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Mateuš Conrad Sep 2021
it must have been on the same day, i was commuting to a job way out north west, Hendon, doing some roofing on a housing project... in the morning i bumped into a nurse... we started chatting... but since we were chatting on a moving train: i had to excuse myself when looking at her mouth... so i told her: don't mind me... i'm lip reading... well... an encounter like any cosmopolitan encounter... i yawn at the prospect of climbing Mt. Everest... at sailing solo across the world... this is plenty! on the way back from the job i was still into my marquis de sade... opposite me on the tube 4 girls... they were girls... it's a shame they weren't wearing school-uniforms... all in giggles and peacocks of pretending to be shy... years prior to the emergence of fifty shades... Juliette... i can't remember which edition... obviously a semi-pornographic detail on the cover... some ****... the girls giggled... and i was wondering: you know what i'm reading? i'm taming the beast... i've just read something on the lines: & he ****** on her while setting her alight... all that's missing is skinning the poor *****... i most enjoy knowing i have the potential to do the utmost... destruction... all the while... i think i have more pleasure in containing this... ahem... "asset"... i truly do... i like the masquerade of civilization i can pretend... i'm almost three-quarters an actor most of the time... of course i know: if pressured the animal will come to the fore... and the cage will loose all its metaphysical diamonds... i can: i won't... but i can... become a rancid creature... i like knowing i can... but otherwise willing myself to no be...

i never understood the concept of "social drinking"...
come to think of it...
if the conversation was good:
i'd drink less and get drunk off the conversation...
but that... it's somehow necessary
to drink with someone?!
is it necessary to do "things" together...
esp. drinking...
there's even a song i'll mention about:
zusammen: to, together... i guess it's a:
towards togetherness, that word:
zusammen... it's like a bulging mushroom
on my cranium that squirts out psychedelic juices
to make this monkey invent windmills...
and trains!
oh it's a Dutch folk band from the 1970s...
you can pick up the Dutch accent singing
German lyrics...
it's that... abhorrent Dutch lisp...
i was never a fan of the Dutch accent...
  glut... no... wait... glottal<ʔ>
i don't even think it's that noun...
they (the Dutch) sound like they smiling
while ******* the juice of half a lemon
miraculously lodged in their mouth...
i've done that too...
i've been to my ex-girlfriend's... christening
of her first twins...
she later had... oh... a baby factory...
4 more?
i was sitting in the church and asked
by her next door neighbour:
'you're not really here, are you?'
do i look i'm here...
why am i at the christening of my ex-girlfriend's
first born... why am i allowed to cradle them in my
hands?
i really shouldn't be here:
i don't understand why i received
an invite... the idiot in me obviously went...
i'm one solo project away from: death...
let's not me this melodramatic...
pickling scenario...
******* beta orbiter: while i was sampling
some Romanian / Turkish prostitutes...
kissing the most tender parts of the body...
the shutters on the eyes...
counting knuckles on the hand...
with lips...
rubbing my hands one some bricks
to later touch... oysters composing a body
of a woman..
i wanted rough fingertips...
i need a beer...
she kept me in her whereabouts...
i've met her Nigerian fling...
we sat at the table looking rather...
nonchalant...
i met her future hubby and the father of her
children while still high on *******
in a pub... before she reformed me...
i came armed with Heidegger's
sein und zeit... i guess i wasn't going to be
so easily disarmed... i'll get to the song
in "question"... by a Dutch folk band from
the 1970s... eh... classical music bores me...
not enough of Prokofiev is aired...
classical music is music for
technicians and the deaf...
Beethoven proved it...
      i prefer folk...
            i can't stomach a Verdi opera...
i try... i try... try in vain...
to no use!
zusammen... contra? allein!
to-together... zu-sammen...
allein? alone...
  alle: all...              ein: A (indefinite article)...
all the indefinite articles: align!
i never understood drinking with people:
they always wallow... in their demise
in their misery...
i like drinking alone...
you can only drink alone...
i abhor drinking in company...
drinking in company might somehow...
end up... bridging the gaps
of imagination where Savannah Bond takes
centre stage...
rejected by woman yet entertained
by a storm... the high tide...
the waves of the north sea come
midnight...
i want to mind... but i have no room for:
revision... what's said: is said...
i need to change the lyrics up...

zusammen will have to be replaced with allein...
alle: ein...
all the the indefinite articles aligned...
bier! bier! zeppelins! bier und zeppelins!
come to think of it...
only brothers fought brothers...
either war... it's so sad...
those closest kin... are the reason
wars are staged... rarely it might happen
that... a Turk will fights a ******...
the opposite side has something we want...
but... the opposing side that's:

**** similis... the ape represented as: man...
has... i don't want an ontological debate
concerning what flaws man...
what flaws man? paradoxes.

i never understood drinking with a  legion...
a core...
perhaps it was fun drinking in company...
if the same company had a tank...
or a lighthouse we had to cater for...
but drinking: *****-nilly... on the weekend...
in company...
i seriously have more boring things to do
than bore myself double-due with that
pastime...
when the conversation is so good that
you can get drunk from it... doubly...
fair enough...
but... women... and their miseries coming
out when drunk...
i want to sing! when i drink i want to sing!
i want to be part of a brotherhood!
aligned with men
of similar disposition... manners... tastes...

for the lyrics:

was wollen wir trinken
was wollen wir trinken, sieben tage lang?
was wollen wir trinken, so ein durst!

was wollen wir trinken, sieben tage lang?
was wollen wir trinken, so ein durst!

es wird genug fur alle sein!
wir trinken zusammen, roll das fass mal rein!
wir trinken zusammen, nicht allein!

on a very simple crux... as much as i love Dickens
i abhor his tendency to ascribe
the term: orthography to English...
orthography can be applied if the language
utilises diacritical marks...
no diacritical marks: no orthography...
it's just dyslexic spelling... Charlie...

example?

pâté... broken down from Brussels...
            phonetically... look at it...
p'ah-tay... no?
                          the absurd surd of H the vowel
catcher one arm of the tetragrammaton
is already there...
the other is being used as a rugby post...

i'd change the lyrics up a little bit...
whatever stereotypical drunk someone somewhere
thinks i might be: i don't drink before
a mirror and drink...
why was it ever so important to drink in
company?!
fair enough... i'll drink in company!
will we be singing by the end of it?
folk songs?!
no?!                well then! *******!
i'll be drinking allein!

i won't bother translating the lyrics...
i want to sing them!

- it has been raining... wash away my:
too much of a good thing can be bad...
which is why i resort to visiting a brothel
once every half a decade
to... **** &... ahem... charm...
my supposed future in-law
called me a charmer... i guess i am a charmer...
if i'm in the mood...
how i'll kiss the freckles... the knuckles...
the eyelids of women that belong to a trade
where i'm but a fraction...
which is still cheaper than...
putting a leash on one and fathering her
whims... if i have to be bluntly honest...
eye-lids... how i love to kiss them...
elbows and knees...
all that my arms are when they come
across the geography of thighs!
oooooh...
                send me mad!

perhaps you think i should be thinking about
Newton and some "new" gravity...
i'm always thinking about women...
just today after a ******* session on my road bicycle
semi-drunk... riding aggressively through
the traffic... parking by the trollies...
a cascade of sweat on my t-shirt's back
gasping... i know the look a woman gives...
when she sees you seeing her...
deer in the ******* headlights...
a ******* onomatopoeia in katakana...

fat chance of me going to Hawaii...
or Knot Orca...
i was watching some t.v.: three guys on
a road-trip through Italy...
i took a break...
had a cigarette in the garden: looked up...
hell... it's like England was the focus
of the Matrix movie argument for...
machines not being solar-panel fed...
the misery of northern Europe...
from England... Scotland... Germany...
Poland... & Scandinavia...
what a mush of a heart with these
overcast skies!

the sweetness of this sort of misery
is... well... i think it's breath-taking!
i still don't know what i'd do with myself should
i find myself "happy"...
Mediterranean happy...
                        like i might need to protect
my copper-neck of a suntan...
happy never left me satisfied...
better! nourished! happy doesn't have enough
fibre in it!
i want to be miserably aware:
happy is too fleeting anyway: always... always! always!
i want to be happy in my melancholy:
which is not simply: depressed... deflated...
disorganised... ditto more synonyms...

extroversion doesn't suit me: either...
please put that in writing...

**** me! i'll have to pull this term out of my ***
like a tapeworm equivalent to
something Heidegger might have have
conjured up! it has to be in German...
sometimes Ing-Leash fails me...

"pre-scriptum":
i'm happy-sad...
  i like...              ugh...
      i'm happy-being-sad...

let's take a peekaboo!

            froh
(not
glücklich not zufrieden)

          -sein-    (being)

traurig (sad)... ergo? well... it's German...
it's a compounded term, concept...
so there's no need for hyphenation
in accordance with terms deemed:
Oxford proof... proved...

it looks like, hey presto!

frohseintraurig...
  have a second look with the... ******* Oxbridge
hyphen stresses for:
intra-punctuations... froh-sein-traurig...
at least English retains its spirit of Sax(on)
when it comes to chemical nouns...
hydrochloric... acid...
these ******* could be so close to adding
a hyphen to that noun compound!
hydro-chloric... no?

i like being sad... oh... melancholy truly elevates
the fickle nature of memory...
there's no imagination: to begin and end with...
i never lived for imaged caricatures of:
what could be willed...
memory, on the other hand... such a fickle creature!

how the English mangle the most important nouns...
the names of people...
David is somehow Dave...
Peter is Pete...
Matthew is Matt...
Samantha becomes Sam
as Sam later becomes Samuel...
while London is woot? Loon'don?
a table is still a ******* table...
i... don't... like... this...
i don't have to! while the gods exists
and man is churning out his, her...
free-will potential...
who can complain?!
it's almost a paradox... prancing...
if we have free-will... "supposedly"...
but... can't express it...
even in the most negative way...
then... exactly: do we have it?
no! however bad the results are...
collateral damage...
as ever... but we need the illusion of free will...
if there were some divine intervention....
its perfectly lodged in the metaphysics of:
what comes after... if anything comes after...
i like the idea of... "something" comes after...
this... debacle of...
i can' just leave some people:
arrogantly... proud! it bothers me!

i stopped thinking of "it" in terms of: soul...
if there's an ego, a superego...
all the schematics of the supposed modern man...
then there's also the... sigma... Σ...
what makes man: animate...
the sense of... once the body is relieved of its duties...
and returns to the altar of inanimate things...
what happens to... not soul but: Σ...
the totality that gave vehicle prospect to:
what would fatally become...
an urn filled with ash!

- i stand before a mirror in the bathroom...
******* into a sink and...
literally... doubt... whether or not i exit...
the ******* mirror is giving me vibes of
insinuation of testing me to focus on...
being a hologram status... for ****'s sake...
it's this bad... so i suppose
reading some Rousseau will not solve
the: currency of the "problem"...
i.e. joke: i was not so much into Chinese
ideograms...
more into Korean Hangul & *** katakana..
so...

        the resurrected Genghis Khan from...
sub-Saharan Africa... no?

- there's this Slavic proverb concerning Slavs...
i;m an Anglo-Slav...
mingling with the Germanic people...

if you're walking among the crows:
you better croak like 'em...

wenn sie ar eintreten krähentotenwache
du besser krächzen!

kiedy wchodisz między wrony:
musisz krakrać tak jak one!
August Mar 2013
The world is lonely while they cry for help and
                    they reach their hands up.
In words, in books, in paintings,
                    they portray their loneliness hidden or blatant.
But even that isn't enough to highlight
                    the lowlights of our lives
It's in our blood, it's in our veins, our bones,
                    it's in the cigarettes that we smoke.
Which fills the air and wails out loud,
                    screaming a symphony of isolation.
It's hidden in the corners of the cities,
                     hidden in the tall green grass of the countryside
It's everywhere you look, in famous words,
                     in ancient books.
It fills your mind, it takes you hold, it's in the tiniest key hole,
                     but enough.
It's enough to spark a burning fire, to long for another's touch,
                     to feel desire
From another human being,
                     to share in what is the only thing worth keeping
Human company. We long, we dream, we scream for it,
                     and we hope it favors us too.
It's overwhelming, it makes me, it makes me long
                     like so many others
We are not alone in our loneliness
                     and what a queer thought that is

*“Wir können uns einreden, dass wir mit einem Buch nicht allein sind, wie wir uns einreden können, dass wir mit einem Menschen nicht allein sind.”
© Amara Pendergraft 2013
Waitherero Jun 2013
ich danke dir
ich dank dir nicht
ich hoffe,...
doch möchte ich es nicht

ich denke
heißt das ich bin

alles kommt mal ans Licht
Schicht für Schicht
entfaltet die Wahrheit sich

wie ein Kartenhaus bricht alles in sich
und alles endet in einen Haufen nichts

wenn das geschieht
stehen wir vor dem Gericht
allein und ohne nichts

in dir kommen Gedanken
nichts mehr ist zum Lachen

Ernst ist gefragt
und wenn du versagst
liegt es allein in deiner Hand

das wird die Zeit sein
in der du dir sagst...

von nichts kommt nichts
ich bin ich
und du bist der der du bist

alles was ich will
ist ein lächeln im Gesicht
und ein schönes Gedicht
#ich bin ich #ich #bin #Licht #hoffe #Hoffnung #Deutsch #Denken #sein
Fey Dec 2021
orbs of blue in the drizzle of rain,
a flesh-numbing cold; myriad of pain;
red-hued cheeks and traces of benzocaine.

russet irides shift with the aegean's quick moves
through the black pupil, colors to exclude
and brows are squinting; just in slight disapproval.

clumsy dance of eyes in the dim afternoon light,
café au lait für Zwei, für dich und mich allein,
as we bid our longing gazes a sorrowful good night.

© fey (25/12/21)
Autumn Lewis Apr 2018
Hurt , alone , and taken away
I had no say
I only had them , the gray walls
The prison in my mind , I try to take my time so I could stall
Maybe if I close my eyes and blink , I'll be home again.
Suddenly I'm surrounded by a group of people in a circle and a shrink is asking me , "When?"
When did my life take a turn for the worst?
I stare into silence because I'm afraid if I talk my tears will burst.
I can't control anything at all
I've been here the remaining of the summer and most of the fall.
The drama did not dissipate
It only allowed in more hate.
No one is to be trusted that lesson was will learned.
I wish I had the smiles of the one's I loved and the smell of fresh cut grass oh how I yearned
Hope is what drove me like a well oiled machine.
I would do what they told me to , whether it was to stay in step or to clean.
I couldn't ever have imagined the feeling of freedom I once had and how different it is to be gone.
I'll never take for granted the ability to talk to my family , to wear what I choose , or the beautiful colors the sun creates at dawn.
In the end I did what I had to
I just wish you only knew.
This is my feelings from being sent away and now.
Hannah Klein May 2013
“Where is your mom?”
someone always asks.
With God.
I sent her there when I was nine.
Upon a cross.
Lathered in burning tar.
A merciless gunshot to the head.
I witnessed death in all its forms.
For to be saved, there is
only one way.  
“If that was my fate,
what would you say?”
Growing up in an intensely Christian home, I was very familiar with stories of Christian martyrs.  This writing stems from the severence I felt in my relationship with my mom when I was a girl after my mom asked me if I would admit that I worshipped God even if the consequence was to be her death.
Ella Gwen Mar 2015
Azure sapphires glint and dance
Below the fields still flower in France
As debris blow and snow does fall
White silence in the space of souls
It is meaningless; it is not fair
Here lie solid absences and despair
We were many; now we are but few
They fell, fell right on through.
Alexandria Hope Mar 2015
I need to get out of this town
I want to feel alive
I need to feel the fire
Because I'm dead inside

I can't kiss a thing,
Without tasting ash
You're the last good thing
That made my armor crack

Now it's rusting down
And I'm feeling the burn
God I'm chasing this town
A jail I did nothing to earn
Liebe ist nur ein Gefühl,
doch verspricht sie uns so viel.

Sie steht für Freude und Zusammensein,
denn niemand fühlt sich gern allein.
Ein Gefühl das dir die Lücke füllt,
und dich mit Glücklichkeit umhüllt.

Wenn miteinander schweigen,
für Ewigkeiten reichen,
Und alles rund um dich herum,
wirkt so unnötig und dumm.
Denn das einzige was zählt
ist, dass dich keine Sorge quält.

Doch auch bei so viel Positivem
Vergiss niemals das Negative.
Denn Liebe kann enttäuschend sein,
betrügerisch und fälschlich schein‘.
Liebe kann zwar so viel geben
Doch genauso schnell die Hoffnung nehmen.
Liebe füllt dir oft dein Herz,
doch genauso oft mit Schmerz.

Liebe muss nicht böse sein,
doch auch die Liebe ist nicht rein.
Pass nur gut auf, auf was du tust,
dann läufts auch mit der Liebe gut.
silvervi Dec 2023
Es wird nicht leichter
Und ich mach weiter
Bis der morgen
Weniger schwer ist
Bis mein Herz wieder
Atmen kann.
Bis ich wieder sagen kann:
Ich liebe mich.
Bis ich dankbar sein kann
Für die Luft.
Bis ich frei bin.
Bis ich ich bin.
Bis ich ich bin und
Mich nicht allein fühle.

Bis dahin werde ich
Weitermachen
Noch mehr lachen
Krach und Witze machen
Zeit allein genießen.
Auch wenn der Tag beschissen ist.
Ich geb nicht auf,
Wenn's am schwersten ist.
Niemand kennt mich so wie ich.
Niemand sieht meine Schmerzen ganz.
Ich bin deshalb für mich verantwortlich.
Ich werde mich nicht aufgeben, niemals.
Mit Schmerzen und Misstrauen schreib ich das.

Ich bin bereit mehr Gas zu geben.
Für mich und für ein schönes leichtes Leben.
Ohne traumatische Erinnerungen eben.
Ohne inadequate Reaktionen.
Mit lächeln und dem Wissen in mei'm Herz,
Dass jede einzelne Minute wert es war,
Mich zu dem Augenblick zu führen
Durch den Schmerz.
Heather Butler Apr 2012
It was
the staircase in the hospital garage.
It was
feeling sick on top of the suburb.
It was the pull of the estuary
the lake that isn’t a lake
washing up syringes
onto the asphalt where we stood,
barefoot.

It is that fence they erected on the levee,
landscaping,
dead grass in a wasteland.
It is the swan in your backyard.

It is the metronome of the blinker;
smell of your deodorant.
You rub your hands together by the steering wheel
and cross into the suicide lane.

It is your feet in the sand.
It was the moon in your hand.
It was the spool of thread
you could never get the knots out of.
It was the German your mother spoke
Heil, Heil, Heil…


It is the gas, the gas,
das Gas.
"Leave me alone," she says.
"Ich möchte allein sein."

*Es ist der Regen auf deiner Fenstersheibe: weinen, weinen.

Ich weine…
Sabah Thaziri Jul 2014
Das Leben ist eine weite Reise, so sagt man,
eine weite Reise über das Meer,
ein Anstieg bis auf hohe Berge,
ein Hinabsteigen bis ins tiefe Tal.
Das Leben ist eine Reise, so sagt man,
eine Reise ohne Wiederkehr,
die jeden Tag nur vorwärts schreitet,
bis zum letzten Lebensziel.
Das Leben ist eine Reise, so sagt man,
die einen Anfang kennt und auch ein Ende,
voll Gefahren und auch vielen Mühen,
mit guten und mit schlechten Wegen.
Das Leben ist eine Reise, das weißt du,
deine Reisen, die du unternehmen musst,
die allein dir aufgetragen ist
und die nur du zu Ende bringst.
Dein Leben ist deine Reise, das weißt du,
mit vielen Stationen von Anfang an,
sie alle kennst du und sie prägen dich,
was aber kommen wird, ist noch verborgen.
Dein Leben ist eine Reise, das weißt du,
mit vielen Windungen hin zum letzten Ziel,
geh nur mit Mut und Zuversicht,
blick doch nach vorn bei jedem Schritt.
Das Leben ist eine Reise, das ist dir und mir bekannt,
ich wünsche dir, dass du das Ziel erreichst
und dass dein Weg geleitet sei
von treuem Schutz und Segen.
-unbekannt-
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2022
well... at least falling in love feels just as good
as being rejected...
i must be a hunchback or something...
                       not good enough:
not the right sort of: pump 'em 'n' dump 'em...
plus, get them pregnant...
not enough good enough boxer and a child-slapper...
well, fair enough...
it felt good for a while... as good as stomach
cramps go...
and as life goes....
   i think you can pull off a fu manchu moustache
and a long love patch... with a beard...
only if the former are blonde
   and the beard is dark ***** brown...
      fair enough... fair... enough...
                     back to the prostitutes i go...
i don't need this ****** roller-coaster...
back to the cold objectification of women...
less i feel the more i'll get... for what my body deems
necessary...
but i knew this was coming: oh how on earth
woudn't i have seen this coming?
i just said... well, you know... maybe me
and your son, Freddy, could learn German together...
and: oh for ****'s sake... i really like you!
i did't say love, i didn't say:
i want to sleep with you...
banana loaf i made? down the drain...
homemade wine? down the drain...
flowers on Valentine's day? down the drain...
ha... what's never down the drain?
£120 an hour for a *******... that's never down
the drain... that's somewhere else...
i'm suddenly the villain... she charges up
a conversation with: a 14 year old missing
in Rainham... apparently her cousin or something...
i told her i cycle to Rainham...
what? me? i kidnapped this kid?
why don't i care about the story...
when i'm trying to tell you i like you?!
if i were to care about all the people in the world...
have an emotional investment in their
down-trodden lives... i'd be subject
to a stampede in return!
i can't just... feel for someone!
                  there you are: trying to feel something
special, exclusive for someone...
while there she is... throwing the entire *******
world back at you!
she's playing her little games so bad
that i'm pretty sure these former, early,
glorious stomach cramps and butterflies will never,
return...
i've made up my mind...
        my eyes are a little bit foggy... my vision:
blurry... but i'm not crying... i'm refocusing myself...
i did say i was an idiot...
proven right, once more - and by whom?
myself...
           oh right... the eyes are back into focus...
i can return to my diacritical pet peeves & what not...
i guess i must have caught a bug
called in latin:
            in amor *** amor idea...
to be in love itself...
   in love with the idea of love...
because, hell... she was problematic from the get go...
i think i tried to delude myself thinking
i could love someone like her...
but if she has a kid... she's doing the mother-father
thing on her own... she's proud of her d.i.y.
antics... she swipes left and right on Tinder
in front of you... she's proud that her former
ex-boxer boyfriend clocks in with menacing
phone-calls on a Friday night...
   and she's happy about keeping him in the background:
even though he has a restraining order...
but she's still like: oh... what the hell...
now i see the bigger picture...
a guy, like me... free... no obligations apart those
to his family... cook, clean the house,
take out the garbage... writes... reads...
has a stash-load of books that would make
the local public library blush...
i'm... too complicated... she can't play me...
oh now i see the funny side...
     i can't be tamed...
i'm too spontaneous...
too erratic... now i see it: i just wanted to see
how far the rabbit-hole went before she
would inevitably bail out...
                          intellectual not high status enough...
needs that gilded cage...
bring in the doves with the budgies...
hell... sly a crow in there while you're at it!
she was already rigid in her ways...
i was just a welcome interruption...
little did she know...
i get my kicks from shadier places...
with shadier women...
  cheap thrill... thanks for the feelings...
all my own...
                               now scuttle back into your little
asylum of a life...
only today, while i was feeding my male
maine **** some fine turkey fillets...
i noticed his fur vibrate around his neck...
he was so excited / pleased & i was like...

   oh **** me...             PREDATOR!
not the sort of mimic rattle... but very much... akin...
i own a bonsai predator!
i never appreciated the xenomorph aesthetic...
i always sided with the predators...
krrr... whatever it is that the sound they make...
cats are close...
plus... like household plants... feed them...
water them once a week... and wait for them to make
advances for attention... otherwise...
oh... joy... they sleep... you just get to ignore them:
you do you, while they do them...

unlike women... do you really have to be cruel
in order for them to stick around?
are prostitutes the only women around these days
where you can play the classical roles of
a man? being tender, kissing, holding hands?
seriously?! sickness... i see the sickness is no
longer spreading... it's just well established...

again... what's missing? a 6 figure earning summary?
but why would i want to earn 6 figures...
if i only spend... the lowest possible mention
of 5?
         eh? save up? for what? a funeral at St. Paul's?!
well yeah... i earn in the frugal category...
i'm not going to earn more if i'm not having
to spend more... why earn more?
i don't see the sense of earning more than
i might spend...
and since i spend less than i earn
therefore i: earn enough... to spend enough...

no, it's a good thing... i could see too much longing
in that kids eyes... oh... another douschebag trying
to get it on with my mother...
o.k. Oedipus... o.k. Oedipal mother...
c'est la vie! c'est la vie!
  i too made my own bed...
              i'll gladly sleep in it...
i guess i sort of have to...
if he's the kid who has to take care of his hormonally
psychotic "aunt" of a mother...
well... all the better... vita non mea!
VITA NON MEA!

wow... what a relief! she spread rumours...
i could see on the last shift, the other "conspiring" girls
stood back keeping a distance...
i did say... the old proverb stands...
lies have short legs...
serpent...
                  no... don't tell her... that i know...
wait a while... she's do damage to herself...
and at first sight... oh my, oh my my my, my...
how i wanted to love her...

but the amount of crap i heard about her...
knife throwing was one of her speciality...
if a guy she's dating has to walk out of the house,
drink a whole bottle of wine...
and some beers... in  span of 20 minutes...
well... perhaps that's good of her:
telling me what i'm to expect if she has
one of her Oedipal-Mother tantrums...
like all single mothers with sons must go
through: to get back t the "patriarchy"...

damaged goods... like i said...
i love how some of these phrases sound in
Latin: oculus per oculus... an eye for an eye...
Latin, as a tongue... wasn't big of prepositions...
or conjunctions...
maybe there's  built-in safety-mechanism
with people who might cause you trouble... harm...
at least they're honest... they tell you upfront...
i.e. i'm capable of this... are you mad enough
to go any further... and ****... i was willing...

i was in love with the idea of love...
amor per se...
unlike a res per se: the Kantian noumenon...
of course the noumenon has no existence
to carve out man's intelligence...
we're talking amor per se...
res per se... das ding an sich...
we're talking Kierkegaard and the subliminity
of subjectivity: not as a vantage point
lesser to that of objectivism...
by being subjective implying:
in a storm... you're subjected to the storm's
"demands"... i am being subjected to something...
storm, the queen of England...
subjectivity is... unquestionable...
while objectivity... doesn't it...
question itself? ad nauseam?!

       that's why i prefer subjectivity...
in line of thought... in measure of assurance...
in the labyrinths of the narrative...
there's always more... less chance to come across
a cul de sac of "ideas"... anemic paraphrasing
by my estimate...
but hey... you never been to the dark alleys
with the Turkish or Romanian prostitutes...
your loss... not mine...
i'm done thinking i can idealise an English girl
as a bride... she can ******* to the Pakistani grooming
gangs...

             what?! that's not where most of them go, to?
oh, right... the pump  & dump schemes...
leave them on welfare...
               or... the types that box their *******
about... i'm not going to level myself to a standard
of barbarism in order to get laid... sorry... no...
but in the kid's eyes all i saw was...
i want to play Lego with you...

terribly sorry... Oedipus... Jocasta said: no...
this is the one and only time i tried
to attempt being a foster parent...
next time? no chance in hell...
i tried... in vain... well... that's one more vanity
project over & done with...
i wasn't here for her ****...
i wasn't here for her looks... her looking...
and cleaning skills...
she already had it figured out:
she doesn't need a man...
she doesn't... but... looking at the kid...
i'm pretty ******* sure he needs three-dimensionality
of being raised up...
obviously tarantula mama doesn't see it,
won't see... will die not regretting it...
but... come on!

at least someone who read more than 10 books in
his life... or... a ******* newspaper on a Sunday...
but like i told her already...
i'm Pontius Pilate at this moment...
i'm washing my hands, clean,
of this affair... i'm done...
another lost soul raised by the man-hating:
closer to Eden you come...
the further from heaven you shall become...

oh **** me, why am i complaining?!
i've just been about to barked at by a rottweiler,
bitten by a tiger...
shot stone cold by a **** sharpshooter...
yet i arrived on the playing field
unscathed like a Rasputin: after this 6th of
7th death... well... at least she was honest...
she was saying: you're pristine...
i don't want to touch you... get away from me!
get away from me! don't come too close!

well... c'est la vie! i don't mind, either way...
you lied about me once, tried to get me
fired... you'll lie a second time...
good enough that i managed to wriggle
in the tease... the carrot...
now look at you... stupid girl...
trouble with mad women trying to play
madmen... yeah...
that ol' chestnut! ha ha! ha ha! ah ha ha ha ha!

ich kommen sie mit die nacht...
ich kommen sie mit die stille...
   ich kommen sie mit der wind...
ich kommen sie ohne dich...
ich kommen allein...
             ich verlassen: allein...
ich bin allein:
ich bin... einsamkeit:                  FREI!
Andrew Dunham Jun 2015
Ich will der nicht sein**
der auf deinen Zug wartet
der niemals kommt
Der, der die Anderen sieht
Leute, die sich umarmen auf’m Gleis
Die schnell weg vom Bahnhof verschwenden
Und da bleib ich noch
Ich guck’ ungeduldig an die Anzeigetafel
Die leer steht
Leer bleibt
Und dunkel wird
Ich will der nicht sein
der allein Heim fährt
Nacht ohne Wert
Heute Nacht bin ich der
Doch ich kann ehrlich sagen
Du bist das schönste Ding
Das mir vorbeigefahren ist
Phil Lindsey May 2015
In Deutschland as the tale is told,
A clockmaker was growing old
After making near a thousand clocks
He was tired of all the ticks and tocks
He was satisfied with what he’d done
But had no desire to teach his son.
His clocks were made with love and skill
But of cuckoo birds he’d had his fill
So stepping back was his decision
And his clocks were built with such precision
That he hoped they’d run all by themselves,
And, as he looked upon his empty shelves,
With sadness and with pride,
He noticed that his only son was standing by his side.

The son looked up and saw a tear,
As his father said, “I won’t interfere,
My clocks will run, or they will not
Ich bin nicht ein Wundergott
Und Ich hoffe sie verstehen
Meine Uhren müssen allein gehen.”

Phil Lindsey   May 7, 2015
today- May 7, 2015 would have Mom's 83rd Birthday.  She passed away last November.  Not long before she died, upon being told she had inoperable cancer, she told the Dr. and several of her children that she had had a "Hellishly good life."  She was a tremendous wife, mother and friend to all she met.

I believe in God, but, like all who lose someone they love,  wonder why and how God administers His plan.  

   de·ism
    ˈdēizəm,ˈdāizəm/
    noun
    noun: deism
        belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe. The term is used chiefly of an intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries that accepted the existence of a creator on the basis of reason but rejected belief in a supernatural deity who interacts with humankind.

It is sometimes referred to as, "The Clockmaker Theory," or "The Watchmaker Theory"
Sie halt meine Liebe
Noch im Speicher
Ihre Augen werde ich nie vergessen
Ich sah Gott in ihr wie kein anderer
Wenn ich sie wieder zu sehen,
Wenn dor Tod keine Grenze
Lass es sein, oh Gott, lass es sein

Sie ubt Achtsamkeit in ihrem Gang
Sie spricht, wenn sie spricht
Sie liebt es, wenn sie allein ist
Sie erzahlte mir,
Und ich glaube, sie

Wenn das Ego hingibt Stolz
Wahre Macht gehalten wird
Wahre Liebe aufgedeckt
Und die wahre Wahrheit ans Licht -

Her kiss of days between

She holds my love
Still in memory
Her eyes I’ll never forget
I saw God in her like no other
If I am to see her again
If death is of no boundary
Let it be, oh God, let it be

She practices mindfulness in her walk
She speaks when she talks
She loves when she is alone
She told me
And I believe her

When the ego surrenders pride
True power is held
True love is uncovered
And the true truth is revealed
Michael R Burch Feb 2020
Herbsttag ("Autumn Day")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go.
Lay your long shadows over the sundials
and over the meadows, let the free winds blow.
Command the late fruits to fatten and shine;
O, grant them another Mediterranean hour!
Urge them to completion, and with power
convey final sweetness to the heavy wine.
Who has no house now, never will build one.
Who's alone now, shall continue alone;
he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends,
and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down,
restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend.

Original text:

Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß.
Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren,
und auf den Fluren laß die Winde los.

Befiel den letzten Früchten voll zu sein;
gib ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage,
dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage
die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein.

Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr.
Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben,
wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben
und wird in den Alleen hin und her
unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben.

Originally published by Measure

Keywords/Tags: German, translation, sonnet, Rainer Marie Rilke, autumn, day, summer, sundial, sundials, meadow, meadows, wind, winds, fruit, fruits, sweetness, wine, house, alone, loneliness, alienation, letters, friends, pathways, roads, lanes, leaves



Du im Voraus (“You who never arrived”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You who never arrived in my arms, my Belovéd,
lost before love began...
How can I possibly know which songs might please you?

I have given up trying to envision you
in portentous moments before the next wave impacts...
when all the vastness and immenseness within me,
all the far-off undiscovered lands and landscapes,
all the cities, towers and bridges,
all the unanticipated twists and turns in the road,
and all those terrible terrains once traversed by strange gods—
engender new meaning in me:
your meaning, my enigmatic darling...
You, who continually elude me.

You, my Belovéd,
who are every garden I ever gazed upon,
longingly, through some country manor’s open window,
so that you almost stepped out, pensively, to meet me;
who are every sidestreet I ever chanced upon,
even though you’d just traipsed tantalizingly away, and vanished,
while the disconcerted shopkeepers’ mirrors
still dizzily reflected your image, flashing you back at me,
startled by my unwarranted image!

Who knows, but perhaps the same songbird’s cry
echoed through us both,
yesterday, separate as we were, that evening?



The next two poems are my modern English translations of Rainer Maria Rilke’s First and Second Elegies. These are the opening elegies in a collection commonly called the “Duino Elegies” because Rilke began composing them at Duino Castle, near Trieste, Italy, in 1912.



Rilke’s First Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders?
For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast,
I would be lost in its infinite Immensity!
Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror;
we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us.
Every Angel is terrifying!
And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing.
For whom may we turn to, in our desire?
Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware
that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence.
Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision.
Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality—
the concrete items that never destabilize.
Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ...
But whom, then, do we live for?
That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires?
Is life any less difficult for lovers?
They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates!
How can you fail to comprehend?
Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale:
may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying!
Yes, the springtime still requires you.
Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it.
A wave recedes toward you from the distant past,
or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears.
All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ...
Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved?
(Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep
you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?)
When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite;
sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them)
because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified.
Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives;
even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth.
But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself,
as if lacking the energy to recreate them.
Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus—
how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example
and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?"
Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us?
Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved,
quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension,
so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself?
For there is nowhere else where we can remain.
Voices! Voices!
Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened,
until the elevating call soared them heavenward;
and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration.
Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it!
But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence:
It murmurs now of the martyred young.
Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome,
didn't they come quietly to address you?
And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you
recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa?
What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice—
which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing.
Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth;
to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire;
not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future;
no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands;
to set aside even one's own name,
forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything.
How strange to no longer desire one's desires!
How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space.
Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity.
The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves.
Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead.
The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom
until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar.
In the end, the early-departed no longer need us:
they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies,
as children outgrow their mothers’ *******.
But we, who need such immense mysteries,
and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress—
how can we exist without them?
Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless—
the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy;
then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever,
we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time—
that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us?



Rilke’s Second Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you,
one of the soul’s lethal raptors, well aware of your nature.
As in the days of Tobias, when one of you, obscuring his radiance,
stood at the simple threshold, appearing ordinary rather than appalling
while the curious youth peered through the window.
But if the Archangel emerged today, perilous, from beyond the stars
and took even one step toward us, our hammering hearts
would pound us to death. What are you?
Who are you? Joyous from the beginning;
God’s early successes; Creation’s favorites;
creatures of the heights; pollen of the flowering godhead; cusps of pure light;
stately corridors; rising stairways; exalted thrones;
filling space with your pure essence; crests of rapture;
shields of ecstasy; storms of tumultuous emotions whipped into whirlwinds ...
until one, acting alone, recreates itself by mirroring the beauty of its own countenance.
While we, when deeply moved, evaporate;
we exhale ourselves and fade away, growing faint like smoldering embers;
we drift away like the scent of smoke.
And while someone might say: “You’re in my blood! You occupy this room!
You fill this entire springtime!” ... Still, what becomes of us?
We cannot be contained; we vanish whether inside or out.
And even the loveliest, who can retain them?
Resemblance ceaselessly rises, then is gone, like dew from dawn’s grasses.
And what is ours drifts away, like warmth from a steaming dish.
O smile, where are you bound?
O heavenward glance: are you a receding heat wave, a ripple of the heart?
Alas, but is this not what we are?
Does the cosmos we dissolve into savor us?
Do the angels reabsorb only the radiance they emitted themselves,
or sometimes, perhaps by oversight, traces of our being as well?
Are we included in their features, as obscure as the vague looks on the faces of pregnant women?
Do they notice us at all (how could they) as they reform themselves?
Lovers, if they only knew how, might mutter marvelous curses into the night air.
For it seems everything eludes us.
See: the trees really do exist; our houses stand solid and firm.
And yet we drift away, like weightless sighs.
And all creation conspires to remain silent about us: perhaps from shame, perhaps from inexpressible hope?
Lovers, gratified by each other, I ask to you consider:
You cling to each other, but where is your proof of a connection?
Sometimes my hands become aware of each other
and my time-worn, exhausted face takes shelter in them,
creating a slight sensation.
But because of that, can I still claim to be?
You, the ones who writhe with each other’s passions
until, overwhelmed, someone begs: “No more!...”;
You who swell beneath each other’s hands like autumn grapes;
You, the one who dwindles as the other increases:
I ask you to consider ...
I know you touch each other so ardently because each caress preserves pure continuance,
like the promise of eternity, because the flesh touched does not disappear.
And yet, when you have survived the terror of initial intimacy,
the first lonely vigil at the window, the first walk together through the blossoming garden:
lovers, do you not still remain who you were before?
If you lift your lips to each other’s and unite, potion to potion,
still how strangely each drinker eludes the magic.
Weren’t you confounded by the cautious human gestures on Attic gravestones?
Weren’t love and farewell laid so lightly on shoulders they seemed composed of some ethereal substance unknown to us today?
Consider those hands, how weightlessly they rested, despite the powerful torsos.
The ancient masters knew: “We can only go so far, in touching each other. The gods can exert more force. But that is their affair.”
If only we, too, could discover such a pure, contained Eden for humanity,
our own fruitful strip of soil between river and rock.
For our hearts have always exceeded us, as our ancestors’ did.
And we can no longer trust our own eyes, when gazing at godlike bodies, our hearts find a greater repose.



HERMANN HESSE

This is my modern English translation of the poem "Stages" by the great German poet Hermann Hesse from his novel "The Glass Bead Game."

Stages
by Hermann Hesse
from his novel "The Glass Bead Game"
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

As every flower wilts and every youth
must wilt and exit life from a curtained stage,
so every virtue—even our truest truth—
blooms some brief time and cannot last forever.
Since life may summons death at any age
we must prepare for death’s obscene endeavor,
meet our end with courage and without remorse,
forego regret and hopes of some reprieve,
embrace death’s end, as life’s required divorce,
some new beginning, calling us to live.
Thus let us move, serene, beyond our fear,
and let no sentiments detain us here.

The Universal Spirit would not chain us,
but elevates us slowly, stage by stage.
If we demand a halt, our fears restrain us,
caught in the webs of creaturely defense.
We must prepare for imminent departure
or else be bound by foolish “permanence.”
Death’s hour may be our swift deliverance,
from which we speed to fresher, newer spaces,
and Life may summons us to bolder races.
So be it, heart! Farewell, and adieu, then!

Keywords/Tags: Hermann Hesse, translation, German, English, life, death, stage, stages, truth, flower, wilt, youth, flower, blooms, time, age, courage, hope, hopes, fear, spirit, god, space, spaces, heart, farewell
Vlarken Hvyrmtor Jul 2015
Blooming seeds you had on
your tongue when I kissed you
on the streetcorner in blaring
sunlight

I wanted to taste them,

and later recalled how thin you felt
your ******* against my chest
subtle enough

but I pulled back

The lightpond where I sat
that's the place where
shimmerish fish float the
smoky air

You caught one and
got drunk on its blood

That ***** look I'd never
seen you wear as you took
my lips in yours

and when your bloodrough
tongue touched mine the
seeds were grown

"Sommersprossen,"

I whispered into your mouth
as you bit off my lip

Thereafter in your starry
room you took your knife
and I mine

"Ich bin allein
Bereust du?
Wirst du?"


Our hearts in our hands
spat their deathred mess
and soaked the sheets

Drunk on each other
with lips cherryred
to you I whispered
and to me you,

*"Dû bist mîn
Ih bin dîn"
Max Neumann Nov 2019
a daughter
named seble
seven years old

being in a coma

she couldn't hear her
daddy's words

she couldn't see him
fog in front of her eyes
covering differences of
sleep and wakefulness

oneday seble's father
who was desparate
put headphones
on seble's ears

lyrics from two tall germans
they are called the
"wildecker herzbuben"

"herz" means heart and a
"bube" is a boy

seble
closed eyes
slowly breathing

seble's father is called
brhane
rapidly breathing

brhane was pressing play
and after seconds
among lurid lights

seble
harvest
moved her head
seble closed eyes smiled
as the wildecker herzbuben sang:

"Ein letztes Glas'l mit alten Freunden
die geh'n allein nach Haus.
In den Straßen
in den Gassen
geh'n langsam die Lichter aus."

a last drink with my buddies
who go home alone
in the streets
in the alleys
the lights are vanishing

seble moved her head
no windows but
her daddy was there

sebles mother is not alive
anymore
brhane prayed
holding his daughter's hand

seble opened one eye
looking at brhane

seble came back to reality when
brhan had finished his talk to
god

the end of seble's and brhane's
story is wordless
Lvice Aug 2017
I didn't make
Plans for a future
Simply because there
Wasn't one here
lost thoughts Dec 2014
Die Wahrheit? Ich mag dich.
eine Menge. Du machst mich
glücklich. Du machst mich
laugh.You're smart.
Du bist anders.
Sie sind ein wenig verrückt,
und awkard und
Ihr Lächeln allein kann
mein Tag!
Souleater Dec 2017
Ein bisschen Wein und Bier
und schon sind wir weg hier
Flasche im Rucksack stecken
wird schwer sein uns morgen zu wecken
keine Gedanken an den Tag danach verschwenden
du wirst sehen, morgen geht es und blendend

Sitzen einfach nur da und reden
ich weis es ist nicht was für jeden
doch können sagen was wir denken
sind uns gegenseitig vertrauen am schenken

Spielt keine Rolle ob gut oder schlecht
denn es ist echt
kennen uns seit ner Ewigkeit
daher auch dir Vertrauenswürdigkeit
Weis auf dich ist immer Verlass
nie ein Grund zum hass
Gott was haben wir nicht alles zusammen gemacht ?
im Matsch gespielt und gelacht
Kerle kennengelernt
darüber geredet wie es unser Herz erwärmt
Gemeinsam diskutiert
Momente erlebt in denen man sich verliert
uns aufgefangen
und dann gemeinsam weitergegangen

Egal wer, wo oder wann
gegen uns kommt man nicht einfach so an

Könnte mir nicht vorstellen wie es ohne dich wäre
bin mir aber sicher es würde mein Leben erschwer'n
All die Erinnerung die Wir teilen
sind Dinge die unsere Wunden heilen
Zeigen uns wir sind nie allein
werden immer zusammen sein
Freu mich auf jedes treffen erneut
ich weis das es dich genauso freut
Everything is lying in me
Decays between twilight and being dead
All that can not be true
But it damages my head
With plausibility and anger
I don't let myself loose
Being free is insanity
Here, on this earth,
I lie alone at the moment and forever
Strengthen myself
To come clear
with myself
My consciousness lies
On a pillow nearby in the shadow
Without passion I shiver
and freeze
Past
Past
PAST
blows the wind in my eyes
and I look past
Well, a tear whispers
or do I only ask myself why not?
The most miserable contentment
Everything hangs near and is missed by me
Equally
Obfuscated

[Verwischt--
Alles lügnet in mir
verfällt zwischen Zwielicht und Totsein
Das alles kann nicht wahr sein
Aber schädet mein Kopf
Mit Plausibilität und Ärger
ich lass mich selber nicht los
Freisein ist Wahnsinn
Hier, auf dieser Erde,
Liege ich plötzlich allein und für immer
Bekräftige mich
Um klar zu kommen
Mit mir
Selbst
Liegt mir das Bewusstsein
Am Kissen nebenbei im Schatten
Ohne Wollust zittere ich
Und friere
Vorbei
Vorbei
VORBEI
blässt der Wind in meinen Augen
Und schau' ich vorbei
Na, flüstert eine Träne
Oder frage ich mir nur wieso sonst?
Erbärmlichsten Behagen
Alles hängt nah und fehlt mir
gleicherweise
Verwischt]
MMXIX
I like to jot down thoughts in my somewhat limited German vocabulary and see where they lead. It allows me to shut off that nagging doubt about clarity and just get my words out before i immediately start revising and covering my tracks.
I like free-association and building on the first word that comes to mind.
Usually translating them seems to approach the general idea I was going for and seeing the difference between english and german amuses me.
hopefully you enjoyed reading this and taking a tour into my creative process.
Souleater Dec 2017
Still lächelnd schau ich dich an
doch du bist nur der kleine fang
Dachtest du hättest noch Macht
doch stattdessen bin ich die die lacht
Warte es nur ab bis ich dich seh
dann liegst du mal mit gebrochenerer Nase im Schnee

Mir wurde immer gesagt negative Gefühle wären schlecht
doch sie zu denken ist nur mehr als recht
Denn wohin soll die ganze Wut ?
Unmöglich glücklich zu sein wenn man immer nur nichts tut!

Früher war ich klein
wollte doch nie mehr als glücklich sein
Hab heute mein Ziel erreicht
und du bist es der schleicht
Denn die Rollen haben sich gewechselt
nun suchst du das Schild mit Exit
Hab keine Angst mehr vor dem der du bist
denn bin stärker und weis das wenn du die scheiße frisst

Lasst ruhig die Wut zu und die Gedanken frei
dann ist es meist noch schöner als am 1. Mai
Denn Gedanken sind keinen Taten
und wenn du sie zulässt brauchst du nicht mehr zu raten
sondern nur noch zu warten
Es zeigt sich nämlich von allein
das auch du bewahren kannst den schönen Schein
Nur zu Gunsten von dir selbst
so das du nicht mehr fällst

Eure Angst wird zu Wut
einen *******den man nicht einfach so tut
Zeigt jedoch das du weiter bist als zuvor
öffnest die Welt zu einem neuen Tor

Lache jetzt nur noch über dich
bist du diejenige die zusammenbricht
doch Mitleid bekommst du nicht

Ist mehr als verdient was die passiert
vielleicht mal diejenige die sich geniert
mal wissen was es heist Schmerzen zu fühlen
ein Versuch im gewissen zu wühlen....
Caroline W Jun 2019
Scherben in nem eispalast -
Konserviert und eingefasst..
Labyinth aus Licht und Schatten,
Alpträume die sich verstecken
Träume die sie versteckt halten
Den Blick zu den sternen,
Weil nur dort oben keine Schatten sind
An ins Sternbild des Drachen
Weil ich nur dort zuhause bin
Und nicht auf dieser Erde

Nein ich muss aus einer dieser anderen Welten,
Da oben bei den sternen sein -
Kann mich nicht von natur aus um diese sonne drehen,
Keine Ahnung von wo da oben ich herkam -
Oder wohin ich dabei war zu gehen,
Doch Weiß ich das es nicht hier unten war,
Sonst würde sich nicht alles hier unten
Völlig falschrum für mich drehn,
Selbst Tag und Nacht sind verkehrt ,
Zu kurz ,zu schnell und kalt -
Wie alles andere auch ,
Viel zu schnell am vergehen


Es sind nur lichtblitze zwischen all den Schatten zu sehn,
Die die Bilder ein brennen die in diesen Schatten entstehen,
Wie blitze fotos in einen Film -
Jedes davon ein Beweis,
Das ich blos gestrandet bin,
Hier wo Dämonen wie sonst engel aussehn,
Wo alles sich gegenseitig frisst,
Und allein Wahnsinn fähig macht,
das alles lang genug zu überstehen,
Um auch nur lang genug das licht,
des wegs weit genug nach oben zu sehn,
Um überhaupt heraus zu finden
Das sterne an nem Himmel existiern -
Hoch genug oben um sich zu verstecken
Vor allem was nicht fliegen kann oder
verzweifelt genug davon ist,
in realen Horrorfilmen zu stehen,
‎um auf der Flucht vor all den Szenen
‎einfach blind nach oben zu gehn,
‎wo eine wand ist ,
beginnt zu klettern,
‎um nur nicht mehr in blut und Asche zu stehen
Fight your way up!
Souleater Dec 2017
Beziehungen im allgemeinen
sind Dinge die einen vereinen
Dein Partner gibt dir Freiheit
und ihr wisst zeitgleich das ihr niemals allein seid

Kein Grund sich einzuengen
einen immer versuchen zu etwas zu drängen,
sondern Freiheit zu schenken
und nicht nur an sich zu denken
Gemeinsam mehr sein als eins
Gefühle verstehen solang bin ich deins
Bester Freund und Partner in einem
klingt komisch über dieses Thema zu reimen

Was lockeres schön gut
endet jedoch meistens in Wut
Denn irgendwann werden Gefühle entstehen
dann kannst du nicht mehr einfach nur weitergehen....
Max Neumann Dec 2019
between mind and soul
there is a strength-giving rock.
that rock protects all of us...



YouTube:

Xavier Naidoo - Der Fels
// Allein Mit Flügel -
Live aus dem Mannheimer Schloss
"Alles, was ich sagen will, ist: Ich glaub' an dich".

"I just want to say that I believe in you".
Donall Dempsey Feb 2024
IM NEBEL VERSCHWINDEN

My ghost sat
comfortably ensconced

in an armchair
opposite me.

A fire roared
between us.

The whiskey glinted
in the glass

like a thought
held in amber.

Outside a fog had
wrapped the world

in cotton wool
like a memento

in a badly scuffed
lacquer box.

As  host I
offered my ghost

a little something
"...a G&T perhaps?"

My ghost slyly smiled:
"I, never....touch spirits!"

"Ok...!" snapped my ghost
looking very pale

"...let's leave reality
out of this!"

"No tree knows
its neighbour

. . .each alone. . .
. . .each alone. . ."

I muttered
in my mind.

But I must have spoke
my mind out loud.

"What's that?"
hissed my ghost

"That's Hesse...I believe."
I addressed my ghostly alter ego.

"...all about being alone in a mist..."
I mused as if it hadn't been there.

Just an idle
thought like

a dandelion seed
getting  caught in a sleeve.

"And what has that...got to do with this?"
my ghost looked miffed

"Oh, nothing..." I smiled
"...just a feeling."

"Can we skip
the literary stuff!"
my ghost acidly suggested.

"Of course...of course!"
I assured it.

"Im Nebel verschwinden..."
I thought aloud for the last time.

"And do you mind if we use
...English."

"Yes, yes...!" I said
"What ever you say..."

"I'm here because from where I am
I'm not pleased with how you're leading

. . .my life!"

"Hold on a sec!" I said.
"I'm not dead yet!"

"Are you allowed to haunt
your own self?"

"Do you have to get a haunting permit?
Is it the haunting season...am I game"

And so the conversation
dragged on until

yawwwwnnnnnn...dawn

when my ghostly self
felt it had to depart.

Reality had snuk
back in the back door.

I sat in the chair
dead to the world

become my ghostly self
as it happened

and strolled serenely into
the next world.

The fog had lifted.

*

I lose a lot of poems as they pile up in my initial scribbles and I can no longer read my own writing. I have to decipher them after that. This was written before my brother's death and a little while after climbing to take down a book I reach for the next step and it wasn't there and I just entered a fog of nothingness. Came through like a puppet with cut strings and then alright again. My brother was asking me how I write poems and I was telling him the gist of this and other poems that resulted from "this incident'...I little thought that he would slip away from the world and I would lose him forever.

Hermann Hesse's beautiful poem IM NEBEL( IN THE FOG )...is what is running through my mind.

IM NEBEL VERSCHWINDEN means to vanish into the fog. I thought if I am about to vanish then I might as well go out dressed in Hesse's words.

IM NEBEL

Seltsam, im Nebel zu wandern!
Einsam ist jeder Busch und Stein,
Kein Baum sieht den anderen,
Jeder ist allein.

Voll von Freunden war mir die Welt,
Als noch mein Leben Licht war,
Nun, da der Nebel fällt,
Ist keiner mehr sichtbar.

Wahrlich, keiner ist weise,
Der nicht das Dunkle kennt,
Das unentrinnbar und leise
Von allen ihn trennt.

Seltsam, im Nebel zu wandern!
Leben ist einsam sein.
Kein Mensch kennt den anderen,
Jeder ist allein.

IN THE FOG

Strange, to wander in the fog.
Each bush and stone stands alone,
No tree sees the next one,
Each is alone.

My world was full of friends
When my life was filled with light,
Now as the fog descends
None is still to be seen.

Truly there is no wise man
Who does not know the dark
Which quietly and inescapably
Separates him from everything else.

Strange, to wander in the fog,
To live is to be alone.
No man knows the next man,
Each is alone.

–Hermann Hesse, Im Nebel from Unterwegs (1911) in: Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, p.
Mateuš Conrad May 2022
i used to buy cans of pepsi cola in order to retain the most
fizz... i've cut back on the cans:
instead buying bottles of the "max" stuff...
because: whiskey: how else?
i'm not a puritanical drinker of ms. amber...
mr. whiskers...

                      but the problem with the bottled stuff...
once opened: it goes stale the next day:
because i never mix it "correctly"...
   but what i found?
                          sunlight... leave an already
opened bottle of pepsi cola in the sun...
and... lucky me: England: it's sunny! wow!
leave it (obvious the cap is ******* on,
but it has already been opened ergo ergo)

leave it in the sun... boom! the gas is back...
it's fizzy again: it's actually more fizzy than upon first
opening it...
so... what's the relationship with carbon dioxide
and sunlight?
carbonated water and sunlight?
does sunshine agitate the carbon in the water
making... oh... right... it must imply...
it has a lower boiling point than water itself...
i mean: you couldn't exactly boil a cup of tea
using sunlight...

but you could... make more fizz out of a going
stale carbonated water by exposing it to sunlight!
yep... just checked it...
it is lower... not that much lower...
but we're talking... sunlight and a plastic bottle:
plastic easily overheats...
and in terms of boiling: there's a lid...
so... no wonder... and we're talking:
sitting on a roof... sunrise? circa 5am...
all the way through to about 1pm...
  
    enough time... the tides will eat away the coastlines...

- yesterday's weigh-in... 101.6kg...
today's weigh in? ha ha...   98.5kg...
3.1kg loss in a single day...
    who even bothers with dieting?
what's the point?
   maybe i just figured it out... just about...
whatever dieting gurus tell you:
if you don't torture yourself physically through
acute exercise... nothing's going to work...
better be the rabbit than the turtle...

for far is it from where i live to Tate Britain,
roughly? 20miles... to get there... and back...
40+miles...
              plus the stress of traffic... which is always
good... stress is a great calorie burner...
plus testosterone... plus adrenaline generation...
it's not like a safe environment in a gym
pumping... pumping! weights...
or running the hamster wheel of the treadmill...
plus the wind obstructing you...
  mind you: maybe drinking that half a litre
of whiskey prior also helps...
perhaps ingesting alcohol: whiskey... before setting
off on a mega exercise routine...
because the calories: as my "dearest" gwand-m'ah used
to say from alcohol are empty calories...
by drinking half a litre of whiskey you're not eating
a fattening burger...

alcohol calories are not... protein calories...
they're not carbohydrate calories... they're not fat
calories... they're alcohol calories...

and on your bicycle... am i just fuelling up?!
i don't mean ingesting alcohol and doing weights...
i'm talking about ingesting alcohol and
punishing myself via the cardiovascular method...

personally i can't imagine myself becoming a father:
decreasing the amount of testosterone running
through my veins:
   i'm the "wrong" sort of gambler...
i measure my gambling ability on how well i can
maneaouvre... ****... too many! vowels!
man-oeuvre... manoeuvre... now i'll remember...
that's what the English speaking folk say about
my native tongue: you're ******* vowelled-up mate!

right: MAN and OEUVRE... like...
the total of someone's productivity: posthumously...
i'm more of a gambler like that:
will i squeeze in? will i get past?
either give me a horse and the Siberian steppes...
or give me a bicycle and London's roads...

oh wow... i'm actually thinking like a free man!
sure sure: i can care for people on "pretend":
little cameos here and there... and it's genuine...
but... to replicate myself: to have to "nurture" genes?
why does Jamie Redknapp (K surd!)
  look like the older brother of Frank Lampard Jr.?

i know the answer...
    because Harry Redknapp married a woman
that was the twin sister of Frank Lampard Sr. bride...

i'm sort of giggling now... but walking to the shop
for some early morning cider...
there's this great Danish film about a group
of guys who are constantly ingesting alcohol...
in acute amounts... no... not binge drinking going
out on the tiles sort of drinking:
irresponsible drinking is out of the question:
know your limits...
if you can't cycle to Tate Britain from 20 miles
away while having drank half a litre of whiskey:
don't do it...

DRUK... another round... funny that...
       druk means print in my native spreschen...
pisany druk: written print...

i look at old men as no wiser than the wisest...
it's a bit like looking at babies:
either men or women...
i want death before i reach this unnatural
old age... this retrospective cinema...
it's almost like seeing menopause:
this slack in testosterone curbing...
it's like looking at able albeit decrepit bodies
lost in a memory of former agility...

heimat! heimat!
all of the German war songs are worth singing!
heil! heil! wenig scheisse...
that's what my Russian girlfriend used to call me:
kakashka... little ****...

do i write from the perspective of regret
or from the perspective of memory:
i don't know...
what would you do... having travelled to Russia...
upon first entry into her abode:
getting a slap in the face...
i tried punching myself harder from time to time...
but that slap was waspish...
she thought i wasn't monogamous with her:
even though she kept her ex in her vicinity...

alle huren! alle huren!
   alle verdienen mein liebe!
ich kann nicht diktieren zensur von
solch(e) pracht!

   ich kann nicht! ich kann nicht!

maybe that's why i'm not bothered by nudes
in the art gallery...
       i abhor Lucian Freud...
                     i find his gaze repulsive...
it's what i'd call: cloggy...
beauty in the eye of the beholder blah blah...
there's that strict format of identifiable form
readily expressed:
which is mostly in the ****...

no wonder i like ******* in front of a mirror:
and that's mine...
und das ist mein!
                  mein allein!

        i suppose, therefore: i don't need to paint...
i can only skim a membrane of what could be
considered a painting... writing the membrane
of an art-work...

               Nietzsche showed the nail...
Heidegger provided the hammer...
   better an early death and eternity than all those
materialistic sensibilities of progress...
better the promises than simply prolonging
a fate worse than death:
ein los schlimmer als tod...

i want to die viral... with all the vitality that life
allows!
i don't want to die as a toothless wolf!
ich do nicht wollen zu sterben als ein zahnloswolf!
this is torture... old age apparent...
no wonder men have lost their libido!
if what's waiting for them:
no man want's to live the sort of life
that grieves him with old age!

it's unnatural!
             it's great for clones, cupids and other
quasi- makeshifts of creature...
it's not so great for men...
old age of men and the lost testosterone...
is a bit like the menopause for women...
but it's not spoken of...
   Western gynocentric antics...
                               i like the Eastern traditions...
man comes to the fore... woman come after...

i'm already in a dodo mindset...
i truly don't mind...
    the middle-ground has already been salvaged...
humanity will not perish...
genius is always born once in a while...
not that i am:
irgendetwas du möchte denken...

heimat! tanz! heimat! tanz!
   die fluss von menschen...
        die fluss von alles dinge...

               das ist alles.
max Mar 2022
constant destruction,
tearing down foundations,
eventually leads to beauty.

the crumble is rough
but its not ******* ugly.
it’s, eye opening?
it ***** and rips apart your walls,
but it leads to resuscitation and
a new foundation

the classic saying,
"sometimes you have to lose everything to find a new you, maybe the real you, acknowledge the pushed away truths,
and finally figure out what to do–“
-or something along that frame ,
its chessy as hell but
its sure as hell true,

constant destruction,
crumbling foundations,
i went through it too,
not exactly like you
but i can ******* see your point of view,
we went through a lot
yeah itll never be the same as before
don’t retrace your  steps, look ahead and push through, see the future,
don’t focus on regrets
forgive the past,
live, now

thats really all that you can do
value who you are
who belongs to you will come to you
what you are searching for,
whatever it may be,
will find you

breathe through the tension
it’s dumb but i didn’t break my promise man, i’ll still always sit and support from the stands
silvervi Sep 2024
Unterwegs seh ich
bekümmerte Gesichter
Viele schon älter,
Gekleidet schlichter.

Wartend auf den nächsten Bus,
Augen verdrehen wegen Verdruss.
Graue Stadt, grau *******der Nebel
Alles umhüllt, vom Nieseln umspült.

Allein unter vielen, die Wärme vermisst,
In Kälte gehüllt.
In meiner grauen Stadt letzten Dezember 2023.
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2017
mit herz allein, und verstand verlassen.

of those who once lived by heart alone,
to be told to now live
by mind alone -
              if there be no greater sorrow,
this sorrow comes first.

are we to say that the mind is superior
to the heart?
  that what the heart wrote,
while the mind has only begun writing
is to give us the grand usurp?

how the mind has made the heart
so fickle, so tantamount in
                       seeking non-existing
shores or abides by laws of
   "******" nonetheless healthy mentalities
of unsaid genesis.

we have a spawn of history in our reach,
within a day we can catalogue
a century of years,
  with the crucifix 2000 years,
within a single day
we can be "reminded"
   of the ultimate genesis,
the foundation, the cowering stone
of homage...
          and yet, next tuesday,
we'll be sipping coffee in a cafe
bewildered by our infantile
and if not infantile, when insect-like
worries
         of re-arranging furniture
to suit our *feng shui
...
                          if only for the love
of music would our souls dare to breathe
their last composition of a sigh...
by my word,
   i'd leverage the remains of the hyper-psyche
of a woman's worth into the depths
of tartarus...
  so that the titans might grapple with it,
while hades, remaining hidden,
entertains nothing but song...
       and praises no god,
other than the golden ratio of harmonies!
so much distance between
   a da               &      the    sein...
       why not congratulate myself to succumb
to the inverse potency of the original,
and simply state:                jetztsein...
now, i am...
                                   jetzt, ich bin:
a colander through which imagination
is seived, but keeps memory intact...
that forevermore hidden cinema
                     that breathes a gust of
historical subjectivity into
              an ever-objective present,
toward no objectified past,
toward no objective that resounds
                       within the word: future.

oh how we once lived by heart alone,
   to have this char-smog-tar worth of
a heart evenly beating a rhythm
but no rhyme...
               how poetry devolved into
prose, and how prose aspires to poetry...
how we once lived by heart alone,
and mastered all those forthcoming pains...
to now live by mind alone...
    where the only place for a heart
to still be guiding, is to guide us toward
the most irritable path,
  the only path it now would seem
is welcoming our treading feet...
    and to think, we lived, some time ago,
by heart alone;
             i keep finding the need to live
my mind alone
   a harsh dictum -
               the brain inside a pickle jar...
         what heart remains,
has receeded to the confines of sporting
events...
         a collectivism...
                    a football chant...
            what sad events are to come
and prosper from such changes!
                        
to think, we once lived by heart alone,
with whatever agony, with whatever
gnaw of bone & limbs, and lived!

                       where there was once a heart,
there was beauty,
                 but where now there is nought
but mind, what rigidity,
                what little comfort
other than in the ease of menial toils,
what little comfort in a sleepless night...
what of life, if life be purely the domain
of the mind... and the agonising death of
both heart, and soul.
Michael R Burch Nov 2024
These are modern English translations of poems by the German poets Hermann Allmers, Hannah Arendt, Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan, H. Distler, Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Günter Grass, Heinrich Heine, Johann Georg Jacobi, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Rainer Maria Rilke, Friedrich Schiller, Angelus Silesius and Georg Trakl.



To the boy Elis
by Georg Trakl, an Austrian poet who wrote in German
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest,
it announces your downfall.
Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness.

Your brow sweats blood
recalling ancient myths
and dark interpretations of birds' flight.

Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls;
the ripe purple grapes hang suspended
as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness.

A thornbush crackles;
where now are your moonlike eyes?
How long, oh Elis, have you been dead?

A monk dips waxed fingers
into your body's hyacinth;
Our silence is a black abyss

from which sometimes a docile animal emerges
slowly lowering its heavy lids.
A black dew drips from your temples:

the lost gold of vanished stars.

I believe that in the second stanza the blood on Elis's forehead may be a reference to the apprehensive ****** sweat of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. If my interpretation is correct, Elis hears the blackbird's cries, anticipates the danger represented by a harbinger of death, but elects to continue rather than turn back. From what I have been able to gather, the color blue had a special significance for Georg Trakl: it symbolized longing and perhaps a longing for death. The colors blue, purple and black may represent a progression toward death in the poem.




Heinrich Heine

The Seas Have Their Pearls
by Heinrich Heine
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The seas have their pearls,
The heavens their stars;
But my heart, my heart,
My heart has its love!

The seas and the sky are immense;
Yet far greater still is my heart,
And fairer than pearls and stars
Are the radiant beams of my love.

As for you, tender maiden,
Come steal into my great heart;
My heart, and the sea, and the heavens
Are all melting away with love!



Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke [1875-1926] was a Bohemian-Austrian poet generally considered to be a major poet of the German language. He also wrote more than 400 poems in French. He was born René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke in Prague, then the capital of Bohemia and part of Austria-Hungary. During Rilke's early years his mother, who had lost a baby daughter, dressed him in girl's clothing. In 1895 and 1896, he studied literature, art history, and philosophy in Prague and Munich. In 1902 Rilke traveled to Paris to write about the sculptor Auguste Rodin. Rilke became deeply involved with the sculpture of Rodin and for a time served as Rodin's secretary. Under Rodin's influence Rilke transformed his poetic style from the subjective to the objective. His best-known poem, "Archaic Torso of Apollo," was written about a sculpture by Rodin and speaks about the life-transforming properties (and demands) of great art. Rilke allegedly died the most poetic of deaths, having been pricked by a rose. He was in ill health, the wound failed to heal, and he died as a result.

Poems translated here include Herbsttag ("Autumn Day"), Der Panther ("The Panther"), Archaïscher Torso Apollos ("Archaic Torso of Apollo"), Komm, Du ("Come, You"), Das Lied des Bettlers ("The Beggar's Song"), Liebeslied ("Love Song"), and the First Elegy, also known as the First Duino Elegy.



Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a lamp lit from within, while his composed will
emanates dynamism. Otherwise
the firmly muscled abdomen could not beguile us,
nor the centering ***** make us smile
at the thought of their generative animus.
Otherwise the stone might seem deficient,
unworthy of the broad shoulders, of the groin
projecting procreation's triangular spearhead upwards,
unworthy of the living impulse blazing wildly within
like an inchoate star—demanding our belief.
You must change your life.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: This is a poem about a major resolution: changing the very nature of one's life. While it is only my personal interpretation of the poem above, I believe Rilke was saying to himself: "I must change my life." Why? Perhaps because he wanted to be a real artist, and when confronted with real, dynamic, living and breathing art of Rodin, he realized that he had to inject similar vitality, energy and muscularity into his poetry. Michelangelo said that he saw the angel in a block of marble, then freed it. Perhaps Rilke had to find the dynamic image of Apollo, the God of Poetry, in his materials, which were paper, ink and his imagination.—Michael R. Burch

Archaïscher Torso Apollos

Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt,
darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber
sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber,
in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt,
sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug
der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen
der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen
zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug.
Sonst stünde dieser Stein entstellt und kurz
unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz
und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle
und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern
aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle,
die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern.



Herbsttag ("Autumn Day")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go.
Lay your long shadows over the sundials
and over the meadows, let the free winds blow.
Command the late fruits to fatten and shine;
O, grant them another Mediterranean hour!
Urge them to completion, and with power
convey final sweetness to the heavy wine.
Who has no house now, never will build one.
Who's alone now, shall continue alone;
he'll wake, read, write long letters to friends,
and pace the tree-lined pathways up and down,
restlessly, as autumn leaves drift and descend.

Herbsttag

Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß.
Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren,
und auf den Fluren laß die Winde los.
Befiel den letzten Früchten voll zu sein;
gib ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage,
dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage
die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein.
Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr.
Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben,
wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben
und wird in den Alleen hin und her
unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben.



Du im Voraus (“You who never arrived”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You who never arrived in my arms, my Belovéd,
lost before love began...

How can I possibly know which songs might please you?

I have given up trying to envision you
in portentous moments before the next wave impacts...
when all the vastness and immenseness within me,
all the far-off undiscovered lands and landscapes,
all the cities, towers and bridges,
all the unanticipated twists and turns in the road,
and all those terrible terrains once traversed by strange gods—
engender new meaning in me:
your meaning, my enigmatic darling...

You, who continually elude me.

You, my Belovéd,
who are every garden I ever gazed upon,
longingly, through some country manor’s open window,
so that you almost stepped out, pensively, to meet me;
who are every sidestreet I ever chanced upon,
even though you’d just traipsed tantalizingly away, and vanished,
while the disconcerted shopkeepers’ mirrors
still dizzily reflected your image, flashing you back at me,
startled by my unwarranted image!

Who knows, but perhaps the same songbird’s cry
echoed through us both,
yesterday, separate as we were, that evening?

Du im Voraus

Du im Voraus
verlorne Geliebte, Nimmergekommene,
nicht weiß ich, welche Töne dir lieb sind.
Nicht mehr versuch ich, dich, wenn das Kommende wogt,
zu erkennen. Alle die großen
Bildern in mir, im Fernen erfahrene Landschaft,
Städte und Türme und Brücken und un-
vermutete Wendung der Wege
und das Gewaltige jener von Göttern
einst durchwachsenen Länder:
steigt zur Bedeutung in mir
deiner, Entgehende, an.

Ach, die Gärten bist du,
ach, ich sah sie mit solcher
Hoffnung. Ein offenes Fenster
im Landhaus—, und du tratest beinahe
mir nachdenklich heran. Gassen fand ich,—
du warst sie gerade gegangen,
und die spiegel manchmal der Läden der Händler
waren noch schwindlich von dir und gaben erschrocken
mein zu plötzliches Bild.—Wer weiß, ob derselbe
Vogel nicht hinklang durch uns
gestern, einzeln, im Abend?



Der Panther ("The Panther")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars,
his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion.
His world is not our world. It has no stars.
No light. Ten thousand bars. Nothing beyond.
Lithe, swinging with a rhythmic easy stride,
he circles, his small orbit tightening,
an electron losing power. Paralyzed,
soon regal Will stands stunned, an abject thing.
Only at times the pupils' curtains rise
silently, and then an image enters,
descends through arrested shoulders, plunges, centers
somewhere within his empty heart, and dies.



Komm, Du (“Come, You”)
by Ranier Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the Valmont Sanatorium, of leukemia and its complications. I had a friend who died of leukemia and he was burning up with fever in the end. I believe that is what Rilke was describing here: he was literally burning alive.

Come, you—the last one I acknowledge; return—
incurable pain searing this physical mesh.
As I burned in the spirit once, so now I burn
with you; meanwhile, you consume my flesh.

This wood that long resisted your embrace
now nourishes you; I surrender to your fury
as my gentleness mutates to hellish rage—
uncaged, wild, primal, mindless, outré.

Completely free, no longer future’s pawn,
I clambered up this crazy pyre of pain,
certain I’d never return—my heart’s reserves gone—
to become death’s nameless victim, purged by flame.

Now all I ever was must be denied.
I left my memories of my past elsewhere.
That life—my former life—remains outside.
Inside, I’m lost. Nobody knows me here.

Komm, Du

Komm du, du letzter, den ich anerkenne,
heilloser Schmerz im leiblichen Geweb:
wie ich im Geiste brannte, sieh, ich brenne
in dir; das Holz hat lange widerstrebt,
der Flamme, die du loderst, zuzustimmen,
nun aber nähr’ ich dich und brenn in dir.
Mein hiesig Mildsein wird in deinem Grimmen
ein Grimm der Hölle nicht von hier.
Ganz rein, ganz planlos frei von Zukunft stieg
ich auf des Leidens wirren Scheiterhaufen,
so sicher nirgend Künftiges zu kaufen
um dieses Herz, darin der Vorrat schwieg.
Bin ich es noch, der da unkenntlich brennt?
Erinnerungen reiß ich nicht herein.
O Leben, Leben: Draußensein.
Und ich in Lohe. Niemand der mich kennt.



Liebes-Lied (“Love Song”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How can I withhold my soul so that it doesn’t touch yours?
How can I lift mine gently to higher things, alone?
Oh, I would gladly find something lost in the dark
in that inert space that fails to resonate until you vibrate.
There everything that moves us, draws us together like a bow
enticing two taut strings to sing together with a simultaneous voice.
Whose instrument are we becoming together?
Whose, the hands that excite us?
Ah, sweet song!

Liebes-Lied

Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, daß
sie nicht an deine rührt? Wie soll ich sie
hinheben über dich zu andern Dingen?
Ach gerne möcht ich sie bei irgendwas
Verlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen
an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die
nicht weiterschwingt, wenn deine Tiefen schwingen.
Doch alles, was uns anrührt, dich und mich,
nimmt uns zusammen wie ein Bogenstrich,
der aus zwei Saiten eine Stimme zieht.
Auf welches Instrument sind wir gespannt?
Und welcher Geiger hat uns in der Hand?
O süßes Lied.



Das Lied des Bettlers (“The Beggar’s Song”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I live outside your gates,
exposed to the rain, exposed to the sun;
sometimes I’ll cradle my right ear
in my right palm;
then when I speak my voice sounds strange,
alien ...

I'm unsure whose voice I’m hearing:
mine or yours.
I implore a trifle;
the poets cry for more.

Sometimes I cover both eyes
and my face disappears;
there it lies heavy in my hands
looking peaceful, instead,
so that no one would ever think
I have no place to lay my head.

Translator's note: I believe the last line may be a reference to a statement made by Jesus Christ in the gospels: that foxes have their dens, but he had no place to lay his head. Rilke may also have had in mind Jesus saying that what someone does "to the least of these" they would also be doing to him.

Das Lied des Bettlers

Ich gehe immer von Tor zu Tor,
verregnet und verbrannt;
auf einmal leg ich mein rechtes Ohr
in meine rechte Hand.
Dann kommt mir meine Stimme vor,
als hätt ich sie nie gekannt.

Dann weiß ich nicht sicher, wer da schreit,
ich oder irgendwer.
Ich schreie um eine Kleinigkeit.
Die Dichter schrein um mehr.

Und endlich mach ich noch mein Gesicht
mit beiden Augen zu;
wie's dann in der Hand liegt mit seinem Gewicht
sieht es fast aus wie Ruh.
Damit sie nicht meinen ich hätte nicht,
wohin ich mein Haupt tu.



This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on the Adriatic Sea.

First Elegy
by Ranier Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Who, if I objected, would hear me among the angelic orders?
For if the least One pressed me intimately against its breast,
I would be lost in its infinite Immensity!
Because beauty, which we mortals can barely endure, is the beginning of terror;
we stand awed when it benignly declines to annihilate us.
Every Angel is terrifying!

And so I restrain myself, swallowing the sound of my pitiful sobbing.
For whom may we turn to, in our desire?
Not to Angels, nor to men, and already the sentient animals are aware
that we are all aliens in this metaphorical existence.
Perhaps some tree still stands on a hillside, which we can study with our ordinary vision.
Perhaps the commonplace street still remains amid man’s fealty to materiality—
the concrete items that never destabilize.
Oh, and of course there is the night: her dark currents caress our faces ...

But whom, then, do we live for?
That longed-for but mildly disappointing presence the lonely heart so desperately desires?
Is life any less difficult for lovers?
They only use each other to avoid their appointed fates!
How can you fail to comprehend?
Fling your arms’ emptiness into this space we occupy and inhale:
may birds fill the expanded air with more intimate flying!

Yes, the springtime still requires you.
Perpetually a star waits for you to recognize it.
A wave recedes toward you from the distant past,
or as you walk beneath an open window, a violin yields virginally to your ears.
All this was preordained. But how can you incorporate it? ...
Weren't you always distracted by expectations, as if every event presaged some new beloved?
(Where can you harbor, when all these enormous strange thoughts surging within you keep
you up all night, restlessly rising and falling?)

When you are full of yearning, sing of loving women, because their passions are finite;
sing of forsaken women (and how you almost envy them)
because they could love you more purely than the ones you left gratified.

Resume the unattainable exaltation; remember: the hero survives;
even his demise was merely a stepping stone toward his latest rebirth.

But spent and exhausted Nature withdraws lovers back into herself,
as if lacking the energy to recreate them.
Have you remembered Gaspara Stampa with sufficient focus—
how any abandoned girl might be inspired by her fierce example
and might ask herself, "How can I be like her?"

Shouldn't these ancient sufferings become fruitful for us?
Shouldn’t we free ourselves from the beloved,
quivering, as the arrow endures the bowstring's tension,
so that in the snap of release it soars beyond itself?
For there is nowhere else where we can remain.

Voices! Voices!

Listen, heart, as levitating saints once listened,
until the elevating call soared them heavenward;
and yet they continued kneeling, unaware, so complete was their concentration.

Not that you could endure God's voice—far from it!

But heed the wind’s voice and the ceaseless formless message of silence:
It murmurs now of the martyred young.

Whenever you attended a church in Naples or Rome,
didn't they come quietly to address you?
And didn’t an exalted inscription impress its mission upon you
recently, on the plaque in Santa Maria Formosa?
What they require of me is that I gently remove any appearance of injustice—
which at times slightly hinders their souls from advancing.

Of course, it is endlessly strange to no longer inhabit the earth;
to relinquish customs one barely had the time to acquire;
not to see in roses and other tokens a hopeful human future;
no longer to be oneself, cradled in infinitely caring hands;
to set aside even one's own name,
forgotten as easily as a child’s broken plaything.

How strange to no longer desire one's desires!
How strange to see meanings no longer cohere, drifting off into space.
Dying is difficult and requires retrieval before one can gradually decipher eternity.

The living all err in believing the too-sharp distinctions they create themselves.

Angels (men say) don't know whether they move among the living or the dead.
The eternal current merges all ages in its maelstrom
until the voices of both realms are drowned out in its thunderous roar.

In the end, the early-departed no longer need us:
they are weaned gently from earth's agonies and ecstasies,
as children outgrow their mothers’ *******.

But we, who need such immense mysteries,
and for whom grief is so often the source of our spirit's progress—
how can we exist without them?

Is the legend of the lament for Linos meaningless—
the daring first notes of the song pierce our apathy;
then, in the interlude, when the youth, lovely as a god, has suddenly departed forever,
we experience the emptiness of the Void for the first time—
that harmony which now enraptures and comforts and aids us?



Second Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you,
one of the soul’s lethal raptors, well aware of your nature.
As in the days of Tobias, when one of you, obscuring his radiance,
stood at the simple threshold, appearing ordinary rather than appalling
while the curious youth peered through the window.
But if the Archangel emerged today, perilous, from beyond the stars
and took even one step toward us, our hammering hearts
would pound us to death. What are you?

Who are you? Joyous from the beginning;
God’s early successes; Creation’s favorites;
creatures of the heights; pollen of the flowering godhead; cusps of pure light;
stately corridors; rising stairways; exalted thrones;
filling space with your pure essence; crests of rapture;
shields of ecstasy; storms of tumultuous emotions whipped into whirlwinds ...
until one, acting alone, recreates itself by mirroring the beauty of its own countenance.

While we, when deeply moved, evaporate;
we exhale ourselves and fade away, growing faint like smoldering embers;
we drift away like the scent of smoke.
And while someone might say: “You’re in my blood! You occupy this room!
You fill this entire springtime!” ... Still, what becomes of us?
We cannot be contained; we vanish whether inside or out.
And even the loveliest, who can retain them?

Resemblance ceaselessly rises, then is gone, like dew from dawn’s grasses.
And what is ours drifts away, like warmth from a steaming dish.
O smile, where are you bound?
O heavenward glance: are you a receding heat wave, a ripple of the heart?
Alas, but is this not what we are?
Does the cosmos we dissolve into savor us?
Do the angels reabsorb only the radiance they emitted themselves,
or sometimes, perhaps by oversight, traces of our being as well?
Are we included in their features, as obscure as the vague looks on the faces of pregnant women?
Do they notice us at all (how could they) as they reform themselves?

Lovers, if they only knew how, might mutter marvelous curses into the night air.
For it seems everything eludes us.
See: the trees really do exist; our houses stand solid and firm.
And yet we drift away, like weightless sighs.
And all creation conspires to remain silent about us: perhaps from shame, perhaps some inexpressible hope?

Lovers, gratified by each other, I ask to you consider:
You cling to each other, but where is your proof of a connection?
Sometimes my hands become aware of each other
and my time-worn, exhausted face takes shelter in them,
creating a slight sensation.
But because of that, can I still claim to be?

You, the ones who writhe with each other’s passions
until, overwhelmed, someone begs: “No more!...”;
You who swell beneath each other’s hands like autumn grapes;
You, the one who dwindles as the other increases:
I ask you to consider ...
I know you touch each other so ardently because each caress preserves pure continuance,
like the promise of eternity, because the flesh touched does not disappear.
And yet, when you have survived the terror of initial intimacy,
the first lonely vigil at the window, the first walk together through the blossoming garden:
lovers, do you not still remain who you were before?
If you lift your lips to each other’s and unite, potion to potion,
still how strangely each drinker eludes the magic.

Weren’t you confounded by the cautious human gestures on Attic gravestones?
Weren’t love and farewell laid so lightly on shoulders they seemed composed of some ethereal substance unknown to us today?
Consider those hands, how weightlessly they rested, despite the powerful torsos.
The ancient masters knew: “We can only go so far, in touching each other. The gods can exert more force. But that is their affair.”
If only we, too, could discover such a pure, contained Eden for humanity,
our own fruitful strip of soil between river and rock.
For our hearts have always exceeded us, as our ancestors’ did.
And we can no longer trust our own eyes, when gazing at godlike bodies, our hearts find a greater repose.



Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Excerpt from “To the Moon”
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translations/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Scattered, pole to starry pole,
glide Cynthia's mild beams,
whispering to the receptive soul
whatever moonbeams mean.

Bathing valley, hill and dale
with her softening light,
loosening from earth’s frigid chains
my restless heart tonight!

Over the landscape, near and far,
broods darkly glowering night;
yet welcoming as Friendship’s eye,
she, soft!, bequeaths her light.

Touched in turn by joy and pain,
my startled heart responds,
then floats, as Whimsy paints each scene,
to soar with her, beyond...

I mean Whimsy in the sense of both the Romantic Imagination and caprice. Here, I have the idea of Peter Pan flying off with Tinker Bell to Neverland.

My translation was informed by a translation by John S. Dwight.



Der Erlkönig (“The Elf King”)
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translations/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Who rides tonight with the wind so wild?
A loving father, holding his child.
Please say the boy’s safe from all evil and harm!
He rests secure in his dear father’s arms.

My son, my son, what’s that look on your face?
Father, he’s there, in that dark, scary place!
The elfin king! With his dagger and crown!
Son, it’s only the mist, there’s no need to frown.

My dear little boy, you must come play with me!
Such marvelous games! We’ll play and be free!
Many bright flowers we'll gather together!
Son, why are you wincing? It’s only the weather.

Father, O father, how could you not hear
What the elfin king said to me, drawing so near?
Be quiet, my son, and pay “him” no heed:
It was only the wind gusts stirring the trees.

Come with me now, you're a fine little lad!
My daughters will kiss you, then you’ll be glad!
My daughters will teach you to dance and to sing!
They’ll call you a prince and give you a ring!

Father, please look, in the gloom, don’t you see
The dark elfin daughters keep beckoning me?
My son, all I can see and all I can say
Is the wind makes the grey willows sway.

Why stay with your father? He’s deaf, blind and dumb!
If you’re unwilling I’ll force you to come!
Father, he’s got me and won’t let me go!
The cruel elfin king is hurting me so!

At last struck with horror his father looks down:
His gasping son’s holding a strange golden crown!
Then homeward through darkness, all the faster he sped,
But cold in his arms, his dear child lay dead.



The Fisher
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The river swirled and rippled;
nearby an angler lay,
and watched his lure with a careless eye,
like any other day.
But as he watched in a strange half-dream,
he saw the waters part,
and from the river’s depths emerged
a maiden, or a ****.

A Lorelei, she sang to him
her strange, bewitching song:
“Which of my sisters would you snare,
with your human hands, so strong?
To make us die in scorching air,
ripped from our land, so clear!
Why not leave your arid land
And rest forever here?”

“The sun and lady-moon, they lave
their tresses in the main,
and find such cleansing in each wave,
they return twice bright again.
These deep-blue waters, fresh and clear,
O, feel their strong allure!
Wouldn’t you rather sink and drown
into our land, so pure?”

The water swirled and bubbled up;
it lapped his naked feet;
he imagined that he felt the touch
of the siren’s kisses sweet.
She sang to him of mysteries
in her soft, resistless strain,
till he sank into the water
and never was seen again.

My translation was informed by a translation by William Edmondstoune Aytoun and Theodore Martin.



Kennst du das Land (“Do You Know the Land”)
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Do you know of the land where the bright lemons bloom?
Where the orange glows gold in the occult gloom?
Where the gentlest winds fan the palest blue skies?
Where the myrtles and laurels elegantly rise?



Excerpt from “Hassan Aga”
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What whiteness shimmers, distant on the lea?
Could it be snow? Or is it swans we see?
Snow? Melted with a recent balmy day.
Swans? All departed, long since flown away.
Neither snow, nor swans! What can it be?
The tent of Hassan Aga, shining!
There the wounded warrior lies, repining.
His mother and sisters to his side have come,
But his shame-faced wife weeps for herself, at home.



Excerpt from “The Song of the Spirits over the Waters”
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Wind is water's
amorous pursuer:
the Wind, upswept,
heaves waves from their depths.
And you, mortal soul,
how you resemble water!
And a mortal’s Fate,
how alike the wind!

My translation was informed by a translation by John S. Dwight.



Excerpt from “One and All”
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

How the solitary soul yearns
to merge into the Infinite
and find itself once more at peace.
Rid of blind desire & the impatient will,
our restless thoughts and plans are stilled.
We yield our Selves, then awake in bliss.

My translation was informed by a translation by John S. Dwight.



Prometheus
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

obscure Your heavens, Zeus, with a nebulous haze!
and, like boys beheading thistles, decapitate oaks and alps.

yet leave me the earth with its rude dwellings
and my hut You didn’t build.
also my hearth, whose cheerful glow You envy.

i know nothing more pitiful under the sun than these vampiric godlings!
undernourished with insufficient sacrifices and airy prayers!

my poor Majesty, if not for a few fools' hopes,
those of children and beggars,
You would starve!

when i was a child, i didn't know up from down,
and my eye strayed erratically toward the sun strobing high above,
as if the heavens had ears to hear my lamentations,
and a heart like mine, to feel pity for the oppressed.

who assisted me when i stood alone against the Titans' insolence?
who saved me from slavery, or, otherwise, from death?
didn’t you handle everything yourself, my radiant heart?
how you shone then, so innocent and holy,
even though deceived and expressing thanks to a listless Entity above.

revere you, zeus? for what?
when did u ever ease my afflictions, or those of the oppressed?
when did u ever stanch the tears of the anguished, the fears of the frightened?
didn’t omnipotent Time and eternal Fate forge my manhood?

my masters and urs likewise?

u were deluded if u thought I would hate life
or flee into faraway deserts,
just because so few of my boyish dreams blossomed.

now here I sit, fashioning Humans in My own Image,
creating a Race like Myself,
who, for all Their suffering and weeping,
for all Their happiness and rejoicing,
in the end shall pay u no heed,
like Me!



Nähe des Geliebten (“Near His Beloved”)
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I think of you when the sun
shines softly on me;
also when the moon
silvers each tree.

I see you in the spirit
the shimmering dust resembles;
also at the stroke of twelve
when the night watchman trembles.

I hear you in the sighing
of the restless, surging seas;
also in the quiet groves
when everything’s at peace.

I am with you, though so far!
Yet I know you’re always near.
Oh what I'd yield, as sun to star,
to have you here!

Ich denke dein, wenn mir der Sonne Schimmer
Vom Meere strahlt;
Ich denke dein, wenn sich des Mondes Flimmer
In Quellen malt.

Ich sehe dich, wenn auf dem fernen Wege
Der Staub sich hebt;
In tiefer Nacht, wenn auf dem schmalen Stege
Der Wandrer bebt.

Ich höre dich, wenn dort mit dumpfem Rauschen
Die Welle steigt.
Im stillen Haine geh ich oft zu lauschen,
Wenn alles schweigt.

Ich bin bei dir, du seist auch noch so ferne.
Du bist mir nah!
Die Sonne sinkt, bald leuchten mir die Sterne.
O wärst du da!



Gefunden (“Found”)
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Into the woodlands,
alone, I went.
Seeking nothing,
my sole intent.

But I saw a flower
deep in the shade
gleaming like starlight
in a still glade.

I reached down to pluck it
when it shyly asked:
“Why would you snap me
so cruelly in half?”

So I dug up the flower,
by the roots and all,
then planted it gently
by the garden wall.

Now in a dark corner
where I planted the flower,
it blooms just as brightly
to this very hour.

Ich ging im Walde
So für mich hin,
Und nichts zu suchen,
Das war mein Sinn.

Im Schatten sah ich
Ein Blümchen stehn,
Wie Sterne leuchtend
Wie Äuglein schön.

Ich wollt es brechen,
Da sagt' es fein:
Soll ich zum Welken,
Gebrochen sein?

Ich grubs mit allen
Den Würzeln aus,
Zum Garten trug ichs
Am hübschen Haus.

Und pflanzt es wieder
Am stillen Ort;
Nun zweigt es immer
Und blüht so fort.



Wandrers Nachtlied (“Wanderer’s Night Song”)
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
From the hilltops
comes peace;
through the treetops
scarcely the wind breathes.
Do you feel the lassitude touch you?
The little birds grow silent in the forest.
Wait, soon you’ll rest too.

2.
From the distant hilltops
comes peaceful repose;
through the swaying treetops
a calming wind blows.
Do you feel the lassitude touch you?
The birds grow silent in the forest.
Wait, soon you’ll rest too.

Über allen Gipfeln
ist Ruh’
in allen Wipfeln
spürest du
kaum einen Hauch.
Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte, nur balde
ruhest du auch.



Wandrers Nachtlied (“Wanderer’s Night Song”)
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
You who descend from heaven,
calming all suffering and pain,
the one who doubly refreshes
those who are doubly disconsolate;
I’m so weary of useless contention!
Why all this pain and lust?
Sweet peace descending,
Come, oh, come into my breast!

2.
You who descend from heaven,
calming all suffering and pain,
the one who doubly refreshes
those who are doubly disconsolate;
I’m so **** tired of this muddle!
What’s the point of all this pain and lust?
Sweet peace,
Come, oh, come into my breast!

Der du von dem Himmel bist,
Alles Leid und Schmerzen stillest,
Den, der doppelt elend ist,
Doppelt mit Erquickung füllest,
Ach, ich bin des Treibens müde!
Was soll all der Schmerz und Lust?
Süßer Friede,
Komm, ach komm in meine Brust!



ON LOOKING AT SCHILLER’S SKULL
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Here in this charnel-house full of bleaching bones,
like yesteryear’s
fading souvenirs,
I see the skulls arranged in strange ordered rows.

Who knows whose owners might have beheaded peers,
packed tightly here
despite once repellent hate?
Here weaponless, they stand, in this gentled state.

These arms and hands, they once were so delicate!
How articulately
they moved! Ah me!
What athletes once paced about on these padded feet?

Still there’s no hope of rest for you, lost souls!
Deprived of graves,
forced here like slaves
to occupy this overworld, unlamented ghouls!

Now who’s to know who loved one orb here detained?
Except for me;
reader, hear my plea:
I know the grandeur of the mind it contained!

Yes, and I know the impulse true love would stir
here, where I stand
in this alien land
surrounded by these husks, like a treasurer!

Even in this cold,
in this dust and mould
I am startled by a strange, ancient reverie, ...
as if this shrine to death could quicken me!

One shape out of the past keeps calling me
with its mystery!
Still retaining its former angelic grace!
And at that ecstatic sight, I am back at sea ...

Swept by that current to where immortals race.
O secret vessel, you
gave Life its truth.
It falls on me now to recall your expressive face.

I turn away, abashed here by what I see:
this mould was worth
more than all the earth.
Let me breathe fresh air and let my wild thoughts run free!

What is there better in this dark Life than he
who gives us a sense of man’s divinity,
of his place in the universe?
A man who’s both flesh and spirit—living verse!



To The Muse
by Friedrich Schiller
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I do not know what I would be,
without you, gentle Muse!,
but I’m sick at heart to see
those who disabuse.



GOETHE & SCHILLER XENIA EPIGRAMS

She says an epigram’s too terse
to reveal her tender heart in verse …
but really, darling, ain’t the thrill
of a kiss much shorter still?
―#2 from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There are more translations of the Xenia epigrams of Goethe and Schiller later on this page.



Through the fields of solitude
by Hermann Allmers
set to music by Johannes Brahms
translation by David B. Gosselin with Michael R. Burch

Peacefully, I rest in the tall green grass
For a long time only gazing as I lie,
Caught in the endless hymn of crickets,
And encircled by a wonderful blue sky.

And the lovely white clouds floating across
The depths of the heavens are like silky lace;
I feel as though my soul has long since fled,
Softly drifting with them through eternal space.

This poem was set to music by the German composer Johannes Brahms in what has been called its “the most sublime incarnation.” A celebrated recording of the song was made in 1958 by the baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Jörg Demus accompanying him on the piano.



Hannah Arendt was a Jewish-German philosopher and Holocaust survivor who also wrote poetry.

H.B.
for Hermann Broch
by Hannah Arendt
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Survival.
But how does one live without the dead?
Where is the sound of their lost company?
Where now, their companionable embraces?
We wish they were still with us.

We are left with the cry that ripped them away from us.
Left with the veil that shrouds their empty gazes.
What avails? That we commit ourselves to their memories,
and through this commitment, learn to survive.

I Love the Earth
by Hannah Arendt
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I love the earth
like a trip
to a foreign land
and not otherwise.
Even so life spins me
on its loom softly
into never-before-seen patterns.
Until suddenly
like the last farewells of a new journey,
the great silence breaks the frame.



Bertolt Brecht fled **** Germany along with Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann and many other German intellectuals. So he was writing from bitter real-life experience.

The Burning of the Books
by Bertolt Brecht, a German poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned,
teams of dull oxen hauled huge cartloads to the bonfires.

Then a banished writer, one of the best,
scanning the list of excommunicated texts,
became enraged — he'd been excluded!

He rushed to his desk, full of contemptuous wrath,
to write fiery letters to the incompetents in power —
Burn me! he wrote with his blazing pen —
Haven't I always reported the truth?
Now here you are, treating me like a liar!
Burn me!

Parting
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We embrace;
my fingers trace
rich cloth
while yours encounter only moth-
eaten fabric.
A quick hug:
you were invited to the gay soiree
while the minions of the "law" relentlessly pursue me.
We talk about the weather
and our eternal friendship's magic.
Anything else would be too bitter,
too tragic.

The Mask of Evil
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A Japanese carving hangs on my wall —
the mask of an ancient demon, limned with golden lacquer.
Not altogether unsympathetically, I observe
the bulging veins of its forehead, noting
the grotesque effort it takes to be evil.

Radio Poem
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You, little box, held tightly
to me,
escaping,
so that your delicate tubes do not break;
carried from house to house, from ship to train,
so that my enemies may continue communicating with me
on land and at sea
and even in my bed, to my pain;
the last thing I hear at night, the first when I awake,
recounting their many conquests and my litany of cares,
promise me not to go silent all of a sudden,
unawares.



These are three English translations of Holocaust poems written in German by the Jewish poet Paul Celan. The first poem, "Todesfuge" in the original German, is one of the most famous Holocaust poems, with its haunting refrain of a German "master of death" killing Jews by day and writing "Your golden hair Margarete" by starlight. The poem demonstrates how terrible things can become when one human being is granted absolute power over other human beings. Paul Celan was the pseudonym of Paul Antschel. (Celan is an anagram of Ancel, the Romanian form of his surname.) Celan was born in Czernovitz, Romania in 1920. The son of German-speaking Jews, Celan spoke German, Romanian, Russian, French and understood Yiddish. During the Holocaust, his parents were deported and eventually died in **** labor camps; Celan spent eighteen months in a **** concentration camp before escaping.

Todesfuge ("Death Fugue")
by Paul Celan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Black milk of daybreak, we drink it come morning;
we drink it come midday; we drink it, come night;
we drink it and drink it.
We are digging a grave like a hole in the sky; there's sufficient room to lie there.
The man of the house plays with vipers; he writes
in the Teutonic darkness, "Your golden hair Margarete …"
He writes poems by the stars, whistles hounds to stand by,
whistles Jews to dig graves, where together they'll lie.
He commands us to strike up bright tunes for the dance!

Black milk of daybreak, we drink you each morning;
we drink you at midday; we drink you at night;
we drink you and drink you.
The man of the house plays with serpents, he writes …
he writes when the night falls, "Your golden hair Margarete …
Your ashen hair Shulamith …"
We are digging dark graves where there's more room, on high.
His screams, "You dig there!" and "Hey you, dance and sing!"
He grabs his black nightstick, his eyes pallid blue,
cries, "Hey you, dig more deeply! You others, keep dancing!"

Black milk of daybreak, we drink you each morning;
we drink you at midday, we drink you at night;
we drink you and drink you.
The man of the house writes, "Your golden hair Margarete …
Your ashen hair Shulamith." He toys with our lives.
He screams, "Play for me! Death's a master of Germany!"
His screams, "Stroke dark strings, soon like black smoke you'll rise
to a grave in the clouds; there's sufficient room for Jews there!"

Black milk of daybreak, we drink you at midnight;
we drink you at noon; Death's the master of Germany!
We drink you come evening; we drink you and drink you …
a master of Deutschland, with eyes deathly blue.
With bullets of lead our pale master will ****** you!
He writes when the night falls, "Your golden hair Margarete …"
He unleashes his hounds, grants us graves in the skies.
He plays with his serpents; he's a master of Germany …

your golden hair Margarete …
your ashen hair Shulamith.

O, Little Root of a Dream
by Paul Celan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

O, little root of a dream
you enmire me here;
I'm undermined by blood —
no longer seen,
enslaved by death.

Touch the curve of my face,
that there may yet be an earthly language of ardor,
that someone else's eyes
may see yet see me,
though I'm blind,
here where you
deny me voice.

You Were My Death
by Paul Celan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You were my death;
I could hold you
when everything abandoned me —
even breath.



“To Young”
for Edward Young, the poet who wrote “Night Thoughts”
by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Die, aged prophet: your crowning work your fulcrum;
now tears of joy
tremble on angel-lids
as heaven extends its welcome.

Why linger here? Have you not already built, great Mover,
a monument beyond the clouds?
Now over your night-thoughts, too,
the pallid free-thinkers hover,

feeling there's prophecy amid your song
as it warns of the dead-awakening trump,
of the coming final doom,
and heaven’s eternal wisdom.

Die: you have taught me Death’s dread name, elide,
bears notes of joy to the ears of the just!
Yet remain my teacher still,
become my genius and guide.

My translation was informed by a translation by William Taylor.



Excerpts from “The Choirs”
by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dear Dream, which I must never behold fulfilled,
pale diaphanous Mist, yet brighter than orient day!,
float back to me, and hover yet again
before my swimming sight!

Do they wear crowns in vain, those who forbear
to recognize your heavenly portraiture?
Must they be encased in marble, one and all,
ere the transfiguration be wrought?

Yes! For would the grave allow, I’d always sing
with inspiration stringing the lyre,—
amid your Vision’s tidal joy,
my pledge for loftier verse.

Great is your power, my Desire! Few have ever known
how it feels to melt in bliss; fewer still have ever felt
devotion’s raptures rise
on sacred Music’s wing!

Few have trembled with joy as adoring choirs
mingled their hallowed songs of heartfelt praise
(punctuated by each awe-full pause)
with unseen choirs above!

On each arched eyelash, on each burning cheek,
the fledgling tear quivers; for they imagine the goal,—
each shimmering golden crown
where angels wave their palms.

Deep, strong, the song seizes swelling hearts,
never scorning the tears it imbues,
whether shrouding souls in gloom
or steeping them in holy awe.

Borne on the deep, slow sounds, now holy awe
descends. Myriad voices sweep the assembly,
blending their choral force,—
their theme, Impending Doom!

Joy, Joy! They can scarcely bear it!
The *****’s thunder roundly rolls,—
louder and louder, to the congregations’ cries,
till the temple also trembles.

Enough! I sink! The wave of worshipers bows
before the altar,—bows low to the earth;
they taste the communal cup,
then drink devoutly, deeply, still.

One day, when my bones rest beside this church
as the assembled worshipers sing their songs of praise,
the conscious grave shall acknowledge their vision
with heaves of sweet flowerets in bloom.

And on that morning, ringing through the rocks,
as hymns are sung in praise, O, joyous tune!,
I’ll hear—“He rose again!”
Vibrating through my tomb.

My translation was informed by a translation by William Taylor.



A Lonely Cot
by Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim (1719-1803)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A lonely cot is all I own:
it stands on grass that’s never mown
beside a brook (it’s passing small),
near where bright frothing fountains fall.

Here a spreading beech lifts up its head
and half conceals my humble shed:
from winter winds my sole retreat
and refuge from the summer’s heat.

In the beech’s boughs the nightingale
sweetly sings her plaintive tale:
so sweetly, passing rustics stray
with loitering steps to catch her lay!

Sweet blue-eyed maid with hair so fair,
my heart's desire! my fondest care!
I hurry home—How late the hour!
Come share, sweet maid, my sheltering bower!



Excerpts from “Song”
by Johann Georg Jacobi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Friend, tell me where the violet fled,
so lately gaily blowing?
That once perfumed fair Flora’s tread,
its choicest scents bestowing?
Swain, give up verse and hang your head:
the violet lies dead!

Friend, what became of the blushing rose,
the pride of the blossoming morning?
The garland every groom bestows
upon his blushing darling?
Swain, give up verse and hang your head:
the rose lies dead!

And say, what of the village maid,
so late my cot adorning?
The one I assayed in our secret glade,
as pale and fair as the morning?
Swain, give up verse and hang your head:
the erstwhile maid lies dead!

Friend, what became of the gentle swain
who sang, in rural measures,
of the lovely violet, blushing rose,
and girls like exotic treasures?
Maid, close his book and hang your head:
the swain lies dead!



Dunkles zu sagen (“Expressing the Dark”)
by Ingeborg Bachmann, an Austrian poet
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I strum the strings of life and death
like Orpheus
and in the beauty of the earth
and in your eyes that instruct the sky,
I find only dark things to say.

Untitled

The dark shadow
I followed from the beginning
led me into the deep barrenness of winter.
—Ingeborg Bachmann, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller

#2 - Love Poetry

She says an epigram’s too terse
to reveal her tender heart in verse ...
but really, darling, ain’t the thrill
of a kiss much shorter still?
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#5 - Criticism

Why don’t I openly criticize the man? Because he’s a friend;
thus I reproach him in silence, as I do my own heart.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#11 - Holiness

What is holiest? This heart-felt love
binding spirits together, now and forever.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#12 - Love versus Desire

You love what you have, and desire what you lack
because a rich nature expands, while a poor one contracts.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#19 - Nymph and Satyr

As shy as the trembling doe your horn frightens from the woods,
she flees the huntsman, fainting, uncertain of love.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#20 - Desire

What stirs the ******’s heaving ******* to sighs?
What causes your bold gaze to brim with tears?
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#23 - The Apex I

Everywhere women yield to men, but only at the apex
do the manliest men surrender to femininity.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#24 - The Apex II

What do we mean by the highest? The crystalline clarity of triumph
as it shines from the brow of a woman, from the brow of a goddess.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#25 -Human Life

Young sailors brave the sea beneath ten thousand sails
while old men drift ashore on any bark that avails.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#35 - Dead Ahead

What’s the hardest thing of all to do?
To see clearly with your own eyes what’s ahead of you.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#36 - Unexpected Consequence

Friends, before you utter the deepest, starkest truth, please pause,
because straight away people will blame you for its cause.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

#41 - Earth vs. Heaven

By doing good, you nurture humanity;
but by creating beauty, you scatter the seeds of divinity.
―from “Xenia” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch



Unholy Trinity
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Man has three enemies:
himself, the world, and the devil.
Of these the first is, by far,
the most irresistible evil.

True Wealth
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

There is more to being rich
than merely having;
the wealthiest man can lose
everything not worth saving.

The Rose
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose merely blossoms
and never asks why:
heedless of her beauty,
careless of every eye.

The Rose
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The rose lack "reasons"
and merely sways with the seasons;
she has no ego
but whoever put on such a show?

Eternal Time
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Eternity is time,
time eternity,
except when we
are determined to "see."

Visions
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Our souls possess two eyes:
one examines time,
the other visions
eternal and sublime.

Godless
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

God is absolute Nothingness
beyond our sense of time and place;
the more we try to grasp Him,
The more He flees from our embrace.

The Source
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Water is pure and clean
when taken at the well-head:
but drink too far from the Source
and you may well end up dead.

Ceaseless Peace
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unceasingly you seek
life's ceaseless wavelike motion;
I seek perpetual peace, all storms calmed.
Whose is the wiser notion?

Well Written
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Friend, cease!
Abandon all pretense!
You must yourself become
the Writing and the Sense.

Worm Food
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

No worm is buried
so deep within the soil
that God denies it food
as reward for its toil.

Mature Love
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

New love, like a sparkling wine, soon fizzes.
Mature love, calm and serene, abides.

God's Predicament
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

God cannot condemn those with whom he would dwell,
or He would have to join them in hell!

Clods
by Angelus Silesius
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A ruby
is not lovelier
than a dirt clod,
nor an angel
more glorious
than a frog.



Günter Grass

Günter Wilhelm Grass (1927-) is a German-Kashubian novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is widely regarded as Germany's most famous living writer. Grass is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum (1959), a key text in European magic realism. The Tin Drum was adapted into a film that won both the Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The Swedish Academy, upon awarding Grass the Nobel Prize in Literature, noted him as a writer "whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history."

“Was gesagt werden muss” (“What must be said”)
by Günter Grass
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Why have I remained silent, so long,
failing to mention something openly practiced
in war games which now threaten to leave us
merely meaningless footnotes?

Someone’s alleged “right” to strike first
might annihilate a beleaguered nation
whose people march to a martinet’s tune,
compelled to pageants of orchestrated obedience.
Why? Merely because of the suspicion
that a bomb might be built by Iranians.

But why do I hesitate, forbidding myself
to name that other nation, where, for years
—shrouded in secrecy—
a formidable nuclear capability has existed
beyond all control, simply because
no inspections were ever allowed?

The universal concealment of this fact
abetted by my own incriminating silence
now feels like a heavy, enforced lie,
an oppressive inhibition, a vice,
a strong constraint, which, if dismissed,
immediately incurs the verdict “anti-Semitism.”

But now my own country,
guilty of its unprecedented crimes
which continually demand remembrance,
once again seeking financial gain
(although with glib lips we call it “reparations”)
has delivered yet another submarine to Israel—
this one designed to deliver annihilating warheads
capable of exterminating all life
where the existence of even a single nuclear weapon remains unproven,
but where suspicion now serves as a substitute for evidence.
So now I will say what must be said.

Why did I remain silent so long?
Because I thought my origins,
tarred by an ineradicable stain,
forbade me to declare the truth to Israel,
a country to which I am and will always remain attached.

Why is it only now that I say,
in my advancing age,
and with my last drop of ink
on the final page
that Israel’s nuclear weapons endanger
an already fragile world peace?

Because tomorrow might be too late,
and so the truth must be heard today.
And because we Germans,
already burdened with many weighty crimes,
could become enablers of yet another,
one easily foreseen,
and thus no excuse could ever erase our complicity.

Furthermore, I’ve broken my silence
because I’m sick of the West’s hypocrisy
and because I hope many others too
will free themselves from the shackles of silence,
and speak out to renounce violence
by insisting on permanent supervision
of Israel’s atomic power and Iran’s
by an international agency
accepted by both governments.

Only thus can we find the path to peace
for Israelis and Palestinians and everyone else
living in a region currently consumed by madness
—and ultimately, for ourselves.

Published in Süddeutschen Zeitung (April 4, 2012)



“Totentanz”
by H. Distler
loose translation/ interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Erster Spruch:
Lass alles, was du hast, auf dass du alles nehmst!
Verschmäh die Welt, dass du sie tausendfach bekömmst!
Im Himmel ist der Tag, im Abgrund ist die Nacht.
Hier ist die Dämmerung: Wohl dem, der's recht betracht!

First Aphorism:
Leave everything, that you may take all!
Scorn the world, that you may receive it a thousandfold!
In the heavens it is day, in the abyss it is night.
Here it is twilight: Blessed is the one who comprehends!

First Aphorism:
Leave everything, that you may take all!
Scorn the world, seize it like a great ball!
In the heavens it is day, in the abyss, night.
Understand if you can: Here it is twilight!

Der Tod: Zum Tanz, zum Tanze reiht euch ein:
Kaiser, Bischof, Bürger, Bauer,
arm und ***** und gross und klein,
heran zu mir! Hilft keine Trauer.
Wohl dem, der rechter Zeit bedacht,
viel gute Werk vor sich zu bringen,
der seiner Sünd sich losgemacht -
Heut heisst's: Nach meiner Pfeife springen!

Death: To the dance, to the dance, take your places:
emperor, bishop, townsman, farmer,
poor and rich, big and small,
come to me! Grief helps nothing.
Blessed is the one who deems the time right
to do many good deeds,
to rid himself of his sins –
Today you must dance to my tune!

Zweiter Spruch:
Mensch, die Figur der Welt vergehet mit der Zeit.
Was trotz'st du dann so viel auf ihre Herrlichkeit?

Second Aphorism:
Man, the world’s figure decays with time.
Why do you go on so much about her glory?

Der Kaiser: O Tod, dein jäh Erscheinen
friert mir das Mark in den Gebeinen.
Mussten Könige, Fürsten, Herren
sich vor mir neigen und mich ehren,
dass ich nun soll ohn Gnade werden
gleichwie du, Tod, ein Schleim der Erden?
Der ich den Menschen Haupt und Schirmer -
du machst aus mir ein Speis' der Würmer.

Emperor:
Oh Death, your sudden appearance
freezes the marrow in my bones.
Did kings, princes and gentlemen
bow down before me and honor me,
that I should I become, without mercy,
just like you, Death, slime of the earth?
I was my people’s leader and protector –
you made me a meal for worms.

Der Tod: Herr Kaiser, warst du der Höchste hier,
voran sollst du tanzen neben mir.
Dein war das Schwert der Gerechtigkeit,
zu schlichten den Streit, zu lindern das Leid;
doch Ruhm- und Ehrsucht machten dich blind,
sahst nicht dein eigen grosse Sünd.
Drum fällt dir mein Ruf so schwer in den Sinn. -
Halt an, Bischof, den Tanz beginn!

Death:
Emperor, you were the highest here,
thus you shall dance next to me.
Yours was the sword of justice,
to settle disputes and alleviate suffering;
but your obsession with fame and glory blinded you,
you failed to see your own immense sinfulness.
Hence my reputation is so difficult for you to comprehend. –
Halt, Bishop, the dance begins!

Dritter Spruch:
Wann du willst gradeswegs ins ew'ge Leben gehn,
so lass die Welt und dich zur linken Seite stehn!

Third Aphorism:
If you would enter directly into eternal life,
leave the world and yourself by the wayside!
These are modern English translations of German poems by Michael R. Burch.

— The End —