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.

Alfred Lichtenstein

Alfred Lichtenstein was a German poet and writer known for his expressionist works. Born on August 23, 1889, in Berlin, he studied law at the University of Berlin. His works often reflect the grim realities of early 20th-century Europe and the senseless horrors of World War I. He volunteered for military service at the outbreak of WWI and was subsequently killed in action on September 25, 1914. Lichtenstein's legacy lives on through his poignant and often haunting poetry.

Alfred Lichtenstein

Monday in the courtyard of the barracks

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

After Combat

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

Capriccio

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

Evening

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

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.

Alfred Lichtenstein

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.

Alfred Lichtenstein

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.

Alfred Lichtenstein

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.

Alfred Lichtenstein

The House Of Dust: Part 03: 11: Conversation: Undertones

What shall we talk of? Li Po? Hokusai?
You narrow your long dark eyes to fascinate me;
You smile a little. . . .Outside, the night goes by.
I walk alone in a forest of ghostly trees . . .
Your pale hands rest palm downwards on your knees.

These lines, converging, they suggest such distance!
The soul is drawn away, beyond horizons.
Lured out to what? One dares not think.
Sometimes, I glimpse these infinite perspectives
In intimate talk (with such as you) and shrink . . .

One feels so petty! One feels such, emptiness!
You mimic horror, let fall your lifted hand,
And smile at me; with brooding tenderness . . .
Alone on darkened waters I fall and rise;
Slow waves above me break, faint waves of cries.

And then these colors . . . but who would dare ...

Conrad Aiken

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

Alfred Lichtenstein