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.

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 Excursion

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

The Operation

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

The Suicide

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

Kuno Kohn's Five Songs to Mary

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

English

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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

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.

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

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.

Alfred Lichtenstein

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.

Alfred Lichtenstein

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.

Alfred Lichtenstein