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

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

Sunday Afternoon

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

Winter

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

Farewell

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

Afternoon, Fields and Factory

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

English

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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 City

A white bird is the big sky.
Under it a cowering city stares.
The houses are half-dead old people.
A gaunt carriage-horse gapes grumpily.
Winds, skinny dogs, run weakly.
Their skins squeel on sharp corners.
In a street a crazed man groans: You, oh, you -
If only I could find you...
A crowd around him is surprised and grins derisively.
Three little people play blind man's bluff -
A gentle tear-stained god lays the grey powdery hands
Of afternoon over everything.

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

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

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

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