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.

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

The Battle at Saarburg

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

Pathos

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

The Cabaret in the Suburbs

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

Farewell

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

English

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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.

Alfred Lichtenstein

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.

Alfred Lichtenstein

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.

Alfred Lichtenstein

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.

Alfred Lichtenstein

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.

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