What's in the stars
up there in the night sky above
the city wall and the screams

of the warriors in the square?
Here it is quiet, we fall asleep
but my love hears the dagger men

coming and he calls us awake: Near!
the surrender of the city is near!
The Lion embraces him dearly

before the horsemen surround him
mutilate him and take him away
The warriors flee, fight

themselves to death in the neck
at the well. It was near, it's over
I no longer have a home

only hiding places in the night

My love, what will they do to you
where are you, where is the judgment
that will free you?

Fighting is moaning and pulling
swords from the corpses, wet
sandals, red feet washed
in blood, and that it takes hours

to clean the square and the palace
at night and still
be chased out of the city

Fighting is turning odds
not giving up, but coming up
with a ruse, a wooden horse
a Münchhausen or tunnel

entering the closed city
of the king with hundreds
through the shaft to the water castle

Fighting is attacking again
and again, shouting, hewing
and clawing as lions
over growing mountains

of the dead, because it is near
even though we withdraw
it is near as long as we live