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

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 Trip to the Mental Hospital

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

Summer Evening

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

The Son

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

To Frida

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 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.

Alfred Lichtenstein

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.

Alfred Lichtenstein

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.

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

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

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