time-- +Until the houses became helpless +And the mute city passed +Into the broad fields, +Which the moon smeared... + +Little Lene took out of her pocket +A box of cigarettes, +Weeping took one +Out and smoked. + + + +Dreaming + + +Paul said: + +Ah, but who wouldn't want to drive a car forever-- +We burrow our way through high-stemmed woods, +We pass by spaces that seem endless. +We pass through the wind and attack the towns, which speed up. +But the odors of the sluggish cities are hateful to us-- +Ah, we are flying! Always alongside death... +How we despise and scorn him who sits on our lives! +Who lays out graves for us and makes all streets crooked--ha, we +laugh at him, +and the roads, overcome, die with us-- +Thus we shall auto our way through the whole world... +Until, on some clear evening +We find a violent ending against a sturdy tree. + + + +The Sad Man + + +No, I have no capacity for life. +I could be considered foolish-- +Today I am not going to the restaurant. +I am after all this time weary of the waiters, +Who scornfully bring us, with their smug grimaces, +Dark beer and make us so confused +That we cannot find our home +And we must +Use the foolish street lights +To prop ourselves up +with weak hands. +Today I have bigger things in mind-- +Ah, I shall find out the meaning of existence. +And in the evening I shall do some roller skating +Or go at some point to Temple. + + + +Capriccio + + +Here is the way I shall die: +It's dark. And it has rained. +But you can no longer detect the imprint of the clouds +Which up there cover the sky in soft silk. +All streets are flowing, black mirrors, +Over the piled up houses, where streetlights, +Strings of pearls, hang shining. +And high above thousands of stars are flying, +Silver insects, around the world-- +I am among them. Somewhere. +And sunken, I watch very seriously, somewhat pale, +But rather thoughtful about the refined, heavenly blue legs of a +lady, +While an auto cuts me to pieces, so that my head rolls like a red +marble +At her feet... +She is surprised. And swears like a lady. And kicks it +Haughtily with the dainty heel +Of her little shoe +Into the gutter. + + + +The Turk + + +A totally perverse Turk bought for himself, +Out of grief for the recent death +Of plump Fatme, his favorite wife, +From his white-slaver, two former mannequins, in quite good +condition-- +You could almost say: brand new-- +Just imported from France. +When he had them, he sang, in celebration of himelf: + +Sit down on my thighs. +Hold me around my loins. +With your sweet tongues +Stroke my tearful cheeks. +Ah, you have such beautifully bejeweled +Eyes and such clear hands, +Weariest of my wives, +And such long, gentle legs. +Tomorrow I buy six pairs of new +Stockings of the thinnest silk +As well as very small, black silk shoes. +And in the evening you will dance +Soft, false dances +In the new silk shoes +And new silk stockings. +In the garden. In the sun. +Close to the water. +But at night I'll have you whipped +By four smiling eunuchs. + + + +Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Barber + + +I stand this way on cloudy winter days +From dawn to dusk and I soap heads, +Shave them and powder them and speak +Indifferent words, stupid, foolish. +Most heads are completely shut, +They sleep limply. And others read again +And look slowly through long lids, +As though they had sucked everything dry. +Still others open the red cracks of their mouths wide +And tell jokes. +For my part, I smile courteously. Ah, I hide +Deep under these smiles, as though in a coffin, +The terrible, repressed, wise complaints +About the fact that we are forced into this existence, +Jammed in, firmly and inescapably trapped +As though in jail, and we wear chains, +Confusing, hard, that we do not understand. +And the fact that each man is distant and estranged from himself +As though from a neighbor whom he does not know at all, +And whose house he has always only seen from the outside. +Sometimes, when I am shaving a chin, +Knowing that a whole life +Is in my power, that I am now master, +I, a barber, and that a missed stroke, +A slice too deep, cuts off the round, cheerful head +That lies before me (he is thinking of a woman, +Books, business) from his body, +As though it were a loose button on a vest-- +I am overcome. Then the feeling came over me... this animal. +Is there. The animal... both my knees knock. +And like a small boy tearing paper +Without knowing why, +And like students who kill gas lamps, +And like children who turn so red +When they tear the wings of captured flies, +So I would like to do the same, +As if it were a slip, +To make a scratch with my knife on such a chin. +I would too gladly watch the red stream of blood spray. + + + +Spring + + +A certain Rudolf called out: +I have eaten too much. +Whether it's healthy is very questionable. +After such a greasy lunch +I really feel uncomfortable. +But I belch beautifully and smoke +Cigarettes now and then. +Lying on my heavy belly, +I chirp nothing but songs of spring. +Longingly, as though on a ramp +The voice squeals from the throat. +And like an old lamp +The wind blackens the bitter soul. + + + +A Barkeeper's Coarse Complaint + + +It's enough to make me throw the chair through the panes of the +mirror Into the street-- +There I sit with raised eyebrows: +All bars are full, +My bar is empty--isn't that terrific... +Isn't that strange... isn't that enough to make you puke,,, +The damned jerks--the miserable phonies-- +Everyone goes right by me... +Bloody mess... +Here I am burning gas and electricity-- +May God and the devil damn me to hell: +Damn It all... why is my bar the only empty one... +Grumpy, reproachful waiters standing around-- +It is my fault-- +Not one damned person comes to the door-- +Cramped in a corner I sit with a hopeful face. +No customers come.-- +The food rots, the wine and bread. +I might as well shut the joint. +And cry myself to death. + + + +A Trouble-making Girl + + +It's certainly late. I must earn something. +But they're all going right by today with smug expressions on their +faces. +They don't want to give me a single good-luck penny. +It's a miserable life. +If I come home without money +The old lady will throw me out. +There is hardly anyone on the street any more. +I am dead tired and freezing. +I was never so miserable in my life. +I move around here like a piece of meat. +Finally someone comes over: +An extremely well-dressed man-- +But in this life one can't tell much +By appearances. +He's also quite older. (they have more money, +Young ones tend to cheat you.) +We are face-to-face. +I raise my clothes above the knee. +I can get away with that. +That's the big draw.. +Like flies to the light +The guys are drawn to us goats... +The John is certainly standing over there. +He is staring. He winks. Now I'll go right by him... +I think: he will give me a big piece of gold. +Then I get drunk in secret on expensive liquor, +That's still the best: sometime--alone +To be drunk quietly, for myself-- +Or I can buy new shoes... +I won't have to go around in mended socks-- +Or... sometime I won't go out walking the streets. +And take a rest from the guys-- +Or... I'm already looking forward to this... +I'm so happy-- +Here comes Kitty. +And scares the man off. + + + +The Drunkard + + +One must guard oneself ever so carefully against +Howling, without any reason, like an animal. +Against pouring beer over the faces of all the waiters, +And kicking them in their faces. +Against shortening the disgusting time +Spent lying in a gutter. +Against throwing oneself off a bridge. +Against hitting friends in the mouth. +Against suddenly, while dogs bark, +Tearing the clothes off a well-fed body. +Against hurling into any old beloved woman's +Thighs one's dark skull. + + + +A Lieutenant General Sings + + +I am the Division Commander, +His Excellency. +I have attained what is humanly possible. +A lovely consciousness. +In front of me +Important people and chiefs of regiments +Bend their knees, +And my generals +Obey my commands. +God willing, my next command will be +An entire military corps. +Women, drama, music +Do not interest me much. +Compared to parades and battles, +That does not amount to much. +Would that there were an endless war +With bloody, howling winds. +Ordinary life +Has no charm for me. + + + + +Falling in the River + + +Drunk, Lene Levi walked +In the neighboring streets nightly +Back and forth, screaming, "auto." +Her blouse was opened, +So that one saw her fine, fascinating +Underclothing and skin. +Seven horny little men ran +After Lene. + +Seven horny little men chased +Lene Levi for her body, +Thinking about what it costs. +Seven men, otherwise very respectable, +Forgot their children and art, +Science and factory. +And they ran as though possessed +After Lene Levi. +Lene Levi stopped +On a bridge, catching her breath, +And she lifted her blurred blue +Drunken glances in the wide +Sweet darkness above +The street lamps and the houses. +Seven randy little men though +Caught Lene's eye. + +Seven randy little men tried +To touch Lene Levi's heart. +Lene remained unapproachable. +Suddenly she jumped up on the railing, +Turns up her nose at the world for the last time, +Joyfully jumps into the river. +Seven pale little men ran, +As quickly as they could, out of the place. + + + +A Poor Man Sings + + +Those were fine times, when I still +Walked in silk socks and wore underpants, +Sometimes had ten marks to spare, in order +To hire a woman, bored in the day +Night after night I sat in the coffeehouse. +Often I was so sated that I +Did not know what to order for myself. + + + +Twilight + + +A fat young man plays with a pond. +The wind has caught itself in a tree. +The pale sky seems to be rumpled, +As though it had run out of makeup. +On long crutches, bent nearly in half +And chatting, two cripples creep across the field. +A blond poet perhaps goes mad. +A little horse stumbles over a lady. +A fat man is stuck to a window. +A boy wants to visit a soft woman. +A gray clown puts on his boots. +A baby carriage shrieks and dogs curse. + + + +The Night + + +Sleepy policemen waddle under streetlights. +Broken beggars grumble when they sense people. +On some corners powerful streetcars stutter. +And plush cabs drop into the stars. +Among rough houses whores hobble back and forth, +Sadly swinging their ripe behinds. +Much sky lies broken in these dried-out things... +Whiny cats painfully shriek bright songs. + + + +The Cabaret in the Suburbs + + +The sweaty heads of waiters tower above the room +Like lofty and powerful capitals. +Lice-ridden boys giggle nastily. +And shining girls give painfully beautiful looks. +And distant women are so very excited... +They have hundreds of red, round hands, +Still, large, without end +Placed around their high, motley bellies. +Most people are drinking yellow beer. +Grocers, their cigarettes burning, gape. +A fine young woman sings vulgar songs. +A young Jew plays the piano with great pleasure. + + + +The Trip to the Mental Hospital + + +Fat trains go down loud tracks +Past houses, which are like coffins. +On the corners wheelbarrows with bananas squat. +Just a bit of shit makes a tough kid happy. +The human beasts glide along, completely lost +As though on a street, miserably gray and shrill. +Workers stream from dilapidated gates. +A weary person moves quietly in a round tower. +A hearse crawls along the street, two steeds out front, +Soft as a worm and weak. +And over all lies an old rag-- +The sky... pagan and meaningless. + + + +Into the Evening + + +Out of crooked clouds priceless things grow. +Very tiny things suddenly become important. +The sky is green and opaque +Down there where the blind hills glide. +Tattered trees stagger into the distance. +Drunken meadows spin in a circle, +And all the surfaces become gray and wise... +Only villages crouch glowingly: red stars-- + + + +Interior + + +A large space--half dark... deadly... completely confused... +Provocative!... delicate... dream-like... recesses, heavy doors +And broad shadows, which lead to blue corners... +And somewhere a sound that clinks like a Champagne glass. +On a fragile rug lies a wide picture book, +Distorted and exaggerated by a green ceiling light. +How--soft little cats--piously white girls make love! +In the background an old man and a silk handkerchief. + + + +Morning + + +... And all the streets lie smooth and shining there. +Only occasionally does a solid citizen hurry along them. +A swell girl argues violently with Papa. +A baker happens to be looking at the lovely sky. +The dead sun, wide and thick, hangs on the houses. +Four fat wives screech in front of a bar. +A carriage driver falls and breaks his neck. +And everything is boringly bright, healthy and clear. +A gentleman with wise eyes hovers, confused, in the dark, +A failing god... in this picture, that he forgot, +Perhaps did not notice--he mutters this and that. Dies. And laughs. +Dreams of a stroke, paralysis, osteoporosis. + + + +Landscape + + +(for a picture) +With all its branches a slender tree casts +The shine of darkness around poor crosses. +The earth stretches out painfully black and broad. +A small moon slips slowly out of space. +And next to it strange, unapproachable, huge +Airplanes hover heavenward! +Sinners filled with longing look up, with belief +And tear themselves out of their tombs. + + + +The Concert + + +The naked seats hearken strangely +Alarming and quiet, as though there were some danger. +Only some are covered with a person. +A green girl often looks into a book. +And someone else finds a handkerchief. +And the boots are disgustingly encrusted. +A sound comes from an old man's open mouth. +A young boy looks at a young girl. +A boy plays with the button on his trousers. +On a podium an agile body rocks +To the rhythm of its serious instrument. +On a collar lies a shiny head. +Screeches. And tears. + + + +Winter + + +A dog shrieks in misery from a bridge +To heaven... which stands like old gray stone +Upon far-off houses. And, like a rope +Made of tar, a dead river lies on the snow. +Three trees, black frozen flames, make threats +At the end of the earth. They pierce +With sharp knives the rough air, +In which a scrap of bird hangs all alone. +A few street lights wade towards the city, +Extinguished candles for a corpse. And a smear +Of people shrinks together and is soon +Drowned in the wretched white swamp. + + + +The Operation + + +In the sunlight doctors tear a woman apart. +Here the open red body gapes. And heavy blood +Flows, dark wine, into a white bowl. One sees +Very clearly the rose-red cyst. Lead gray, +The limp head hangs down. The hollow mouth +Rattles. The sharp yellow chin points upward. +The room shines, cool and friendly. A nurse +Savors quite a bit of sausage in the background. + + + +Cloudy Evening + + +The sky is swollen with tears and melancholy. +Only far off, where its foul vapors burst, +Green glow pours down. The houses, +Gray grimaces, are fiendishly bloated with mist. + +Yellowish lights are beginning to gleam. +A stout father with wife and children dozes. +Painted women are practicing their dances. +Grotesque mimes strut towards the theater. + +Jokers shriek, foul connoisseurs of men: +The day is dead... and a name remains! +Powerful men gleam in girls' eyes. +A woman yearns for her beloved woman. + + + +Sunday Afternoon + + +Packs of houses squat along rotten streets, +Around whose hump a gray sun shines. +A perfumed, half crazy little poodle +Casts exhausted eyes at the big world. +In a window a boy catches flies. +A badly soiled baby gets angry. +On the horizon a train moves through windy meadows: +Slowly paints a long thick stroke. +Like typewriters hackney hooves clatter. +A dust-covered, noisy athletic club comes along. +Brutal shouts stream from bars for coachmen. +Yet fine bells mix with them. +On the fairgrounds where athletes wrestle, +Everything is dark and indistinct. +A barrel organ howls and scullery maids sing. +A man is smashing a rotting woman. + + + +The Excursion + + +(Dedicated to Kurt Lubasch, July 15, 1912) + +You, I can endure these stolid +Rooms and barren streets +And the red sun on the houses, +And the books read +A million times ago. +Come, we must go far +Away from the city. +Let us lie down +In this gentle meadow. +Let us raise, threatening yet helpless +Against the mindless, large, +Deadly blue, shiny skies, +The fleshless, dull eyes, +The cursed hands, +Swollen from crying. + + + +Summer Evening + + +All things are seamless, +As though forgotten, light and dull. +From the sacred heights the green sky spills +Still water on the city. +Glazed cobblers' lamps shine. +Empty bakeries are waiting. +People in the street, astonished, stride +Towards a miracle. +A copper red goblin runs +Up towards the roof, up and down. +Little girls fall, sobbing +From the poles of street lights. + + + +The Trip to the Mental Hospital (II) + + +A little girl crouches with her little brother +Next to an overturned barrel of water. +In rags, a beast of a person lies gulping food +Like a cigarette butt on the yellow sun. +Two skinny goats stand in broad green spaces +On pegs, and their ropes sometimes tighten. +Invisible behind monstrous trees +Unbelievably at peace the huge horror approaches. + + + +Peace + + +In weary circles a sick fish hovers +In a pond surrounded by grass. +A tree leans against the sky--burned and bent. +Yes... the family sits at a large table, +Where they peck with their forks from the plates. +Gradually they become sleepy, heavy and silent. +The sun licks the ground with its hot, poisonous, +Voracious mouth, like a dog--a filthy enemy. +Bums suddenly collapse without a trace. +A coachman looks with concern at a nag +Which, torn open, cries in the gutter. +Three children stand around in silence. + + + +Towards Morning + + +What do I care about the swift newspaper boys. +The approach of the late auto-beasts does not frighten me. +I rest on my moving legs. +My face is wet with rain. +Green remains of the night +Stick to my eyes. +That's the way I like it-- +Even as the sharp, secret +Drops of water crack on thousands of walls. +Plop from thousands of roofs. +Hop along shining streets... +And all the sullen houses +Listen to their +Eternal song. +Close behind me the burning night is ruined... +Its smelly corpse burdens my back. +But above me I feel the rushing, +Cool heaven. +Behold--I am in front of a +Streaming church. +Large and quiet it takes me in. +Here I shall stay for a while. +Immersed in its dreams. +Dreams out of gray +Silk that does not shimmer. + + + +Bad Weather + + +A frozen moon stands waxen, +White shadows, +Dead face, +Above me and the dull +Earth. +Throws green light +Like a garment, +A wrinkled one, +On bluish land. +But from the edge +Of the city, +Like a soft hand without fingers, +Gently rises +And fearfully threatening like death +Dark, nameless... +Rising +Without sound, +An empty slow sea swells towards us-- +At first it was only like a weary +Moth, which crawled over the last houses. +Now it is a black bleeding hole. +It has already buried the city and half the sky. +Ah, had I flown-- +Now it is too late. +My head falls into +Desolate hands. +On the horizon an apparition like a shriek +Announces +Terror and imminent end. + + + +The Sick + + +Evening and grief and lamp light +Bury our death-face. + +We sit at the window and drop out of it, +Far off day still squints at a gray house. +We scarcely touch our life... +And the world is a morphine dream... +Blinded by clouds the sky sinks. +The garden expires in dark wind-- +The watchmen enter, +Lift us up into bed, +Inject us with poison, +Kill the lamp. +Curtains hang in front of the night... +They disappear gently and slowly-- +Some groan, but no one speaks, +Our buried face sleeps. + + + +Cloud + + +A fog has destroyed the world so gently. +Bloodless trees dissolve in smoke. +And shadows hover where shrieks are heard. +Burning beasts evaporate like breath. + +Captured flies are the gas lanterns. +And each flickers, still attempting to escape. +But to one side, high in the distance, the poisonous moon, +The fat fog-spider, lies in wait, smoldering. + +We, however, loathsome, suited for death, +Trample along, crunching this desert splendor. +And silently stab the white eyes of misery +Like spears into the swollen night. + + + +The City + + +A white bird is the big sky. +Under it a cowering city stares. +The houses are half-dead old people. +A gaunt carriage-horse gapes grumpily. +Winds, skinny dogs, run weakly. +Their skins squeel on sharp corners. +In a street a crazed man groans: You, oh, you-- +If only I could find you... +A crowd around him is surprised and grins derisively. +Three little people play blind man's bluff-- +A gentle tear-stained god lays the grey powdery hands +Of afternoon over everything. + + + +The World + + +(Dedicated to a clown) + +Many days tread upon human animals, +In gentle oceans hunger-sharks fly. +Heads, beers glisten in coffee-houses. +Girls' screams shred on a man. +Thunderstorms come crashing down. Forest winds darken. +Women knead prayers in skinny hands: +May the Lord God send an angel. +A shred of moonlight shimmers in the sewers. +Readers of books crouch quietly on their bodies. +An evening dips the world in lilac lye. +The trunk of a body floats in a windshield. +From deep in the brain its eyes sink. + + + +Prophecy + + +Some day--I have signs--a mortal storm +Is coming from the far north. +Everywhere is the smell of corpses. +The great killing begins. +The lump of sky grows dark, +Storm-death lifts its clawed paws; +All the lumps fall down, +Mimes burst. Girls explode. +Horses' stables crash to the ground. +Not a fly can ecape. +Handsome homosexuals roll +Out of their beds. +The walls of houses develop fissures. +Fish rot in the stream. +Everything meets its own disgusting end. +Groaning buses tip over. + + + +Winter Evening + + +Behind yellow windows shadows drink hot tea. +Yearning people sway on a hardened pond +Workers find a soft woman's corpse. +Glowing blue snows cast a howling darkness. +On high poles a scarecrow, implored, hangs. +Stores flicker dimly through frosted windows, +In front of which human bodies move like ghosts. +Students carve a frozen girl. +How lovely, the crystalline winter evening burning! +A platinum moon now streams through a gap in the houses. +Next to green lanterns under a bridge +Lies a gypsy woman. And plays an instrument. + + + +Girls + + +They cannot stand their rooms in the evening. +They creep out into deep starry streets. + +How gentle is the world in the streetlights' wind! +How strangely buzzing life melts away... +They go by gardens and houses, +As though very far off there might be a light, +And they look upon every horny man +As a sweet gentleman savior + + + +After the Ball + + +Night creeps into the cellars, musty and dull. +Tuxedos totter through the rubble of the street. +Faces are moldy and worn out. +The blue morning burns coolly in the city. +How quickly music and dance and greed melted... +It smells of the sun. And day begins +With trolleys, horses, shouts and wind. +Dull daily labor cloaks the people in dust. +Families silently wolf down lunch. +At times a hall still vibrates through a skull, +Much dull desire and a silken leg. + + + +Landscape + + +Like old bones in the pot +Of noon the damned streets lie there. +It's a long time since I saw you here. +A young man pulls at a girl's pigtail. +And a couple of dogs wallow in filth. +I would like to go arm and arm with you. +The sky is gray wrapping paper +On which the sun sticks--a spot of butter. + + + +Moonscape + + +The yellow mother's eye burns up there. +Everywhere night lies like a blue cloth. +There is no question that I am sucking air. +I am only a little picture book. +Houses capture dreams of motley sleepers +As though in nets in the windows. +Autos creep like ladybugs +Up luminous streets. + + + +Landscape in the Early Morning + + +The air is gray. Who knows something good for soot? +Next to an ox grazing on the ground +Stands an astonished deeply serious mountaineer. +Soon there is a powerful downpour of rain. +A young boy who is pissing on a meadow +Will be the source of a small river. +What should one do when nature calls! +Be natural. Be yourself. +A poet roams around in the world, +Observes for himself the orderly flow of traffic +And rejoices about sky, field, and dung. +Ah, and he takes careful notice of everything. +Then he climbs a high mountain +Which happens to be close by. + + + +Return of the Village Boy + + +In my youth the world was a small pond, +Grandma and red roof, lowing +Of oxen and a clump of trees. +And all around the huge green meadow. +How lovely was this dreaming into distance. +This absolute nothingness as bright air and wind +And bird cries and fairy-tale books. +Far off the fabled iron snake whistled-- + + + +Summer Freshness + + +The sky is like a blue jellyfish. +And all around are fields, rolling meadows-- +Peaceful world, you great mousetrap, +Would that I might finally escape from you.. O if I had wings-- +One plays dice. Guzzles. Chatters about future countries. +Each person puts in his own two cents. +The earth is a succulent Sunday roast, +Nicely dunked into a sweet sun-sauce. +If only there were a wind... that ripped +The gentle world with iron claws. That would amuse me. +But if a storm comes... It would shred +The lovely blue eternal sky into a thousand pieces. + + + +Afternoon, Fields and Factory + + +I can no longer find a place for my eyes. +I cannot hold my legs together. +My heart is hollow. My head is going to burst. +Mushiness all around. Nothing wants to take shape. +My tongue breaks. And my mouth twists. +In my skull there is neither pleasure nor goal. +The sun, a buttercup, rocks itself +On a chimney, its slender stalk. + + + +Rainy Night + + +The day is ruined. The sky is drunk. +Like false pearls, little stumps +Of chopped up light lie around and reveal +A glimpse of streets, a few clumps of houses. +Everything else is rotten and devoured +By a black fog, which, like a wall, +Falls down and is rotten. And the rain +Crumbles like rubble in the grip--thick--gray-- +As though the whole contaminated darkness +Wanted at every moment to sink. +Down in a swamp you see an auto flash, +Like a strange, drunken plant. +The oldest whores come crawling +Along out of wet shadows--tubercular toads. +There goes one creeping by. Over there a pig is being stabbed. +The gushing rain wants to wipe out everything. +But you are wandering through the waste lands. +Your dress hangs heavy. Your shoes are soaked. +Your eye is mad with greed and screaming. +And this urges you on--and you have no peace: +Perhaps in the midst of dark fire +The devil himself appears in the form of a pig. +Perhaps something completely horrible, +Foolish, brutal, nasty is happening. + + + +Period + + +The deserted streets flow in gleaming light +Through my dull head. And hurt me. +I clearly feel that I shall soon slip away-- +Thorny roses of my skin, don't prick like that. +The night grows moldy. The poison light of the lampposts +Has smeared it with green muck. +My heart is like a bag. My blood freezes. +The world is dying. My eyes collapse. + + + +Reflecting upon a Human Lung in Alcohol + + +Without horror you devour dead flesh every day. +And dead blood is a sweet syrup for you. +Aren't you afraid?-- +Indeed your earliest fathers also had, +And before you awoke, +Crammed thousands of the dead into your body. + +However, how deeply frightened must the first person who killed +An animal have been-- +Because, when he saw that what roamed about, +What could jump and cry out and in the moment of death +Still could watch the beseeching world, +In a moment +Was not there. + + + +In the Tuberculosis Sanitarium + + +Many sick people are walking in the garden +Back and forth and lying in the porches. +Those who are the sickest burn with fever +Every wretched day in the hot +Grave of their beds. +Ah, Catholic sisters float +Around wearily in black clothes. +Yesterday someone died. Today another can die. +In the city Fasching is begin celebrated. +I would like to be able to play the difference +On the piano. + + + +Signs + + +The hour moves forward. +The mole moves out. +The moon emerges furiously. +The ocean heaves. +The child becomes an old man. +Animals pray and flee. +It's getting too hot for the trees. +The mind boggles. +The street dies. +The stinking sun stabs. +The air becomes scarce. +The heart breaks. +The frightened dog keeps its mouth shut. +The sky lies on its wrong side. +The tumult is too much for the stars. +The carriages take off. + + + +The End + + +Like a white fungus, a lump of wind covers +The green corpse of the lost world. +Frozen rivers form an iron dam +Which holds together the rotten remains. +In a small rainy corner stands +The last city in stony patience. +A dead skull lies--like a prayer-- +Slanted on the body, the black penitential bench. + + + + +My End + + +Half hands hold my fate. +Where will it sink... +My steps are tiny, like those of a woman. +One evening lay waste all dreams. +Sleep does not come to me-- + + + +Song of Kuno Kohn's Longing + + +The folds of the sea crash like whips on my skin. +And the stars of the sea tear me apart. +The evening of the sea is one of screaming wounds for the lonely, +But lovers find the good death of their day dreams... +Be there soon, you with pain in your eye, the sea hurts. +Be there soon, you who suffer in love, the sea is killing me. +Your hands are cool saints. Cover me with them, +The sea is burning on me. +But why don't you help me! But help!... Cover me. Save me. +Cure me, friend and woman. +Mother... you-- + + + +Invasion + + +Decline already-- +But that was quick... +Hardly a trace of rising-- +I have grown above the whole world. +I have become the complete God +And horribly awake. +And now I must cast away death. +My death is mute +And without images... +Without redemption-- + + + +Pathos + + +You don't love me... I have never appealed to you... +Was never your type... +And my hard eyes annoy you, my darling... +I'm too dark for you. And too coarse-- +And my white teeth have such a brutal shine +And my bloody lips are so terribly like sickles. +Ah, what you say-- +Yes you are really right. I set you... free. +... And early in the morning I am going to an ocean +That is blue and eternal... +And lie on the beach... +And play with a smile on my face, until a death grabs me, +With sand and sun and with a white +Slender bitch. + + + +Love Song + + +Your eyes are bright lands. +Your looks are little birds, +Handkerchiefs gently waving goodbye. +In your smile I rest as though in bobbing boats. +Your little stories are made of silk. +I must behold you always. + + + +The Suicide + + +White, I lie +On the remains of an amusement park +Between jagged buildings-- +Burning flower... shining sea... +Toes and hands +Reach out into emptiness. +Longing tears the weeping body to pieces. +The little moon glides above me. +Eyes grope +Gently into the deep world, +Sunken hats +Wandering stars. + + + +Touched + + +I gladly left +The noisy death of the city, +With its thousands of leering faces, +The yellow night of the alleys. +I stride into the broad, +Silver sky; +The pious limbs glide +Deep into gently being. +I am in the white brightness +Of cloud, meadow, wind. +Am tree, am town, am child... +How wet are my eyes! +Soon the green evening will stand +At its silver end... +I raise blessed hands-- +I want to go to meet it-- + + + +Prayer to People + + +I go through the days +Like a thief. +And no one hears +My heart lament to itself. +Please have pity. +Like me. +I hate you. +I want to embrace you. + + + +Wanderer in the Evening + + +Kuno Kohn sings: +Dusty Sunday +Lies burned to pieces. +Charred coolness +Mothers the land. +Dissolute longing +Gapes once again. +Dreams and tears +Stream upward. + + + +Evening + + +Houses stand stiffly next to their fences. +Let your eyes, last sparrows, flutter. +Bluebottles alight on your face. +Don't you, Kuno, feel the eternal mills-- +The unfeeling one bores holes in your head. +Look once more at the moon, the mustard-pot murderer. + + + +Spring + + +All men are now greedy, +All women are shouting, +Hide yourself in your hump, +Remain alone-- + + + +Kuno Kohn's Five Songs to Mary + + +First Song: + +So many years I sought you, Mary-- +In gardens, rooms, cities and mountains, +In dumps, whores, in acting schools, +In sick beds and in the rooms of mad people, +In kitchen maids, screaming, celebrations of spring, +In every kind of weather and every kind of day, +In coffee houses, mothers, dancers-- +I did not find you in bars, motion pictures, +Music-cafes, excursions into the summer mist... +Who knows the agony, when I, in the night on the streets, +Cried out for you to the dead sky-- + + +Next Song: + +He who looks for you in this way, Mary, becomes quite gray. +He who looks for you in this way, Mary, loses his face and legs. +The heart crumbles. Blood and dream escape. +If I could rest... if I were in your hands... +Oh, if you would take me up in your eyes... + + +Song of Praise + +Mary you--to think of how +I felt about you... my heavy head sinks-- +Sea only and moon--sea-moon and wind and world-- +White sand encircling your white skin, Mary-- +Your hair... your smile--all around is sea and distress +And shouts and longing and a gentle happiness-- +All this singing, that makes for such weariness... +Doesn't heaven come to us slowly like a mother's song +To the forehead of her child again and again-- + + +Sad Song + +Now I go once again among days, animals, +Rocks and thousands of eyes and sounds-- +The most foreign one. I had to lose you... +Your sinful body, Mary, was so lovely-- +Now I once again in vain look among days, animals, +Rocks and sounds for a trace of you. +Now I also know: I had to lose you... +I did not find you--it was only your name-- + + +Last Song + +Only come, my rain... fall against my face +Yellow street lamps... overturn the houses-- +I don't want unbroken, smooth roads. +Now it is lovely... only in the light of street lamps... +Mary... surrounded with dark rain-- +This is the way it should be. I would like to be with you. +What are mountains and the flat land to me-- +What are cities to me and colorful hypnotic nights-- +Back to the ocean... back to the starry shore. +You are not entirely Mary, whom I sought. +But you are also Mary--boundless... +Beloved... a fool... cursed with longing... + + + +Kuno's Nocturne + + +Every day, when it gets so very dark +That I can read no more, +I walk along the street singing, +Look at every girl... +Whether perhaps--who knows-- +Today of all days a miracle will take place: +That I shall come home redeemed, +Peaceful and forever free... +From such pursuits I come back +To the house tired and confused, +I know a secret remedy +That can extinguish all suffering-- + + + +Going for a Walk + + +Evening comes with moonshine and silky darkness. +The roads become weary. The narrow world widens. +Winds of opium move in and out of the field. +I widen my eyes like silver wings. +I feel as though my body were the whole earth. +The city lights up: thousands of street lamps sway. +Now the sky also piously enkindles its candlelight. +... Huge above everything my human face wanders-- + + + +Ash Wednesday + + +Yesterday I still went powdered and addicted +Into the many-colored sounding world. +Today everything has long since drowned. +Here is a thing. +There is a thing. +Something seems like this. +Something seems otherwise. +How easily someone blows out +The whole flowering earth. +The sky is cold and blue. +Or the moon is yellow and flat. +A forest has many individual trees. +There's nothing more to cry about. +There's nothing more to scream about. +Where am I-- + + +The Son + + +Mother, don't hold me, +Mother, your caress hurts me, +See through my face, +How I glow and wane. +Give the last kiss. Let me go. +Send a prayer after me. +That I broke your life, +Mother, forgive me. + + + +To Frida + +(Dedicated to L.L.) + + +Walls separate us. +Strange spider webs. +But I often fly, gaunt in my sinking +Hand wringing room, a bleeding chirping twit. +If only you were there. +I am so murdered. +Frida. + + + +Lonely Watchman + + +City and beloved are far behind. +I am so betrayed and alone. +Slowly I move from one +Leg to the other. +Around me strange doors screech. +I reach for dagger and gun. +Ah, if I were only at home +With my mother. + + + +Soldiers' Songs + + +1 + +It's good and beautiful to be a soldier for a year. +You live longer that way. And one is certainly pleased +With each scrap of time that one snatches from death. +This poor brain, shredded by longing for the city, +Bloody from books, bodies, evenings, +Inconsolably sad and filled with every sin, +Three quarters destroyed already--can only, +Standing at attention and marching on parade, +Swinging arms and legs, +Rust gently in a corner of the skull. +Oh, the stink in a marching column. +Oh, speed-marching across a lovely land in the spring. + + +2 + +I must come one hour before the others, +Because I have shot badly. +I certainly won't be promoted. +And I must do extra drills as punishment, +Because, while the others, in accordance with orders, +Looked steadily at the caps of those in front of them, +As we were marching under the red sun +Across the shining fields, +I squinted carefully at the little pilot +Who was humming above me like a bee +In the glowing evening sky. + + +3 + +I know, I know; this life is healthy. +My rifle drill is hardly heard, +But I cut my hand badly. +Instead of the damned barracks yard +I could now be in a meadow. +In front of the assembled troops a man begins +To cry bitterly. + + +4 + +Sometimes I am afraid: a year is long, +Endlessly long. And always legs swinging... +The whole lovely day spent molding bodies +And parade marching, and firing blanks. +To have to forget the world... that in the evening +One is still senseless, drinking beer, when one goes to sleep +One still feels the heavy helmet on his forehead-- +And at night dreams of sergeants-- + + +5 + +Even when Sundays and evenings come, +Completely empty and listless I move about, +I am completely glassy-eyed, play with dogs for fun, +Ah, or with little stones that I find, +Weary, without a thought, drag myself through the streets. +I often also stand around at my window, +At loose ends; should I just hang out at the local bar +With my dull comrades, kill my weary +Miserable hours in flickering movie houses +And, to pass the time of day +Look for willing girls: or should I merely +Go back and forth in my room. +I, who ran through the nights like a fool, +Shrieking to the sky, sought a thousand miracles. + + + +Songs to Berlin + + +1 + +O you Berlin, you colorful stone, you beast. +You cast me with street lamps like briars. +Ah, when one flows in the night through your lamps +After women, silky, plump. +A man gets dizzy from the eye-play. +The little moon-candy sweetens the sky. +When the days struck the steeples. +The head still glows, a red Chinese lantern. + + +2 + +Soon I must leave you, my Berlin. +Must again travel into the desolate cities. +Soon I shall sit on the distant hill tops. +In dense woods carve your name. +Farewell, Berlin, with your bold fires. +Farewell, your streets full of adventures. +Who has known as much as I have of your pain. +Saloons, you, I press you to my breast. + + +3 + +In meadows and in pure winds peacefully +Cheerful people may glide along gleefully. +We, however, rotten and poisoned long ago, +Would deceive ourselves with this stepping into heaven +In strange cities I move about without direction. +The strange days are hollow and like chalk. +You, my Berlin, you opium rush, you bastard. +Only he who knows longing knows what I suffer. + + + +Monday in the courtyard of the barracks + + +The heat sticks closely to the gun and to the hand. +It pricks the eyes. Nothing remained forgotten. +The troops stepped, half drunk, into the fire. +The non-coms stand rigidly in front. +The glaring earth is a dead carousel. +Nothing stirs. No one drops down. No streaked sky flies. +Only rarely a hoarse barking tears apart the blue sow +Which lies on the stone barracks. +Now the army leaves me alone. +Who still pays attention to me. They got used +To my strange civilian eyes long ago. +On maneuvers I am half dreaming, +And as we march I compose poems. + +But war comes. There was peace too long. +No more good times. Trumpets screech +Deep into your heart. And all the nights are burning. +You freeze in tents. You're hot. You're hungry. +You drown. Explode. Bleed to death. Fields rattle noisily. +Church towers fall. Flames in the distance. +Winds twitch. Large cities crash. +On the horizon cannons thunder. +Around the hill tops a white vapor rises, +And grenades burst at your head. + + + +Now of course + + +Now of course I put on my straw hat. +Rain has washed the evening blue. +How the world glows! I look up piously, +My hands deep in my trouser pockets. +If the morning drives me home with screams and stones, +Half dead, stripped of my skin, +Yet I'm ready for the night! I shall soon be happy! +Street lamps blaze. Kitchen maids screech! + + + +Elegant Morning + + +The street looks like eternal Sunday. +Lightly summerhouse rests against summerhouse. +Chauffeurs wheel by grandly. +Three fine citizens glide by quietly. +A song flies coolly out a window. +From a distance the wind carries a child's shout. +And in front of the villa of a duke stands, +All dressed up, like a stiff doll, +In a brightly colored scarf, red as a poppy, +The royal Bavarian legal apprentice, +Doctor of Jurisprudence Kuno Kohn. + + + +Farewell + + +It sure was fine to be a soldier for a year. +But it is finer to feel free again. +There was enough of depravity and pain +In these merciless human mills. +Sergeants, Barrack walls, farewell. +Farewell canteens, marching songs. +Lighthearted, I leave the city and capitol. +Kuno is leaving, Kuno is never coming back. +Now, fate, drive me where you will. +I am not tugging on my jacket from now on. +I lift my eyes into the world. +A wind is starting up. Locomotives roar. + + + +Farewell + + +(Shortly before departing for the theater of war) + +for Peter Scher + +Before dying I am making my poem. +Quiet, comrades, don't disturb me. +We are going off to war. Death is our cement. +If only my beloved did not shed these tears for me. +What am I doing. I go gladly. +Mother is crying. One must be made of iron. +The sun sinks to the horizon. +Soon I shall be tossed into a gentle mass grave. +In the sky the fine red of evening is burning. +Perhaps in thrirteen days I'll be dead. + + + +Romantic Journey + + +Thousands of stars twinkle in the gentle sky. +The landscape glows. From the distant meadow +Mute marching men slowly come closer. +Only once a young Lieutenant, a page boy in love, +Steps out--and stands lost in thought. +The baggage train waddles along at the rear. +The moon makes everything much stranger. +And now and then the drivers cry out: +Stop! +High up on the shakiest munitions truck, +Like a little toad, finely chiseled +Out of black wood, hands gently clenched, +On his back the rifle, gently buckled, +A smoking cigar in his crooked mouth, +Lazy as a monk, needy as a dog +--He had pressed drops of valerian on his heart-- +In the yellow moon, ridiculously mad, +Kuno sits. + + + +Warrior's Longing + + +I would like to lie in my bed +In a white shirt, +Wished the beard was gone, +The head combed. +The fingers were clean, +The nails also, +You, my tender woman, +Might provide peace. + + + +Prayer before Battle + + +The troops are singing fervently, each for himself: +God, protect me from misfortune, +Father, Son and Holy Spirit, +That no grenades strike me, +That the bastards, our enemies, +Do not catch me, do not shoot me, +That I don't die like a dog +For the dear fatherland. +Look, I would like to go on living, +Milk cows, bang girls +And beat the bastard, Sepp, +Get drunk often +Until my blessed death. +Look, I eagerly and gladly recite +Seven rosaries daily, +If you, God, in your grace +Would kill my friend Huber or Meier, +And not me. +But if the worst should come, +Let me not be too badly wounded. +Send me a slight leg wound, +A small injury to the arm, +So that I may return as a hero, +With a story to tell. + + + +The Grenade + + +First a bright, brief drum roll, +A bang and explosion into the blue day. +Then a noise, like rockets climbing on +Iron rails. Fear and long silence. +Then suddenly in the distance smoke and a fall, +A strange hard dark echo. + + + +After Combat + + +In the sky the howitzers no longer explode, +The cannoneers rest next to their guns. +The infantry pitch tents now, +And the pale moon slowly rises. +On yellow fields in red trousers, the French are ablaze, +Ashen pale from death and powder. +Among them German medics squat. +The day becomes grayer, its sun redder. +Field kitchens steam. Towns are put to the torch. +Broken carts stand at roadsides. +Panting cyclists, hot and tanned, loiter +At a scorched wooden fence. +And orderlies are already moving +From regiment to division. + + + +The Battle at Saarburg + + +The earth grows moldy in fog. +The evening is as oppressive as lead. +Electric sparks crackle and whimper all around, +Breaking everything in two. +Like wretched hobos +Cities are smoking on the horizon. +I lie, God-forsaken, +In the rattling front line of defenders. +Many copper enemy birds +Buzz around heart and brain. +I stand firm in the grayness +And defy death. + + +End of this Project Gutenberg etext "The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein" +by Alfred Lichtenstein + diff --git a/old/alvrs10.zip b/old/alvrs10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ee61f19 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/alvrs10.zip diff --git a/old/alvrs11.txt b/old/alvrs11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7f2e1ad --- /dev/null +++ b/old/alvrs11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2328 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein, by +Alfred Lichtenstein +#1 in our series by Alfred Lichtenstein + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. 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Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + + + +The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein + +(a critique by Lichtenstein himself) + + + + + +I + +Because I believe that many do not understand the verse of +Lichtenstein, do not correctly understand, do not clearly understand-- + + + + +II + +The first eighty poems are lyric. In the usual sense. They are not +much different from poetry that praises gardens. The content is the +distress of love, death, universal longing. The impulse to formulate +them in the "cynical" vein (like cabaret songs) may, for example, +might have arisen from the wish to feel superior. Most of the eighty +poems are insignificant. They were not presented to the public. All +except one (one of the last) That is: + +I want to bury myself in the night, +Naked and shy. +And to wrap darknesses around my limbs +And warm luster. +I want to wander far behind the hills of the earth. +Deep beyond the gliding oceans. +Past the singing winds. +There I'll meet the silent stars. +They carry space through time. +And live at the death of being. +And among them are gray, +Isolated things. +Faded movement +Of worlds long decayed. +Lost sound. +Who can know that. +My blind dream watches far from earthly wishes. + + + + +III + +The following poems can be divided into three groups. One combines +fantastic, half-playful images: The Sad Man, Rubbers, Capriccio, The +Patent-Leather Shoe, A Barkeeper's Coarse Complaint. (First appeared +in Aktion, in Simplicissimus, in March, Pan and elsewhere). Pleasure +in what is purely artistic is unmistakable. + +Examples: The Athlete: in the background is a demonstration of a +view of the world. The Athlete... means that it is terrible that a +man must also intellectually move his bowels.--Rubbers: a man wearing +rubbers is different without them. + + + + +IV + +The earliest poetry forms a second group: + +Twilight + +The intention is to eliminate the difference between time and space +in favor of the idea of poetry. The poems want to represent the +effect of twilight on the landscape. + +In this case the unity of time is necessary to a certain degree. +The unity of space is not required, therefore not observed. In +twelve lines the twilight is represented on a pond, tree, field, +somewhere... its effect on the appearance of a young man, a wind, a +sky, two cripples, a poet, a horse, a lady, a man, a young boy, a +woman, a clown, a baby-carriage, some dogs is represented visually. +(The expression is poor, but I can find nothing better) + +The author of the poem does not want to portray a landscape that is +thought to be real. The poetic art has the advantage over painting +of offering "ideal" images. That means--in respect to the Twilight: +the fat boy who uses the big pond as a toy, and the two cripples on +crutches in the field and the woman on the city street who was +knocked down by a cart-horse in the half-darkness, and the poet who, +filled with desperate longing, is thinking in the evening (probably +looking through a skylight), and the circus clown in the gray rear +building who is sighing as he puts on his boots in order to arrive +punctually at the performance, in which he must be funny--all these +can produce a poetic "picture," although they cannot be composed like +a painting. Most still deny that, and for that reason recognize, for +example, in the "Twilight" and similar pictures nothing but a +mindless confusion of strange performances. Others believe, +incorrectly, that these kinds of "ideal" pictures are possible in +painting (for example, the Futurist mish mash). + +The intention, furthermore, to grasp the reflex of things +directly--without superfluous reflections. Lichtenstein knows that +the man is not stuck to the window, but stands behind it. That the +baby-carriage is not screaming, but the child in the baby- carriage. +Because he can only see the baby-carriage, he writes: the +baby-carriage cries. It would have been untrue lyrically had he +written: a man stands behind a window. + +By chance, it is conceptually also not untrue: a boy plays with a +pond. A horse stumbles over a lady. Dogs swear. Certainly one must +laugh in an odd way when one learns to see: that a boy actually uses +a pond as a toy. How horses have a helpless way of stumbling... how +human dogs express their rage... + +Sometimes the representation of reflection is important. Perhaps a +poet goes mad--makes a deeper impression than--a poet stares stiffly +ahead-- + +Something else compelling in the poem: fear and things that resemble +reflection, like: all men must die... or: I am only a little book of +pictures... that will not be discussed here. + + + + +V + +That Twilight and other poems take things strangely (The comic is +experienced tragically. The representation is "grotesque"), to +notice the unbalanced, incoherent nature of things, arbitrariness, +confusion... is not, in any case, the characteristic of "style." +Proof is: Lichtenstein writes poems in which the "grotesque" +disappears, without notice, behind the "ungrotesque." + +Other differences between older poems (for example, Twilight) and +later ones (for example, Fear) in the same style are detectable. One +might observe that ever increasing idiosyncratic reflections about +landscape clearly break through. Certainly not without artistic +purpose. + + + + +VI + +The third group consists of the poems of Kuno Kohn. + +Alfred Lichtenstein + +(Wilmersdorf) + + + +The Athlete + + +A man walked back and forth in his torn slippers +In the small room +He inhabited. +He thought about the events +About which he was informed by the evening paper. +And sadly yawned, the way only that man yawns +Who has read much that is strange-- +And the thought suddenly overcame him, +Like a timid person who gets gooseflesh, +And the way the person who stuffs himself +Starts to burp, +Like a mother in labor: +The great yawn might perhaps be a sign, +A nod from fate, +To lie down to rest. +And the thought would not leave him. +And then he began to undress... +When he was stark naked, he lifted something. + + + +Rubbers + + +The fat man thought: +In the evening I gladly walk in rubbers, +But also when the streets are clean and spotless. +I am never entirely sober in rubbers. +I hold the cigarette in my hand. +My soul skips in little rhythms. +And all one hundred pounds of my body skips. + + + +The Patent-leather Shoe + + +The poet thought: ah, I have enough trash! +The whores, the theater, and the moon in the city, +The dress-shirts, the streets, and smells, +The nights and the coaches and the windows, +The laughter, the street-lights and murders-- +I'm really fed up now with all the crap, +Damn it! +Whatever will be will be--it's all the same to me: +The patent leather shoe Hurts me. And I take it off-- +People might turn around, surprised. +Only it's a shame about my silk socks... + + + +Smoke on the Field + + +Lene Levi went out in the evening, +Mincing, her skirt bunched up, +Through the long, empty streets +Of a suburb. + +And she spoke weeping, aching, crazy, +Strange words, +Which the wind tossed, so that they popped, +Like pods. + +They made bloody scratches on trees, +And, shredded, hung on houses +And in these deaf streets +died all alone. + +Lene Levi went out, until all +The roofs made their crooked mouths grimace, +And the windows and the shadows +Made faces + +They had a completely drunken good time-- +Until the houses became helpless +And the mute city passed +Into the broad fields, +Which the moon smeared... + +Little Lene took out of her pocket +A box of cigarettes, +Weeping took one +Out and smoked. + + + +Dreaming + + +Paul said: + +Ah, but who wouldn't want to drive a car forever-- +We burrow our way through high-stemmed woods, +We pass by spaces that seem endless. +We pass through the wind and attack the towns, which speed up. +But the odors of the sluggish cities are hateful to us-- +Ah, we are flying! Always alongside death... +How we despise and scorn him who sits on our lives! +Who lays out graves for us and makes all streets crooked--ha, we +laugh at him, +and the roads, overcome, die with us-- +Thus we shall auto our way through the whole world... +Until, on some clear evening +We find a violent ending against a sturdy tree. + + + +The Sad Man + + +No, I have no capacity for life. +I could be considered foolish-- +Today I am not going to the restaurant. +I am after all this time weary of the waiters, +Who scornfully bring us, with their smug grimaces, +Dark beer and make us so confused +That we cannot find our home +And we must +Use the foolish street lights +To prop ourselves up +with weak hands. +Today I have bigger things in mind-- +Ah, I shall find out the meaning of existence. +And in the evening I shall do some roller skating +Or go at some point to Temple. + + + +Capriccio + + +Here is the way I shall die: +It's dark. And it has rained. +But you can no longer detect the imprint of the clouds +Which up there cover the sky in soft silk. +All streets are flowing, black mirrors, +Over the piled up houses, where streetlights, +Strings of pearls, hang shining. +And high above thousands of stars are flying, +Silver insects, around the world-- +I am among them. Somewhere. +And sunken, I watch very seriously, somewhat pale, +But rather thoughtful about the refined, heavenly blue legs of a +lady, +While an auto cuts me to pieces, so that my head rolls like a red +marble +At her feet... +She is surprised. And swears like a lady. And kicks it +Haughtily with the dainty heel +Of her little shoe +Into the gutter. + + + +The Turk + + +A totally perverse Turk bought for himself, +Out of grief for the recent death +Of plump Fatme, his favorite wife, +From his white-slaver, two former mannequins, in quite good +condition-- +You could almost say: brand new-- +Just imported from France. +When he had them, he sang, in celebration of himelf: + +Sit down on my thighs. +Hold me around my loins. +With your sweet tongues +Stroke my tearful cheeks. +Ah, you have such beautifully bejeweled +Eyes and such clear hands, +Weariest of my wives, +And such long, gentle legs. +Tomorrow I buy six pairs of new +Stockings of the thinnest silk +As well as very small, black silk shoes. +And in the evening you will dance +Soft, false dances +In the new silk shoes +And new silk stockings. +In the garden. In the sun. +Close to the water. +But at night I'll have you whipped +By four smiling eunuchs. + + + +Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Barber + + +I stand this way on cloudy winter days +From dawn to dusk and I soap heads, +Shave them and powder them and speak +Indifferent words, stupid, foolish. +Most heads are completely shut, +They sleep limply. And others read again +And look slowly through long lids, +As though they had sucked everything dry. +Still others open the red cracks of their mouths wide +And tell jokes. +For my part, I smile courteously. Ah, I hide +Deep under these smiles, as though in a coffin, +The terrible, repressed, wise complaints +About the fact that we are forced into this existence, +Jammed in, firmly and inescapably trapped +As though in jail, and we wear chains, +Confusing, hard, that we do not understand. +And the fact that each man is distant and estranged from himself +As though from a neighbor whom he does not know at all, +And whose house he has always only seen from the outside. +Sometimes, when I am shaving a chin, +Knowing that a whole life +Is in my power, that I am now master, +I, a barber, and that a missed stroke, +A slice too deep, cuts off the round, cheerful head +That lies before me (he is thinking of a woman, +Books, business) from his body, +As though it were a loose button on a vest-- +I am overcome. Then the feeling came over me... this animal. +Is there. The animal... both my knees knock. +And like a small boy tearing paper +Without knowing why, +And like students who kill gas lamps, +And like children who turn so red +When they tear the wings of captured flies, +So I would like to do the same, +As if it were a slip, +To make a scratch with my knife on such a chin. +I would too gladly watch the red stream of blood spray. + + + +Spring + + +A certain Rudolf called out: +I have eaten too much. +Whether it's healthy is very questionable. +After such a greasy lunch +I really feel uncomfortable. +But I belch beautifully and smoke +Cigarettes now and then. +Lying on my heavy belly, +I chirp nothing but songs of spring. +Longingly, as though on a ramp +The voice squeals from the throat. +And like an old lamp +The wind blackens the bitter soul. + + + +A Barkeeper's Coarse Complaint + + +It's enough to make me throw the chair through the panes of the +mirror Into the street-- +There I sit with raised eyebrows: +All bars are full, +My bar is empty--isn't that terrific... +Isn't that strange... isn't that enough to make you puke,,, +The damned jerks--the miserable phonies-- +Everyone goes right by me... +Bloody mess... +Here I am burning gas and electricity-- +May God and the devil damn me to hell: +Damn It all... why is my bar the only empty one... +Grumpy, reproachful waiters standing around-- +It is my fault-- +Not one damned person comes to the door-- +Cramped in a corner I sit with a hopeful face. +No customers come.-- +The food rots, the wine and bread. +I might as well shut the joint. +And cry myself to death. + + + +A Trouble-making Girl + + +It's certainly late. I must earn something. +But they're all going right by today with smug expressions on their +faces. +They don't want to give me a single good-luck penny. +It's a miserable life. +If I come home without money +The old lady will throw me out. +There is hardly anyone on the street any more. +I am dead tired and freezing. +I was never so miserable in my life. +I move around here like a piece of meat. +Finally someone comes over: +An extremely well-dressed man-- +But in this life one can't tell much +By appearances. +He's also quite older. (they have more money, +Young ones tend to cheat you.) +We are face-to-face. +I raise my clothes above the knee. +I can get away with that. +That's the big draw.. +Like flies to the light +The guys are drawn to us goats... +The John is certainly standing over there. +He is staring. He winks. Now I'll go right by him... +I think: he will give me a big piece of gold. +Then I get drunk in secret on expensive liquor, +That's still the best: sometime--alone +To be drunk quietly, for myself-- +Or I can buy new shoes... +I won't have to go around in mended socks-- +Or... sometime I won't go out walking the streets. +And take a rest from the guys-- +Or... I'm already looking forward to this... +I'm so happy-- +Here comes Kitty. +And scares the man off. + + + +The Drunkard + + +One must guard oneself ever so carefully against +Howling, without any reason, like an animal. +Against pouring beer over the faces of all the waiters, +And kicking them in their faces. +Against shortening the disgusting time +Spent lying in a gutter. +Against throwing oneself off a bridge. +Against hitting friends in the mouth. +Against suddenly, while dogs bark, +Tearing the clothes off a well-fed body. +Against hurling into any old beloved woman's +Thighs one's dark skull. + + + +A Lieutenant General Sings + + +I am the Division Commander, +His Excellency. +I have attained what is humanly possible. +A lovely consciousness. +In front of me +Important people and chiefs of regiments +Bend their knees, +And my generals +Obey my commands. +God willing, my next command will be +An entire military corps. +Women, drama, music +Do not interest me much. +Compared to parades and battles, +That does not amount to much. +Would that there were an endless war +With bloody, howling winds. +Ordinary life +Has no charm for me. + + + + +Falling in the River + + +Drunk, Lene Levi walked +In the neighboring streets nightly +Back and forth, screaming, "auto." +Her blouse was opened, +So that one saw her fine, fascinating +Underclothing and skin. +Seven horny little men ran +After Lene. + +Seven horny little men chased +Lene Levi for her body, +Thinking about what it costs. +Seven men, otherwise very respectable, +Forgot their children and art, +Science and factory. +And they ran as though possessed +After Lene Levi. +Lene Levi stopped +On a bridge, catching her breath, +And she lifted her blurred blue +Drunken glances in the wide +Sweet darkness above +The street lamps and the houses. +Seven randy little men though +Caught Lene's eye. + +Seven randy little men tried +To touch Lene Levi's heart. +Lene remained unapproachable. +Suddenly she jumped up on the railing, +Turns up her nose at the world for the last time, +Joyfully jumps into the river. +Seven pale little men ran, +As quickly as they could, out of the place. + + + +A Poor Man Sings + + +Those were fine times, when I still +Walked in silk socks and wore underpants, +Sometimes had ten marks to spare, in order +To hire a woman, bored in the day +Night after night I sat in the coffeehouse. +Often I was so sated that I +Did not know what to order for myself. + + + +Twilight + + +A fat young man plays with a pond. +The wind has caught itself in a tree. +The pale sky seems to be rumpled, +As though it had run out of makeup. +On long crutches, bent nearly in half +And chatting, two cripples creep across the field. +A blond poet perhaps goes mad. +A little horse stumbles over a lady. +A fat man is stuck to a window. +A boy wants to visit a soft woman. +A gray clown puts on his boots. +A baby carriage shrieks and dogs curse. + + + +The Night + + +Sleepy policemen waddle under streetlights. +Broken beggars grumble when they sense people. +On some corners powerful streetcars stutter. +And plush cabs drop into the stars. +Among rough houses whores hobble back and forth, +Sadly swinging their ripe behinds. +Much sky lies broken in these dried-out things... +Whiny cats painfully shriek bright songs. + + + +The Cabaret in the Suburbs + + +The sweaty heads of waiters tower above the room +Like lofty and powerful capitals. +Lice-ridden boys giggle nastily. +And shining girls give painfully beautiful looks. +And distant women are so very excited... +They have hundreds of red, round hands, +Still, large, without end +Placed around their high, motley bellies. +Most people are drinking yellow beer. +Grocers, their cigarettes burning, gape. +A fine young woman sings vulgar songs. +A young Jew plays the piano with great pleasure. + + + +The Trip to the Mental Hospital + + +Fat trains go down loud tracks +Past houses, which are like coffins. +On the corners wheelbarrows with bananas squat. +Just a bit of shit makes a tough kid happy. +The human beasts glide along, completely lost +As though on a street, miserably gray and shrill. +Workers stream from dilapidated gates. +A weary person moves quietly in a round tower. +A hearse crawls along the street, two steeds out front, +Soft as a worm and weak. +And over all lies an old rag-- +The sky... pagan and meaningless. + + + +Into the Evening + + +Out of crooked clouds priceless things grow. +Very tiny things suddenly become important. +The sky is green and opaque +Down there where the blind hills glide. +Tattered trees stagger into the distance. +Drunken meadows spin in a circle, +And all the surfaces become gray and wise... +Only villages crouch glowingly: red stars-- + + + +Interior + + +A large space--half dark... deadly... completely confused... +Provocative!... delicate... dream-like... recesses, heavy doors +And broad shadows, which lead to blue corners... +And somewhere a sound that clinks like a Champagne glass. +On a fragile rug lies a wide picture book, +Distorted and exaggerated by a green ceiling light. +How--soft little cats--piously white girls make love! +In the background an old man and a silk handkerchief. + + + +Morning + + +... And all the streets lie smooth and shining there. +Only occasionally does a solid citizen hurry along them. +A swell girl argues violently with Papa. +A baker happens to be looking at the lovely sky. +The dead sun, wide and thick, hangs on the houses. +Four fat wives screech in front of a bar. +A carriage driver falls and breaks his neck. +And everything is boringly bright, healthy and clear. +A gentleman with wise eyes hovers, confused, in the dark, +A failing god... in this picture, that he forgot, +Perhaps did not notice--he mutters this and that. Dies. And laughs. +Dreams of a stroke, paralysis, osteoporosis. + + + +Landscape + + +(for a picture) +With all its branches a slender tree casts +The shine of darkness around poor crosses. +The earth stretches out painfully black and broad. +A small moon slips slowly out of space. +And next to it strange, unapproachable, huge +Airplanes hover heavenward! +Sinners filled with longing look up, with belief +And tear themselves out of their tombs. + + + +The Concert + + +The naked seats hearken strangely +Alarming and quiet, as though there were some danger. +Only some are covered with a person. +A green girl often looks into a book. +And someone else finds a handkerchief. +And the boots are disgustingly encrusted. +A sound comes from an old man's open mouth. +A young boy looks at a young girl. +A boy plays with the button on his trousers. +On a podium an agile body rocks +To the rhythm of its serious instrument. +On a collar lies a shiny head. +Screeches. And tears. + + + +Winter + + +A dog shrieks in misery from a bridge +To heaven... which stands like old gray stone +Upon far-off houses. And, like a rope +Made of tar, a dead river lies on the snow. +Three trees, black frozen flames, make threats +At the end of the earth. They pierce +With sharp knives the rough air, +In which a scrap of bird hangs all alone. +A few street lights wade towards the city, +Extinguished candles for a corpse. And a smear +Of people shrinks together and is soon +Drowned in the wretched white swamp. + + + +The Operation + + +In the sunlight doctors tear a woman apart. +Here the open red body gapes. And heavy blood +Flows, dark wine, into a white bowl. One sees +Very clearly the rose-red cyst. Lead gray, +The limp head hangs down. The hollow mouth +Rattles. The sharp yellow chin points upward. +The room shines, cool and friendly. A nurse +Savors quite a bit of sausage in the background. + + + +Cloudy Evening + + +The sky is swollen with tears and melancholy. +Only far off, where its foul vapors burst, +Green glow pours down. The houses, +Gray grimaces, are fiendishly bloated with mist. + +Yellowish lights are beginning to gleam. +A stout father with wife and children dozes. +Painted women are practicing their dances. +Grotesque mimes strut towards the theater. + +Jokers shriek, foul connoisseurs of men: +The day is dead... and a name remains! +Powerful men gleam in girls' eyes. +A woman yearns for her beloved woman. + + + +Sunday Afternoon + + +Packs of houses squat along rotten streets, +Around whose hump a gray sun shines. +A perfumed, half crazy little poodle +Casts exhausted eyes at the big world. +In a window a boy catches flies. +A badly soiled baby gets angry. +On the horizon a train moves through windy meadows: +Slowly paints a long thick stroke. +Like typewriters hackney hooves clatter. +A dust-covered, noisy athletic club comes along. +Brutal shouts stream from bars for coachmen. +Yet fine bells mix with them. +On the fairgrounds where athletes wrestle, +Everything is dark and indistinct. +A barrel organ howls and scullery maids sing. +A man is smashing a rotting woman. + + + +The Excursion + + +(Dedicated to Kurt Lubasch, July 15, 1912) + +You, I can endure these stolid +Rooms and barren streets +And the red sun on the houses, +And the books read +A million times ago. +Come, we must go far +Away from the city. +Let us lie down +In this gentle meadow. +Let us raise, threatening yet helpless +Against the mindless, large, +Deadly blue, shiny skies, +The fleshless, dull eyes, +The cursed hands, +Swollen from crying. + + + +Summer Evening + + +All things are seamless, +As though forgotten, light and dull. +From the sacred heights the green sky spills +Still water on the city. +Glazed cobblers' lamps shine. +Empty bakeries are waiting. +People in the street, astonished, stride +Towards a miracle. +A copper red goblin runs +Up towards the roof, up and down. +Little girls fall, sobbing +From the poles of street lights. + + + +The Trip to the Mental Hospital (II) + + +A little girl crouches with her little brother +Next to an overturned barrel of water. +In rags, a beast of a person lies gulping food +Like a cigarette butt on the yellow sun. +Two skinny goats stand in broad green spaces +On pegs, and their ropes sometimes tighten. +Invisible behind monstrous trees +Unbelievably at peace the huge horror approaches. + + + +Peace + + +In weary circles a sick fish hovers +In a pond surrounded by grass. +A tree leans against the sky--burned and bent. +Yes... the family sits at a large table, +Where they peck with their forks from the plates. +Gradually they become sleepy, heavy and silent. +The sun licks the ground with its hot, poisonous, +Voracious mouth, like a dog--a filthy enemy. +Bums suddenly collapse without a trace. +A coachman looks with concern at a nag +Which, torn open, cries in the gutter. +Three children stand around in silence. + + + +Towards Morning + + +What do I care about the swift newspaper boys. +The approach of the late auto-beasts does not frighten me. +I rest on my moving legs. +My face is wet with rain. +Green remains of the night +Stick to my eyes. +That's the way I like it-- +Even as the sharp, secret +Drops of water crack on thousands of walls. +Plop from thousands of roofs. +Hop along shining streets... +And all the sullen houses +Listen to their +Eternal song. +Close behind me the burning night is ruined... +Its smelly corpse burdens my back. +But above me I feel the rushing, +Cool heaven. +Behold--I am in front of a +Streaming church. +Large and quiet it takes me in. +Here I shall stay for a while. +Immersed in its dreams. +Dreams out of gray +Silk that does not shimmer. + + + +Bad Weather + + +A frozen moon stands waxen, +White shadows, +Dead face, +Above me and the dull +Earth. +Throws green light +Like a garment, +A wrinkled one, +On bluish land. +But from the edge +Of the city, +Like a soft hand without fingers, +Gently rises +And fearfully threatening like death +Dark, nameless... +Rising +Without sound, +An empty slow sea swells towards us-- +At first it was only like a weary +Moth, which crawled over the last houses. +Now it is a black bleeding hole. +It has already buried the city and half the sky. +Ah, had I flown-- +Now it is too late. +My head falls into +Desolate hands. +On the horizon an apparition like a shriek +Announces +Terror and imminent end. + + + +The Sick + + +Evening and grief and lamp light +Bury our death-face. + +We sit at the window and drop out of it, +Far off day still squints at a gray house. +We scarcely touch our life... +And the world is a morphine dream... +Blinded by clouds the sky sinks. +The garden expires in dark wind-- +The watchmen enter, +Lift us up into bed, +Inject us with poison, +Kill the lamp. +Curtains hang in front of the night... +They disappear gently and slowly-- +Some groan, but no one speaks, +Our buried face sleeps. + + + +Cloud + + +A fog has destroyed the world so gently. +Bloodless trees dissolve in smoke. +And shadows hover where shrieks are heard. +Burning beasts evaporate like breath. + +Captured flies are the gas lanterns. +And each flickers, still attempting to escape. +But to one side, high in the distance, the poisonous moon, +The fat fog-spider, lies in wait, smoldering. + +We, however, loathsome, suited for death, +Trample along, crunching this desert splendor. +And silently stab the white eyes of misery +Like spears into the swollen night. + + + +The City + + +A white bird is the big sky. +Under it a cowering city stares. +The houses are half-dead old people. +A gaunt carriage-horse gapes grumpily. +Winds, skinny dogs, run weakly. +Their skins squeel on sharp corners. +In a street a crazed man groans: You, oh, you-- +If only I could find you... +A crowd around him is surprised and grins derisively. +Three little people play blind man's bluff-- +A gentle tear-stained god lays the grey powdery hands +Of afternoon over everything. + + + +The World + + +(Dedicated to a clown) + +Many days tread upon human animals, +In gentle oceans hunger-sharks fly. +Heads, beers glisten in coffee-houses. +Girls' screams shred on a man. +Thunderstorms come crashing down. Forest winds darken. +Women knead prayers in skinny hands: +May the Lord God send an angel. +A shred of moonlight shimmers in the sewers. +Readers of books crouch quietly on their bodies. +An evening dips the world in lilac lye. +The trunk of a body floats in a windshield. +From deep in the brain its eyes sink. + + + +Prophecy + + +Some day--I have signs--a mortal storm +Is coming from the far north. +Everywhere is the smell of corpses. +The great killing begins. +The lump of sky grows dark, +Storm-death lifts its clawed paws; +All the lumps fall down, +Mimes burst. Girls explode. +Horses' stables crash to the ground. +Not a fly can ecape. +Handsome homosexuals roll +Out of their beds. +The walls of houses develop fissures. +Fish rot in the stream. +Everything meets its own disgusting end. +Groaning buses tip over. + + + +Winter Evening + + +Behind yellow windows shadows drink hot tea. +Yearning people sway on a hardened pond +Workers find a soft woman's corpse. +Glowing blue snows cast a howling darkness. +On high poles a scarecrow, implored, hangs. +Stores flicker dimly through frosted windows, +In front of which human bodies move like ghosts. +Students carve a frozen girl. +How lovely, the crystalline winter evening burning! +A platinum moon now streams through a gap in the houses. +Next to green lanterns under a bridge +Lies a gypsy woman. And plays an instrument. + + + +Girls + + +They cannot stand their rooms in the evening. +They creep out into deep starry streets. + +How gentle is the world in the streetlights' wind! +How strangely buzzing life melts away... +They go by gardens and houses, +As though very far off there might be a light, +And they look upon every horny man +As a sweet gentleman savior + + + +After the Ball + + +Night creeps into the cellars, musty and dull. +Tuxedos totter through the rubble of the street. +Faces are moldy and worn out. +The blue morning burns coolly in the city. +How quickly music and dance and greed melted... +It smells of the sun. And day begins +With trolleys, horses, shouts and wind. +Dull daily labor cloaks the people in dust. +Families silently wolf down lunch. +At times a hall still vibrates through a skull, +Much dull desire and a silken leg. + + + +Landscape + + +Like old bones in the pot +Of noon the damned streets lie there. +It's a long time since I saw you here. +A young man pulls at a girl's pigtail. +And a couple of dogs wallow in filth. +I would like to go arm and arm with you. +The sky is gray wrapping paper +On which the sun sticks--a spot of butter. + + + +Moonscape + + +The yellow mother's eye burns up there. +Everywhere night lies like a blue cloth. +There is no question that I am sucking air. +I am only a little picture book. +Houses capture dreams of motley sleepers +As though in nets in the windows. +Autos creep like ladybugs +Up luminous streets. + + + +Landscape in the Early Morning + + +The air is gray. Who knows something good for soot? +Next to an ox grazing on the ground +Stands an astonished deeply serious mountaineer. +Soon there is a powerful downpour of rain. +A young boy who is pissing on a meadow +Will be the source of a small river. +What should one do when nature calls! +Be natural. Be yourself. +A poet roams around in the world, +Observes for himself the orderly flow of traffic +And rejoices about sky, field, and dung. +Ah, and he takes careful notice of everything. +Then he climbs a high mountain +Which happens to be close by. + + + +Return of the Village Boy + + +In my youth the world was a small pond, +Grandma and red roof, lowing +Of oxen and a clump of trees. +And all around the huge green meadow. +How lovely was this dreaming into distance. +This absolute nothingness as bright air and wind +And bird cries and fairy-tale books. +Far off the fabled iron snake whistled-- + + + +Summer Freshness + + +The sky is like a blue jellyfish. +And all around are fields, rolling meadows-- +Peaceful world, you great mousetrap, +Would that I might finally escape from you.. O if I had wings-- +One plays dice. Guzzles. Chatters about future countries. +Each person puts in his own two cents. +The earth is a succulent Sunday roast, +Nicely dunked into a sweet sun-sauce. +If only there were a wind... that ripped +The gentle world with iron claws. That would amuse me. +But if a storm comes... It would shred +The lovely blue eternal sky into a thousand pieces. + + + +Afternoon, Fields and Factory + + +I can no longer find a place for my eyes. +I cannot hold my legs together. +My heart is hollow. My head is going to burst. +Mushiness all around. Nothing wants to take shape. +My tongue breaks. And my mouth twists. +In my skull there is neither pleasure nor goal. +The sun, a buttercup, rocks itself +On a chimney, its slender stalk. + + + +Rainy Night + + +The day is ruined. The sky is drunk. +Like false pearls, little stumps +Of chopped up light lie around and reveal +A glimpse of streets, a few clumps of houses. +Everything else is rotten and devoured +By a black fog, which, like a wall, +Falls down and is rotten. And the rain +Crumbles like rubble in the grip--thick--gray-- +As though the whole contaminated darkness +Wanted at every moment to sink. +Down in a swamp you see an auto flash, +Like a strange, drunken plant. +The oldest whores come crawling +Along out of wet shadows--tubercular toads. +There goes one creeping by. Over there a pig is being stabbed. +The gushing rain wants to wipe out everything. +But you are wandering through the waste lands. +Your dress hangs heavy. Your shoes are soaked. +Your eye is mad with greed and screaming. +And this urges you on--and you have no peace: +Perhaps in the midst of dark fire +The devil himself appears in the form of a pig. +Perhaps something completely horrible, +Foolish, brutal, nasty is happening. + + + +Period + + +The deserted streets flow in gleaming light +Through my dull head. And hurt me. +I clearly feel that I shall soon slip away-- +Thorny roses of my skin, don't prick like that. +The night grows moldy. The poison light of the lampposts +Has smeared it with green muck. +My heart is like a bag. My blood freezes. +The world is dying. My eyes collapse. + + + +Reflecting upon a Human Lung in Alcohol + + +Without horror you devour dead flesh every day. +And dead blood is a sweet syrup for you. +Aren't you afraid?-- +Indeed your earliest fathers also had, +And before you awoke, +Crammed thousands of the dead into your body. + +However, how deeply frightened must the first person who killed +An animal have been-- +Because, when he saw that what roamed about, +What could jump and cry out and in the moment of death +Still could watch the beseeching world, +In a moment +Was not there. + + + +In the Tuberculosis Sanitarium + + +Many sick people are walking in the garden +Back and forth and lying in the porches. +Those who are the sickest burn with fever +Every wretched day in the hot +Grave of their beds. +Ah, Catholic sisters float +Around wearily in black clothes. +Yesterday someone died. Today another can die. +In the city Fasching is begin celebrated. +I would like to be able to play the difference +On the piano. + + + +Signs + + +The hour moves forward. +The mole moves out. +The moon emerges furiously. +The ocean heaves. +The child becomes an old man. +Animals pray and flee. +It's getting too hot for the trees. +The mind boggles. +The street dies. +The stinking sun stabs. +The air becomes scarce. +The heart breaks. +The frightened dog keeps its mouth shut. +The sky lies on its wrong side. +The tumult is too much for the stars. +The carriages take off. + + + +The End + + +Like a white fungus, a lump of wind covers +The green corpse of the lost world. +Frozen rivers form an iron dam +Which holds together the rotten remains. +In a small rainy corner stands +The last city in stony patience. +A dead skull lies--like a prayer-- +Slanted on the body, the black penitential bench. + + + + +My End + + +Half hands hold my fate. +Where will it sink... +My steps are tiny, like those of a woman. +One evening lay waste all dreams. +Sleep does not come to me-- + + + +Song of Kuno Kohn's Longing + + +The folds of the sea crash like whips on my skin. +And the stars of the sea tear me apart. +The evening of the sea is one of screaming wounds for the lonely, +But lovers find the good death of their day dreams... +Be there soon, you with pain in your eye, the sea hurts. +Be there soon, you who suffer in love, the sea is killing me. +Your hands are cool saints. Cover me with them, +The sea is burning on me. +But why don't you help me! But help!... Cover me. Save me. +Cure me, friend and woman. +Mother... you-- + + + +Invasion + + +Decline already-- +But that was quick... +Hardly a trace of rising-- +I have grown above the whole world. +I have become the complete God +And horribly awake. +And now I must cast away death. +My death is mute +And without images... +Without redemption-- + + + +Pathos + + +You don't love me... I have never appealed to you... +Was never your type... +And my hard eyes annoy you, my darling... +I'm too dark for you. And too coarse-- +And my white teeth have such a brutal shine +And my bloody lips are so terribly like sickles. +Ah, what you say-- +Yes you are really right. I set you... free. +... And early in the morning I am going to an ocean +That is blue and eternal... +And lie on the beach... +And play with a smile on my face, until a death grabs me, +With sand and sun and with a white +Slender bitch. + + + +Love Song + + +Your eyes are bright lands. +Your looks are little birds, +Handkerchiefs gently waving goodbye. +In your smile I rest as though in bobbing boats. +Your little stories are made of silk. +I must behold you always. + + + +The Suicide + + +White, I lie +On the remains of an amusement park +Between jagged buildings-- +Burning flower... shining sea... +Toes and hands +Reach out into emptiness. +Longing tears the weeping body to pieces. +The little moon glides above me. +Eyes grope +Gently into the deep world, +Sunken hats +Wandering stars. + + + +Touched + + +I gladly left +The noisy death of the city, +With its thousands of leering faces, +The yellow night of the alleys. +I stride into the broad, +Silver sky; +The pious limbs glide +Deep into gently being. +I am in the white brightness +Of cloud, meadow, wind. +Am tree, am town, am child... +How wet are my eyes! +Soon the green evening will stand +At its silver end... +I raise blessed hands-- +I want to go to meet it-- + + + +Prayer to People + + +I go through the days +Like a thief. +And no one hears +My heart lament to itself. +Please have pity. +Like me. +I hate you. +I want to embrace you. + + + +Wanderer in the Evening + + +Kuno Kohn sings: +Dusty Sunday +Lies burned to pieces. +Charred coolness +Mothers the land. +Dissolute longing +Gapes once again. +Dreams and tears +Stream upward. + + + +Evening + + +Houses stand stiffly next to their fences. +Let your eyes, last sparrows, flutter. +Bluebottles alight on your face. +Don't you, Kuno, feel the eternal mills-- +The unfeeling one bores holes in your head. +Look once more at the moon, the mustard-pot murderer. + + + +Spring + + +All men are now greedy, +All women are shouting, +Hide yourself in your hump, +Remain alone-- + + + +Kuno Kohn's Five Songs to Mary + + +First Song: + +So many years I sought you, Mary-- +In gardens, rooms, cities and mountains, +In dumps, whores, in acting schools, +In sick beds and in the rooms of mad people, +In kitchen maids, screaming, celebrations of spring, +In every kind of weather and every kind of day, +In coffee houses, mothers, dancers-- +I did not find you in bars, motion pictures, +Music-cafes, excursions into the summer mist... +Who knows the agony, when I, in the night on the streets, +Cried out for you to the dead sky-- + + +Next Song: + +He who looks for you in this way, Mary, becomes quite gray. +He who looks for you in this way, Mary, loses his face and legs. +The heart crumbles. Blood and dream escape. +If I could rest... if I were in your hands... +Oh, if you would take me up in your eyes... + + +Song of Praise + +Mary you--to think of how +I felt about you... my heavy head sinks-- +Sea only and moon--sea-moon and wind and world-- +White sand encircling your white skin, Mary-- +Your hair... your smile--all around is sea and distress +And shouts and longing and a gentle happiness-- +All this singing, that makes for such weariness... +Doesn't heaven come to us slowly like a mother's song +To the forehead of her child again and again-- + + +Sad Song + +Now I go once again among days, animals, +Rocks and thousands of eyes and sounds-- +The most foreign one. I had to lose you... +Your sinful body, Mary, was so lovely-- +Now I once again in vain look among days, animals, +Rocks and sounds for a trace of you. +Now I also know: I had to lose you... +I did not find you--it was only your name-- + + +Last Song + +Only come, my rain... fall against my face +Yellow street lamps... overturn the houses-- +I don't want unbroken, smooth roads. +Now it is lovely... only in the light of street lamps... +Mary... surrounded with dark rain-- +This is the way it should be. I would like to be with you. +What are mountains and the flat land to me-- +What are cities to me and colorful hypnotic nights-- +Back to the ocean... back to the starry shore. +You are not entirely Mary, whom I sought. +But you are also Mary--boundless... +Beloved... a fool... cursed with longing... + + + +Kuno's Nocturne + + +Every day, when it gets so very dark +That I can read no more, +I walk along the street singing, +Look at every girl... +Whether perhaps--who knows-- +Today of all days a miracle will take place: +That I shall come home redeemed, +Peaceful and forever free... +From such pursuits I come back +To the house tired and confused, +I know a secret remedy +That can extinguish all suffering-- + + + +Going for a Walk + + +Evening comes with moonshine and silky darkness. +The roads become weary. The narrow world widens. +Winds of opium move in and out of the field. +I widen my eyes like silver wings. +I feel as though my body were the whole earth. +The city lights up: thousands of street lamps sway. +Now the sky also piously enkindles its candlelight. +... Huge above everything my human face wanders-- + + + +Ash Wednesday + + +Yesterday I still went powdered and addicted +Into the many-colored sounding world. +Today everything has long since drowned. +Here is a thing. +There is a thing. +Something seems like this. +Something seems otherwise. +How easily someone blows out +The whole flowering earth. +The sky is cold and blue. +Or the moon is yellow and flat. +A forest has many individual trees. +There's nothing more to cry about. +There's nothing more to scream about. +Where am I-- + + +The Son + + +Mother, don't hold me, +Mother, your caress hurts me, +See through my face, +How I glow and wane. +Give the last kiss. Let me go. +Send a prayer after me. +That I broke your life, +Mother, forgive me. + + + +To Frida + +(Dedicated to L.L.) + + +Walls separate us. +Strange spider webs. +But I often fly, gaunt in my sinking +Hand wringing room, a bleeding chirping twit. +If only you were there. +I am so murdered. +Frida. + + + +Lonely Watchman + + +City and beloved are far behind. +I am so betrayed and alone. +Slowly I move from one +Leg to the other. +Around me strange doors screech. +I reach for dagger and gun. +Ah, if I were only at home +With my mother. + + + +Soldiers' Songs + + +1 + +It's good and beautiful to be a soldier for a year. +You live longer that way. And one is certainly pleased +With each scrap of time that one snatches from death. +This poor brain, shredded by longing for the city, +Bloody from books, bodies, evenings, +Inconsolably sad and filled with every sin, +Three quarters destroyed already--can only, +Standing at attention and marching on parade, +Swinging arms and legs, +Rust gently in a corner of the skull. +Oh, the stink in a marching column. +Oh, speed-marching across a lovely land in the spring. + + +2 + +I must come one hour before the others, +Because I have shot badly. +I certainly won't be promoted. +And I must do extra drills as punishment, +Because, while the others, in accordance with orders, +Looked steadily at the caps of those in front of them, +As we were marching under the red sun +Across the shining fields, +I squinted carefully at the little pilot +Who was humming above me like a bee +In the glowing evening sky. + + +3 + +I know, I know; this life is healthy. +My rifle drill is hardly heard, +But I cut my hand badly. +Instead of the damned barracks yard +I could now be in a meadow. +In front of the assembled troops a man begins +To cry bitterly. + + +4 + +Sometimes I am afraid: a year is long, +Endlessly long. And always legs swinging... +The whole lovely day spent molding bodies +And parade marching, and firing blanks. +To have to forget the world... that in the evening +One is still senseless, drinking beer, when one goes to sleep +One still feels the heavy helmet on his forehead-- +And at night dreams of sergeants-- + + +5 + +Even when Sundays and evenings come, +Completely empty and listless I move about, +I am completely glassy-eyed, play with dogs for fun, +Ah, or with little stones that I find, +Weary, without a thought, drag myself through the streets. +I often also stand around at my window, +At loose ends; should I just hang out at the local bar +With my dull comrades, kill my weary +Miserable hours in flickering movie houses +And, to pass the time of day +Look for willing girls: or should I merely +Go back and forth in my room. +I, who ran through the nights like a fool, +Shrieking to the sky, sought a thousand miracles. + + + +Songs to Berlin + + +1 + +O you Berlin, you colorful stone, you beast. +You cast me with street lamps like briars. +Ah, when one flows in the night through your lamps +After women, silky, plump. +A man gets dizzy from the eye-play. +The little moon-candy sweetens the sky. +When the days struck the steeples. +The head still glows, a red Chinese lantern. + + +2 + +Soon I must leave you, my Berlin. +Must again travel into the desolate cities. +Soon I shall sit on the distant hill tops. +In dense woods carve your name. +Farewell, Berlin, with your bold fires. +Farewell, your streets full of adventures. +Who has known as much as I have of your pain. +Saloons, you, I press you to my breast. + + +3 + +In meadows and in pure winds peacefully +Cheerful people may glide along gleefully. +We, however, rotten and poisoned long ago, +Would deceive ourselves with this stepping into heaven +In strange cities I move about without direction. +The strange days are hollow and like chalk. +You, my Berlin, you opium rush, you bastard. +Only he who knows longing knows what I suffer. + + + +Monday in the courtyard of the barracks + + +The heat sticks closely to the gun and to the hand. +It pricks the eyes. Nothing remained forgotten. +The troops stepped, half drunk, into the fire. +The non-coms stand rigidly in front. +The glaring earth is a dead carousel. +Nothing stirs. No one drops down. No streaked sky flies. +Only rarely a hoarse barking tears apart the blue sow +Which lies on the stone barracks. +Now the army leaves me alone. +Who still pays attention to me. They got used +To my strange civilian eyes long ago. +On maneuvers I am half dreaming, +And as we march I compose poems. + +But war comes. There was peace too long. +No more good times. Trumpets screech +Deep into your heart. And all the nights are burning. +You freeze in tents. You're hot. You're hungry. +You drown. Explode. Bleed to death. Fields rattle noisily. +Church towers fall. Flames in the distance. +Winds twitch. Large cities crash. +On the horizon cannons thunder. +Around the hill tops a white vapor rises, +And grenades burst at your head. + + + +Now of course + + +Now of course I put on my straw hat. +Rain has washed the evening blue. +How the world glows! I look up piously, +My hands deep in my trouser pockets. +If the morning drives me home with screams and stones, +Half dead, stripped of my skin, +Yet I'm ready for the night! I shall soon be happy! +Street lamps blaze. Kitchen maids screech! + + + +Elegant Morning + + +The street looks like eternal Sunday. +Lightly summerhouse rests against summerhouse. +Chauffeurs wheel by grandly. +Three fine citizens glide by quietly. +A song flies coolly out a window. +From a distance the wind carries a child's shout. +And in front of the villa of a duke stands, +All dressed up, like a stiff doll, +In a brightly colored scarf, red as a poppy, +The royal Bavarian legal apprentice, +Doctor of Jurisprudence Kuno Kohn. + + + +Farewell + + +It sure was fine to be a soldier for a year. +But it is finer to feel free again. +There was enough of depravity and pain +In these merciless human mills. +Sergeants, Barrack walls, farewell. +Farewell canteens, marching songs. +Lighthearted, I leave the city and capitol. +Kuno is leaving, Kuno is never coming back. +Now, fate, drive me where you will. +I am not tugging on my jacket from now on. +I lift my eyes into the world. +A wind is starting up. Locomotives roar. + + + +Farewell + + +(Shortly before departing for the theater of war) + +for Peter Scher + +Before dying I am making my poem. +Quiet, comrades, don't disturb me. +We are going off to war. Death is our cement. +If only my beloved did not shed these tears for me. +What am I doing. I go gladly. +Mother is crying. One must be made of iron. +The sun sinks to the horizon. +Soon I shall be tossed into a gentle mass grave. +In the sky the fine red of evening is burning. +Perhaps in thrirteen days I'll be dead. + + + +Romantic Journey + + +Thousands of stars twinkle in the gentle sky. +The landscape glows. From the distant meadow +Mute marching men slowly come closer. +Only once a young Lieutenant, a page boy in love, +Steps out--and stands lost in thought. +The baggage train waddles along at the rear. +The moon makes everything much stranger. +And now and then the drivers cry out: +Stop! +High up on the shakiest munitions truck, +Like a little toad, finely chiseled +Out of black wood, hands gently clenched, +On his back the rifle, gently buckled, +A smoking cigar in his crooked mouth, +Lazy as a monk, needy as a dog +--He had pressed drops of valerian on his heart-- +In the yellow moon, ridiculously mad, +Kuno sits. + + + +Warrior's Longing + + +I would like to lie in my bed +In a white shirt, +Wished the beard was gone, +The head combed. +The fingers were clean, +The nails also, +You, my tender woman, +Might provide peace. + + + +Prayer before Battle + + +The troops are singing fervently, each for himself: +God, protect me from misfortune, +Father, Son and Holy Spirit, +That no grenades strike me, +That the bastards, our enemies, +Do not catch me, do not shoot me, +That I don't die like a dog +For the dear fatherland. +Look, I would like to go on living, +Milk cows, bang girls +And beat the bastard, Sepp, +Get drunk often +Until my blessed death. +Look, I eagerly and gladly recite +Seven rosaries daily, +If you, God, in your grace +Would kill my friend Huber or Meier, +And not me. +But if the worst should come, +Let me not be too badly wounded. +Send me a slight leg wound, +A small injury to the arm, +So that I may return as a hero, +With a story to tell. + + + +The Grenade + + +First a bright, brief drum roll, +A bang and explosion into the blue day. +Then a noise, like rockets climbing on +Iron rails. Fear and long silence. +Then suddenly in the distance smoke and a fall, +A strange hard dark echo. + + + +After Combat + + +In the sky the howitzers no longer explode, +The cannoneers rest next to their guns. +The infantry pitch tents now, +And the pale moon slowly rises. +On yellow fields in red trousers, the French are ablaze, +Ashen pale from death and powder. +Among them German medics squat. +The day becomes grayer, its sun redder. +Field kitchens steam. Towns are put to the torch. +Broken carts stand at roadsides. +Panting cyclists, hot and tanned, loiter +At a scorched wooden fence. +And orderlies are already moving +From regiment to division. + + + +The Battle at Saarburg + + +The earth grows moldy in fog. +The evening is as oppressive as lead. +Electric sparks crackle and whimper all around, +Breaking everything in two. +Like wretched hobos +Cities are smoking on the horizon. +I lie, God-forsaken, +In the rattling front line of defenders. +Many copper enemy birds +Buzz around heart and brain. +I stand firm in the grayness +And defy death. + + +End of this Project Gutenberg etext "The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein" +by Alfred Lichtenstein + diff --git a/old/alvrs11.zip b/old/alvrs11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd756a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/alvrs11.zip |