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.

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

Spring

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

The Concert

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

Kuno Kohn's Five Songs to Mary

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

Rainy Night

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

English

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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.

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

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

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.
Y...

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

The Deluge.

Visions of the years gone by
Flash upon my mental eye;
Ages time no longer numbers,
Forms that share oblivion's slumbers,
Creatures of that elder world
Now in dust and darkness hurled,
Crushed beneath the heavy rod
Of a long forsaken God!

    Hark! what spirit moves the crowd?
Like the voice of waters loud,
Through the open city gate,
Urged by wonder, fear, or hate,
Onward rolls the mighty tide--
Spreads the tumult far and wide.
Heedless of the noontide glare,
Infancy and age are there,--
Joyous youth and matron staid,
Blooming bride and blushing maid,--
Manhood with his fiery glance,
War-chief with his lifted lance,--
Beauty with her jewelled brow,
Hoary age with locks of snow:
Prince, and peer, and statesman grave,
Wh...

Susanna Moodie