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Dreams of Sepia Sep 2015
Duke Ellington's not happy
his Satin doll's not shown up
' Hey have you seen my Satin doll?'
' Look Mister, I'm not ' Lost property'
& why don't you go & sleep it off'
' What?'
' You've got Whiskey
written all over your face, Ellington'
' Gee, ok, but could you spare a few
I need money to get home'
' I'll think about it, in the meantime,
sing me a song
'' Ok. WE WILL WE WILL ROCK YOU'
Based on a true conversation I had a while ago with a drunk ( probably homeless ) man. I thought it was funny because the idea of Duke Ellington singing  Queen's ' We will rock you' was kinda quirky. (I trust everyone knows who Duke Ellington is & one of his most famous musical compositions ' Satin Doll')
Unter den Linden is a particular stretch of Berlin, the name literally translates as ' Beneath the Linden Trees' due to the Linden trees growing there.
Julian Aug 2022
A bisel: A little
A biseleh: A very little
A breyre hob ich: I have no alternative
A breyte deye hob'n: To do all the talking (To have the greatest say or authority)
A broch!: Oh hell! **** it!! A curse!!!
A broch tzu dir!: A curse on you!
A broch tzu Columbus: A curse on Columbus
A brocheh: A blessing
A chazer bleibt a chazer: A pig remains a pig
A chorbn: Oh, what a disaster (Oh ****! an expletive)
A choleryeh ahf dir!: A plague on you! (Lit., wishing someone to get Cholera.)
A deigeh hob ich: I don't care. I should worry.
A farshlepteh krenk: A chronic ailment
A feier zol im trefen: He should burn up! (Lit., A fire should meet him.)
A finstere cholem auf dein kopf und auf dein hent und fiss: (a horrible wish on someone) A dark dream (nightmare) on your head, hands and feet!
A foiler tut in tsveyen: A lazy person has to do a task twice
A gesheft hob nicht: I don't care
A gezunt ahf dein kop!: Good health to you (lit., Good health on your head)
A glick ahf dir!: Good luck to you (Sometimes used sarcastically about minor good fortunes) Big thing!
A glick hot dich getrofen!: Big deal! Sarcastic; lit., A piece of luck happened to you.
A groyser tzuleyger: A big shot (sarcastically.)
A grubber yung: A coarse young man
A kappore: A catastrophe.
A khasuren die kalleh is tsu shayn: A fault that the bride is too beautiful
A klog iz mir!: Woe is me!
A klog tzu meineh sonim!: A curse on my enemies!
A langer lucksh: A tall person (a long noodle)
A leben ahf dein kepele: A life on your head (A grandparent might say to a grandchild meaning "you are SO smart!")
A leben ahf dir!: You should live! And be well!
A lung un leber oyf der noz: Stop talking yourself into illness! (Lit., Don't imagine a lung and a liver upon the nose)
A maidel mit a vayndel: A pony-tailed nymphet.
A maidel mit a klaidel: A cutie-pie showing off her (new) dress.
A mentsh on glik is a toyter mensh: An unlucky person is a dead person.
A mentsh tracht und Gott lacht: A person plans and God laughs.
A metsieh far a ganef: It's a steal (Lit., A bargain for a thief.)
A nahr bleibt a nahr: A fool remains a fool
A nechtiker tog!: Forget it! (Lit., "A day that's a night.")
A nishtikeit!: A nobody!
A piste kayleh: A shallow person (an empty barrel)
A ritch in kop: Crazy (in the head.)
A schwartz yor: Bad luck. (LIT., A black year)
A schwartzen sof: A bad end.
A shandeh un a charpeh: A shame and a disgrace
A shittern mogn: Loose bowel movement
A shtik fleish mit tzvei eigen: A piece of meat with two eyes (insult)
A shtik naches: A great joy
A shtyfer mogn: Constipated
A sof! A sof!: Let's end it ! End it!
A tuches un a halb: A person with a very large backside. (Lit., A backside and a half.)
A volf farlirt zayne hor, ober nit zayn natur: A wolf loses his hair but hot his nature. "A leopard cannot change his spots."
Abi gezunt!: As long as you're healthy!
Achrahyes: Responsibility
Afn gonif brennt das hittel: "He thinks everyone knows he committed a crime." (a thief's hat burns)
Ahf mir gezogt!: I wish it could be said about me!
Ahf tsores: In trouble
Afh yenems tukhes is gut sepatchen: Someone else's *** is easy to smack.
Ahf zu lochis: Spitefully (Lit: Just to get (someone) angry.)
Ahntoisht: Disappointed
Ahzes ponim: Impudent fellow
Aidel: Cultured or finicky
Aidel gepotchket: Delicately brought up
Aidim: Son-in-law
Ainikle: Grandchild
Aitzeh: Advice
Aiver butelt: Absent minded; mixed up
Alaichem sholom: To you be peace. Used in response to the the greeting Shalom aleichem.
Ale:bais - Alphabet; the first two letters of the Jewish alphabet
Alevei!: It should happen to me (to you)!
Alle ziben glicken: Not what it's cracked up to be (all 7 lucky things)
Alles in einem is nisht do bei keine: All in one (person) is to be found in no one.
Alrightnik: One who has succeeded
Alrightnikeh: Feminine form of "alrightnik."
Alteh moid: Spinster, old maid
Alter bocher: Bachelor
Alter bok: Old goat
Alter Kocker: An old man or old woman.
An alteh machashaifeh: An old witch
An alter bakahnter: An old acquaintance
An alter trombenick: An old ***
An emmisse meisse: An (absolutely) true tale
Apikoros: An unbeliever, a skeptic, an athiest
Arbit: Work
Arein: Come in!
Aroisgevorfen: Thrown out, wasted, (wasted opportunities)
Aroisgevorfene gelt: Thrown out money (Wasted money)
Arumgeflickt!: Plucked! Milked!
Arumloifer: Street urchin; person who runs around
Aydem: Son-in-law
Ayn klaynigkeit: Ya, sure!! (very derogatory)
Az a yor ahf mir.: I should have such good luck.
Az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde!: If my grandmother had testicles she would be my grandfather.
Az mir vill schlugen a hunt, gifintmin a schtecken: If one wants to beat a dog, one finds a stick.
Az och un vai!: Tough luck! Too bad! Misfortune!
Az tzvei zuggen shiker, leigst zich der driter shloffen: If two people say you're drunk, the third one goes to sleep. If two people confirm something, it's true.
Azoy?: Really?
Azoy gait es!: That's how it goes!
Azoy gich?: So soon?
Azoy vert dos kichel tzekrochen!: That's how the cookie crumbles!
B
Babka: Coffee cake style pastry
Badchan: Jester, merry maker or master of ceremonies at a wedding; at the end of the meal he announces the presents, lifting them up and praising the giver and the gift in a humorous manner
Bagroben: To bury
Baitsim: Testicles
Balebatim: Persons of high standing
Balbatish: Quiet, respectable, well mannered
Balebatisheh yiden: Respectable Jews, people of substance and good standing in the community
Baleboosteh: Mistress of the house. A compliment to someone who is a terrific housekeeper. "She is some baleboosteh!"
Balegoola: Truckdriver or sloppy person of low standing.
Balmalocha: An expert (sometimes used sarcastically- Oy, is he an expert!)
Balnes: Miracle-worker
Bal Toyreh: Learned man, scholar
Bal: Sure
Bandit: Menace, outlaw, pain-in-the-neck
Bareden yenem: To gossip
Baren (taboo): Fornicate: bother, annoy
Barimer: Braggart, show-off
Bashert: Fated or predestined
Ba:yekhide - A female only child
Bashert zein: To be destined
Batampte: Tasty , delicious
Batlan: Someone without a trade or a regular means of livelihood
Baysn zikh di finger vos: Regret strongly that........
Becher: Wine goblet
Behaimeh: Animal, cow (when referring to a human being, means dull-witted)
Bei mir hust du gepoylt: You've gotten your way with me.
Be:yokhid - A male only child
Benken: "To yearn for" or "to long for."
Benkshaft: Homesickness, nostalgia
Bentsh: To bless, to recite a blessing
Bentshen lecht: Recite prayer over lit candles on Sabbath eve or Holy Day candles
Beryeh: Efficient, competent housewife
Bes medresh: Synagogue
Bialy: Named for the Polish city of Bialystock, the bialy is of Jewish origin. A Bialy is a fairly large (about 6 inches) chewy round yeast roll. Somewhat similar to a bagel, it has a depression rather than a hole in the centre, and is sprinkled with chopped sauteed onion before baking.
Bikur cholem: Visiting the sick
Billik: Cheap, inexpensive
Bist meshugeh?: Are you crazy?
Biteh: Please
Blondjen: To wander, be lost
Boarderkeh: A female boarder
Boch: A punch
Bohmer: *** (masc.)
Bohmerkeh: *** (fem.)
Boorvisser fiss: Barefoot
Boreke borsht: Beet borsht which the wealthy could afford.
Borekes: Pastries with cheese inside
Borsht: Beet soup
Borsht circuit: Hotels in the Catskill Mountains of New York State, with an almost entirely Jewish clientele, who are fond of borsht; term is used by entertainers
Borviss: Barefoot
Botvenye borsht: Borsht made from beet leaves for the poor.
Boychik: Young boy (term of endearment)
Boykh: Stomach, abdomen
Boykhvehtig: Stomachache
Breeye: Creature, animal
Breire: choice
Bris: Circumcision
Bristen: *******
Broitgeber: Head of family (Lit., Bread giver)
Bronfen: Whiskey
Broygis: Not on speaking terms
B'suleh: ******
Bubbeh: Grandmother
Bubbe maisse: Grandmother's tale.
Bubbee: Friendly term for anybody you like
Bubeleh: Endearing term for anyone you like regardless of age
Bulvan: Man built like an ox; boorish, coarse, rude person
Bupkis: Nothing. Something totally worthless (Lit., Beans)
Butchke: chat, tete-a-tete, telling tales
C
Chai: Hebrew word for LIFE, comprised of the two Hebrew letters, Chet and Yod. There is a sect of Jewish mysticism that assigns a numeric value to each letter in the Hebrew alphabet and is devoted to finding hidden meanings in the numeric values of words. The letter "Chet" has the numeric value of 8, and the letter "Yod", has the value of 10, for a total of 18.
Chaider: Religious School
Chaim Yonkel: any Tom, **** or Harry
Chaimyankel kooternooz: The perennial cuckold
Chaleria: Evil woman. Probably derived from cholera.
Chaleshen: Faint
Challa: Ceremonial "egg" bread. Either round or shaped long. Used on Shabbat and most religious observances with the exception of Pesach (Passover)
Chaloshes: Nausea, faintness, unconsciousness
Chamoole: Donkey, *******, numbskull, fool
Chamoyer du ainer!: You blockhead! You dope, You ***!
Chanukah: Also known as the "Festival of Lights", commemorates the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. Chanukah is celebrated for 8 days during which one additional candle is added to the menorah on each night of the holiday.
Chap a gang!: Beat it! (Lit., Catch a way, catch a road)
Chap ein a meesa meshina!: "May you suffer an ugly fate!"
Chap nit!: Take it easy! Not so fast! (Lit., Don't grab)
Chaptsem: Catch him!
Chassene: Wedding
Chassene machen: To plan and execute a wedding.
Chas v'cholileh!: G-d forbid!
Chavver: Friend
Chaye: Animal
Chazen: Cantor
Chazenteh: Wife of chazen (cantor)
Chazzer: A pig (one who eats like a pig)
Chazzerei: Swill; pig's feed; anything bad, unpalatable, rotten. In other words, "junk food." This word can also be used to describe a lot of house hold or other kinds of junk.
Chazzershtal: Pigpen; slovenly kept room or house.
Chei kuck (taboo): Nothing, infinitesimal, worthless, unimportant (Lit., human dung)
Chev 'r' mann: Buddy
Chmalyeh!: Bang, punch; Slam! Wallop!
Chochem : A wise man (Slang: A wise guy)
Chochmeh: Wisdom, bright saying, witticism
Choleryeh: Cholera; a curse, plague
Choshever mentsh: Man of worth and dignity; elite person; respected person
Chosid: Rabid fan
Chossen: Bridegroom
Chosse:kalleh - Bride and groom; engaged couple
Choyzik machen: Make fun of, ridicule
Chrain: Horseradish
Chropen: Snore
Chub Rachmones: "Have pity"
Chug: Activity group
Chupah: Canopy under which a bride and groom stand during marriage ceremony.
Chutzpeh: Brazenness, gall, baitzim
Chutzpenik: Impudent fellow
Chvalye: Ocean wave
Columbus's medina: It's not what it's cracked up to be. (Columbus's country.
D
Danken Got!: Thank G-d!
Darf min gehn in kolledj?: For this I went to college? Usually said when describing a menial task.
Davenen: Pray
Deigeh nisht!: Don't worry!
Der mensch trakht un Gott lahkht: Man thinks (plans) and God laughs
Der oyg: Eye
Der tate oysn oyg: Just like his father
Der universitet: University
Der zokn: Old man
Derech erets: Respect
Derlebn: To live to see (I should only live to see him get married, already!)
Der oysdruk: Expression
Dershtikt zolstu veren!: You should choke on it!
Di khemye: Chemistry
Di skeyne: Old woman
Di Skeynes: Old women
Di skeynim: Old men
Die goldene medina: the golden country
Die untershte sheereh: the bottom line
Dine Essen teg: Yeshiva students would arrange to be fed by various householders on a daily basis in different houses. (Lit., Eat days)
Dingen: Bargain, hire, engage, lease, rent
Dis fayntin shneg: It's starting to snow
Dis fayntin zoraiganin: It's starting to rain
Dos gefelt mir: This pleases me
Dos hartz hot mir gezogt: My heart told me. I predicted it.
Dos iz alts: That's all.
Dos zelbeh: The same
Drai mir nit kain kop!: Don't bother me! (Lit., Don't twist my head)
Drai zich!: Keep moving!
Draikop: Scatterbrain
Dreidal: Spinning top used in a game that is associated with the holiday of Chanukah.
Drek: Human dung, feces, manure or excrement; inferior merchandise or work; insincere talk or excessive flattery
Drek auf dem teller: Mean spirited, valueless Lit.crap on a plate.
Drek mit Leber: Absolutely nothing; it's not worth anything.
Druchus: The sticks (way out in the wild)
Du fangst shoyn on?: Are you starting up again?
Du kannst nicht auf meinem rucken pishen unt mir sagen class es regen ist.: You can't *** on my back and tell me that it's rain!
Dumkop: Dumbbell, dunce (Lit., Dumb head)
Durkhfall: A flop or failure
Dybbuk: Soul condemned to wander for a time in this world because of its sins. (To escape the perpetual torments inflicted upon it by evil spirits, the dybbuk seeks refuge in the body of some pious man or woman over whom the demons have no power. The dybbuk is a Cabalistic conception)
E
Ech: A groan, a disparaging exclamation
Ech mir (eppes): Humorous, disparaging remark about anything. e.g. "American Pie ech mir a movie?"
Efsher: Maybe, could be
Ei! Ei!: Yiddish exclamation equivalent to the English "Oh!"
Eingeshpahrt: Stubborn
Eingetunken: Dipped, dunked
Einhoreh: The evil eye
Eizel: Fool, dope
Ek velt: End of the world
Emes: The truth
Emitzer: Someone
Enschultig meir: "Well excuuuuuuse ME!" (Can also bu used in a non-sarcastic manner depending on the tone of voice and situation.)
Entoisht: Disappointed
Eppes: Something
Er bolbet narishkeiten: He talks nonsense
Er drayt sich arum vie a fortz in russell: He wanders around like a **** in a barrel (aimless)
Er est vi noch a krenk.: He eats as if he just recovered from a sickness.
Er frest vi a ferd.: He eats like a horse.
Er hot a makeh.: He has nothing at all (Lit., He has a boil or a minor hurt.)
Er hot nit zorg.: He hasn't got a worry.
Er iz a niderrechtiker kerl!: He's a low down good-for-nothing.
Er iz shoyn du, der nudnik!: The nuisance is here already!
Er macht a tel fun dem.: He ruins it.
Er macht zack nisht visindicht: He pretends he doesn't know he is doing something wrong. Example: Sneaking into a movie theatre, or sneaking to the front of a line.
Er toig (****) nit: He's no good, worthless
Er varved zakh: Lit: He's throwing himself. Example: He's getting angry, agitated, ******-off.
Er zitst oyf shpilkes.: He's restless. (Lit., He sits on pins and needles.)
Er zol vaksen vi a tsibeleh, mit dem kop in drerd!: He should grow like an onion, with his head in the ground!
Eretz Yisroel: Land of Israel
Es brent mir ahfen hartz.: I have a heartburn.
Es gait nit!: It doesn't work! It isn't running smoothly!
Es gefelt mir.: I like it. (Lit., It pleases, me.)
Es hot zich oysgelohzen a boydem!: Nothing came of it! (Lit., There's nothing up there but a small attic.)
Es iz a shandeh far di kinder!: It's a shame for the children!
Es iz (tsu) shpet.: It is (too) late.
Es ken gemolt zein.: It is conceivable. It is imaginable.
Es macht mir nit oys.: It doesn't matter to me.
Es iz nit dayn gesheft: It's none of your business.
Es past nit.: It is not becoming. It is not fitting.
Es tut mir a groisseh hanoeh!: It gives me great pleasure!(often said sarcastically)
Es tut mir bahng.: I'm sorry. (Lit., It sorrows me)
Es tut mir vai: It hurts me.
Es vert mir finster in di oygen.: This is a response to receiving extremely upsetting information or news. (Lit., It's getting dark in my eyes.)
Es vet gornit helfen!: Nothing will help!!
Es vet helfen vi a toiten bahnkes!: It won't help (any)! (Lit., It will help like blood-cupping on a dead body.)
Ess vie ein foygl sheise vie ein feirt!: Eat like a bird, **** like a horse!
Ess, bench, sei a mensch: Eat, pray, don't act like a ****!
Ess gezunterhait: Eat in good health
Essen: To eat
Essen mitik: Eating midday or having dinner.
F
Fahrshvindn: Disappeared
Faigelah: Bird (also used as a derogatory reference to a gay person).
Fantazyor: Man who builds castles in the air
Farbissener: Embittered; bitter person
Farblondzhet: Lost, bewildered, confused
Farblujet: Bending your ear
Farbrecher: Crook, conman
Fardeiget: Distressed, worried, full of care, anxiety
Fardinen a mitzveh: Earn a blessing or a merit (by doing a good deed)
Fardrai zich dem kop!: Go drive yourself crazy!
Fardross: Resentment, disappointment, sorrow
Farfolen: Lost
Farfoylt: Mildewed, rotten, decayed
Farfroyren: Frozen
Fargessen: Forgot
Farklempt: Too emotional to talk. Ready to cry. (See "Verklempt)
Farklempt fis: Not being able to walk right, clumsy as in "clumsy feet."
Far Knaft: Engaged
Farkakte (taboo): Dungy, ******
Farmach dos moyl!: Shut up! Quiet. (Lit., Shut your mouth.)
Farmatert: Tired
Farmisht: Befuddled
Farmutshet: Worn out, fatigued, exhausted
Farpitzed: To get all dressed up to the "nines."
Farschimmelt: Moldy or rotten. An analogous meaning could be that a person's mind has become senile.
Farshlepteh krenk: Fruitless, endless matter (Lit., A sickness that hangs on)
Farshlugginer: Refers to a mixed-up or shaken item. Generally indicates something of little or dubious value.
Farshmeieter: Highly excitable person; always on the go
Farshnickert: Drunk, high as a kite
Farshnoshket: Loaded, drunk
Farshtaist?: You understand?
Farshtopt: Stuffed
Farshtunken: Smells bad, stinks
Farshvitst: sweaty
Fartik: finished, ready, complete
Fa:tshadikt - Confused, bewildered, befuddled, as if by fumes, gas
Feh!: Fooey, It stinks, It's no good
Feinkoche: Omelet, scrambled eggs
Feinshmeker: Hi falutin'
Fendel: pan
Ferd: Horse, (slang) a fool
Ferkrimpter ponim: Twisted-up, scowling face
Ferprishte punim: pimple-face
Fet: Fat, obese
Fetter: Uncle (also onkel)
Finster un glitshik: Miserable (Lit., Dark and slippery)
Fisfinger: Toes
Fisslach: (chickens'/duck's) feet, often in ptsha
Fliegel: Fowl's wing
Focha: Fan
Foigel: Smart guy (Lit: bird)
Foiler: Lazy man
Foilishtik: Foolishness
Folg mikh!: Obey me!
Folg mikh a gang!: Quite a distance! Why should I do it? It's hardly worth the trouble!
Fonfen: Speak through the nose
For gezunterhait!: Bon voyage! Travel in good health!
Forshpeiz: Appetizer
Fortz: ****
Fortz n' zovver: A foul, soul-smelling ****.
Frageh: Question
Frailech: Happy
Frassk in pis: Slap in the face
Freint: Friend,
Mr. Fremder: Stranger
Fress: Eat....pig out.
Fressen: Eat like a pig, devour
Fressing: Gourmandizing (By adding the English suffix "ing" to the Yiddish word "fress", a new English word in the vocabulary of American Jews has been created.)
Froy: Woman,
Mrs. Frum, (frimer): Pious, religious, devout
Funfeh: Speaker's fluff, error
G
*** avek!: Go away
*** feifen ahfen yam!: Go peddle your fish elsewhere!
*** gezunterhait!: Go in good health
*** in drerd arein!: Go to hell!
*** kaken oifen yam!: Get lost (Lit: Go **** in the ocean!)
*** mit dein kop in drerd: "Go with your head in the ground." "Stick your head in the mud"
*** platz!: Go split your guts!
*** shlog dein kup en vant!: Go bang your head against the wall
*** shoyn, ***.: Scram! also, Don't be silly!
*** strasheh di vantzen: You don't frighten me! (Lit., Go threaten the bed bugs)
*** tren zich. (taboo): Go **** yourself
Gait, gait!: Come now!
Gait es nit!: It doesn't work!
Galitsianer: Jewish native of Galicia
Gants gut: Very good
Gantseh K'nacker!: "Big Shot"
Gantseh Macher: "Big shot."
Gantseh megilleh: Big deal! (derisive)
Gantseh mentsh: Manly, a whole man, a complete man; an adult; a fellow who assumes airs
Gatkes: Long winter underwear
Geben shoychad: To bribe
Gebentsht mit kinder: Blessed with children
Gebentshte boych: Literally-blesses stomach (womb) (Said of a lady with a fabulous child or children,
Gebrenteh tsores: Utter misery
Gebrochener english: Fractured English
Gedainkst?: Remember?
Gedempte flaysh: Mystery meat
Gedicht: Thick, full, ample
Geferlech: Dangerous
Geharget zolstu veren!: Drop dead! (Lit., You should get killed.)
Gelaimter: Person who drops whatever he touches
Gelibteh: Beloved
Gelt: Money
Gelt gait tzu gelt.: Money goes to money.
Gelt is nisht kayn dayge: Money is not a problem.
Gembeh!: Big mouth!
Gemitlich: Slowly, unhurried, gently
Genaivisheh shtiklech: Tricky, sharp, crooked actions or doings
Genevishe oigen: Shifty eyes
Genug iz genug.: Enough is enough!
Gesheft: Business
Geshmak: Tasty, delicious
Geshtorben: The state of being dead.
Geshtroft: Cursed, accursed; punished
Geshvollen: Swollen, puffed up (Also applied to person with haughty pride)
Get: Divorce
Getchke: Statue
Gevaldikeh Zach!: A terrible thing! (often ironically)
Gevalt!: Heaven Forbid! (Exclamatory in the extreme.)
Gevalt geshreeyeh: good grief ("help" screamed)
Gezunde tzores: Healthy troubles. Troubles one should not take too seriously.
Gezunt vi a ferd: Strong as a horse
Gezunteh moid!: Brunhilde, a big healthy dame
Gezunterhait: In good health
Gib mir nit kain einorah!: Don't give me a canary! (Americanism, Lit., Don't give me an evil eye)
Gib zich a traisel: Get a move on
Gib zich a shukl: Hurry up! (Give yourself a shake)
Gitte neshomah: good soul
Gleichvertel: Wisecrack, pun, saying, proverb, bon mot, witticism
Glezel tai: Glass of tea
Glezel varms: comforting or soothing (Lit: Glass of warmth)
Glick: Luck, piece of luck
Gloib mir!: Believe me!
Glustiyah: Enema
G'nossen tsum emess!: The sneeze confirmed the truth!
Goldeneh chasseneh: Fiftieth wedding anniversary
Goniff: Crook, thief, burglar, swindler, racketeer
Gopel: Fork
Gornisht: Nothing
Got in himmel!: G-d in heaven! (said in anguish, despair, fear or frustration)
Got tsu danken: Thank G-d
Got zol ophiten!: G-d forbid!
Got:Vorte - A good piece of information or short concise Torahy commentary.
Gotteniu!: Oh G-d! (anguished cry)
Goy: Any person who is not Jewish
Goyeh: Gentile woman
Goyim: Group of non-Jewish persons
Goyishe kop: Opposite of Yiddishe kop. Generally used to indicate someone who is not particularly smart or shrewd. (Definitely offensive.)
Greps: Blech; a burp if it's a mild one
Grob: Coarse, crude, profane, rough, rude
Grober: Coarse, uncouth, crude person
Grober finger: Thumb
Groi:halter - Show-off, conceited person
Groisseh gedilleh!: Big deal! (said sarcastically)
Groisser gornisht: Big good-for-nothing
Groisser potz! (taboo): Big *****! Big *****! (derogatory or sarcastic)
Grooten: To take after, to favour.
Groyser finger: *******
Guggle muggle: A concoction made of warm milk and honey for sore throats
Gunsel: A young goose. Also used to describe a young man who accompanies a ***** or a young *****.
Gut far him!: Serves him right!
Gut gezugt: Well said
Gut Shabbos: Good Sabbath
Gut Yontif: Happy Holiday
G'vir: Rich man
H
Haimish ponem: A friendly face
Haiseh vanneh: Hot bath
Haissen: To hate
Haken a chainik: Boring, long-winded and annoying conversation; talking for the sake of talking (Lit., To bang on the tea-kettle)
Hak flaish: Chopped meat
Hak mir nit in kop!: Stop bending my ear (Lit.; Stop banging on my head)
Hak mir nit kayn chainik (arain): Don't get on my nerves; Stop nagging me. (Lit., Don't bang my teapot.)
Halevei!: If only...
Hamoyn: Common people
Handlen: To bargain; to do business
Hanoe hobn: to enjoy
Harte mogen: constipation
Hartsvaitik: Heart ache.
Hecher: Louder
Hefker: A mess
Heizel: *******
Hekdish: Decrepit place, a slumhouse, poorhouse; a mess
Heldish: Brave
Heldzel: Stuffed neck flesh; sort of a neck-kishke
Hendl: Chicken
Hert zich ein!: Listen here!
Hetsken zich: Shake and dance with joy
Hikevater: Stammerer Hinten - Rear, rear parts, backside, buttocks; in the rear
Hit zich!: Look out!
Hitsik: Hothead
Hitskop: Excitable person
Hob derech erets: Have respect
Hob dir in arbel: Lit., I've got you by the elbow (Used as a response to a derogatory remark as you would use "sticks and stones"
Hob nit kain deiges: Don't worry
Hoben tsu zingen un tsu zogen: Have no end of trouble (Lit.,To sing and to talk)
Hobn groyse oygn: To be greedy
Hock mir nisht en chinik: Don't hit me in the head. or Dont' give me a headache.
Hoizer gaier: Beggar
Hoizirer: Peddler (from house to house)
Holishkes: Stuffed Cabbage
Host du bie mir an avleh!: So I made a mistake. So what!
Hulyen: A hellraiser
I
Ich bin ahntoisht: I am disappointed
Ich bin dich nit mekaneh: I don't envy you
Ich darf es ahf kapores: It's good for nothing! I have no use for it. (Lit., I need it for a [useless] fowl sacrifice)
Ich darf es vi a loch in kop!: I need it like a hole in the head!
Ich hob dir lieb: I love you!
Ich eil zich (nit): I am (not) in a hurry
Ich feif oif dir!: I despise you! Go to the devil! (Lit., I whistle on you!)
Ich *** chaleshen bald avek: I'm about to faint (from sheer exhaustion)
Ich hob dich in ***!: To hell with you! (Lit., I have you in the bath house!)
Ich hob dir!: Drop dead! Go flap you ears! (Lit., I have you....!) (Americanism!)
Ich hob es in drerd!: To hell with it.
Ich hob im feint: I hate him.
Ich hob im in ***!: To hell with him.
Ich hob mir fer pacht: I have you in my pocket. (I know you for what you are.)
Ich hob nicht kain anung: I have no idea.
Ich ken dir nisht farfeeren: I can't lead you astray
Ich loif: I'm running
Ich vais: I know
Ich vais nit.: I don't know.
Ich vel dir geben a khamalye: I'll give you such a smack
Ich vel dir geben kadoches!: I'll give you nothing! (Lit., I'll give you malaria or a fever.)
Ich yog zich nit.: I'm not in a hurry.
Ich zol azoy vissen fun tsores.: I should know as little about trouble (as I know about what you are asking me)
Iker: Substance; people of substance
In a noveneh: For a change; once in a blue moon
In di alteh guteh tseiten!: In the good old days!
In di oygn: To one's face
In drerd mein gelt!: My money went down the drain! (Lit., My money went to burial in the earth, to hell.)
In miten drinen: In the middle of; suddenly
Ipish: Bad odor, stink
Ir gefelt mir zaier.: You please me a great deal.
Iz brent mir ahfen hartz.: I have a heartburn.
K
Kaas (in kaas oyf): Angry (with)
Kabaret forshtelung: Floorshow
Kabtzen, kaptsen: Pauper
Kaddish: A mourner's prayer
Kaddishel: Baby son; endearing term for a boy or man
Kadoches: Fever
Kadoches mit koshereh fodem!: Absolutely nothing! (Lit., fever with a kosher thread)
Kaftan: Long coat worn by religious Jews
Kakapitshi: Conglomeration
Kalamutneh: Dreary, gloomy, troubled
Kalleh: Bride
Kalleh moid: A girl of marriageable age
Kallehniu: Little bride
Kalta neshomeh: A cold soul
Kalekeh: A new bride who cannot even boil an egg.
Kalyeh: Bad, wrong, spoiled
Kam derlebt: Narrowly achieved (Lit., hardly lived to see)
Kam mit tsores!: Barely made it! (Lit., with some troubles) The word "Kam," also is pronounced "Kom" or "Koim" depending on the region people come from.
Kam vos er kricht: Barley able to creep; Mr. Slowpoke
Kam vos er lebt: He's hardly (barely) alive.
Kamtsoness: To be miserly
Kaneh: An enema
Kaporeh, (kapores): Atonement sacrifice; forgiveness; (slang) good for nothing
Karabeinik: Country peddler
Karger: Miser, tightwad
Kaseer: enema
Kasheh: Groats, mush cereal, buckwheat, porridge; a mess, mix-up, confusion
Kasheh varnishkes: Cooked groats and broad (or bowtie) noodles
Kashress: Kosher condition; Jewish religious dietary law
Kasnik, (keisenik): Angry person; excitable person, hot head
Kasokeh: Cross-eyed
Katchka: Duck (quack, quack)
Katshkedik (Americanism): Ducky, swell, pleasant
Katzisher kop: Forgetful (Lit., Cat head)
Kaynahorah: Lit: the evil eye. Pronounced in order to ward of the evil eye, especially when speaking of one's good fortune. "Everyone in the family is happy and healthy kaynahorah."
Kazatskeh: Lively Russian dance
Kein briere iz oich a breire: Not to have any choice available is also a choice.
Kemfer: Fighter (usually for a cause)
Ken zein: Maybe, could be
Kenen oyf di finger: Have facts at one's fingertips
Ketzele: Kitten
(To) Kibbitz: To offer unsolicited advice as a spectator
Kibbitzer: Meddlesome spectator
Kiddish (Borai pri hagofen): Blessing over wine on the eve of Sabbath or Festivals
Kimpe:tzettel - Childbirth amulet or charm (from the German "kind-bet-tzettel" meaning childbirth label containing Psalm 121, names of angels, patriarchs
Kimpetoren: Woman in labour or immediately after the delivery
Kind un kait: Young and old
Kinderlech: Diminutive, affectionate term for children
Kish mir en toches: Kiss my backside (slang)
Kishef macher: Magic-worker
Kishkeh: Stuffed derma (Sausage shaped, stuffed with a mixture of flour, onions, salt, pepper and fat to keep it together, it is boiled, roasted and sliced) Also used to describe a person's innards. "You sweat your kishkehs out to give your children an good education, and what thanks do you get?"
(A) Kitsel: Tickle
Klainer gornisht: Little **** (Lit., A little nothing)
Klemt beim hartz: Clutches at my heartstrings
Klaperkeh: Talkative woman
Klipeh: Gabby woman, shrew, a female demon
Klo: Plague
Klogmuter: Complainer, chronic complainer
(A) Klog iz mir!: Woe is me!
Kloolye: A curse
Klop: Bang, a real hard punch or wallop
Klotz (klutz): Ungraceful, awkward, clumsy person; bungler
Klotz kasheh: Foolish question; fruitless question
Kloymersht: Not in reality, pretended (Lit., as if it were)
Knacker: A big shot
Knackerke: The distaff k'nacker, but a real cutie-pie.
Knaidel (pl., k'naidlech): Dumplings usually made of matzoh meal, cooked in soup
Knippel: Button, knot; *****, virginity; money tied in a knot in a handkerchief. Also, a little money (cash, usually) set aside for special needs or a rainy day. (Additional meaning thanks to Carl Proper.)
Knish (taboo): ****** [this translation is disputed by at least one reader]
Knishes: Baked dumplings filled with potato, meat, liver or barley
Kochalain: Summer boarding house with cooking privileges (Lit., cook by yourself)
Kochedik: Petulant, excitable
Kochleffel: One who stirs up trouble; gadabout, busy-body (Lit., a cooking ladle)
Kolboynik: Rascally know-it-all
(A) Kop oif di plaitses!: Good, common sense! (Lit., A head on the shoulders!)
Komisch: Funny
Kopvaitik: Headache
Kosher: Jewish dietary laws based on "cleanliness". Also referring to the legitimacy of a situation. "This plan doesn't seem kosher".
Koved: Respect, honour, reverence, esteem
Krank: Sick
Kran:heit - Sickness
Krassavitseh: Beauty, a doll, beautiful woman
Krechts: Groan, moan
Krechtser: Blues singer, a moaner
Kreplach: Small pockets of dough filled with chopped meat which look like ravioli, or won ton, and are eaten in soup; (slang) nothing, valueless
Kroivim: Relatives
Krolik: Rabbit
Kuch leffel: A person who mixes into other people's business (cooking spoon)
Kuck im on (taboo): Defecate on him! The hell with him!
Kuck zich oys! (taboo): Go take a **** for yourself!
Kugel: Pudding
Kukn durkh di finger oyf: Shut one's eyes to....., connive at......, wink at.....
*** ich nisht heint, *** ich morgen: If I don't come today, I'll come tomorrow (procrastinator's slogan)
Kumen tsu gast: To visit
Kuntzen: Tricks
Kuni leml: A nerd
Kunyehlemel: Naive, clumsy, awkward person; nincompoop; Casper Milquetoast
Kuppe dre: A piece of ***** matter (s--t)
Kurveh: *****, *******
Kush in toches arein! (taboo): Kiss my behind! (said to somebody who is annoying you)
Kushinyerkeh: Cheapskate; woman who comes to a store and asks for a five cents' worth of vinegar in her own bottle
K'vatsh: Boneless person, one lacking character; a whiner, weakling
K'velen: Glow with pride and happiness, beam; be delighted
K'vetsh: Whine, complain; whiner, a complainer
K'vitsh: Shriek, scream, screech
L
Lachen mit yas:tsherkes - Forced or false laugh; laugh with anguish
Laidi:gaier - Idler, loafer
Lakeh: A funnel
Lamden: Scholar, erudite person, learned man
Lamed Vovnik: Refers to the Hebrew number "36" and traditionally each generation produces 36 wise and righteous persons who gain the approbation of "lamed vovnik."
Lang leben zolt ir!: Long may you live!
Lange loksch: A very tall thin person , A long tall drink of water.
Lantslaite: Plural of lantsman
Lantsman: Countryman, neighbour, fellow townsman from "old country".
Lapeh: Big hand
Layseh mogen: Diarrhea
(A) Lebedikeh velt!: A lively world!
(A) Lebediker: Lively person
(A) Leben ahf dein kop!: Words of praise like; Well said! Well done! (Lit., A long life upon your head.)
Lebst a chazerishen tog!: Living high off the hog!
Leck, shmeck: Done superficially (lick, smell)
L'che:im, le'chayim! - To life! (the traditional Jewish toast); To your health, skol
Leffel: Spoon
Leibtzudekel: Sleeveless shirt (like bib) with fringes, worn by orthodox Jews
Leiden: To suffer
Lemechel: Milquetoast, quiet person
Lemeshkeh: Milquetoast, bungler
Leshem shomaim: Idealistically, "for the sake of heaven."
Leveiyeh: Funeral
Lezem gayne: leave them be
Lig in drerd!: Get lost! Drop dead! (Lit., Bury yourself!)
Ligner: Liar
Litvak: Lithuanian; Often used to connote shrewdness and skepticism, because the Lithuanian Jews are inclined to doubt the magic powers of the Hasidic leaders; Also, a person who speaks with the Northeastern Yiddish accent.
Lobbus: Little monster
Loch: Hole Loch in kop - Hole in the head.
Loksch: An Italian gentleman.
Lokshen: Noodles
Lokshen strop: a "cat- o- nine tails"
Lominer gaylen: Clumsy fool (a golem-Frankenstein monster -- created by the Lominer rebbe)
Loz mich tzu ru!: Leave me alone! (Lit., Let me be in peace!)
Luftmentsh: Person who has no business, trade, calling, nor income.
Luch in kup: A hole in the head ( " I need this like a luch in kup").
M
Machareikeh: Gimmick, contraption
Macher: big shot, person with access to authorities, man with contacts.
Machshaifeh: Witch
Maidel: Unmarried girl, teenager
Maideleh: Little girl (affectionate term)
Maiven: Expert, connoisseur, authority
Maisse: A story
Maisse mit a deitch: A story with a (moral) twist
Makeh: Plague, wound, boil, curse
Mameleh: Mother dear
Mamoshes: Substance, people of substance.
Mamzer: *******, disliked person, untrustworthy
Mamzerook: A naughty little boy
Mashgiach: Inspector, overseer or supervisor of Kashruth in restaurants & hotels.
Mashugga: Crazy
Matkes: Underpants
Maynster: Mechanic, repairman, workshop proprietor
Mayster: Master craftsman, champion,
Mazel Tov: Good Luck (lit) Generally used to convey "congratulations".
Me ken brechen!: You can ***** from this!
Me ken lecken di finger!: It's delicious!
Me krechts, me geht veyter: I complain and I keep going.
Me lost nit leben!: They don't let you live!
Me redt zich oys dos hartz!: Talk your heart out!
Mechuten: In-Law
Mechutonim: In-Laws (The parents of your child's spouse)
Mechutainista: Mother-In-Law
Megillah: A long story
Mein bobbeh's ta'am: Bad taste! Old fashioned taste!
Mein cheies gait oys!: I'm dying for it!
Mekheye: An extreme pleasure, *******, out of this world wonderful!
Mekler: Go-between
Menner vash tsimmer: Men's room
Mentsh: A special man or person. One who can be respected.
Menuvel: A person who is always causing grief, can get nothing right, and is always in the way.
Meshpokha: Extended family
Meshugass: Madness, insanity, craze
Meshugeh: Crazy
Meshugeh ahf toit!: Crazy as a loon. Really crazy!
Meshugeneh: Mad, crazy, insane female.
Meshugener: Mad, crazy, insane man
Meshugoyim: Crazy people
Messer: Knife
Me zogt: They say; it is said.
Mezinka: A special dance for parents whose last child is getting married
Mezuzah: Tiny box affixed to the right side of the doorway of Jewish homes containing a small portion of Deuteronomy, handwritten on parchment.
Mies: Ugly
Mieskeit: Ugly thing or person.
Mikveh: Ritual bath used by women just prior to marriage as well as after each monthly cycle. This represents a "spiritual cleansing after a potential to create a new life was not actualized. There are some religious men who also use mikvehs prior to festivals and the Sabbath. Some Chassidim immerse every morning before praying.
Min tor nit: One (or you) mustn't
Minyan: Quorum of ten men necessary for holding public worship (must be over 13 years of age)
Mirtsishem: G-d willing
Mitn derinnen: All of a sudden, suddenly
Mitn grobn finger: Quibbling, stretching a point
Mitzvah: Good deed
Mizinik: The youngest child in an immediate family
Mogen Dovid: Star of David
Moisheh kapoyer: Mr. Upside-Down! A person who does everything backwards. Not knowing what one wants.
Mosser: Squealer
Mossik: Mischief maker, prankster, naughty little boy, imp
Moyel: Person (usually a rabbi) who performs circumcisions.
Mutek: Brave
Mutshen zich: To sweat out a job
Muttelmessig: Meddlesome person, kibbitzer
N
N'vayle: Shroud; inept person
Na!: Here! Take it. There you have it.
Naches: Joy: Gratification, especially from children.
Nacht falt tsu.: Night is falling; twilight
Nadan: Dowry
Nafkeh: *******
Nafkeh ba:is - *******
Naidlechech: Rare thing
Nar: Fool
Nar ainer!: You fool, you!
Narish: Foolish
Narishkeit: Foolishness
Narvez: Nervous
Nebach: It's a pity. Unlucky, pitiable person.
Nebbish: A nobody, simpleton, weakling, awkward person
Nebechel: Nothing, a pitiful person; or playing role of being one
(A) Nechtiker tog!: He's (it's) gone! Forget it! Nonsense! (Lit., a yesterday's day)
Nechuma: Consolation
Nechvenin: To *******
Nem zich a vaneh!: Go take a bath! Go jump in the lake!
Neshomeh: Soul, spirit
Neshomeleh: Sweetheart, sweet soul
Nisht geshtoygen, nisht gefloygen: neither here nor there
Nifte:shmifter, a leben macht er? - What difference does it make as long as he makes a living? (Lit., nifter means deceased.)
Nishkosheh: Not so bad, satisfactory. (This has nothing to do with the word "kosher", but comes from the Hebrew and means "hard, heavy," thus "not bad."
Nisht araynton keyn finger in kalt vaser: Loaf, not do a thing, be completely inactive
Nisht fur dich gedacht!: It shouldn't happen! G-d forbid! (Lit., May we be saved from it! [sad event] )
Nishtgedeiget: Don't worry; doesn't worry
Nisht geferlech: Not so bad, not too shabby (Lit. not dangerous.)
Nishtkefelecht: No big deal!
Nisht gefloygen, nisht getoygen: It doesn't matter
Nisht gefonfit!: Don't hedge. Don't fool around. Don't double-talk.
Nisht getoygen, nisht gefloygen: It doesn't fly, it doesn't fit
Nisht getrofen!: So I guessed wrong!
Nisht gut: Not good, lousy
Nisht naitik: Not necessary
Nishtgutnick: No-good person
Nishtikeit!: A nobody!
Nishtu gedacht!: It shouldn't happen! G-d forbid!
Nit kain farshloffener: A lively person
Nit ahin, nit aher: Neither here nor there
Nit gidacht!: It shouldn't happen! (Same as nishtu gedacht)
Nit gidacht gevorn.: It shouldn't come to pass.
Nit kosher: Impure food. Also, slang, anything not good
Nit heint, nit morgen!: Not today, not tomorrow!
Nito farvos!: You're welcome!
Nitsn: To use
Noch a mool: One more time
Noch nisht: Not yet
Nochshlepper: Hanger-on, unwanted follower
Nor Got vaist: Only G-d knows.
Nosh: Snack
Nosherie: Snack food
Nu?: So? Well?
Nu, dahf men huben kinder?: Does one have children? (When a child does something bad)
Nu, shoyn!: Move, already! Hurry up! Let's go! Aren't you finished?
Nudnik: Pesty nagger, nuisance, a bore, obnoxious person
Nudje: Annoying person, badgerer (Americanism)
Nudjen: Badger, annoy persistently
O
Ober yetzt?: So now? (Yetzt is also spelled itzt)
Obtshepen: Get rid of
Och un vai!: Alas and alack: woe be to it!
Oder a klop, oder a fortz (taboo): Either too much or not enough (Lit., either a wallop or a ****)
Oder gor oder gornisht: All or nothing
Ohmain: Amen
Oi!!: Yiddish exclamation to denote disgust, pain, astonishment or rapture
Oi, a shkandal!: Oh, what a scandal!
Oi, gevald: Cry of anguish, suffering, frustration or for help
Oi, Vai!: Dear me! Expression of dismay or hurt
Oi vai iz mir!: Woe is me!
Oif tsalooches: For spite
Oisgeshtrobelt!: Overdressed woman.
Oisgeshtrozelt: Decorated (beautiful)
Oisgevapt: Flat (as in "the fizz has gone out of it.)
Oi:shteler - Braggart
Oiver botel: Absentminded: getting senile
Okurat: That's right! Ok! Absolutely! (Sarcastically: Ya' sure!) Okuratner mentsh - Orderly person
Olreitnik!: Nouveau riche!
On langeh hakdomes!: Cut it short! (Lit., without long introductions.)
Ongeblozzen: Conceited: peevish, sulky, pouting
Ongeblozzener: Stuffed shirt
Ongematert: Tired out
Ongepatshket: Cluttered, disordered, scribbled, sloppy, muddled, overly-done
Ongeshtopt: Very wealthy
Ongeshtopt mit gelt: Very wealthy; (Lit., stuffed with money)
Ongetrunken: Drunk
Ongetshepter: Bothersome hanger-on
Ongevarfen: Cluttered, disordered
Onshikenish: Hanger-on
Onshikenish: Pesty nagger
Onzaltsen: Giving you the business; bribe; soft-soap; sweet-talk (Lit., to salt)
Opgeflickt!: Done in! Suckered! Milked!
Opgehitener: Pious person
Opgekrochen: Shoddy
Opgekrocheneh schoireh: Shoddy merchandise
Opgelozen(er): Careless dresser
Opgenart: Cheated, fooled
Opnarer: Trickster, shady operator
Opnarerei: Deception
Orehman: Poor man, without means
Oremkeit: Poverty
Ot azaih: That's how, just like that
Ot kimm ich: Here I come!
Ot gaist du: There you go (again)
Oy mi nisht gut gevorn: "Oh my, I'm growing weary."
Oy vey tsu meina baina: Woe is me (down to my toes)
Oybershter in himmel: G-d in heaven
Oych a bashefenish: Also a V.I.P.! A big person! (said derogatorily, sarcastically, or in pity)
Oych mir a leben!: This too is a living! This you call a living?
Oyfen himmel a yarid!: Much ado about nothing! Impossible! (Lit., In heaven there's a big fair!)
Oyfgekumener: Come upper, upstart
Oyfn oyg: Roughly, approximately
Oyg oyf oyg: In private, face-to-face
Oys shiddech: The marriage is off!
Oysznoygn fun finger: Concoct, invent (a story)
Oysergeveynlekh: Unusual (sometimes used as "great.")
Oysgedart: Skinny, emaciated
Oysgehorevet: Exhausted
Oysgematert: Tired out, worn out
Oysgemutshet: Worked to death, tired out
Oysgeposhet: "Well grazed," in the sense of being fat.
Oysgeputst: Dressed up, overdressed; over decorated
Oysgeshprait: Spread out
Oysvurf: Outcast, bad person
P
Paigeren: To die (animal)
Paigeren zol er!: He should drop dead!
Pamelech: Slow, slowly
Parech: Low-life, a bad man
Parnosseh: Livelihood
Parshiveh: Mean, cheap
Parshoin: He-man
Partatshnek: Inferior merchandise or work
Parveh: Neutral food, neither milchidik (dairy) nor flaishidik (meat)
Paskidnye: Rotten, terrible
Paskudnik, paskudnyak: Ugly, revolting, evil person; nasty fellow
Past nit.: It isn't proper.
Patsh: Slap, smack on the cheek
Patsh zich in tuchis und schrei "hooray": Said to a child who complains he/she has nothing to do (slap your backside and yell "hooray")
Patshkies around: Anglicized characterization of one who wastes time.
Patteren tseit: To lounge around; waste time
Payess: Long side-curls worn by Hasidic and other ultra-Orthodox Jewish men.
Petseleh: Little *****
Phooey! fooey, pfui: Designates disbelief, distaste, contempt
Pinkt kahpoyer: Upside down; just the opposite
Pipek: Navel, belly button
Pishechtz: *****
Pisher: Male infant, a little squirt, a nobody
Pisk: Slang, for mouth; insultingly, it means a big mouth, loudmouth
Pis:Malocheh - Big talker-little doer! (man who talks a good line but does nothing)
Pitseler: Toddler, small child
Pitshetsh: Chronic complainer
Pitsel: Wee, tiny
Pitsvinik: Little nothing
Plagen: Work hard, sweat out a job, suffer
Plagen zich: To suffer
Plaplen: Chatter Plats! - Burst! Bust your guts out! Split your guts!!
Platsin zuls du: May you explode
Plimenik: Nephew
Plimenitse: Niece
Plotz: To burst
Pluchet: Heavy rain (from Polish "Plucha")
Plyoot: Bull-*******; Loudmouth
Plyotkenitzeh: A gossip
Ponem: Face
Poo, poo, poo: Simulate spitting three times to avoid the evil eye
Pooter veren: Getting rid of (Lit: making butter)
Pooter veren fon emitzer: Getting rid of someone; eg: "ich geh' veren pooter fon ihr" - "I'm going to be getting rid of her!"
Poseyakh: Rolling out dough
Potchke: Fool around or "mess" with
Potzevateh: ******, someone who is "out of it."
Praven: Celebrate
Preplen: To mutter, mumble
Prezhinitse: Scrambled eggs with milk added.
Prietzteh: Princess; finicky girl; (having airs, giving airs; being snooty) prima donna!
Pripitchok: Long, narrow wood-burning stove
Prost: Coarse, common, ******
Prostaches: Low class people
Prostak: Ignorant boor, coarse person, ****** man
Proster chamoole: Low-class *******
Prosteh leit: Simple people, common people; ******, ignorant, "low class" people
Proster mentsh: ****** man, common man
Ptsha: Cows feet in jelly
Pulke: The upper thigh
Pupik: Navel, belly button, gizzard, chicken stomachs
Pupiklech: Dish of chicken gizzards
Pushkeh: Little box for coins
Pustunpasnik: Loafer, idler
Putz: Slang word for "*****." Also used when describing someone someone as being "a ****."
Pyesseh: A play, drama
R
Rachmones: Compassions, mercy, pity
Rav: Rabbi, religious leader of the community
Reb: Mr., Rabbi; title given to a learned and respected man
Rebbe fon Stutz: A phrase used to explain the unexplainable. Similar to blaming something on the fairies or a mystical being.
Rebiniu: "Rabbi dear!" Term of endearment for a rabbi
Rebitsin: Literally, the rabbi's wife (often sarcastically applied to a woman who gives herself airs, or acts excessively pious) ; pompous woman
Rechielesnitseh: Dowdy, gossipy woman
Reden on a moss: To chatter without end
Redn tzu der vant: Talk in vain or to talk and receive no answer (Lit. , talk to the wall for all the good it will do you)
Redlshtul: Wheelchair
Redt zich ayn a kreynk!: Imaginary sickness
Redt zich ayn a kind in boich: Imaginary pregnancy (Imaginary anything)
*****: Rich, wealthy
Reisen di hoit: Skin someone alive (Lit., to tear the skin)
Reissen: To tear
Retsiche: ******
Rib:fish, gelt oyfen tish! - Don't ask for credit! Pay in cash in advance! Cash on the barrel-head!
Riboyno:shel-oylom! (Hebrew) God in heaven, Master of the Universe
Richtiker chaifetz: The real article! The real McCoy!
Rirevdiker: A lively person
Rolleh: Role in a play
Rooshisher: Definitely NOT a Litvak; coming from Ukraine, White Russia; the Crimea, Russia itself.
Roseh: Mean, evil person
Rossel flaysh: Yiddish refritos
(A) Ruach in dein taten's taten arein!: Go to the devil! (Lit., A devil (curse) should enter your father's father!)
Ruf mich k'na:nissel! - I did wrong? So call me a nut!
Ruktish: Portable table
S
S'vet helfen azoy vie a toytn baynkes: Lit: It will help as much as applying cups to a dead person.
S'art eich?: What does it matter to you? Does it matter to you?
Saykhel: Common sense
Schochet: A ritual slaughterer of animals and fowl.
Se brent nit!: Don't get excited! (Lit., It's not on fire!)
Se shtinkt!: It stinks!
Se zol dir grihmen in boych!: You should get a stomach cramp!
Sh' gootzim: Plural of shaigetz
Sha! (gently said): Please keep quiet.
Shabbes goy: Someone doing the ***** work for others (Lit;, gentile doing work for a Jew on Sabbath)
Shabbes klopper: A resident of a neighbourhood who's job it was to "klop" or bang on the shutters of Jewish homes to announce the hour of sundown on Friday
Shadchen: Matchmaker or marriage broker. There is the professional type who derives his or her living from it, but many Jewish people engage in matchmaking without compensation.
Shaigitz: Non-Jewish boy; wild Jewish boy
Shaigetz ainer!: Berating term for irreligious Jewish boy, one who flouts Jewish law
Shaile: A question
Shain vi der lavoone: As pretty as the moon
Shain vi di zibben velten: Beautiful as the seven worlds
Shaineh maidel: pretty girl
Shaineh raaineh keporah: Beautiful, clean sacrifice. Nothing to regret.
Shainer gelechter: Hearty laugh (sarcastically, Some laughter!)
Shainkeit: Beauty
Shaitel, (sheitel): Wig (Ultra-orthodox married women cover their hair. Some use a shaitel)
Shalach mohnes: Customary gifts exchanges on Purim, usually goodies Shalom - Peace (a watchword and a greeting)
Shamus: Sexton, beadle of the synagogue, also, the lighter taper used to light other candles on a menorah, a policeman (slang)
Shandeh: Shame or disgrace
Shandhoiz: Brothel, *******
Shpatzir: A walk without a particular destination
Shat, shat! Hust!: Quiet! Don't get excited
Shatnes: Proscription against wearing clothes that are mixed of wool and linen
Shav: Cold spinach soup, sorrel grass soup, sour leaves soup
Shayneh kepeleh: Pretty head (lit) Good looking, good thoughts
Shemevdik: Bashful, shy
Shepen naches: Enjoy; gather pleasure, draw pleasure, especially from children
Shidech (pl., shiduchim): Match, marriage, betrothal
Shih:pihi - Mere nothings
****:yingel - Messenger
Shikker: Drunkard
Shikseh: Non-Jewish girl
Shlissel: A key
Shissel: A basin or bowl
*******: Sparse, lean, meager
Shiva: Mourning period of seven days observed by family and friends of deceased
Shkapeh: A hag, a mare; worthless
Shkotz: Berating term for mischievous Jewish boy
Shlak: Apoplexy; a wretch, a miserable person; shoddy; shoddy merchandise
Shlang: Snake, serpent; a troublesome wife; ***** (taboo)
Shlatten shammes: Communal busybody, tale bearer; messenger
Shlecht: Bad
Shlecht veib: Shrew (Lit., a bad wife)
Shlemiel: Clumsy bungler, an inept person, butter-fingered; ***** person
Shlep: Drag, carry or haul, particularly unnecessary things, parcels or baggage; to go somewhere unwillingly or where you may be unwanted
Shleppen: To drag, pull, carry, haul
Shlepper: Sponger, panhandler, hanger-on; dowdy, gossipy woman, free-loader
Shlimazel: Luckless person. Unlucky person; one with perpetual bad luck (it is said that the shlemiel spills the soup on the shlimazel!)
Shlog zich kop in vant.: Break your own head! (Lit., bang your head on the wall)
Shlog zich mit Got arum!: Go fight City Hall! (Lit., Go fight with God.)
Shlogen: To beat up
Shlok: A curse; apoplexy
Shlooche: ****
Shloof: Sleep, nap
Shlosser: Mechanic
Shlub: A ****; a foolish, stupid or unknowing person, second rate, inferior.
Shlump: Careless dresser, untidy person; as a verb, to idle or lounge around
Shlumperdik: Unkempt, sloppy
Shmaltz: Grease or fat; (slang) flattery; to sweet talk, overly praise, dramatic
Shmaltzy: Sentimental, corny
Shmatteh: Rag, anything worthless
Shmeis: Bang, wallop
Shmek tabik: Nothing of value (Lit., a pinch of *****)
Shmeer: The business; the whole works; to bribe, to coat like butter
Shmegegi: Buffoon, idiot, fool
Shmeichel: To butter up
Schmeikel: To swindle, con, fast-talk.
Shmendrik: nincompoop; an inept or indifferent person; same as shlemiel
Shmo(e): Naive person, easy to deceive; a goof (Americanism)
Shmontses:Trifles, folly
Shmooz; (shmuess): Chat, talk
Shmuck (tabboo): Self-made fool; obscene for *****: derisive term for a man
Shmulky!: A sad sack!
Shmuts: Dirt, slime
Shmutzik: *****, soiled
Shnapps: Whiskey, same as bronfen
Shnecken: Little fruit and nut coffee rolls
Shneider: Tailor; in gin rummy card game, to win game without opponent scoring
Shnell: Quick, quickly
Shnook: A patsy, a sucker, a sap, easy-going, person easy to impose upon, gullible
Shnorrer: A beggar who makes pretensions to respectability; sponger, a parasite
Shnur: Daughter-in-law
Shokklen: To shake
Shoymer: Watchman; historically refers also to the armed Jewish watchman in the early agricultural settlements in the Holy Land
Shoymer mitzves: Pious person
Shoyn ainmol a' metse:eh! - Really a bargain
Shoyn fargessen?: You have already forgotten?
Shoyn genug!: That's enough!
Shpiel: Play
Shpilkes: Pins and needles
Shpits: end, the heel of the bread
Shpitsfinger: Toes
Shpitzik: Pointed sense of humour, witty, sarcastic, caustic
Shpogel nei: Brand-new
Shreklecheh zach: A terrible thing
Shtarben: To die
Shtark, shtarker: Strong, brave
Shtark gehert: Smelled bad (used only in reference to food; Lit., strongly heard)
Shtark vi a ferd: Strong as a horse
Shteln zikh oyg oyf oyg mit....: To confront
Shtetl: Village or small town (in the "old country")
Shtik: Piece, bit: a special bit of acting
Shtik drek (taboo): *******; ****-head
Shtik goy: Idiomatic expression for one inclined to heretical views, or ignorance of Jewish religious values
Shtik naches: Grandchild, child, or relative who gives you pleasure; a great joy
Shtikel: Small bit or piece; a morsel
Shtiklech: Tricks; small pieces
Shtilinkerait: Quietly
Shtimm zic: Shut up!
Shtoltz: Pride; unreasonably and stubbornly proud, excessive self-esteem
Shtrafeeren: To threaten
Shtrudel: Sweet cake made of paper-thin dough rolled up with various fillings
Shtuk: Trouble
Shtum: Quiet
(A) Shtunk: A guy who doesn't smell too good; a stink (bad odor) a lousy human
Shtup: Push, shove; vulgarism for ****** *******
Shtup es in toches! (taboo): Shove (or stick) it up your ****** (***)!
Shtuss: A minor annoyance that arises from nonsense
Shudden: A big mess
Shul: Colloquial Yiddish for synagogue
Shule: School
Shushkeh: A whisper; an aside
Shutfim: Associates
Shvach: Weak, pale
Shvachkeit: Weakness
Shvantz: tail, *****
Shvartz: Black
Shvegerin: Sister-in-law
Shvengern: Be pregnant
Shver: Father-in-law; heavy, hard, difficult
Shvertz azayan ***: It's hard to be a Jew
Shviger: Mother-in-law
Shvindel: Fraud, deception, swindle
Shvindeldik: Dizzy, unsteady
Shvitz: Sweat, sweating
Shvitz ***: Steam bath
Shvoger: Brother-in-law
Sidder: Jewish prayer book for weekdays and Saturday
Simantov: A good sign (lit) Often used with mazel tov to wish someone good luck or to express congratulations
Simcheh: Joy; also refers to a joyous occasion
Sitzfleish: Patience that can endure sitting (Lit., sitting flesh)
Smetteneh: Sour cream; Cream
Sobaka killev: Very doggy dog
Sof kol sof: Finally
Sonem: Enemy, or someone who thwarts your success.
S'teitsh!: Listen! Hold on! How is that? How is that possible? How come?
Strasheh mich nit!: Don't threaten me!
Strashen net de genz: Lit., Do not disturb the geese. (You are full of yourself and making too much noise)
T
Ta'am: Taste, flavor; good taste
Ta'am gan eyden: Fabulous (Lit: A taste of the Garden of Eden)
Tachlis: Practical purpose, result
Tahkeh: Really! Is that so? Certainly!
Tahkeh a metsieh: Really a bargain! (usually said with sarcasm)
Taiglech: Small pieces of baked dough or little cakes dipped in honey
Tallis: Rectangular prayer-shawl to whose four corners, fringes are attached
Talmud: The complete treasury of Jewish law interpreting the Torah into livable law
Talmud Torah: The commandment to study the Law; an educational institution for orphans and poor children, supported by the community; in the United States, a Hebrew school for children
Tamavate: Feebleminded
Tamaveter: Feebleminded person
Tandaitneh: Inferior
Tararam: Big noise, big deal
Tashlich: Ceremony of the casting off of sins on the Jewish New Year (crumbs of bread symbolizing one's sins are cast away into a stream of water in the afternoon of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashoneh)
Tateh, tatteh, tatteh, tatteleh, tatinka, tatteniu: Father, papa, daddy, pop
Tate:mameh, papa-mama - Parents
Tatenui: Father dear (The suffix "niu" in Yiddish is added for endearing intimacy; also, G-d is addressed this way by the pious; Tateniu-Foter means G-d, our Father
Tchotchkes: Little playthings, ornaments, bric-a-brac, toys
Teier: Dear, costly, expensive
Te:yerinkeh! - Sweetheart, dearest
Temp: Dolt
Temper kop: Dullard
Ti mir nit kayn toyves: "Don't do me any favours" (sarcastic)
Tinef: Junk, poorly made
T'noim: Betrothal, engagement
Toches: Buttocks, behind, ***** (***)
Toches ahfen tish!: Put up or shut up! Let's conclude this! (Lit., ***** on the table!)
Toches in droissen: Bare behind
Toche:lecker - Brown-noser, apple-polisher, ***-kisser
Togshul: Day school
Toig ahf kapores!: Good for nothing! It's worth nothing!
Traif: Forbidden food, impure, contrary to the Jewish dietary laws, non-kosher
Traifener bain: Jew who does not abide by Jewish law (derisive, scornful expression
Traifeneh bicher: Forbidden literature
Traifnyak: Despicable person; one who eats non-kosher food
Trefn oyfn oyg: To make a guess
Trenen: To tear, rip
Trepsverter: Lit. step words. The zinger one thinks of in retreat. The perfect retort one summons after mulling over the insult.
Trogedik: Pregnant
Trog gezunterhait!: Wear it in good health!
Trombenik: A ***, no-good person, ne'er-do-well; a faker
Tsaddik: Pious, righteous person
Tsalooches: Spite
Tsaloochesnik: Spiteful person
Tsatskeh: Doll, plaything; something cute; an overdressed woman; a **** girl
Tsatskeleh der mamehs!: Mother's favorite! Mother's pet!
Tsebrech a fus!: Break a leg!
Tsedrait: Nutty, crazy, screwy
Tsedraiter kop: Bungler
Tseereh: Face (usually used as put-down)
Tseeshvimmen: Blurred
Tsegait zich in moyl: It melts in the mouth, delicious, yummy-yummy
Tsemishnich: Confusion
Tsemisht: Confused, befuddled, mixed-up
Tsevishe:shtotisheh telefonistkeh - Long distance operator
Tshatshki: Toy, doo-dad
Tshepen: To annoy, irk, plague, bother, attack
Tsigeloisen: Compassionate, rather nice
Tsiklen zich: The cantor's ecstatic repetition of a musical phrase
Tsimmes: Sweet carrot compote; (slang) a major issue made out of a minor event
Tsitskeh: Breast, ****, udder
Tsivildivit: Crazy, wild, overwhelmed with too many choices
Tsnueh: Chaste
Tsores: Troubles, misery
Tsu undzer tsukunft tzuzamen: To our future together.
Tsutsheppenish: Hanger-on; unwanted companion; pest; nuisance
Tsum glik, tsum shlimazel: For better, for worse
Tsumakhn an oyg: To fall asleep
Tsvilling: Twins
Tu mir a toiveh.: Do me a favor.
Tu mir nit kain toives.: Don't do me any favors.
Tumel: Confusion, noise, uproar
Tumler: A noise-maker (person); an agitator
Tut vai dos harts: Heartbroken
Tzadrait: Scattered
Tzedakeh: Spirit of philanthropy; charity, benevolence
Tziginner bobkes: Jocular, truly valueless. Also used to describe black olives. Lit: goat droppings
Tziter: To tremble
Tziterdik: Tremulous or trembling
Tzitzis: Fringes attached to the four corners of the tallis
Tzufil!: Too much! Too costly!
U
U:be-rufen - Unqualified, uncalled for; God forbid; (A deprecation to ward off the evil eye)
U:be-shrien - God forbid! It shouldn't happen!
Umgeduldik: Petulant
Ummeglich!: Impossible!
Umglick: A misfortune; (masc) A born loser; an unlucky one
Umshteller: Braggart
Umzist: For nothing
Umzitztiger fresser: free loader, especially one who shows up only to eat (and EAT!)
Unger bluzen: Bad mood. Swollen with anger.
Ungerissen beheiman: A totally stupid person. Lit., an untamed animal. Not wild, just dumb.
Un langeh hakdomes!: Cut it short! (lit., Without a long introduction)
Unter fir oygn: Privately
Unterkoifen: To bribe
Untershmeichlen: To butter up
Untervelt mentsh: Racketeer
Untn: Below
Utz: To goad, to needle
V
Vahksin zuls du vi a tsibeleh, mitten kup in drerd: May you grow like an onion, with your head in the ground!
Vahksin zuls du, tsu gezunt, tsu leben, tsu langeh yor: May you grow to health, to life, to long years. (Each may me said when someone sneezes)
Vai!: Woe, pain; usually appears as "oy vai!"
Vai is mir!: Woe is me!
Vai vind iz meine yoren: "Woe is me!"
Vais ich vos: Stuff and nonsense! Says you! (Lit., Know from what)
Vaitik: An ache
Valgeren zich: Wander around aimlessly
Valgerer: Homeless wanderer
Vaneh: Bath, bathtub
Vannit: Where (from) "Fon vannit kimmt ihr?" (Where do you come from?)
Vantz: Bedbug; (slang) a nobody
Varenikehs: Round shaped noodle dough stuffed with meat, potato, etc. and fried
Varfen an oyg: To look out for; to guard; to mind (Lit., To throw an eye at)
Varnishkes: Kasha and noodles
Vart!: Wait! Hold on!
Vas:tsimmer - Bathroom, washroom
Vas:tsimmer far froyen - Ladie's room
Vas:tsimmer far menner - Men's room
Vayt fun di oygn,vayt fun hartsn: Far from the eyes, far from the heart. Equivalent to "Out of sight, out of mind."
Vechter: Watchman
Veibernik: Debauchee
Veibershe shtiklach: Female tricks
Veis vi kalech!: Pale as a sheet!
Ve:zaiger - Alarm clock
Vemen barestu?: (taboo) Whom are you kidding? (Lit., Whom are you *******?)
Vemen narstu?: Whom are you fooling?
Ver derharget!: Get killed! Drop dead! (Also "ver geharget)
Ver dershtikt!: Choke yourself!
Ver farblondjet!: Get lost! Go away!
Verklempt: Extremely emotional. On the verge of tears. (See "Farklempt")
Ver tsuzetst: "Go to hell" (or its equivalent)
Ver vaist?: Who knows?
Ver volt dos gegleybt?: Who would have believed it?
Veren a tel: To be ruined
Veren ferherret: To get married
Vi a barg: Large as a mountain
Vi der ruach zogt gut morgen: Where the devil says good morning! (has many meanings; usually appended to another phrase)
Vi gait dos gesheft?: How's business?
Vi gait es eich?: How goes it with you? How are you? How are you doing?
Vi gaits?: How goes it? How are things? How's tricks?
Vi haistu?: What's your name?
Vi ruft men...?: What is the name of...?
Vi ruft men eich?: What is your name?
Viazoy?: How come?
Vie Chavele tsu der geht: Literally: Like Chavele on her way to her divorce; meaning "all spruced up."
Vifil?: How much?
Vilder mentsh: A wild one; a wild person
Vilder chaiah: Wild animal or out of control child or adult
Vilstu: Do you want...
Vo den?: What else?
Voglen: To wander around aimlessly
Voiler yung!: Roughneck (sarcastic expression)
Voncin: Bed bug
Vortshpiel: Pun, witticism
Vos art es (mich)?: What does it matter (to me)? What do I care?
Vos barist du?: (taboo) What are you ******* around for? What are you fooling around for?
Vos bei a nichteren oyfen lung, is bei a shikkeren oyfen tsung.: What a sober man has on his lung (mind), a drunk has on his tongue.
Vos draistu mir a kop?: What are you bothering me for? (Lit., Why are you twisting my head?)
Vos failt zai?: What are they lacking?
Vos gicher, alts besser: The faster, the better
Vos hakst du mir in kop?: What are you talking my head off for?
Vos hert zich?: What do you hear around? What's up?
Vos hert zich epes ne:es? - What's new?
Vos heyst: what does it mean?
Vos hob ich dos gedarft?: What did I need it for?
Vo:in-der-kort - Capable of doing anything bad (applied to bad person; Lit., everything in the cards)
Vos iz?: What's the matter?
Vos iz ahfen kop, iz ahfen tsung!: What's on his mind is on his tongue!
Vos iz der chil'lek?: What difference does it make?
Vos iz der tachlis?: What's the purpose? Where does it lead to?
Vos iz di chochmeh?: What is the trick?
Vos iz di untershteh shureh?: What's the point? What's the outcome? (Lit., What on the bottom line?)
Vos iz mit dir?: What's wrong with you?
Vos kocht zich in teppel?: What's cooking?
Vos macht a ***?: How's it going?
Vos macht vos oys?: What difference does it make?
Vos macht es mir oys?: What difference does it make to me?
Vos macht ir?: How are you? (pl.); How do you do?
Vos Machstu?: How are you? (singular)
Vos maint es?: What does it mean?
Vos noch?: What else? What then?
Vos ret ir epes?: What are you talking about?
Vos tut zich?: What's going on? What's cooking?
Vos vet zein: What will be
Vos vet zein, vet zein!: What will be, will be!
Vos zogt ir?: What are you saying?
Vu tut dir vai?: Where does it hurt?
Vus du vinsht mir, vinsh ikh dir.: What you wish me, I wish you.
Vuhin gaitsu?: Where are you going?
Vund: Wound
Vursht: Bologna
Vyzoso: Idiot (named after youngest son of Haman, archenemy of Jews in Book of esther); also, *****
W
Wen der tati/fater gibt men tsu zun, lachen baiden. Wen der zun gibt men tsu tati/fater, vainen baiden.: When the father gives to his son, both laugh. When the son gives to the father, both cry.
Wen ich ess, ch'ob ich alles in dread.: (Lit. When I am eating, I have everything in the ground.) When I am eating, everybody can go to hell!
Y
Yachneh: A coarse, loud-mouthed woman; a gossip; a slattern
Yachsen: Man of distinguished lineage, highly connected person, privileged character
Yarmelkeh: Traditional Jewish skull cap, usually worn during prayers; worn at all times by observant Orthodox Jews.
Yahrtzeit: Anniversary of the day of death of a loved-one.
Yashir koyech: May your strength continue
Yatebedam: A man who threatens; one who thinks he's a "big shot"; a blusterer
Yedies: News; cablegrams; announcements
Yefayfiyeh: Beauty; woman of great beauty
Yenems: Someone else's; (the brand of cigarettes moochers smoke!)
Yeneh velt: The other world; the world to come
Yenteh: Gabby, talkative woman; female blabbermouth
Yente telebente: Mrs. National Enquirer
Yentzen (taboo): To fornicate, to *****
Yeshiveh: Jewish traditional higher school, talmudical academy
Yeshiveh bocher: Student of talmudic academy
Yeshuvnik: Farmer, rustic
Yichus: Pedigree, ancestry, family background, nobility
Yiddisher kop: Jewish head
Yiddishkeit: Having to do with all things relating to Jewish culture.
Yingeh tsat:keh! - A young doll! A living doll!
Yiskor: Prayer in commemoration of the dead (Lit., May God remember.)
Yom Kippur: Day of Atonement (the most holy of holy days of the Jewish calendar)
Yontefdik: Festive, holiday-ish; sharp (referring to clothes)
Yortseit: Anniversary of the day of death of parents or relatives; yearly remembrance
Yoysher: Justice, fairness, integrity
Yukel: Buffoon
(A) Yung mit bainer!: A powerhouse! Strongly built person
Yung un alt: Young and old
Yungatsh: Street-urchin, scamp, young rogue
Yungermantshik: A young, vigorous lad; A newlywed
Yusoimeh: Orphan
Z
Zaft: Juice
Zaftik: Pleasantly plump and pretty. Sensuous looking (Lit., juicy)
Zaftikeh moid!: Sexually attractive girl
Zaideh: Grandfather
Zaier gut: O.K. (Lit., very good)
Zaier shain gezogt!: Well said! (Lit., Very beautifully said!)
Zee est vee a feigele: She eats like a bird
Zeh nor, zeh nor!: Look here, look here!
Zei (t) gezunt: Be well! Goodbye! Farewell
Zei mir frailich!: Be Happy!
Zei mir gezunt!: Be well!
Zei mir matriach: Be at pains to... Please; make an effort.
Zei nit a nar!: Don't be a fool!
Zei nit kain vyzoso!: Don't be an idiot! Don't be a **** fool!
Zeit azoy gut: Please (Lit., Be so good)
Zeit ir doch ahfen ferd!: You're all set! (Lit., You're on the horse!)
Zeit (mir) moychel: Excuse me! Be so good as...Forgive me!
Zelig: Blessed (used mostly among German Jews in recalling a beloved deceased ----- mama zelig)
Zeltenkeit: Rare thing
Zetz: Shove, push, bang! Also slang for a ****** experience (taboo)
Zhaleven: To be sparing, miserly
Zhlob: A ****; slob, uncouth
Zhu met (mir) in kop: A buzzing in one's (mind) head
Zhulik: Faker
Zi farmacht nit dos moyl: She doesn't stop talking (Lit., She doesn't close her mouth)
Zindik nit: Don't complain. Don't tempt the Gods.
Zingen: To sing
Ziseh neshomeh: Sweet soul
Ziseh raidelech: Sweet talk
Ziskeit: Sweetness, sweetheart, (Also endearing term for a child)
Zitsen ahf shpilkes: Sitting on pins and needles; to fidget
Zitsen shiveh: Sit in mourning (Shiveh means 7 which is the number of days in the period of mourning
Zitsflaish: Patience (Lit., Sitting meat)
Zog a por verter: Say a few words!
Zogen a ligen: Tell a lie
Zogerkeh: Woman who leads the prayers in the women's section in the synagogue
Zoineh: *******
Zok nit kin vey: Don't worry about it (Lit: Do not say woe)
Zol dich chapen beim boych.: You should get a stomach cramp!
Zol dir klappen in kop!: It should bang in your head (the way it is bothering me!)
Zol er tsebrechen a fus!: May he break a leg! He should break a leg!
Zol es brennen!: The hell with it! (Lit., Let it burn!)
Zol Got mir helfen: May God help me!
Zol Got ophiten!: May God prevent!
Zol ich azoy vissen fun tsores!: I haven't got the faintest idea! (Lit., I should so know from trouble as I know about this!)
Zol makekhs voxen offen tsung!: Pimples should grow on your tongue!
Zol vaksen tzibbelis fun pipek!: Onions should grow from your bellybutton!
Zol ze vaksen ze ve a tsibble mit de kopin dreid: You should grow like an onion with your head in the ground.
Zol zein!: Let it be! That's all!
Zol zein azoy!: O.K.! Let it be so!
Zol zein gezunt!: Be well!
Zol zein mit glik!: Good luck!
Zol zein shah!: Be quiet. Shut up!!
Zol zein shtil!: Silence! Let's have some quiet!
Zolst geshvollen veren vi a barg!: You should swell up like a mountain!
Zolst helfen vi a toyten bankes: It helps like like cupping helps a dead person.
Zolst hobn tzen haizer, yeder hoiz zol hobn tzen tzimern, in yeder tzimer zoln zain tzen betn un zolst zij kaiklen fun ein bet in der tzweiter mit cadojes!: I wish you to have ten houses, each house with ten rooms, each room with ten beds and you should roll from one bed to the other with cholera. (not a very nice thing to say.)
Zolst leben un zein gezunt!: You should live and be well!
Zolst ligen in drerd!: Drop dead! (Lit., You should lie in the earth!)
Zolst nit vissen fun kain shlechts.: You shouldn't know from evil.
Zolst es shtipin in toches!: (taboo) Shove it up your ******!
Zolst zein vi a lom:am tug sollst di hangen, in der nacht sollst di brennen - You should be like a lamp, you should hang during the day and burn during the night!
Zolstu azoy laiben!: You should live so!
Zorg zich nit!: Don't worry!
Zuninkeh!: Dear son! Darling son!
katewinslet Nov 2015
Dies ist ein unfairen Anliegen , wie erwartet , aber es ist sicherlich wirklich braucht, um sein erkundigte angewiesen. Moderne Tages Option : Was ist drastisch falsch mit Hilfe klinischen Profis werde ihr Heil Ausbildung ! Was ist in der falschen über klinischen Schulbildung ? Für eine einzige Sache , gibt es eine einfache namhaften helping Prozedur issuing Ärzte ( sie haben erwies sich Praktikanten) Tages Pläne , so dass sie erwerben keine nap vierundzwanzig für Sie 34 Stunden . Ihre Lebensstil kann dacht , bewusst , um die eigentliche Schüler-Arzt direkt in ein Zustand wenig Schlaf für die emotional aufgeladen Funktion erfahren , wie er kann ' unter ständige Sorge . In Das möglicherweise gewinnen eine Menge von , sondern ein mehr real suchen Grund diese Aktion ist immer, Gehirnwäsche a jüngeren Praktikanten. Männer und Frauen, die Wunsch Ende wird Fachkräfte des Gesundheitswesens kann , Anfang stimulated wegen die wirklich Die besten Konzepte with uns auf aktivieren mit Hilfe . Sie Übrigen wissen, dass Es gibt Massen in zugeordnet components konstruieren y wird nicht dennoch ein Verständnis für Samsung Galaxy S6 Kante. So , sie auch sein mögen wollen to wissen neben fertig Antworten .

Wenn sie übermüdeten werden die perfect Zeitraum ihnen beizubringen, wie umrissen mit etliche Dozenten . Sie nicht über die muscular Stärke sicherstellen, dass Sie einverstanden - es nur Genießen Wissen unter Hypnose . Es 'funktioniert' Bedeutung sie herauszufinden Fakten integriert in zu , trotzdem Vorgehensweise umgeht fast jede zerstören personen Intelligenz . Bei jeder übermüdeten denken die eigentliche intern nehmen die eigentliche false datum die in der Regel '60 Milligramm zum Vitamin C täglich wird vielleicht alle die Tatsache, dass any Person wirklich braucht, und dass er bekommen könnte es wieder mit die Ernährung Einbauten Das ist definitiv ein unwahr datum , also auch der intern die tatsächlich hört wenn Achtunddreißig viele Stunden mit einbezogen zugeordnet sicherlich keine schlafen ist unglaublich Planung bis nehmen tun es definitiv . Auf die gleiche Weise , er akzeptieren a massive Menge andere Informationen , in Bezug auf Drogen , medizinische Verfahren , oder vielleicht medizinische verwandte Ethik . Healthcare professionelle . Bok, als Blei-Designer mit einbezogen Stanford Hochschulwesen , verharmlost a Stanford Medical School ,

dass angegebenen der medizinisch-technische Bildungshinter, dass gesundheitsbezogenen college student devoted weniger als 5% aller this Klassenzimmer ein Individuum Zeitraum am drei topics von 'präventive Medizin , Essen Plan und gesundheitsbezogenen Integrität halben Zoll Trotzdem in diese erhalten winzige Vorlaufzeit , , dass sie 'lernen' Unwahrheiten. Zu den Benachrichtigung Daten gespeichert für Ihre Menge alle der Lehrzeit. Der spezifischen Tutoren in a Dermatologen Lehr gibt nichts oben Mann oder eine Frau Praktikanten - - es sein kann, Mund Informationen von empfangenen die besondere Healthcare übermüdeten Heil Studenten Samsung galaxy s6 edge+ 64GB. Neues . Scott S . Mendelsohn war eigentlich ein gemeinsames Besucher kleine jede Nacht den Äther zeigen in der Vergangenheit , und sogar erwähnten über diese häufig . Er möglicherweise encouraged als a Gesundheit Lernenden dass versuchten erarbeiten mäßig 'unabhängigen Denkens' während seiner Lehr wäre wahrscheinlich unterwegs . Medical instances häufig Fragen Sie nach schnell preferences, und das ist nicht genügend Platz a great newbie und dann unerfahrene Heilpraktiker . Was bedeutet , diese small Praktikanten halten Sie sich an die live in der Senior , fähiger Praktikanten nicht zu erwähnen, Fachkräfte des Gesundheitswesens. Wenn your frische intern ist eigentlich übermüdeten, er ' ll gehen zusammen mit robotically . Das Letztere Henry s . Mendelsohn eingereicht der Ausdruck 'iatrogenocide' während seiner feinsten Händler , Confessions Gesundheitspflege Klinische Heretic. Die Bedeutung , nicht überraschend , sein könnte Vergehens Durch den Arzt , Nutzung it ,

Regel die departure with Gesamt Kultur Typen als Folge mein Arzt. I legen nahe, dass Schlafentzug, zB Gehirnwäsche, häufig a zweck education Praxis in Ihrer medical Schulen , , wenn es darum geht, Implantieren rote Überzeugung für die Qualität Medikamente . Ein Jahrzehnt gerade nach med schule, wobei Studium Arzt , es ist immer Das Ausbildung das ist den Kern with eine individuelle automatic Flughafenterminal jeglicher Art von einige Tipps 'alternative Gesundheitswesen Ins Die normale Arzt passiert zu sein, Gehirnwäsche , wunderbaren merk great Ziel , geeignet Diener Haltung Wie dem auch sei gedankenlose und sogar nicht wert was diese Einzel glaubt, dass wirklich. Es ist eine gute Zuschreibung in Bezug auf neuronalen Reinigung draußen , und dann die Element davon Stecker Schlafentzug Wahl techniques Sie feststellen hier | auf diesen Link | zu den Informationen} Günstige Samsung Galaxy S6.
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katewinslet Oct 2015
Ein Früh ist ein Procedure von Servieren von Speisen, within denen Lebensmittel in einem öffentlichen Bereich, wo pass away Gäste sich selbst dienen throughout der Regel gegeben. Es ist eine gängige Methode zum Zuführen einer großen Anzahl von Menschen mit minimalem Particular. Buffets sind a particular verschiedenen Orten, einschließlich Hotel rooms sowie eine grorre anzahl gesellschaftliche Veranstaltungen angeboten. Sideboards werden ebenfalls als Buffets bekannt, wie sie verwendet werden, um das Geschirr eines Smorgasboard, um bedroom Gästen werden. Eine Create der Buffet ist habe eine Tabelle durch Platten, depart this life festen Teile der Nahrung gefüllt; Kunden wählen Platten, cease to live was initially Lebensmittel sie wollen, wie sie entlang gehen. Diese Sort wird am häufigsten on Cafeterias gesehen. Eine Big difference tritt on einem Stained Add Haus, wo expire Mäzene ihre Auswahl aus einem Wagen mit Rädern die-off Platten von Lebensmitteln, expire durch das Eating venue zirkuliert enthalten. Ein weiteres Derivat von dieser Paintings von Buffet auftritt, wo Gönner wählen Sie Lebensmittel aus einem Food Style and design sowie dann zahlen auf, was gewählt. anderen Variety, wie das All-you-can-eat-Buffet, ist mehr Freiform: Kunden zahlen eine feste Gebühr und kann danach helfen Samsung galaxy s6 edge, sich which means that viel Nahrung, wie sie within einer einzigen Mahlzeit zu sich nehmen möchten. Diese Variety wird oft for Dining places vor allem in Resorts,. Eine dritte Art form von Self serve buffet üblicherweise in Feinkostläden und Supermärkten angeboten wird, ein Salatbuffet, bei dems Kunden zu helfen, sich für Kopfsalat und weitere Salatzutaten, dann durch dems Gewicht zu zahlen. Eine vierte Technique von Stücksbuffet wird mit einer Feier irgendeiner Artwork verbunden. Wie Kompromiss zwischen Selbstbedienung und Full-Table-Service kann ein besetzt Smorgasboard angeboten: Gäste bringen ihre eigenen Platte entlang der Buffetlinie sowie werden einen Teil von einem Host the jeder Train station gegeben. Diese Methode ist weit verbreitet bei gesorgt Sitzungen, with denen Gäste nicht speziell für ihr Essen zahlen. Buffets sind wirksam zum Servieren große Zahl von Menschen auf einmal.

Aus diesem Grund sind sie weit verbreitet with institutionellen Einrichtungen wie Firm Kongresse oder große Partys. Ein weiterer Vorteil des Buffets internet marketing Vergleich zur Tabelle Assistance ist, dass Gäste haben eine große Auswahl und die-off Fähigkeit, Nahrung zu eng inspizieren, bevor Sie ations. Nrrr ein Smorgasboard beinhaltet People selbst dienen, ations war for der Vergangenheit wie eine informelle Variety von Essen, weniger professional wie Service are Tisch. Around bedroom letzten Jahren sind jedoch Buffets immer beliebter unter bedroom Gastgeber zu Hause Abendessen, vor allem within Familien, in denen wenig Platz erschwert pass on Umhüllung der einzelnen Stellen. Startseite Buffets funktionieren digestive tract around kleinen und großen Räumen, jedoch nur, wenn jedes Feature von Food Set-up wird berücksichtigt. Das Zimmer, during dem ein Smorgasboard gehalten werden muss ausreichend Platz weg von Möbeln, ium Schäden zu verhindern. Expire effizienteste Buffet eingerichtet besteht aus ein bis zwei Tabellen breit genug für zwei Reihen von Platten Samsung Galaxy Phone. Becomes deceased ermöglicht puede ser living area Gästen, sich von beiden Seiten des Tisches zu dienen, pass on Beschleunigung des Prozesses dienen und reduziert das Risiko von Verschütten. Buffet-Tische sollten when it comes to einer logischen Reihenfolge zuerst eingestellt werden, durch Platten, gefolgt von living room Hauptgang sowie Beilagen. Zuletzt sollten Geschirr und Servietten werden.

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Weißer Tagesanbruch. Stille. Als das Kräuseln begann,
hielt ich es für Seewind, in unser Tal kommend mit Raunen
von Salz, von baumlosen Horizonten. Aber der weiße Nebel
bewegte sich nicht; das Laub meiner Brüder blieb ausgebreitet,
regungslos.
Doch das Kräuseln kam näher – und dann
begannen meine eigenen äußersten Zweige zu prickeln, fast als wäre
ein Feuer unter ihnen entfacht, zu nah, und ihre Spitzen
trockneten und rollten sich ein.
Doch ich fürchtete mich nicht, nur
wachsam war ich.
Ich sah ihn als erster, denn ich wuchs
draußen am Weidehang, jenseits des Waldes.
Er war ein Mann, so schien es: die zwei
beweglichen Stengel, der kurze Stamm, die zwei
Arm-Äste, biegsam, jeder mit fünf laublosen
Zweigen an ihrem Ende,
und der Kopf gekrönt mit braunem oder goldenem Gras,
ein Gesicht tragend, nicht wie das geschnäbelte Gesicht eines Vogels,
eher wie das einer Blume.
Er trug eine Bürde,
einen abgeschnittenen Ast, gebogen, als er noch grün war,
Strähnen einer Rebe quer darüber gespannt. Von dieser,
sobald er sie berührte, und von seiner Stimme,
die, unähnlich der Stimme des Windes, unser Laub und unsere
Äste nicht brauchte, um ihren Klang zu vollenden,
kam das Kräuseln.
Es war aber jetzt kein Kräuseln mehr (er war nahe herangekommen und
stand in meinem ersten Schatten), es war eine Welle, die mich umspülte,
als stiege Regen
empor von unten um mich herum,
anstatt zu fallen.
Und was ich spürte, war nicht mehr ein trockenes Prickeln:
Ich schien zu singen, während er sang, ich schien zu wissen,
was die Lerche weiß; mein ganzer Saft
stieg hinauf der Sonne entgegen, die nun
aufgegangen war, der Nebel hob sich, das Gras
wurde trocken, doch meine Wurzeln spürten, wie Musik sie tränkte
tief in der Erde.

Er kam noch näher, lehnte sich an meinen Stamm:
Die Rinde erschauerte wie ein noch gefaltetes Blatt.
Musik! Kein Zweig von mir, der nicht
erbebte vor Freude und Furcht.

Dann, als er sang,
waren es nicht mehr nur Klänge, aus denen die Musik entstand:
Er sprach, und wie kein Baum zuhört, hörte ich zu, und Sprache
kam in meine Wurzeln
aus der Erde,
in meine Rinde
aus der Luft,
in die Poren meiner grünsten Knospen
sanft wie Tau,
und er sang kein Wort, das ich nicht zu deuten wußte.
Er erzählte von Reisen,
davon, wo Sonne und Mond hingehen, während wir im Dunkeln stehen,
von einer Erden-Reise, von der er träumte, sie eines Tages zu tun
tiefer als Wurzeln…
Er erzählte von den Menschenträumen, von Krieg, Leidenschaften, Gram
und ich, ein Baum, verstand die Wörter – ach, es schien,
als ob meine dicke Rinde aufplatzen würde, wie die eines Schößlings,
der zu schnell wuchs im Frühling,
so daß später Frost ihn verwundete.

Feuer besang er,
das Bäume fürchten, und ich, ein Baum, erfreute mich seiner Flammen.
Neue Knospen brachen auf in mir, wenngleich es Hochsommer war.
Als ob seine Leier (nun wußte ich ihren Namen)
zugleich Frost und Feuer wäre, ihre Akkorde flammten
hinauf bis zu meiner Krone.
Ich war wieder Samen.
Ich war Farn im Sumpf.
Ich war Kohle.
Du warst das Blut in meinen Adern, mein Herzschlag. Ich war nicht einmal der Staub unter deinen Schuhen.
I'm still not over you.
Madness Jul 2014
Ich versuche in Worte zu fassen,
wieso ich ausgerechnet dich
liebe, ich könnte mit deinen Augen
anfangen oder deinem Charakter
oder deinem Lächeln oder deinen
Lippen oder ..., aber es liegt am
Rande des Schwerfallens.
Denn genauso könnte ich versuchen,
zu erklären, wie Wasser schmeckt.
Doch ich war so lange unter Wasser;
bis ich dich getroffen habe.

Ja, ich war lange unter Wasser, so
lange, dass ich taub von der Luft
war, vergessen habe, dass Lungen
von jeglicher Bedeutung sind.

Denn du bist mein Rettungsanker.
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2015
.ich gerande kam, von unter die eisenvorhang.... (i just came, from under the iron-curtain): mir, sein geworfen unter eine siliziumvorhang... wann werden sie halt, in berufung es ein tal?! i just came from under the iron curtain... i'm under a silicon curtain, valley? what valley?! your western communists are worse than the originary eastern europeans: Edvard Gierek... coal miners... sick of socks you ******* mocassin trannies... i coined the term, first siliziumvorhang! dead-end eisenvorhang... what valley, what curtain?! this curtain! this valley! cultural-marxism coupled with cultural-darwinism... the perfect storm... i just wanted my jukebox back, man, did i really require independented politco commentators? not really, no, i really didn't... i just wanted my music algorithm back... like: ******* will you ever get it back... thank you... *******... both sides are to blame... both the independent creators and the multi-billionaire hog feeders... trebble up! the number of homeless people, via youtube...  "creator" these days, also implies: vulture regurgitation of news content, elevated comment section... what a prize to be envious of! i quiet simply tire of h'american commentary... hiroshima ego tripping is about done it for me... i have come from under the iron curtain...
now i'm sieving ******* from under the silicon curtain... because and also: as if: the scot blonde comb-over golfer nominee really matters... point being: i have no where else to go... if i'm escaping the iron curtain, while being forced under the silicon curtain... i'm going nowhere... i'm like a cancer: hell, if there's no place for me to go... hit the brain, give it a malignant tumour... h'america was once the: only escape financial back-up plan... now? i'm not so sure... i don't believe in h'america... i'll buy theit ****... but that's about it... thank god i never visisted h'america, thank god i visisted russia... i'd visit h'america: if only i had the ego compass of a worth of ebola... i don't want to visit h'america, too much of it is already exported... i see too many englishmen ******* off the export manifesto... it's already gauging at my eyes... thank god i visisted russia rather than h'america... i pray to god to never visit that godforsaken place of the forgery of worships.


a police van almost sounds japanese in polish: sūka; i rode one once, being picked up unconscious on the pave after being given a ******* drug... i can usually walk the double yellow of the highway code straight... after a bottle of whiskey... reasoning from that... my drink must have been spiked; and yes, sūka is also a derivative of a female dog: you know that lying in terms of writing is also called structure and planning? look here... haphazard composition in the vein of mahler.

i never write more than i read:
i have to keep the libra balance;
and i never write
with the intention of spontaneity;
as before precision syllables
only craft synonymity of:
i / aye / why / lie / fly / cry...
the one vowel in each that’s stressed superior
to the other letters used...
obviously we can claim a bargain: 2 4 1 (two for one!)
bunch of bananas 2 quid spare,
get yer bananas!
that market selling call resounds in a crescendo of echoes
among the walruses and 1960s risqué pop:
what? it's romford, the river rom acts as a sewer
on the sly... and it's a market town after all;
that's hardly a reason to call romford hull & larkin:
did you know that geography poster next to
the library changes colour? yeah,
it changes from avocado green to dark moss green,
and you can spot romford, gidea park, hornchurch
and upminster and rainham on the map?
i noticed the change in neon hue just last
night, having a beer and a cigarette: policespotting
the 'outside the five roundabouts' rule of
public drinking allowance.
Samira Meroe Jul 2010
sie kniet mächtig unter über unter ihrem Haar
du bist süchtig, ihrer blicke, deren Anmut, feurig starr
sie erhebt sich, ganz entblößt, doch vollkommen und bestimmt
und dann erzählt sie, in ihrer Schönheit, dass sie ist doch noch ein Kind

Dieses Mädchen, verworren wild, voller Kraft und voller Geist,

OH DIESER ANMUT 
DIESE SCHÖNHEIT
DIESE BLICKE

sie sagt leis,
oh liebe Freundin,

du willst doch nicht,
mir weis machen,
ich bin du,

deine Reinheit,
mit meiner,
nicht zu vergleichen ist.

Und mein Ich, es schaut mich an, so licht, leicht voller Seele.
Und als ich denke DAS BIN ICH, kommen die, die fehlen,
tausend Mädchen, sie bin ich, ich bin nicht mehr zu zählen.
TAUSEND GEFÜHLE: DAS BIN ICH
dann versinke ich in Tränen
Max Neumann Dec 2019
wieso es nicht gelang
wieso es gelang

als sie mich suchten zum liebemachen
als sie mich fanden zum liebemachen

wer von ihnen sang
wer von ihnen sang

sie kamen in scharen
mit freunden verwandten
all jene damen
all jene herren

ich weiß nicht wann
ich weiß nicht wo

doch ich weiß wie
ich weiß es wie

mir ist bewusst:
dichter und autoren werden
keine liebe füreinander hegen

(poet's note: my opinion on
the last three verses above has
fundamentally changed since i been
publishing here.)

liebe mich freund
liebe mich freundin

gib mir
schenk mir
suche mich
finde mich

ich habe mich auf der suche nämlich
versucht

kennst du, bruder, den weg?
den zugfahrplan?
die bedeutung der stahlstreben?

ich brauche eine antwort von
den damen
den herren

finde mich
suche mich
verschenke mich
vergib mir denn

ich schrieb über zivilisationen
von witterung und gier

witterung und gier
freunde sind zwischen dem glitzern
auf dem fluss versteckt wie perlen

sie aufzuspüren zwischen dem wittern
zwischen dem wittern
während des witterns

ich weiß nicht ob du weißt wovon
ich rede
ich rede

aber das ist in ordnung freund
aber das ist ok freundin

wir müssen bloß bruder
wir müssen bloß schwester
fragen

sie sitzen am gleis bei den zügen
sie sind immer da
wie der

“ICH-BIN-DA” aus der kinderbibel
meines sohnes

verstehst du das?
begreifst du das?
fühlst du mich?

viele afro-amerikaner fragen
“you feel me?” wenn sie
etwas ausdrücken und teilen wollen

ich liebe
diesen ausdruck
er zeugt von
etwas gutem, das manchen
menschen fehlt

auf der brust trage ich das tattoo
welches du abschriebst
in einer stunde aus

schatten
witterung
gier
ich wollte das
ich wollte dass

du zu mir kamst
zwischen den schatten
unter der gier
über der witterung

in einem augenblick des
“you feel me”

wie unsere häute glänzten
wie unsere augen glitzerten
wie unsere hände zitterten

wie wir…

ach komm!
was sage ich dir, freund
was sage ich dir, freundin

du weißt es doch dir
ist es bewusst denn du schriebst
mein tattoo ab in

ein buch mit perlweißen seiten
ein buch mit onyxschwarzen seiten

du bist perlweiß freund
du bist onyxschwarz freundin

du bist perlweiß freundin
du bist onyxschwarz freund

ich liebe habeshas
ich liebe äthiopien
ich liebe meine frau
ich liebe meinen sohn
ich liebe meine tochter

you feel me?
I don't know if I should translate this poem/song of mine into English. Not sure yet.

Check out "distances" which I wrote and translated:

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3404286/distances/

Today is a good day.
Madness Aug 2014
Sie fragten, weshalb ich schreibe.*

Ich habe lange mit meinen Gedanken herumgespielt,
aber meine Mutter hat mich all die Jahre liebevoll gelehrt,
dass man nicht mit sinnlosen Gedanken spielen darf.
Ich habe nachgedacht, bin durch Straßen gerannt,
bin auf Füßen von anderen herumgetrampelt, und
weitergerannt, umgedreht, und ehrlich entschuldigt.
Habe an meinem Stift gekauft – vermummt von Wor-
ten und habe Bruchteile von Radiergummifussel ver-
streut. Habe überall gesucht, in den Strömen des Re-
gens, in den alten Adern der Blätter am Straßenrand,
nicht mal im Bröckeln der Asphaltrillen habe ich ent-
denkt.  

Es hatte mich Nächte gekostet, einen Punkt für das
Fragezeichen zu finden;
aber, oh Gott, ich habe den Punkt gefunden, denn
der Punkt liegt in meinem Herzen, ich trage Worte
in meinem Herzen – lauter als mein und dein Herz-
schlag zusammen;
und nun hat mein Herz Ringe unter den Augen.
Ian Beckett Nov 2012
1 simple set of instructions
4 heavy flatpack boxes
5 square aluminium legs
27 painted pieces of wood
100 ridged wooden dowels
101 white plastic ***** covers
102 blister-causing screws of various sizes.


Assumption that no unter or ober
Equals drunken waves of shelves
Sadly means finished is unfinished
Reworked masterpiece complete at last
Male ego boosted by admiring plaudits
Value enhanced by effort expended
Flatpack frustration in 4 easy pieces.
katewinslet Sep 2015
Der Verbrauch von Puten with living room United states of america Sun hat sich er or him laufe der Jahre zugenommen. Ations Ist Nicht mehr during erster Linie ein Erntedankfest und Weihnachten gegessen, Jedoch Das ganze Jahr Über. Der Prozess der Massenproduktion von Puten für family den Menschlichen verzehr ist wie barbarisch, Wenn nicht mehr therefore,
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Samira Meroe Jul 2010
was ist es nur, dass es tut
dass ich nicht mehr bin ich selbst
unter tausend, selbst bei dir
Sonnenstrahlen fallen gut

lassen glitzern
lassen fallen
setzen sie in Ironie
lassen los
und trocknen leise
was ich nannte Melancholie

was ist es nur, dass es tut
dass ich weine, nicht mehr rede
selbst bei dir, du der meine
du sagst es ist vier Uhr vier

lassen sagen
ohne Worte
was ich nicht zu fühlen vermag
halten fest
verlieren sich
verlieren mich
verlier ich dich

sie flüstern leise
du bist so stolz
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2018
in terms of ontology: all is permitted,
given that so much is left,
dangling upon a damoclean
                         thread of a single
horse hair...
                            of the unexplored:
ontology is a waiting game,
with what, already is,
   a fixation on the constraints
of: ex simiae:
                       hence my approximation:
**** similis...  
    it's still a desire to preserve
a base, an origin story transfixed by
the use of fungus...
      accidently swallowed a mosquito:
suddenly grew a ******* pinocchio...
and somehow, slyly:
fixating on keep the libido
                                     momentum...
that's crucial, that the momentum is kept...
yet i wonder...
     racism:
                       poland vs. senegal was
the first game when the rams bothered
to clash horns...
       oh i can be crytical when i see it
through a lense of: crypto-nationalism...
unlike the romance of the noble prize
being given to Milosz...
            economic migration background:
i'm not allowed to romance about it...
there's no "grand" furore to mind,
no expectation,
           and certainly no: bending the knee
of the hosts...
  ****! from calling them natives
i'm starting to think in american terms
of hosts...
                  given i'm an alien "body":
                 more or less a thought, prior;
but that was the first instance of
deviating from playing out the sport,
poland vs. senegal...
            ******* europe versus a people
who know of europeans...
                            belgians and the congo...
slim afro beauty that she was...
no wonder...
               could almost say the *******
came when i felt my frontal pelvis
bones was sore after she
                rammed her coccyx onto me...
but outside the realm of serving
seductive cocktails while playing
          cedric 'IM' brooks'
                                     satta masa ganna...
no, i'm just curious about
the dynamic, behind a word such as
racism...
   and language in general...
           who are the people who use
a first tier definition of a word?
          i'm sure language is as loose as
well oiled spaghetti in imitation of
a pit of snakes...
           and yes, the linguistic atomists
(akin to myself) who care to mind
                          diacritical exceptionalism
in uttering a micro-seance
      prior to a syllable... notably via
ü (the classical umlaut)
               and what could become an
applicability of orthography in english:
with, oh so many examples in need of
being addressed:
             namely: from pout,
               came pút,
                                pool
                           ­             (pül),
                and the disguised vowels
of english: putter versus a patter...
  the subtle elongation of the A
  in a: pāt on the shoulder...
i already know that my suggestion is
too impractical to be ascribed
a subsequence with a towed effect
being ascribed...
           but at least there's the observation,
in the open.

  with this one particular word,
what is it: from zenith to nadir,
  or from a nadir to a zenith?
    definition 1.
             first, or           definition 3. first?
vocab. inheritance tax...
or just mindless fronting concerning
the affair?
    
is it a priori:
   1. a belief or doctrine that inherent
  differences among the various human
racial groups determine cultural
or individual achievement,
  usually involving the idea that one's
own race is superior and has the right
to dominate others or that a particular
     racial group is inferior to the others

or 3. hatred or intolerance of
               another race or other races                 ?

seems rather contradictory that
there could be such a priori complexity
to begin with, to be inherent...

zenith / nadir
                   a priori / a posteriori
dictum would suggest
  that: definition no. 3 is a priori...

while definition no. 1 is a posteriori...

    which also allows a psychological
dimension and
    the Freudian-Jung dynamism to
"explain" the proton, neutron, electron,
egg shell egg white, yoke,
               sclera, iris and the pupil
dynamic invoked by the psyche-dissection
into compartment
of a consciousness,
                    a sub- and an unconscious...

definition no. 1 can't be a priori:
it's too worded to make sense of
what an a priori statement looks like,
i.e.: 1 + 1 = 2.

an a posteriori statement?
               given that 1 + 1 = 2 is an a priori
statement?
                                    √-1...
   ­  lo and behold!
             you get a letter! as substitute to
the meddling in numbers...
     and then from i, to iota,
                       and the concept of a pronoun
in english (gender neutral) you go...
                              wunderbar!
                ­       ja...
because you can begin with an:
a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i...
                  clearly there's a priori
favour, to subsequently allow
a loss of explanation with a 1 + 1 = 2...
inheret bother:
      because when wasn't
         arithmetic ever akin to spelling?
the frequency of the letter-usage
compared to numbers?
      
              do you call the mann unable
to count or spell:
at the same time blind
            and deaf, synonymous?
what definitions behind a word
do you use?

what tier of a word are you making
                           allowances for?

using tier no. 1?
        or using tier no. 3?
   how can you even allow
an "ambiguity" of secondary tiers
of red...
               given there's no celtic ginger...
and shouldn't tht belong among
painters who can actually
see past the writer's daltonism,
  or x-ray in teutonic schwarz und weiß...

   a sch't'ern tongue:
          among, platzieren ziegel von die rot
                von Marienburg
...

what is the dictionary "ambiguity"
of red?
            
            one subsequent definition is:
BLAH!

               so we've established word
that acribe to tickling a thesaurus
ambiguity...
    but sure as **** there are some,
rigid, orthodox, words:
that can be used, un-acriptive
of a challenging authority
wishing upon it a counter-usage...

  i was born a pollack,
i acquired english:
            god forbid i don't die german!
hence all this crypto-nationalism
*******...
      i am a crypto-nationalist,
given that a nation is a cryptic,
quasi-noun suffragette...

             ich, werden sterben ˈjərmən!
point being: i'm hardly welcome...
        but death is hardly
a grieving mother,
               rather, a welcoming *****.

i've "said" enough,
  question is...
                                 have i drunk enough?
Nygil McCune Mar 2014
To make a list does not
(Zwei Füße fühlen kein Grund,)
require me to engage in
(während ich den Tier,)
an act of verbing so necessitated
(den im Tiefen warten,)
by the human mind
(weil es gibt kein Land)
because this mind is
(unter mich zu)
the mortal expression
(stehen auf.)
of our differences.
(Ich schwebe immer.)
Lucky Queue May 2013
Steh auf drache
Du kannst stark sein
Du sollst froh sein
Ich werde die Sonne scheinen für dich machen
Ich werde für dich und mich singen
Und werden wir unter den Himmel schlafen.

Stand up dragon.
You can be strong.
You should be happy.
I will make the sun shine for you.
I will sing for you and me.
And we will sleep under the heavens.
If anyone can help me write this in german better, please do! For my friend
The primary defining feature
of modern American diplomacy
is that we can somehow afford
to ensure the total concealment
of any unflattering information,
and, moreover, we can afford
the concealment of said concealment.
For the most part.

That aside,
whether through misaction or inaction,
we're still ruthless and unhumanitarian;
it's almost as if
we just want to eliminate
any and all
healthy competition.

Es *******es gibt nichts neu unter der Sonne.
It seems there's nothing new under the Sun.
The US Gov't is talking **** on Turkey for imprisoning 73 Journalists. Maybe they're upset because it isn't we who are breaking our rules.
The US Gov't is talking **** on China for "suppressing the voice of the people," not so dissimilar from Occupy Wall Street's paramilitary welcoming committee.

Strange how that works...
There is nothing to fear
I don't even think we'll be here when the oceans return to the sand and when the water you drink. coloured green, blue and black makes you sick to the stomach and you fight back the urge to be sick,
pick any number an Unter den Linden, sing me a song of the tree, sit for a time and recite me a rhyme but let me get home for my tea.

There is nothing to fear if we're here when we fall we won't feel it at all we'll be doped out on nuclear fizzics, physically incapable of escape from the inescapable we shall sit and we'll all have a ball.
There is nothing better than the hunt,
As I smile so carnivorously,
I think of when I first began,
The day the search first ran.
It was a beautiful day,
As I was locked inside,
By a mother who doth protest too much,
An decided it was my turn to be beaten amuck.
I cried and I cried,
As old as I was…
There was no end or beginning
To the pain that I felt
And so the only way to ease it,
Was to share this pain, with everyone.
So began, my very first hunt.
And now, many years later,
I wonder ever still,
How the hunter has not become the unter,
Even as the scent of the prey lingers.
She is standing there alone.
Alone.
Just like me now.
Mother is gone, so it’s just me.
Me and the hunt.
She has a beauty,
You’d have to look at for a while,
To truly see.
But underneath she just feels lonely,
Just like me.
So I must hunt her,
And share my pain,
As she walks home alone,
Well I take her by the face,
And I kiss her forcefully,
And smother her fright inside of me,
Take her to the “forest”,
Where all will be decided.
She has calmed on the outside,
But the fear is consuming her eyes,
Slowly I take her clothes,
And oh what a glow,
Her skin seems to have been made for me,
For this very day,
Nothing better than the hunt,
And the trophy that lay,
Beneath me.
Being the Hunter I took and I gave,
With blood and with fear,
Forcefully she was laid.
And after all was said and done,
I think for a second it was clear,
That in that pristine moment,
When she first started to tear.
She felt it, Yes she did.
The pain of the hunter and the hunted.
I hope this offends you! :)
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2020
unique: in that the great cancan o'
h'americana spandex english...
          is littered with acronyms...
             a minor observational point...

also... that there's a europe
as confined to scandinavia...
there's most certainly western europe...

a southern europe...
             although... clogging up the "detail"
with spain... reconquista
   and not the shame...
               a barricade of goths...
                            leftover in the bizarre
gesticulation of a history...
and at: a history...

                 that the italians
                                    cannot be the heritage
of ancient rome: given
the cappuccino is a "nuance"...
  otherwise the greeks are bankrupt...
their history worth of envy is
being exhausted...

                  there's a western europe...
there's a... southern europe...
               but of an eastern europe...
such a piquant vogue of vocab that has
to cherry-pick into existence
an estonia and the latvians...

               central, europe?
                      all that is germany...
beside the fact that prussian-germany...
and the prussians could be bundled
up with the other baltic states...

little o' czech republic...
      a minor ally poland...
                    some alleviated circumstance
of an oriental allure within
the confines of russia...

             it breaks my heart
to see england unfathomable...
               currently without a near
perfect engagement strategy...
      coming to the fore with a headache
of diamond-studded gills...
        that there are
bipartisan "rats" and the ship is
sinking...
    otherwise the provincial aspect
of weeding out...
detestable aspects of cosmopolitanism...

that London could be treated as:
London-London... rather than London-England...
because of the great yawn
of the heliocentric adventure of sci-fi fun...
i.e. what is the copernican west?
what is the copernican east?

       perhaps a return to some sort of
language formality...
to escape with a poetry is hardly
a reconstitution of the soul
to a modern letter: dear sir... yours faithfully...
or a very modern hello! kind regards!

europe as a claustrophobia...
             it's such a limiting delight of...
that there somehow was...
a premeditation...
    to **** with premeditation allows the status:
******...
but to **** by accident is a "mere":
homicide...

              such grave consequences...
the culprit and the tool: but also the thought
involved...

but is there something self-deprecating
about english humour?
a pride of borrowed history...
unlike the interlude of non-existence
bound to Poland...
        this... castrated figment of my old
imagination...
                rule britannia referring
to a period prior to the empire and a ref.
to an english-spanish exchange...

then again...
   how did the spanish: then not the spanish...
create... a post-racial south america...
the tinged copper and auburn
lure of the delight...
there must be "something" sobering
bout an anglo-saxon realism...

that there's a tinge of taming the viking
horde... there's no share
in "grief" should the west arrive
at being licked by a mongolian
extract of prose...

           but always the very
formidable tow of the culprit cog
and:  **** in machina...
              easier to posit a god-phantom
ex-, as that gravity in extension orbit
linear of Pluto...

              postcards from Saturn... anyone?
otherwise, this... simply...
the english have exhausted the concept
of world... of geocentrism...
            
but then the forever soap-opera demand
of the local affairs...
how heliocentrism abides by a breath...
side by side with geocentrism
of the soap opera...
              to have to heave
a concern for the stars and the moon cycles...
this finite basis of a rooting...

        that the forerunner of / for the h'american
presidential candidacy
looks simply bored.... or rather...
unexpecting... while the first lady
is so glued to reciting the autocue
like a evil...
wild-eyed and pure ergonomic...
  a jeffrey dahmer seems to
have a more sedated glee of the eyes...

the first lady is... poison of the soul...
her eyes are cobweb knitting fatamorgana...
bringing to the table of
the arrogance of multiculturalism...
it's hardly a heritage incorporated...
there's the breaking of bones
in how to move forward...
at least the food served by the indians
or the turks has made it
as a pop staple on the high street...
it's very common to want to learn
a disguise of... the incoming horde...
the reception party will be glad
at being fed...
                               chimichurri:
give me curry... a loose translation...
                  
what am i to offer these isles when...
what all these others...
arrivals make such...
  pronounced additions to a life worth living...
turkish barbers... indian takeaways...
such prominence...

a work ethos in the shadows...
a shadow for a body...
a reconciliation with the body-work
of father...
i am forever to test the hobby market...
these formidable words like:
pineapple... like mango...
       some variation of "foreign" inventions...
never the placid anglo- prefix
titillating the paranoia: non-bilingual schizoid...

a dozen europes and a historical agony
surrounding the base narrative "primordial":
of...  i dare say... byzantine-&-darwinistic...
that the byzantines reworked a more
fashionable period before... settling for the laurel
before the shock & awe of the ottoman conquest...
or that darwinism is as much
a lesson in history as it is a lesson in biology...
that... the latter... is...
such a stereotypical predominance
of expected behaviour...

that the former is a... overt over-simplification
of a desire for work, wheat and time...
or a designation of space...
it's not that darwin is not a dickens...
but at least... the world is still inaccurate
with a dickensian take on:
with this here england...
arriving at the 20th century...
cricket players being dubbed...
fancifully: the tourists...
shouldn't all english people have
that affix?

                      there's that...
as there's also...
                  the copernican revolution
has been made impossible by someone as far removed
as william burroughs...
who insist... the ancient egyptians knew
of the heliocentric demands...
that the geocentric model was backward
thinking... that the ancient greeks
were the only people to ever think:
and we have only moral plagiarism to mind...
and a plagiarism of eureka!
or that thinking can escape
the narrative and riddle the heights
with spontaneity...

    this prolonged... western european...
admiration for a people that are currently...
made into an economic scrutiny *******-riddling...
imagine my disconcerting: hier und jetzt!

the wooden stairs are creaking...
there's a strain most unfathomable...
like that associated with a cavern...
and a man's eye having to invest in making
a bridge a reality...
that history is a reflective tool...
nothing sinister or military in nature...
a beer could be considered warm ****...
a bucket-load of camel spit...
should i guise it as such?

           to heave a beginning...
somehow i can't find... a work-around
of a western europe...
spain is still catholic...
             ireland... well... whatever...
the same self-depreciating humour
is to be expected...
          anything serious...
forward moveable and come along
has to be littered with that...
fable of the protestant work ethic...

it's impossible to have a father
who's an underpaid technician in the field...
whereas... mongrel romanians
are elevated to the status of
manager...
           pitch-perfect: ethno-central...
on the continent where
there are: "some differences"...
   zu liben unter deutsche wie deutsch'...
well... to live among the english
is to have to forever retain an otherness...
a foreign attitude of...
down the line... the capacity to...
integrate with a cousin or two being
towed...
if you knew a thing or two about
immigrant poles...
they're not very... forthcoming...
they are so hard riddled on the integration
project...
there is no in-group preference
other people a priori stress...

so... fallacy and fake number 1...
       so much for reading a milan kundera
essay...
in the context: that newspapers are
to be read!
   it's impossible to concern oneself
with the concept of a newspaper as
aligned with: not being read...
force-fed turkey glut and baron fat...

         help the pope to sing!
                        it's not like...
there wasn't a shortening reaction
phase to re-orientate the dynamism of: future "lore"...
europe is such a little place...
made even oh so much more tiny...
provincial... solipsistic...
by these island-dwelling folk that
the english tourists care to concern themselves
as being...

that the english language
is thoroughly recognised as the lingua franca
of old...
to tease learning some arabic or mandarin
is a question of aesthetic...
old fool and bigger than the lost "little"
of a worship...
such gravity... concerning the names...
Angevin...
                Merovingian... Capulet...
           Stuart... Windsor...
    my own sorrow: this common name...
           well...
                        all crippling demands...
big or small...
                   hell... there are bigger onces...
there's no known house of David or or Solomon...
such a borrowed gesticulated at...
the shadow drawn...
                   i forfeit!
from the ant people that abide...
to the swollen eye sore of blindness i tow:
a recreational soviet pact of: me's stealing Siberia!
borys!
Gold Apr 2018
Endlich wieder Sonne spüren,
und das Gras unter meinen Füßen fühlen.

Endlich wieder in der Luft,
wunderbar zarter Blumenduft.

Endlich wieder bunte Farben,
heilen meine Winternarben.

Endlich wieder warme Tage,
und nur eine Frage:

Endlich wieder mit dir sein,
hier im warmen Sonnenschein?
ilias Jul 2023
Ich renne. Lautlos. Meine Füße berühren abwechselnd den Kies, ein paar Steinchen nehme ich kurz auf meinem Weg mit, danach bleiben sie einsam neben Anderen liegen.
In meinen Ohren ertönt der nicht endende Bass meiner Gedanken.  
   müde. müde. müde.
Es ist das Wissen um das Ankommen, das mich weiter antreibt. Ankommen, da wo der Wald den Himmel trifft. Ankommen, da wo der Regen unter mir immer noch fällt. Da, wo ich Ruhe finden werde.
Links und rechts wiegen sich die Bäume zu meinem Rhythmus im Wind. Alles pfeift mir zu. Das Rauschen des Flusses ist mein Applaus. Er gilt mir, und nur mir. Weil ich es bald geschafft habe.
Da wo das Brummen lauter wird, wird das Rauschen leiser. Die Menschheit ist wieder spürbar. Und ich laufe, laufe laut. Meine Arme strecken sich aus nach dem greifbaren Ziel.

Stillstand.

Einatmen, ausatmen, tief einatmen.
-
Meine Gedanken fallen vor mir. Und mit mir fällt das Leben.
Es kommt unten an und zerbirst in Millionen Scherben. Ich tue es ihm gleich.

Willkommen Unendlichkeit.
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2023
qiss kiss ts'kammen
ordeal of the dyslexics.

****** innuendos aplenty:

i cycled with a rucksack full of empty cider bottles
and one tiny 35cl where whiskey would
otherwise be found... i have a fetish for recycling,
a fetish for recycling, not owning a car but rather
two bicycles, long walks in the forest alone,
scratching my head and pretending to braid parts
of my beard: rather, pinching it and twisting the pinched
part so it might appear that i have saber-teeth either side
of my chin...
                   little pleasures...
i would otherwise be known as a: KLOSZER...
KLOSZ... lampshade... kloszer is a derogatory term
for someone in Eastern Europe who collects empty bottles
from skips to later bring back to a shop
to get his WACŁO (VATSWO) - i guess i imagined this word:
in the olden days of the early 1990s...
us boys used to play during the summer running mayhem,
on our breaks we'd go to the shop and buy
TURBO gum, chew chew chew...
and have a little prized paper of a car,
and we used to buy lemonade, later pepsi...
if we bought a lemonade (always in a glass bottle)
and drank it on the spot, returned the bottle to the shop...
we weren't charged extra for the drink...
but if we decided to buy a glass-bottled drink and not
return the bottle on the spot? we'd get charged extra:
glass was precious under communism...
KLOSZER? the person who would scout the urban
environment and pick up leftover glass bottles
for a drink of *****... but i'm recycling and i feel mightily
proud of... "proud"... of this Achilles heel...
baron of crashing chandeliers...
                     but it wasn't raining when i performed this task...
when i cycled to the VAPE shop on North St.
inquiring... i was giving this ASPIRE Typhon 100 as
a present... but the more my lips and breath snuggle on
this **** no smoke comes out... and the smoke is harsh...
coils?! coils?! over-used coils?
i walked in to the shop with the sort of would-be
girlfriend with piercings and tattoos
   and all that jingle at the counter... some random guy
sticking around for too long, i broke his train of thought...
i was trying to break past the smoke pretending
there was a dead carcass in the room and instead of smoke
there were flies... **** me... i'm looking for a new coil...
new coil she says... she starts rummaging...
it started raining by then...
           she picked up a £15 packet of five filters... coils...
PnP-VM6... like this sort of detail actually matters...
i ask her... so how do you change them?
she replies: you just pull it out...
so i pull it out... oops...
                     *** scene worded...
my flask is full of blueberry oily liquid... it spills...
all while there's this: now turning into a creepy guy
in the background obviously not buying just
trying to work his game with this woman behind
the counter... the liquid spills...
playful innuendo conversation: oh... i'm not intimidated...
i have underperformed in my life...
not exactly premature *******... it's just when
she's the madam of the "parlour" and i have no energy
and i need to chop my **** off and replace it with a *****
the fluid spills my hands are greasy
she tells me that she'll get the tissue...
oops... once more... obviously it was a super-charged
***-metaphor...
i can't remember the last time i was called HONEY
and the whole affair was brushed off so easily with
***: in my mind, guiltily displaced...
   i bought the filters and pushed when the sign on
the door indicated PULL...
as confused as anyone might be...
when, where? apart from a VAPE shop will you get to pull
out an intricate part of a tool...
spill juices and have a woman retort with: let me get you
some tissues... i mean... that's super-charged Freudian
forbid might have any choking-jokes aside beyond
the already made via innuendo...

i'm richer than the rich having none of their worries
or the follies,
i do own what the rich own: and for that i am
rich in not having to worry about owning
things that might cause me to worry -
                   if it might be only for a minute or two:
this moulded heap of cow dung
    and mud - and milk and water -
   leave behind all the chains of gravity and marry
air: marry air and rise higher to the highest
point - touch the membrane where air disappears
and what is left is the vacuum where stars dictate
what is and what isn't...

or to better translate...

    reading one poem: Zbigniew Herbert's
   Former Masters while listening to Faun's
Sonnenreigen

and as if by magic my knowledge of English
disappears in my mind to a silence...
eaten up twice, ejected thrice!

\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \

dawni mistrzowie
obywali się bez imion

        (in der goldnen morgenstund
     ziehen wir aus des tales grund)


   ich sygnaturą były
białe palce Madonny  (und wir tanzen
                                               froh hinein
      in den frühen sonnenschein)


albo różowe wieże
   di città sul mare    (hoch hinauf auf bergeshöhen -
                      
  a także sceny z życia
   della Beata Umiltà      / -  um ins auge lughs zu
                                               sehen)


   roztapiali się   (lasst uns feiern
   w sogno              (             diese zeit
miracolo                  ( die der sommer
     crocifissione              ( hält bereit...)

    znajdowali schronienie
pod powieką aniołów        
                                                (du lässt deine raben ziehen
                                               in die felder golden stehen
                                                und das helle lichte rad
                                                dreht sich über lughnasad)


   za pagórkami obłoków
w gęstej trawie raju
                                                (muzik gemisch nach chor)
   toneli bez reszty                                      "
w złotych nieboskłonach                          "
  bez krzyku pzerażenia                            "
bez wołania o pamieć                                "
                         ­                                             "
   powierzchnie ich obrazów                    "
są gładkie jak lustro                 (es war nun ein
                                                             ganzes jahr)


nie są to lustra dla nas      (seit ich dich beim tanze sah
   są to lustra wybranych      (allzu oft in langer nacht)
                                                 habe ich an dich gedacht)
....

     sprawcie niech spadnie ze mnie
wężowa łuska pychy           (könig sommer führt den tanz
                                               dem ich folg im blütenkranz
                                               und so dreht sich unser kreis
                                               in der alltbekannten weis')


  niechaj zostane głuchy
   na pokuszenie sławy    (du lässt deine baben ziehn
                                           in die felder golden stehen
                                              und das helle lichte rad
                                              dreht sich über lughnasad)


/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

ehemalige meister
sie lebten mich selber
    ohne namen

       (w porannej godzinie, złotej)
    pull us from the grand valleys...
oh ****... incursion of the English:
the red-coats are coming!

       ciągnąć nas z wielkich dolin...

   ihr unterschrift war
weiß finger Madonna  (i my tańczyli
                                               radośni zu-hausen, W
                                 wwww to:
schdat:  frühen-para-freeze: fruit:
early... sonnenschein - sun-lighting
oblivion... sun-glee: shine...)


oder rosa türme
   di citta sul mare    (wysokie
                 ÚP z  
wyżyny górskie -
                      
  und auch sZenen mit leben
   della Beata Umilta      / -  um ins auge lughs zu
                                               sehen)


geschmolzen sich   (liście nas świętować  
in sogno              (             ten czas
miracolo                  ( there the summer, to i too
                                           that: there, the: to i too:
                                        ta jedyna stokroć:
                                         zerk chłodem oka: powieka...
                                   okno na świat... rano:
                                              i modłem: terz:
                                          anatomia bosa noga...
                                    dzicz: bosa noga boga...
rap rap... all that rap might bring to suffice:
the polyglot presence of an African incursion
into Europe... mumble mumbo jam: tát tát... jum-b'oh!

a thought experiment one awry: trying to exclude
English from my psyche for a little while
proved insufferable, even if listening to a song
on Deutsche and reading a Polieren script...
sneaky ******* has a way to return...
i wanted to keep a perfect translation
of: reading a script in Polieren while listening
to a song in Deutsche...
subsequently translating the read Polieren
into Deutsche and reimagining hearing Deutsche
al Polieren... not in the right interest of
the English philosophy ("esoteric aesthetic")
of queuing... ****** just butter in: elbows held high!

SMUTNA SUKNIA: OGIER: PEJCZ!
   co stonoga-noga-o-gołą: nogę...
widmo... język... mów a mowa...
                                     bzdeta: mów!
ogier: stonoga... wilko-kroć...
  step... mowa: noga... ogień: zór...
jęk: kleṅska: ogień: ozór...
                            język: ksieżyc...
ogień: rosputsta: i nadal mi brak słów!

     crocifissione              (trzyma gotowość...)

    sie fanden zuflucht
unter augenlid auf engel        
                                                (wypuszczasz swoje kruki
                                               by stanąć na złotych polach
                                                i koło jasnego światła
                                                zakręty samo-w-się nad
                                                lughnasad!)
 ­                                     

   hinter hügel wolken
in der dicke gras auf paradies
                                                (muzyka­: tylko muzyka,
                                                     bez, słów)

   sie ertranken ohne der rest                    "
im golden himmelneigung                       "
  ohne schrei auf grusel                             "
ohne anruf um erinnerung                       "
                                                               ­       "
   oberflächen ihr gemälde                        "
sind glatt wie spiegel                 (to był jeden dobry
                                                           ­  cały rok)


nien sind dies spiegel für uns
   sind sie diesser spiegel die ausgewählt

                                               (odkąd ja i ty na tańcu okiem wgląd
                                               także często w dłuższej nocy)
                                               miałem ja, myśl twoją)

....

     mach es möglich lassen werde fallen
    von mich
serpentin schale auf stolz  
                           (król lato prowadzi taniec
                           za którym podążam w wieńcu kwiatów
                           i tak obraca się nasz krąg
                           w znany sposób)


  lassen ich werde bleiben taub
   an verlockung von / auf
                       RUHM        (pozwalasz odejść swoim dzieciom
                                              stanąć na złotych polach
                                              i koło jasnego światła
                                              odwraca Lughnasad -

                                      
płuco - singular... plural?
   płuca... lungs....
    garden of breathing!
soul always escapes the noun...                       

\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \

just to double check, translating from ******
to German and German to English,
that how i would have otherwise arrived
on these shores if my only mode of transport
was the tongue:
if i had no legs and perhaps no eyes...
if i were an idea of English that could express
it as I, Ja, Ich...
        and, yes, theirs'...
       iota > whatever might come after...

ah! this is one of those thought experiments!
it has to be! i'm excited!
i'm truly awakened!
this muddle of memory, dream, imagination,
reality a sprinkle of words and hey presto!
starved from images having moved
from the Age of the Image
to the Age of the Music...
it's so simple...
once upon a time you could only hear
music if someone played it good
or you played it badly...

yet when someone wrote a word...
or when someone painted a painting...
it could be written once
yet preserved by time
by this ingenious overcoming of God
(no, not man)
and if god "wrote" mountain man "wrote"
Pyramid,
if god "wrote" river man "wrote":
boat bridge watermill...
if god "wrote" forest man "wrote":
pluck out these trees stop looking
for berries and mushrooms...
look for grass, edible grass! find me arable
land that's not a desert!
of once mountain ranges that passed
from time into non-history
    into keepers of time by the whims
of the fluted wind...
                  
by wind my breath...
by my breath the decay of creative rust...
     i can only create dead things...
with me the power of death-creativity...
i invented the stirrup with me gone
the horse might finally not graze so easily
after the work of civilization has been done...

only then might the four horsemen
come with me dead and the stirrup
   i can only create dead things...
i am the death-creativity...
with me there will not need for the fork
or the knife the spear and the rope
upon waking a new world
i will only know words like mountain
apple tree i will know the word cloud
i will know to say the sea and that sea
i will call the caspian sea: sea...
and the atlantic sea: sea...
    and i will call the Danube the Oder
and the Oder the Vistula
but i will not know what is Danube or Oder
i will be unable to say or dream or conjure
a fork without: the fork
i will be in Paradise...
i will not know the concept of ******
because there will be no word for ******
there will be no Madonna or pregnant woman
there will be no foetus there will be so many words
missing! so many words will be missing...
all the basic words of coordination
will be there: and the Highest Abstracts
will be there: will, hope, dream,
    there will be there: be, am and i,
             there will be: because, are you,
there will be giggle and there would be crying,
there would be sad and there would be happy...
there would be: because and after and by
and there would be...
there would be no knowledge nor anything
concerning grammar...
this revision of "vocabulary" would imply
there being no real vocabulary,
a dream-world vocabulary of:
if said thing goes not exist... there's no word for it...
there would be no word: hammer
because there would be no need for hammers
indeed: nails...
motion of hammering...
there might be a rock and a trick of a hardened shell...
there would be no word for distance:
mile... by looking upon the sun...
there would be the Eye of the Blue
and the Eye of the Navy-Glee... there would
be no Night no Nothing
    no Night in this Hanging Pyramid of Babel...

there would be no Moon or Sun
only the Eye of the Blue
and the Eye of the Navy-Glee...
Glee? SH.... what's SH in shIMMER?
what's IMMER?
(oops... a Socratic stumbling block)
   immer... ALWAYS...
      what's SH+H? shh? be quiet always?!
SH... sound, vibration is sound...
            shh! yes: i'm telling you: it's going to be
like that, always...
   promised you 72 virgins?
wouldn't you just want your mind un-muddled?!
what's un- and muddled?
un- is not... not of when coupled to a noun
that works like a verb... doing the muddling...
medley muddling mummifications: toilet... paper...

toilet? no... no knowledge of toilet in "heaven"...
no paper too...
     word... what's word?
God... what is God... no God...
word is the a priori already invested crown
of curtailing words to begin with...
not imitation sound: __S

ah... sobering up... i love this bouncing along of English
dynamic like everyone is invoked to be involved...

                                          Z__­___

that's how the West met the East in writing

Z_________S

my "god" will be the word ONOMATOPOEIA...
and his son will be MIMIC
and his wife will be NĀMÉ
                        alternative written by angels
as NAMEH... because by then only angels will have
knowledge of the clue, not God,
of YHWH... YHWH will become as comical
as the 21st graffiti spray-painted by some boy
in the outskirts of London...
this scribble should have been preserved by the angels,
but like Prometheus, the arch angel Samael
brought down this scribble...

they brought the mummies and their hieroglyphs
that turned out to be Emoticons...
the Egyptians had two brothers...
the brother Aztec who copied the eldest
brother, Egyptian in constructing the Pyramids
and brother of the Great O of the Orient
who squinted his eyes with avarice and lineage
and said: i'll write like you, i'll see through you...
you give me mummified bodies
i'll give you skeletons...
the Aztec was the youngest,
the Egyptian the Eldest...
  the Khan was in the middle...
and Khan was right... he employed a pre-digitalisation
of scripts... imagine throwing
the letter G into Egyptian hieroglyphs...
some ****** did that to Khan's great counter
of hieroglyphs full bodied...
to hieroglyphs pure skeleton...
prior to Latin: not even Greek was a skeleton-key?
what? letters marrying numbers?!
unheard of?

1111111... one... lllllll (little l)... IIIIIIII (big iota)

imagine dropping a latin letter into Egyptian
"script"...
look what happened when someone dropped
something foreign into
Chinese hieroglyphs and so was born
Katakana... Chinese hieroglyphs came first...
then came Katakana...
then came the elevated:
if the story is true... and the Austrians
think themselves better than the Germans...
someone gave birth to the scribbles...
Korean came last...

       that feeling you get when you're trying to look
for an actor's name:
he playss the role of Grand-Duke?
Emperor? of the Habsburg Dynasty...
the elder brother of Marie Antoinette...
beautiful actor...
                          lips like purses...
who threw that ******* bone against the Chinese
hieroglyphs that spawned Japanese minimalism
that translated: ha! translated Chinese through
Japanese to Korean... split the ******* in two...
towing two! towing two!
                          Zhin Chin ****... silly!
   i'm not joking...
           Žin vs. Żyn... Rzym! Rzym... Rome! Rome!
hmm...
           Źın...          Žiń...
  
ha ha... the Nazis smoked out the son of the devil
of the people who gave them abode for almost...
whenever Poland, converted (insert a snigger...
i have the noun-spelling for it...
but not the onomatopoeia, ha ha... laughter
and rugby)...

change of direction at work...
i'm feeling an aura of: DISTANCING...
people are feeding off the appetite of me: leaving...
and their lives being over...
of course they will not be over...
they'll be feet in not worn shoes
in shoes boxes on shelves in libraries
of fickleness of the female side of humanity...
only angels should have been given
the crack-head code of the 4 letter "signature" of
YHWH... i'll give Jesus credit...
well... Beelzebub...

HANGU:L! that ingenious king of Korea
that: seeing a stick being thrown
at a bunch of sticks assembled as a shelter
of the Chinese hieroglyphs witnessed as the Japanese
folded... worked on an argument
of introspection: kept it...
hmm... what are those weird ISLADERS
******* around it?
they have the BOLD katakana
and the ITALIC hiragana...
two ******* trenches...
just let some westerner know:
the Hiroshima (katakana)
and the Nagasaki (hiragana)...

   Chernobyl and Fukushima...
the pregnant women were advised to drink iodine...
boom! boom! boom!
ergo? no real, comparatively: "boom" as boom!
or  BOOM...

it's the second morning i'm woken up from briefly dreaming...
point about dreaming? the content doesn't matter...
i'm not a hyper-focused Freud...
dreams are dreams in
how fog is fog and a hurricane is  hurricane...
dreaming heavily:
you feel exhausted if you slept for 10 hours
or 5... dreamless...
you slept: you didn't dream...
but dreams creep up on you:
they play fakery with your body:
you weren't sleeping: you were dreaming...
unlike getting blind drunk
and... sleeping: not dreaming...
with the lesser baggage(d) people...
snails? no... elephants! no ivory tusks...
already no fur... no drunks...
edible cartilage of the ears...
flapping... hmm... i might have to invent
a rug... a place to take off one's shoes...
shoe?
shoe prior to sock? obviously...
shoe prior to sock...
sexed up legs... procreation by the chemical
demise of acting...
if not sold to actors:
a god-send...
i could **** each any every ugly *****
but... god almighty... the impossible feats...
with Xerxes on your back?
the second battalion ambush of Greece?!

currently as is "currently": and, ahem... "history":
a history of plug-hole psychology
of inescapable Darwinism: cuckoldry...
or Plato's ***** joke about the feminism
of Hindus and their tired, wasted concern for Hygiene...
they bathed with the dead...
so the dead came and ate up the living...

for the past days... of note... two...
upon waking i hear my name being called:
Mateusz!
not twice, thrice, just... once...
i rush down and ask my mother: have i overslept?!
did you call me?
the replies: no... i haven't called you...
why am i: Matthew?
                     i don't think i'm: Matthew Smith
or a Matthew Czopek or a Matthew Eschlert..
or a Matthew Matthews...
why was Jesus Christ not Jesus ben Josephus
ben Matthias?
                i wonder... not really: "wandering"...

it was but a little nugget of inspiration of marijuana
and i went off the tangent...
i would not replicate the original ******
poem into German
   and the German song into ******...
because... springboard og ingenuity
English woke up!
as if: spontaneously...
i can't appreciate poetry written by
mono-linguists or ****-up: kissy: tut-tut..
smooch kiss-up immigrant ****-wits
of: this is only a Lingua FRANCA...
"franca"... a tourist-tongue...
it's a ***** tongue...
people speak it, leave it, abandon it...
sometimes perhaps frame it...
it's a tongue of commerce and Babel
and... at the end of all the tongues coming
together to speak it...
a rather: unsatisfying tongue...
over-salted... over-pompously-self-solidifying
complicated-soliloquy... solipsism...
something this: that: self-
    +-evidently apparent that children ought to
be teaching this modus operandi... *******... ha ha!

letter will not be know since words will not be known,
we will, although know words, that will be sounds
not scribbled down, imagination will be
nullified and nothing will be born with sleep
and dreaming will be alien to us,
since we will not be myopic
*** will be friendship and: we will know not
the word for tool and the specifics of ingenuity
and genius...
there will be no word for man...
and there will be no word for woman
and there will be no diatribe of death and child...

my uncle is in hell and i can almost count
this auditory hallucination:
i will have no concept of auditory: because i heard...
within the non-existence of my bones
and body and blood and brain and heart
in the water and earth turning to air
with each breath...
i will not hear... how my uncle: calls for me...
and how did you live with your mother,
when she aged to a nearing rot...
i lived with them and not people i would exchange
for a properly working bicycle-lock...

for each ******* i would replace the glorious
half hours i had with them
the months i spent with my supposed "lovers"...
i'd take one half hour with a *****
to replace the courting with said woman: unsaid:
to procreate and teach "my" children:
children of the times... flawed lessons
of the march, ancient march of typology
and non-writing and Time as Dust...

am i to help you when i implored the non-existent
deity into my *****,
indirectly you might implore for me:
will i reply to the heaven sent:
what am i to do?!
do as i did: absolutely nothing and nothing too,
that's twice that's hardly not a scone
scuffed and chained to Baron Zung...

            speak two tongues and tease a third...
come the fourth... letters have to turn into images...
in this heaven of no sheltered virgins..
in my noun-basket i will not have words
like pen, or: boiler, roof, eyeliner,
i will not have:
          screen, cinema, actor,
           philosopher, poet, psychologist,
soul: i'll have my self-eating cannibalism of breath...
verbs will merge with nouns
and the only nouns worth existing thereby will
be: specified and "corrupt" by a localised
specialisation:

                 god will be ONOMATOPOEIA...
the son will be MIMIC
and there: within the confines of said time
MIMIC will battle Chimera...
MIMIC will look alike: Chimera
but Chimera alphabetically:

    CHIMERA = ACEHIMR

                   the dead are not so displeasing
when it comes to the living-as-if-dead...
and there are plenty of those
living such: body-and-soul-crushing...
no... i couldn't imagine myself marrying
a troll... just to somehow oddly fit it...
i'm not going to reply to a message:
me and Nicki... says Frankie... are over...
reply: to what? and did you hear
my side of the story? no? no?!
i don't have to hear your side, either!
oculus per oculus!
like for like:
dislike for dislike!

           i'll wait... i'm not actually waiting
for anything other than:
can you please leave me alone?
i'll reply you whenever i feel like it...
i don't feel like
wanting human connection for at least
two days...

there's a hell and a privacy one earns to have
earned it that one rarely wants to
have it made public...
albeit in the "public anonymous"...
all the more willingly... since no immediate
consequences are to  be met: face-to-no-face...
tired of replies...
walking lesbians into the night
is like pretending to not walk
cows into the slaughterhouse...
ego-***** replacing what once was?
Plato the Plumber and the blocked toilet
of reincarnation...
i'm done with pride... Herr Dapf...

             for the waiting to be dead,
falte der primast schattierung:
für das Warten tot zu sein:
ich möchte auch tot sein...

   a death with the hollows
of the hallowed wooded emptied bark....
suffer the sound of a thunder-stroke...
donnerschlaganfall:
all aligned with things living...
nearly: or waiting to be towed toward
A... death...

           morgen?
                          tòmāté...
*******: SPUD!
           morgen butter-kneaded? by the hollows
of said, suggested juices..
my knees are not enough:
meine knie sind nicht genug!
Maximilian Nov 2018
Ach, Sarah über das Zeichen beim Dasein
Wie der gesammelten Wege eines Weges
Des goldenen Feldweges rein charme

Der warm tragenden Wände unter die Schatten
Die heißersehnte Erfassung
Wird die Freiheit des ewigen Raumes geben
Auf die Hand zur Leinwand des Antlitzes der Natur
Die Quellen der Submarine, der versteckte reine erste Mensch

Den Thron zu führen, das Flüstern nicht aufgezählt der Weisheit der Wehen
Der lebendige Anfang der schaffenden Zeit.
27182818 Jul 2019
Wozu des trüben Sinnes trachten?
Unter Ausgeburt des Zorns
Die leeren Blicke verbrannt
Sodass der Hölle Schergen
Zur Oberfläche tauchen.
Indes ist karge Landschaft
Blühend vor Tod und Niedertracht

Denn der Götter Ketten
Schmelzen unter der Einsicht
Welche die Welt ihrer
Ach so schönen
Ach so herrlichen
So verschwenderischen
Lüge zur endlichen Masse beraubt

In endloser Leere
Welche nunmehr nur Pein
Vermag zu bringen
Während des Richters Henker vollstreckt
Und Gerechtigkeit
Als hätte sie denn je existiert
Mit Wehen und Klagen
Die letzten Flammen schürt
Original German Version.
Mateuš Conrad Dec 2019
ich würde, vielmehr: schreiben
etwas deutsche:
graswurzel, das ja!
the ******* need more you
ponce of a mongrel saxon!
better deutscheland grammar?
we had our "solistice"
time-out... welcome tomorrow...
no point leaving
a workaholic out for no
apparent reason: best bet?
"look busy"... ******* furlong's
worth of "short"...

jump that! y'ah ******* dwarf
bridge-gap brigade!
der hobbitenvolk ar kommen!
der hobbitenvolk ar kommen!
nicht die kirschemäntel... aber!
noch die "unerwartet":
zeppelinpumpernickelhoppla!
- why am i bound to the scotch
nationalists? oh... i lived among them
for over three years...
the celtic remants...
perhaps edinburgh would be
the new dublin...

christmas... it's such a german "ting"
like... that irish celtic tad woz
zee timez... C'U... C'U... no...
no L8ER...

but i managed! everything i served on
the plate and placed on a table...
the oven-cooked tatties...
the parsley snippets...
the carrots... the garlic...
the peppers... the red onions...

what the **** am i celebrating,
now? i'm pretty sure, that,
whatever it was... will fizzle out
come post-christmas hangover of a tomorrow...

and a buckling-load-of-****-of-europe...
the same islander "english" mentality...
euro-trash continent...
this... belly-button of the world
english mentality...
you wouldn't suspect it among
the welsh, the irish, the scotch...

perhaps the united kingdom can become...
the next yugoslavia under charles the III...
does he keep his name?
does he? London is long gone...
just as Danzig was long gone...
when Venice wrote the blueprints...
an ancient folklore of a city state...

******* just interrupted something...
no... it wasn't the Royal Ascot...
the horses, ran, ran and buckled...
broke some legs and not being able
to fall asleep standing: were put down...
the greengrocers of betting had their harvest...

we'll still have the top hats,
the champagne "socialism"... the CLASS...
oh you have to remember the CLASS / CASTE
pseudo-hindu "oops"...
england will still be...
what scotland and wales could be...
the less timid bits and pieces of...
what could probably hang in the air
as the new yugoslavia...

"problem" being... it's an island...
it's unlike iceland...
and it's quiet unlike new zealand or...
or... japan...
it's... when...
alt vati pommerschen...
flüsterte in der kinderwagen
auf sachsen, und sagte...

the ******* think you're going?
******* yew-tree quasi-nomad
of germania? you're an imitation
hebrew... or you're...
you're not a: bayerischverwandtschaft?

as yes, christmas only makes sense
now... drinking from the amber spring
of the baltic...
some scotch runes in: mash-up...
easy, easy...

i can use this, acquired, language...
but i know the ******* will have their Ascot...
die sächsischweg...
ants-in-their-pants...
and now "they" think they're settled...
post-colonial imperialism bound
to a nationalist revival...
so much for having no nostalgia...
akin to...

the battle of Tannenberg 1410 -
the date 680 by St. Wilfrid...
such a date... a northern crusade against
the last pagans of europe:
the lithuanians... **** me, i don't need
to paint... the lithuanians and the other
baltic folk... whatever the hell became of
the prussians: who weren't exactly treated
as germans by the teutonic collective...

oh i'll sing the carol songs...
i'll sing the crusader songs... hey! pronto!
i'll sing that... baby jesus doesn't really do it for me...
i'll go and visit Catalonia where
the name Jesus is diffused...
ends up a hey-zeus construct...
a H'ezeus etc.... and the party is over...

but i could celebrate christmas...
if it was in german...
i don't know why... perhaps it's riddling
a masochism remains with teasing
the whole: "wunderbar"?

better still... when europe is cited...
there's that black-hole europe...
there's that... cindarella of europe...
that "missing link"...
between what the balkans served up
in the 1990s... the collapse of the soviety union...
how the 2008 economic crash didn't really
affect this region...
von unter die eisenvorhang...

island people: shire folk...
hobbits... you know the sort...
very idiosyncratic...
one minute a russophobe...
next minute... exotica of the siberian ooh!
aah! i have lived on these isles for...
it's not worth stating:
a better part of my life...
but i have lived... among...
the scots, the irish...
i teased the welsh...
and in London? the tower of babel came...
come to think of it...
the english have sort of reacted like
vermin... you rarely see them...
perhaps in oxford...
of ****... pakistani **** gang there too...

my bet is... elizabeth is "dying":
no she's not... seen that ***** on roller-skates?
seen her pre-house-of-windsor
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha teeth,
chin... and... what the hell and other have
they almost made... insufferable
in it being: signatured? the teeth,
the chin... the eyes!

saxons... jews of the germans...
nomads of the north...
it's not like they ever moved with
a hope for adventure...
when a saxon moves...
he moves with a sense of investment...
he brings his reproductive tools with him...
no wonder there was a feud between
the germans and the "germans": the saxons...
this is... what could not possibly be...
the basic interpretation of england...
past the "chernobyl" of the norman invasion...
how celtic became saxon became
french... became... a ******* cocktail
cosmopolitan...
but the welsh still retained their:
Cymru...
there you go...
white cross on a black canvas...
pirates!
Wales and Cornwall...
dip into a ditto-esque whatever...

the remains of the saxons when the global
cocktail decided to send a postcard from
'ere minding the cockney shlang as:
the proper way to speak... Estonian...
eh?!

bewildered germans speaking...
i don't even know what i am speaking:
it's not much of an achievement if you're
speaking english...
you're bound to suffer from a variant of
flu or fluke or slang...
it's not exactly regarded as:
high esteem latin... or hebrew...

pauper Poland: "where i'm from"...
thank god it's omitted...
never in discussions...
by western "proletariats"...
cheap beer in Prague while... Warsaw?
sowwy... not enough bi-lingual
tour-guides and trout ******* mothers
from the caravan of Zappa...

and we will beg to differ...
i don't come from a people who would
celebrate being conquered by ancient rome
had to matter...
yet somehow i write in Latin encoding...
imagine if... Latin encoding was lost
akin to cuneiform...
but it wasn't...
i did, i truly did...
miss the glagolitic transition via
greek into cyrilic...

invader kin: these slavs these indo-europeans...
it ***** up the narrative of the origin seekers...
these modern, "protestant":
afro-europeans of the YEST...
i say: part of the gesticulation of jesting...

among the saxons who disavow their germanic
heritage... thinking they could somehow
replicate the polish-lithuanian commonwealth...
last time i heard...
just because the scotch speak english...
but keep their: wee part of the equation...
the welsh still speak their welsh...
pen dal i fyny uchel draig...

what's the difference betwen...
the medieval Lithuanian...
and the modern Welsh?
what doesn't allow this "union" to sink
into a second Yugoslavia?
h'american influences?
the... "commonwealth"?
at what point sharing a tongue is a plus...
when anyone can start reciting a Bruce Lee
film: kung fu action packed:
chop sui?

augusta III sasa and
marii józefy habsburżanki...
the house of ßaß...
saxons... again: the hebrew of the germanic people...
the nomads of the confederation...
they always... need... to... move!
and if you find them not moving...
they settle for pyramids...
and i mean: pyramids without Giza
reliefs of archeological "findings"...

but there's a massive gap...
between europe... that "bit" in the middle...
and russia...
russophobia is quiet funny...
i'd still prefer to speak german when
celebrating christmas...
after all... i did make a fickenumbringen
when it came to that alcoholic cake...
nein nein...
nicht ein königskuchen noch ein
stollen! keks... kegs...
a rumtopf!

oh i don't mind the natives...
who are the natives?
where the **** is alice?
parasites leeches... sächsischumgangssprache:
wo / wann sesshaft...
are the natives the welsh with their
retainer tongue kept intact like...
the scotch? the ire hell and fire 'reesh!
who does it take...
to speak to the natives of these isles?

just wondering...
because the saxons that remained...
and the saxons that left...
have a ******* in las vegas...
glory be to man to be the man
on the moon...
and all that...

i spent this christmas and...
i didn't buy anyone anything...
i just undermined myself...
when in england...
feel at home, during christmas...
talk some german,
some german outside of a saxon
influence of being the jew-german...
moving from place to place...
****: ja ja... ich "versammeln"...
nomadin / se-my'tine... deutsche "mischling"...

please excuse the saxons...
they are a... frivolous bunch of...
hobbit seeking elven folk...
the chinese crusade and medicinal ivory powder...
apparently: those ****-*****-base-*******-stinkers
will grow! they have size 11 feet and are...
5ft6 tall... walking on chicken nuggets then...
or stilts... or... that chinese harem of:
tied feet and toe "heels"...

oh i'm very much in england...
i can just soak myself in wild...
belligerent humour...
i've dropped any sense of irony...
it's ridicule on steroids...
but as long as there's an element of being
self-deprecating?

poland is the cindarella of europe:
hungary is worthwhile the better return of
being an: examplar reminder...
of how to deviate from socio-political norms...

black hole piece of europe...
then again: in between russia and the west...
there's some variation of an "interlude"...
which is neither west, nor east, nor central...

ensure you keep a **** in the orchestra...
so foul that it would make
a cat jump running...
giggling... turning on nazareth's
hair of a dog... being reminded:
there's a cow bell in it being towed...
and what choir spectacular didn't ever use
a castrato?

- because if i wanted to retain...
rhyme and a formality of this tongue...
how would i ever feel comfortable...
nothing of the spectacular...
the everyday myopia magic:
how umbrellas became mushrooms
in the fog grey forest of the urban
amnesia...
because i too tend to forget a Mozart...
when i find myself...
falling asleep to the sound of falling
rain on a tin roof...
violin begone! cello begone!
give me rain on a tin roof!

i'll be your Muhammad counting
the number of bones in a body...
truly and vividly so...
i can forget Mozart...
when i fall asleep...
while it's raining and...
the monotone gives me bliss...
the same note: on repeat...
on repeat.. on repeat...
nonetheless: it's still to be regarded
as a polyphony!
Souleater Feb 2018
Hoffnung hintern Berg vergraben
hörst um dich herum tausend stimmen die etwas sagen

Jeden Tag fröhlich pfeifend losmaschiert
im trott drin, den Schmerz mit einem Lächeln kaschiert
Der Rückweg zeigte jeden Tag das Ergebnis
war meistens für mich ein traurig Erlebnis

Stumm mit leisen Tränen
der Körper ausgelaugt
kaum zu sehen, nur am gähnen
war tapfer daheim,
zeigte keinem mein trauriges dasein

Wenn ich rede, wird es schlimmer,
da standen sie mir drohend gegenüber, die Gewinner
mit ihrem breiten Lächeln geschmückt
waren von meinem leid mehr als nur entzückt
Genießten die Macht die sie umgab,
immer wieder aufs Neue, jeden verdammten Tag
Seele brutal zerschlagen
nicht nur die Taten, auch das was sie zu mir sagten
ohne Rücksicht auf die Auswirkungen die kommen werden,
hatte mir in der Zeit mal vorgestellt wie es wäre zu sterben
keinen mut mehr zu haben,
sich unter seinem eigenen wert zu vergraben ...
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.
Souleater Apr 2021
Unverhofft der Tod getarnt als Dieb.
Kassiert ein unschuldiges Leben ein,
musste die Beerdigung noch schlimmer sein?
Sie sagten:"sei einfach lieb"

Zwingt mich dazu selbstverrat zu begehen,
könnt nicht mal zu euren eigenen Fehlern stehen
Mein Schweigen war euch den Verrat Wert
meine Gefühle nicht, weil es euch nicht schert

Seht nicht meine Wut
Seht nicht die verzweifelte Glut
Seht nicht was ihr mir damit antut
Konsequenzen unter'n Teppich kehren
wollt um jeden Preis euer Ziel gewähren
meine einzige Option, ist den Kontakt zu verwehren

Bin nicht wie gewünscht die adrette
spiel gewiss nicht weiter eure Marionette
Will frei sein, hab meinen eigenen Kopf
doch ihr zieht ihn nur zurück am Schopf

Merkt nicht einmal den emotinalen Machtmissbrauch
versuche meine Gedanken zu ordnen im weißen Rauch
Verachte euer Schweigen und die Familienhierarchie
weiß bei euch nicht mehr weiter, weiß nicht wie

Würde gerne weiterhin ein Teil in eurem Leben sein
doch weil ich nicht schweige, passe ich nicht ins Familienbild rein
schiebt mich mit euren Taten aus eurem Leben
die Stimme in mir laut schreit, wird dauern zu vergeben
In Gedenken an Marcel und dein Statement das mir heute die Kraft dazu gibt
Hebert Logerie Nov 2024
Mama ist gegangen
Sie lebt nicht mehr
Sie hat Mutter Erde verlassen
Sie ist auf dem Friedhof
Mama ist weiter weg
Sie ist hier und dort, wirklich
Mama ist weg
Und nicht mehr hier
Bei uns, unter der Sonne
Mama ist im Himmel
Sie sieht uns an und sie kann hören
Sie hat Spaß, in einem Traum
Uns jammern und schreien zu sehen
Mama ist bei der Jungfrau Maria
Beide hören uns zu und lachen
So sehr, dass sie im Paradies weinen
Wo niemand stirbt
Das ist ein Fauxpas
Was für eine Reise! Mama ist gegangen
Wir können sie kaum auf den Wolken sehen
Mama ist immer noch bei uns
Sie ist unsichtbar in uns
Wie wir es anderen Müttern wünschen
Fröhliche Aufenthalte auf dem Friedhof
Möge die Erde leicht und weich sein!

P.S. Dieses Gedicht ist allen gewidmet, die trauern.
Translation of “ Mommy Is Dead” in German.

Copyright © Avril 2024, Hébert Logerie, alle Rechte vorbehalten.
Hébert Logerie ist Autor mehrerer Gedichtsammlungen.
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2022
autobahn limbo:
lima bravo 5 5 5...
Harvard ha 6...


i woke up in a benevolent mood...
i rarely give money to paupers... only yesterday...
or the day before that: yesterday
i arrived at Romford at 12am from Putney
Bridge... sort of exhausted from dealing
with coworkers: i still don't understand
the tactic Emma is employing giving me
the ***** looks... then again flirting
with me... some... ******* underlying mental
health issues...
what is it with these women
my own age? i'm supposed to be the one
that's ****** up... but i look around...
**** me: what a bleak horizon...
almost as flat and boring as:
"adventure" in Belgium...
          ******* Swedish pop songs...
exported into the anglophone "hemisphere"...
maybe it was worthwhile that i was
a hermit throughout my 20s...
   coming back out, to meet people aged 35....
i'm of the "constipation": you what?!
o.k., o.k. i've had my fun in the brothels
but this is just getting silly...
#metoo...
                 you what?!
               i must have been living in an alternative
ulterior dimension...
   it's called the English articles procession...
i don't think i'm THE devil... just A devil...
one of many....
        so i i woke up in a benevolent mood...
two paupers... i cycled hangover feeling feverish
and like a **** thrown out onto a beach
to sun-bathe...
             you what?!
          yeah... felt like just that:
i don't need no hallucinogenic drugs...
when i get dementia... when i get dementia..
and there she was... a Roma-esque beauty...
i asked her... you want anything?
oh... just a Dr. Pepper... walked in... got my whiskey
and Pepsi... right... Dr. Pepper...
but it costs me £1.75... is she vegetarian?
why did i ask myself? well...
there's a meal deal... £3 for a drink... a "meal"
and a snack... for i bought a chicken bacon Caesar wrap...
Maltesers...
     as i walked out... in my mind: swerving...
ice-skating... asked her... are you vegetarian?
she said no... well then... here you go...
and all it cost me £3... for a god-bless-you...
good feeling... Charlie Dickens style good feeling...
honestly... if i had more... i'd freely give it up...
i just don't need it...
   i own enough... to be honest... i actually own
too much...
    but i can't be collective in the case of ownership...
selective...
what's that biblical quote:
ask... and it will be given?!
   no?
           minutes later i was buying a bottle
of cider and getting some cash-back...
another pauper... professional... faking it?
whatever... i wish i had children that i could
be defensive about... then again: no...
want anything? oh yeah... just some chocolate...
only yesterday the Royle family were munching on
some Crunchy chocolate bars...
so i bought him that... and told him while
giving it to him: the best choc-ah-bloc you'll
ever eat...
                     days like this... who needs to compete
with other men for status or women...
i feel like... skidding... feel like a diarrhoea...
but at the same time... hell... i just fed someone...
and she has one of those plump... Roma...
squish... smiles... you just want to bite them...
tease them a little... she reminds me of Priy'ah..
         that's how i love ***... it's the longing...
it's the forgetfulness that sometimes sprouts...
you remember all the tender parts of the body...
the soft parts surrounding the collar-bone...
   the funny parts of elbows and knees...
          the altar of a woman's thighs and...
       oh... oh... all that's in the inner crevices of her
works...
                      no... don't mention her hands...
i've tried... i can pick up a basketball with one hand...
obviously my phallus looks tiny in my own
hands:
funny... all those guys... taking ****-picks
just after having *******... oh no... they're not
taking them prior...
      women's hands are the most ******...
technically... to get some "whereabouts"
i'd have to... cut off my pinky...
i'd be left with 4 fingers...
            such cute little geisha blooms of bone...
i look: i want to eat... those hands up...
esp. if the woman in "question" isn't white...
   copper-neck... camel-jockey...
             ivory: Kenyan... plump buttered up
silver in the moonlight...
              right... i'm gearing up...
                     need to manifest an increase of stamina...
if my ******* "girlfriend" is texting me...
the time's right...
i've earned enough money in the past month...
time to revisit her...
         no more high 3 on the throne of thrones...
****... ****... *******: sure...
but no *******...
            better prep up... after all... if i'm going to
spend £120 for an hour's worth...

so she sends me a message asking whether i'm
alright: more like: have you forgotten about me?
of course i haven't...
but let's be honest: i don't *** to becoming boring...
something married people get bored of...
mind you: i don't want to have too much of it:
just in case i have to turn to role-play...
kinks... latex... glory-holes fetishes...
can we keep it kosher: the sort of ******* that
translates as: i really missed you?!
oh my god... she looks even better in daylight without
any make-up... what a gorgeous Turkish cougar
of a woman...

                         i'm pretty sure the women i work with
don't know anything about my brothel antics...
which is good... because... why would i want
them to know?
  
the German: Hessen... fans from Frankfurt didn't
disappoint... they came like all German people
come: like a horde...
  their fanaticism is more admirable than that
of the English football supporters...
i walked past them... they gave me the eye...
the sort of: giving me the eye of: oh look!
ein von uns...
                     one of us!
              
   funny that... in German 1 is also A...
a indefinite article... but also... an anzahl...
       number...

sure... obviously i was giving breaks to Muslims
breaking their fast... but with the Germans 'ere...
it felt like the good old times...
when Lyon fans visited... eh... zee Fwech...
it's not the same... but when the Germans come...
from the federation that isn't Saxony...
from the Hessen land... or elsewhere...
ever heard of the Anglo-Bavarians?! me neither...

i feel... at home... in Europe...
even today i was working with this guy... nervous as hell...
Finland? it really was a one word question...
no, no... close though... he replied...
Lithuania... i'll let him know some other shift we'll
do together...

czołem bracie!
            čołem bratku!
kaktos brolis!
          i.e. hey brother...
   kaktos: using the forehead to greet someone...

even in this poly-ethnic England that's
more London than England...
i felt... finally! pagaliau! schließlich!
at home in the right sort of cold...
i just needed the Germans to come to England
and behave like Icelanders...
hoo! hoo! clapping in unison...

why would i hate the Germans?!
           all the other ethnicities that are not associate
with Europe suddenly fizzled out of my
"concern"... Ramadam my ***...
                      i started talking to his... oh... this is a coy
one... ginger... beauty... has a flimsy blonde mustache...
freckles... light ginger hair...
i seriously don't mind...
she was really ******* reserved about me...
i could see it in her eyes...
finally i pulled her off... we started chatting...
her kids are studying Spanish...
they want to give it up... but i tell her: don't let them!
if they learn it, acquire it...
that's all the South American potential...
or tell them to learn German... after all:
English and German are cousins... the grammar is
pretty much the same... how you order words
in a sentence...

i just picked up... alles güt?!
ar du haben eine güt цeit?!

      i just wanted this woman know... a little bit of something
about myself... like...
i do have interests in foreign languages...
if she wanted to ******* with me to Poland...
i could speak for her... very "fluently":
well... natively...
         but what sort of woman would ever follow
Roxette day-dream?!
   i think i must have chewed that chewing gum
until my jaw felt sore...

remind me... why am i here? per se?!
if i'm not here for the fame... i must be here...
trying to make a conquest within the confiens of mythology...
i must be spelling it out... one person at a time...
to one person at a time...
  i'm not here for fame... i see it now...
fame associated with mortality... with the living..
no... no... i'm here for something more rarer...
i'm looking for acknowledgement after i am dead...
i want that: very much so...
i want to become famous... posthumously...

           it's a long project... es ist ein weit projekt...
fair enough: in English:
a pair... an antenna...
that N... which is shoved between vowels...
but... in Deutsche...
ein... eine...         that added vowel...
how does that work? i'm yet to speak
to someone who might erzählen (zu mich)...
i see a load of Germans... ooh! ooh!
fancy that!
         they're congregating...
no Zeppelins then?!
    
   wohl! nein Spaß wenn Deutsche
    do nicht kommen mit irgendein Zeppelins...

kommen! kommen!
lassen mich sehen du!  

but i can't really explain how it feels when seeing
these continental folk congregate:

   was inbrunst! was... lebengewalt!
i was truly standing there: pitch-side...
gobsmacked... ich war verblüfft...
         i sort of wanted to join them... i was itching
to go among them and chant their Frankfurters'
chants...
    well... because in England: diversity is our
strenght...
                    vielfalt ist unser stärke...

i was sort of reminded of the time when Europe
entertained those Nomads that spoke some
Hebrew... later mingled Hebrew with Deutsche
and out popped a ******* child that was Yiddish...

everyone comes here... this great continental funnel...
this bottle neck... they come... mingle...
and then they later leave...
   while those that remain and have always remained
are stuck by being struck with the sentence:
what the **** just happened?!

maybe that's my "problem": i see ethnicity before
i see race... like with this Lithuanian guy...
i seriously thought he was Finnish...
he sort of reminded me of looking like the lead
singer from the band HIM... Ville Valo

i did mention it to a coworker... oh look...
        der große schwarm!
maybe i should put more effort into this tongue...
no disrespect to the English language
but... German sounds softer...
English harsher...
   a bit like the inverse of: Russian sounds soft
while ****** sounds harsh...
it just sounds like... home...
          
       ein herц... ein wirbeln von luft...
              mund von der wald...

it's these conjunctions, the German definite articles...
hypothetically there's that for der
there's the for die
   there's that for das...
          i mean: there's der for that
there's die for the
   there's das for that...
    
                          you seriously cannot not be envious
when you see Germans en masse... spirited
with a commonality: for a bienenstockgeist
(hive-mind)...
                            i was struck with: neid... envy...
i wish i could belong like that...
within an in-group...
                       scheiße!  aber suchen bei mich!
i'm stuck with the ******* circus of the world...
alles zungen kam zu Loon'dune...

          seeing them like that... i find the hyped-stress
on individualism in the Anglo-Sphere slightly...
putting it mildly... debilitating...
all i wanted to do was go among the Hessen
and start chanting alles mit uns!
or alles von uns!

                i mean: how can i belong in a society that's
fixated on a global agenda... that eternal project
of monotheism... it's... seltsam... weird...
after the fiasco of the Turm von Babel... you'd think...
the opposite ought to be true...
the evil urges of the demiurge point in the other
direction...

                  but once more we've come together
as a "species" and once more we're trying to work
together... obviously the writings of Moses are
primarily metaphorischindikatoren:
you can't read them literally... anyone who reads
them literally has no poetic-sensibility...
no imagination... just like the flood did happen...
well... given the ice age and the melting of the ice...
sure... it did... mind you: we were drawing dragons
before we discovered dinosaur bones...
giant fire breathing lizards... fire being the representation
of what happened to these giant lizards...
supposedly a meteor struck the earth...
boom... imagine if that meteor struck the moon
and destroyed it... no tides... no water... blah blah...

i.e. i was never a big fan of Bill Hicks' humour...
or H'american humour in general,
unless it's by a black guy... i'm all into all that race
baiting... but me? something along the lines
of Eddie Izzard... Lee Evans...
                           maybe i'm just exhausting this sitting
that i've spread over two days...
     it has become such a collage and i'm starting to
smell a little like cologne... rye cologne...
or is that wheat? the main ingredient in whiskey?

well... that happens... at first reading
Human all too Human didn't present itself as spectacular...
but on second reading... wow!
probably his best work! it all makes sense now...
esp. since i'm reading it in English rather than ******...
too much of the teenage rebelliousness
goes into reaching for Nietzsche...
    i guess the best gateway to understanding him
is by reading some Heidegger...

ich bin einfach: begeistert mit Deutschedenken!
i am simply: enthralled with German thinking...
you couldn't: you wouldn't say as much
about about English thought...
          i just can't stomach it... it's too pragmatic...
it's too easily bound to problem solving...
it's hardly inquisitive...
it's a shepherd's mentality...
   keep everything organised... categorically proof...
phonetically, though? a ******* minefield...
loopholes of spaghetti everywhere...
   back "home" you never hear of the condition
that's dyslexia... you did hear of...
literate or illiterate... but there was no middle
ground... of dyslexia... i.e. / e.g. dyslexic:
good with numbers... **** with letters...
           katakana? or Chinese ideograms?!

(ich) sehen,
               hören,
                      wittern,
                           schmecken,
                                         fühlen...

aber! aber! da ist ein sechste! "sinn"...
   the totality of which translates itself into written
language... gedanke!
     or rather: denken! thinking!
strange... i can think about my liver...
but my liver doesn't think about me...
i can think about my brain... but my brain doesn't
think about me...

it's... deshalb a sense!
you think i'll learn Deutsche proper if i smuggle
in some German wörter:
from time zu zeit?! well... i'll have to remember:
bring in the Cyrillic TSA: ц -
  because i'm pretty sure i've just spotted an
exception on pronunciation...
it's not цoo... but it's most certainly цeit...
it's "actually" zoo... i'm itching to put an umlaut
on that U of ZU...

      i'm ageing... chances of me learning a third
language proper are impossible...
i can only dream about it...
         i'm already entrenched with the language
i was born with and the language i'm writing in...

but i simply can't stop admiring the Germans...
unlike the English... i too have had my share of grief
"borrowed" from these people...
but seeing them congregate like that...
easily swayed... you can't simply stop... mouth agape:
ehrfurcht!

                ich wunsch ich war ein unter du... alles von du!
i was clearly born in the wrong tribe...
i clearly was moved to the wrong tribe...

loch in der borden!
     wolken in der himmel!
                    bäume in der wald!

you could really arm these fellas up... and march them
into suicide missions and they'd be like:
fair enough...
          i guess that's what Leningrad must have
been like...
              
i can't exactly love my native tongue...
the noblemen of my camp sort of became lazy...
disrespectful to themselves...
and their people...
                              **** them: it's that easy...
i pledge no allegiance to either England or Poland...
i'm a three thinker...
as long as the Latin script is employed...
i tried the Greek i tried the Katakana and the Cyrillic...
i became cross-eyed...

well... not with the Greek...
    Cyrillic was always... paupers' Greek for me...
how Greeks destroyed the Glagoliic script...
it was so beautiful... almost... no... it was almost!
no... it wasn't Arabic... it was Glagolitic...
it was itself in how it was crafted...
nothing is going to come across as practical as
Latin: though: that's already known...
since Latin was the only language employed in
creating the internet... no?!

i do feel sorry for the natives though...
    for me... i'm "going elsewhere"... i'm always going elsewhere...
i'm not going back "home"...
Haiti?! Kenya with the ivory beauties...
Turkey... i'm definitely going to Turkey
to pick up Khedra that ol' raven haired witch...
the best **** in all of... whatever...
    i'm not staying in England: at least my mind
isn't... and my body is not returning to Poland...
i'm ******* off... i want to entertain a Turkish harem
of thirsty women...
   i want to "return" to the Mamluks of Egypt...
i want to be in the ranks of the Janissaries...
                          you know... in cultures where masculinity
is celebrated: not simply shunned...
in my mind i'm already there...
to hell with dating single mums...
raising someone else's children...
if i were a prospect for a Cesar... being a foster parent...
perhaps... otherwise? too expensive...
    
i'm clearly not doing this ****...
culture's all awry...
             it's such a cryng shane though....
       how un-available women have become...
                well... people have lived through worse...
and still managed to: tragen an!
                              
geringste von ihr kümmernis      

                            leben kurz: leben liebend!
das ist alles!
                        live short: live loving.
Marie Nov 2020
Mit deinem Duft nach erdigem Holz,
marzipanischer Tinte
und honigsüßen Luftschlössern,

hüllst du mich in einen neuen Geruch,


der wie frischer Morgentau,
unter meine Haut tanzt
Coralium Jan 2021
Die Stadt ist kalte Masse.
In diesen Straßen lebt nichts, hier regt sich nichts, kein Herzschlag.  
Ich höre sie reden,
höre ihre Motoren aufheulen,
ihre Autotüren zuschlagen.
Lärm, fremder, ferner Lärm.

Ich will raus, will ausreißen. Ich will ins Land ziehen.

Wochen will ich laufen, nichts als die unbekannte Weite sehen.
Ich will nachts frieren und am Tag den Wind in den Haaren spüren, liebkost von der Seeluft, die mir durch die wirren Haare streicht.
Ich will die Wälder der Welt durchstreifen,
mich mit Moos unter den Füßen von der Wildnis verschlucken lassen.
Ich will mich in ihrem großen, grausamen Schlund verlieren.
Fernweh
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.
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2022
whenever uneasy i have to escape into the deutsche zunge...
i could escape into *****... but i rather not...

among shadows and beasts...
i bellow a whimper... a sigh of relief...
among shadows and beasts...
i lay my head upon a stone...
in the darkest of night... darker than any
possible revitalizing sleep...
        
       in my night of nights...
                   among shadows, beasts, echoes...
i find my hand tricking me with "speaking"...
as i find my tongue, also, tricking me...
with licking ice...
                 as i also find my eye glued to
grieving with a blinking imitation of sight...
my ears are allowing my brain to dance...
because i married the four winds
and became: focus... i became praxis...
the ad hoc...

                what a painful experience for anyone
to supplement any other,
of the settled crown of all things unsettling...
what little bores become great
obstructions... what i feel when drunk:
stale... adherence to sober intellect is
such an empty quest...
                me? i feel i'm being a boor...
being sober...
          i need to be hindered...
somehow...
                    
FAUN: alba II...
         now i don't feel like writing in dojcz...

unter schatten und biester...
ich brüllen ein wimmern...
ein seufzen von hilfe...
     mein hertz kann splitter...
       und: es muss!
             ich kann nicht liebe aber
                        eine sein!      

all that is night is: calm!
           alle das ist nacht ist: ruhe! das ist mich!

ich legen mein kopf auf
ein stein wie ein blutegel...
    blood-draining concentration...
gravity+...
                im (die) am dunkelsten... nacht...
dunkler als alle möglich
                                revitalisierend schlafen...

my hope: for the whiteness of
the skull that's the moon and his half...
and his innermost fullness...

mein hoffnung: für die weiße von die totenkopf
das is die mond und seine halb...
und seine innerste vollständigkeit:

gravitating toward: scarce: by dictate of
orbit...
  this height of the summer months are
impossible for me!

    unmöglich für mich!

MAGER?! this world will be inherited
by Arabs... Asians and Africans...
i don't want to live in this world...
     i plan... to not live in it...
                       i'm ******* off...
but? i'm planning to **** as many Turkish girls as possible...
Turkish... ****-     + -stani...
     Sari donning willing to send you nudes
without actually meeting up with them...
i guess you'd classify me as a ****-boy...

w DOJCZ: IM DEUTSCHE...
in German...
                     i'm out...
better ******* playing Blackjack than
playing Poker... Blackjack was always more fun...
oh look... **** me... no Zeppelins...
a more cleverly orchestrated "take-over"...
a "take-over" that also required the entire
world to come and... ahem... "have a look"...

it lasted longer than i expected...
it's those revealing eyes of a "Judas" / Brutus...
they're looking elsewhere...
forward... you're orientating yourself concerning
a newly established fathoming of a circle...
but her eyes speak: STRAIGHT LINE...
i'm moving on...
    really? as a *******? there's someone...
ahem... "behind" me?
              someone willing to perform oral ***
on you?
cling your arms... while ******* on a well performed
oyster squeezed... mmm... mmm...

really?! i'm not the Jack the Ripper type...
i don't believe in hierarchies...
but i do believe in the hierarchy of giving pleasure per se...
you go against that...
we're having to experience problems...
why would i go against my way
to perform oral *** on a *******...
give her an ******...
to later receive arguments: oh... maybe...
this that... and other...
she wanted to go on a hotel date with me...
**** me for free...

that's when she refrained from the supposition...
that's when i decided to have a *******...
**** it... i'm not: WAITING!
come to think of it... i had to check...
threesomes are unlike pornographic ventures...
i could only summon a hand-job and
being ****** off into the other girls cleavage...
no... two women at the same time
is too distracting...
you need chemicals to give you a split awareness...

personally?! i abhorred ******* two girls
at the same time...
you're sort of ultra-schizophrenic... pulsating wrong...
you're stroking a cat
while... attempting to attach a leash to a dog...
it's ******* wrong: in the ******* most sense
of ******* sense of wrong...
sure... most men lie:
oh... i managed to **** two girls at the same time...
and?!

i had problems... dictating what's the grandest allure
of attention for simply one...
because?! that's what was missing!
i want one! i was like Solomon with Queen Sheba!
i just wanted one!
but i guess Solomon was lucky... paradoxically...
i try to laugh... imagining...
King David and that only Psalm he would ever write...
so? no more constipated creativity...
or just... sitting one's *** on laurels?!
what then?!

             the impossibility to stop writing the impossibility
of the possibility of: oops! wasps! ****!
octopi! ****! giraffes! drunk geniuses!
hippos! Greenland blind sharks! dolphins!
             Kosher salt... Kashmiri chilli powder...
cumin... ******... i.e. poppy-seeds...
                                     big Pharmaceutical Kicks & Kings...
music! silence! a Somali pirates' smile...
a European 20s girl psychotic self-importance...
glass! windows! winter and her winds!
lollies... and lilies...
lilac and lavender! purple and all that's auburn...
the history of perfecting making mistakes!

for the love of dreaming about teeth!
last few dreams that's what i only dreamed about:
teeth!
either chattering... jaw-line or
standing proud like Colossus of Rhodes!
Jonas Sep 2023
Die Straßen ziehen vorbei
Licht an Licht wie fallende Sternschnuppen vorm Fenster.
Bei Tageslicht, Abenddämmerung, Sonnenaufgang
ein neuer Tag.
Bäume, Häuser, Felder,
Wälder

Die Materie meines Landes wiegt mich in die Schläfrigkeit,
geborgen
Das Buch in meiner Hand fällt in meinen Schoß
Immer noch dieselbe Seite,
bin immer noch nicht weiter.
Der Inhalt unverändert unbegreiflich
Mein Atem geht zum Rhythmus der Schienen unter uns.
Wir fliegen zusammen und doch bleibe ich allein.

Augen zu, Augen auf
du hast geblinzelt.
Ankunft, Abfahrt
du hast geblinzelt.
Auf ins Neue, ins Unbekannte
oder doch zurück zu alten Gegenden?
Durch die Entfernung wieder neu erlebt.

Kommst du jetzt wieder zurück?
Hast du genug bekommen,
Antworten gefunden auf die Fragen die du nicht fandest?
Die du nicht zu stellen wagtest?
Die dich trotzdem quälten?

Du warst zu lange fort,
deine Heimat ist noch hier,
aber Hier ist nicht mehr dein Hier,
längst ein anderer Ort.

Du wolltest alles hinter dir lassen,
gingest
trotz der Angst dann zu viel zu verpassen,
Hauptsache weg, weg von hier
dachtest du hättest nicht viel zu verlieren.
Allem entfliehen, Pause, Neuanfang
Ohne genau zu wissen was dieses Alles überhaupt war.

Hast du es nicht ausgehalten letztendlich
so ohne sie, die Anderen?
Im Nichts, im Nirgendwo auf eigenen Wegen zu wandern?
Einsam im Herzen hast du dich wieder verrannt
Im Herzen stumpf, die Seele verbrannt.

Nun kommst du wieder,
zurück,
um zu sehen was  noch übrig ist
Zurück zum Alten, Vertrauten, Selben
Wir sind aber nicht mehr die Selben
Du ja auch nicht.

Alles wieder etwas anders, verschoben
Wieder ein bisschen auseinander gelebt,
voneinander entfernt,
weitergemacht, natürlich, nur halt ohne dich.
Schade eigentlich.

Doch nun schließ die Augen, schlaf
Gestern war auch ein neuer Tag,
verronnen,
Morgen wird noch kommen.
Wer nie ankommt der reist für immer,
umher.

Naja, wenigstens auf Schienen,
und noch nicht entgleist.

— The End —