The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein | Page 7

could, out of
the place.
A Poor Man Sings
Those were fine times, when I still
Walked in silk socks and wore
underpants,
Sometimes had ten marks to spare, in order
To hire a
woman, bored in the day
Night after night I sat in the coffeehouse.

Often I was so sated that I
Did not know what to order for myself.
Twilight
A fat young man plays with a pond.
The wind has caught itself in a
tree.
The pale sky seems to be rumpled,
As though it had run out of
makeup.
On long crutches, bent nearly in half
And chatting, two
cripples creep across the field.
A blond poet perhaps goes mad.
A
little horse stumbles over a lady.
A fat man is stuck to a window.
A
boy wants to visit a soft woman.
A gray clown puts on his boots.
A
baby carriage shrieks and dogs curse.
The Night
Sleepy policemen waddle under streetlights.
Broken beggars grumble
when they sense people.
On some corners powerful streetcars stutter.

And plush cabs drop into the stars.
Among rough houses whores
hobble back and forth,
Sadly swinging their ripe behinds.
Much sky
lies broken in these dried-out things...
Whiny cats painfully shriek
bright songs.

The Cabaret in the Suburbs
The sweaty heads of waiters tower above the room
Like lofty and
powerful capitals.
Lice-ridden boys giggle nastily.
And shining
girls give painfully beautiful looks.
And distant women are so very
excited...
They have hundreds of red, round hands,
Still, large,
without end
Placed around their high, motley bellies.
Most people
are drinking yellow beer.
Grocers, their cigarettes burning, gape.
A
fine young woman sings vulgar songs.
A young Jew plays the piano
with great pleasure.
The Trip to the Mental Hospital
Fat trains go down loud tracks
Past houses, which are like coffins.

On the corners wheelbarrows with bananas squat.
Just a bit of shit
makes a tough kid happy.
The human beasts glide along, completely
lost
As though on a street, miserably gray and shrill.
Workers
stream from dilapidated gates.
A weary person moves quietly in a
round tower.
A hearse crawls along the street, two steeds out front,

Soft as a worm and weak.
And over all lies an old rag--
The sky...
pagan and meaningless.
Into the Evening
Out of crooked clouds priceless things grow.
Very tiny things
suddenly become important.
The sky is green and opaque
Down
there where the blind hills glide.
Tattered trees stagger into the
distance.
Drunken meadows spin in a circle,
And all the surfaces
become gray and wise...
Only villages crouch glowingly: red stars--
Interior
A large space--half dark... deadly... completely confused...
Provocative!... delicate... dream-like... recesses, heavy doors And broad
shadows, which lead to blue corners...
And somewhere a sound that

clinks like a Champagne glass.
On a fragile rug lies a wide picture
book,
Distorted and exaggerated by a green ceiling light.
How--soft
little cats--piously white girls make love!
In the background an old
man and a silk handkerchief.
Morning
... And all the streets lie smooth and shining there.
Only occasionally
does a solid citizen hurry along them.
A swell girl argues violently
with Papa.
A baker happens to be looking at the lovely sky.
The
dead sun, wide and thick, hangs on the houses.
Four fat wives screech
in front of a bar.
A carriage driver falls and breaks his neck.
And
everything is boringly bright, healthy and clear.
A gentleman with
wise eyes hovers, confused, in the dark,
A failing god... in this picture,
that he forgot,
Perhaps did not notice--he mutters this and that. Dies.
And laughs. Dreams of a stroke, paralysis, osteoporosis.
Landscape
(for a picture)
With all its branches a slender tree casts
The shine of
darkness around poor crosses.
The earth stretches out painfully black
and broad.
A small moon slips slowly out of space.
And next to it
strange, unapproachable, huge
Airplanes hover heavenward!

Sinners filled with longing look up, with belief
And tear themselves
out of their tombs.
The Concert
The naked seats hearken strangely
Alarming and quiet, as though
there were some danger.
Only some are covered with a person.
A
green girl often looks into a book.
And someone else finds a
handkerchief.
And the boots are disgustingly encrusted.
A sound
comes from an old man's open mouth.
A young boy looks at a young
girl.
A boy plays with the button on his trousers.
On a podium an
agile body rocks
To the rhythm of its serious instrument.
On a

collar lies a shiny head.
Screeches. And tears.
Winter
A dog shrieks in misery from a bridge
To heaven... which stands like
old gray stone
Upon far-off houses. And, like a rope
Made of tar, a
dead river lies on the snow.
Three trees, black frozen flames, make
threats
At the end of the earth. They pierce
With sharp knives the
rough air,
In which a scrap of bird hangs all alone.
A few street
lights wade towards the city,
Extinguished candles for a corpse. And
a smear
Of people shrinks together and is soon
Drowned in the
wretched white swamp.
The Operation
In the sunlight doctors tear a woman apart.
Here the open red body
gapes. And heavy blood
Flows, dark wine, into a white bowl. One
sees
Very clearly the rose-red cyst. Lead gray,
The limp head hangs
down. The hollow mouth
Rattles. The sharp yellow chin points
upward.
The room shines,