1

Raised without a mother,
the father a drinker.
Once at fourteen, again at sixteen
then off to a facility.
At twenty a third time.
Fifteen years in total,
petty crimes: the possessions of others.
Not a Picasso
or a run through the bank.
Bicycle, briefcase,
a coat, ill-fitting
but warm.
Backsliding: slipping out on the check.

Enough of that, my friend,
now things are looking up,
with gentleness and hope
into a happy life.
Congratulations,
a spot on the sunny side
has opened up.

2

Forced entry into an empty house,
consumption of canned food, use of a bed.
That wasn’t long ago.
The winter is hard.
Then once again
doing time in the warmth.
They remember it.
A story appeared in the paper.
It’s too much to bear
and we become hardened.

3

After release
a rehabilitated man at last.
In the final night of the year
he took refuge,
laid himself down in the woods and froze.
A story appeared in the paper.
The angel who carried him out of the woods
is not mentioned.

 

How dreadful it is to go over the moor
When it is teeming with will o’ the wisps
And mists are whirling like phantoms
As brambles are hooking on bushes.
A pool springs up below each of his steps
When from the cleft it hisses and sings
How dreadful it is to go over the moor
When the reed beds are rustling in wind!

The child all atremble holds fast to his books
And runs as if he were hunted;
Hollowly whistles the wind o’er the plain-
What’s rustling there in the bushes?
The ghostly ditch digger it is
Who steals the best peat from the master;
Hu, hu, it sounds like a cow that is mad
As the boy ducks low in his fear.

From the bank, the stumps stare forth
The pines are eerily nodding
The boy runs on, pricking his ears,
Through gigantic grasses like spears;
And how it crumbles and crushes in there!
That is the unfortunate spinner
That is Leonore who is spinning enchanted
Winding her distaff there in the reeds.

Onwards, onwards, but always at speed
Onwards, as if it wanted to catch him;
By his feet it’s swirling and seething
It’s whistling under his soles
Like a tune set to haunt him;
That is the treacherous violinist;
That is the thieving fiddler, Knauf,
Who stole the marriage farthing.

The moor is breaking asunder, a sigh
Rises up from the cavernous gap;
Woe, woe, it is damned Margret who calls:
‘Ho, ho, my poor little soul’!
The boy leaps on like a wounded deer:
Were protecting angels not near him,
His whitened bones would later be found
By a digger in a dried up peat ditch.

Gradually, the ground becomes firmer
And there, next to the meadow,
The lamp flickers so homely.
The boy stands at the border;
Deeply he breathes, and back to the moor
Casts yet another horror struck look:
Yes, in the reeds, it was a terror,
How dreadful it was on the heath!

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 150th birthday.

 

I spend my nights asleep
Upon your face.

In the steppe of your body
I plant cedar and almond trees.

Tirelessly I search your chest
For Pharao’s golden pleasures.

But your lips are heavy, and
My miracles cannot deliver them.

Please lift your snowy skies
Off my soul –

Your diamond dreams
Slice through my veins.

I am Joseph, I wear a sweet belt
Around my many-colored skin.

The frightened thunder in my shells
Is bliss to you.

But your heart is closed to oceans.
Oh you!

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 125th birthday.

 

Blossom deep down,
mountain tops swaying,
wind stretched out in rest,
the tree stands frozen.

Then suddenly a flowering,
and in my heart’s center
you burn in me, tree.

Nowhere is there rest in me,
I cry out in flames,
a sea swelling in all things.

Then they too – blossom and
tree – twitch, having
already reddened with sweetness.

Is love a fire? Can love melt iron?
Am I like fire and full of the pain of love?
Out of what is the heart of my lover?
If it were made of iron then I could melt it with my fire.

If it were made of gold I could bend it
with my glow, should it made of flesh
so I see: it is a stone made of flesh.
However, a stone cannot betray me like she does.

But if her heart were like frost, as cold as snow and ice
Then how can she make me hot with love?
I think: her heart is like laurel leaves

Which are not touched by any thunderstorm
She laughs about you, Cupid, and your arrow
She is immune to your thunderstorm