The Patent-leather Shoe

The poet thought: ah, I have enough trash!
The whores, the theater, and the moon in the city,
The dress-shirts, the streets, and smells,
The nights and the coaches and the windows,
The laughter, the street-lights and murders -
I'm really fed up now with all the crap,
Damn it!
Whatever will be will be - it's all the same to me:
The patent leather shoe Hurts me.    And I take it off -
People might turn around, surprised.
Only it's a shame about my silk socks...

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

Falling in the River

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

The Night

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

Kuno's Nocturne

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

English

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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

Now of course

Now of course I put on my straw hat.
Rain has washed the evening blue.
How the world glows!    I look up piously,
My hands deep in my trouser pockets.
If the morning drives me home with screams and stones,
Half dead, stripped of my skin,
Yet I'm ready for the night!    I shall soon be happy!
Street lamps blaze.    Kitchen maids screech!

Alfred Lichtenstein

The Trip to the Mental Hospital

Fat trains go down loud tracks
Past houses, which are like coffins.
On the corners wheelbarrows with bananas squat.
Just a bit of shit makes a tough kid happy.
The human beasts glide along, completely lost
As though on a street, miserably gray and shrill.
Workers stream from dilapidated gates.
A weary person moves quietly in a round tower.
A hearse crawls along the street, two steeds out front,
Soft as a worm and weak.
And over all lies an old rag -
The sky... pagan and meaningless.

Alfred Lichtenstein

A Trouble-making Girl

It's certainly late.    I must earn something.
But they're all going right by today with smug expressions on their faces.
They don't want to give me a single good-luck penny.
It's a miserable life.
If I come home without money
The old lady will throw me out.
There is hardly anyone on the street any more.
I am dead tired and freezing.
I was never so miserable in my life.
I move around here like a piece of meat.
Finally someone comes over:
An extremely well-dressed man -
But in this life one can't tell much
By appearances.
He's also quite older. (they have more money,
Young ones tend to cheat you.)
We are face-to-face.
I raise my clothes above the knee.
I can get away with that.
That's the big draw..
Like flies to the light
The guys are ...

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

Rubbers

The fat man thought:
In the evening I gladly walk in rubbers,
But also when the streets are clean and spotless.
I am never entirely sober in rubbers.
I hold the cigarette in my hand.
My soul skips in little rhythms.
And all one hundred pounds of my body skips.

Alfred Lichtenstein