Winter

A dog shrieks in misery from a bridge
To heaven... which stands like old gray stone
Upon far-off houses.    And, like a rope
Made of tar, a dead river lies on the snow.
Three trees, black frozen flames, make threats
At the end of the earth.    They pierce
With sharp knives the rough air,
In which a scrap of bird hangs all alone.
A few street lights wade towards the city,
Extinguished candles for a corpse.    And a smear
Of people shrinks together and is soon
Drowned in the wretched white swamp.

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

Towards Morning

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

Touched

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

Landscape

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

Monday in the courtyard of the barracks

Alfred Lichtenstein, Simple Poetry

English

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Winter Evening

Behind yellow windows shadows drink hot tea.
Yearning people sway on a hardened pond
Workers find a soft woman's corpse.
Glowing blue snows cast a howling darkness.
On high poles a scarecrow, implored, hangs.
Stores flicker dimly through frosted windows,
In front of which human bodies move like ghosts.
Students carve a frozen girl.
How lovely, the crystalline winter evening burning!
A platinum moon now streams through a gap in the houses.
Next to green lanterns under a bridge
Lies a gypsy woman.    And plays an instrument.

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

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

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 End

Like a white fungus, a lump of wind covers
The green corpse of the lost world.
Frozen rivers form an iron dam
Which holds together the rotten remains.
In a small rainy corner stands
The last city in stony patience.
A dead skull lies - like a prayer -
Slanted on the body, the black penitential bench.

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