The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein | Page 9

houses are half-dead old people.
A gaunt carriage-horse gapes
grumpily.
Winds, skinny dogs, run weakly.
Their skins squeel on
sharp corners.
In a street a crazed man groans: You, oh, you--
If
only I could find you...
A crowd around him is surprised and grins
derisively.
Three little people play blind man's bluff--
A gentle
tear-stained god lays the grey powdery hands
Of afternoon over
everything.
The World
(Dedicated to a clown)
Many days tread upon human animals,
In gentle oceans
hunger-sharks fly.
Heads, beers glisten in coffee-houses.
Girls'
screams shred on a man.
Thunderstorms come crashing down. Forest
winds darken.
Women knead prayers in skinny hands:
May the
Lord God send an angel.
A shred of moonlight shimmers in the
sewers.
Readers of books crouch quietly on their bodies.
An
evening dips the world in lilac lye.
The trunk of a body floats in a
windshield.
From deep in the brain its eyes sink.
Prophecy
Some day--I have signs--a mortal storm
Is coming from the far north.

Everywhere is the smell of corpses.
The great killing begins.
The
lump of sky grows dark,
Storm-death lifts its clawed paws;
All the
lumps fall down,
Mimes burst. Girls explode.
Horses' stables crash
to the ground.
Not a fly can ecape.
Handsome homosexuals roll

Out of their beds.
The walls of houses develop fissures.
Fish rot in
the stream.
Everything meets its own disgusting end.
Groaning

buses tip over.
Winter Evening
Behind yellow windows shadows drink hot tea.
Yearning people
sway on a hardened pond
Workers find a soft woman's corpse.

Glowing blue snows cast a howling darkness.
On high poles a
scarecrow, implored, hangs.
Stores flicker dimly through frosted
windows,
In front of which human bodies move like ghosts.

Students carve a frozen girl.
How lovely, the crystalline winter
evening burning!
A platinum moon now streams through a gap in the
houses.
Next to green lanterns under a bridge
Lies a gypsy woman.
And plays an instrument.
Girls
They cannot stand their rooms in the evening.
They creep out into
deep starry streets.
How gentle is the world in the streetlights' wind!
How strangely
buzzing life melts away...
They go by gardens and houses,
As
though very far off there might be a light,
And they look upon every
horny man
As a sweet gentleman savior
After the Ball
Night creeps into the cellars, musty and dull.
Tuxedos totter through
the rubble of the street.
Faces are moldy and worn out.
The blue
morning burns coolly in the city.
How quickly music and dance and
greed melted...
It smells of the sun. And day begins
With trolleys,
horses, shouts and wind.
Dull daily labor cloaks the people in dust.

Families silently wolf down lunch.
At times a hall still vibrates
through a skull,
Much dull desire and a silken leg.
Landscape

Like old bones in the pot
Of noon the damned streets lie there.
It's a
long time since I saw you here.
A young man pulls at a girl's pigtail.

And a couple of dogs wallow in filth.
I would like to go arm and
arm with you.
The sky is gray wrapping paper
On which the sun
sticks--a spot of butter.
Moonscape
The yellow mother's eye burns up there.
Everywhere night lies like a
blue cloth.
There is no question that I am sucking air.
I am only a
little picture book.
Houses capture dreams of motley sleepers
As
though in nets in the windows.
Autos creep like ladybugs
Up
luminous streets.
Landscape in the Early Morning
The air is gray. Who knows something good for soot?
Next to an ox
grazing on the ground
Stands an astonished deeply serious
mountaineer.
Soon there is a powerful downpour of rain.
A young
boy who is pissing on a meadow
Will be the source of a small river.

What should one do when nature calls!
Be natural. Be yourself.

A poet roams around in the world,
Observes for himself the orderly
flow of traffic
And rejoices about sky, field, and dung.
Ah, and he
takes careful notice of everything.
Then he climbs a high mountain

Which happens to be close by.
Return of the Village Boy
In my youth the world was a small pond,
Grandma and red roof,
lowing
Of oxen and a clump of trees.
And all around the huge green
meadow.
How lovely was this dreaming into distance.
This
absolute nothingness as bright air and wind
And bird cries and
fairy-tale books.
Far off the fabled iron snake whistled--
Summer Freshness

The sky is like a blue jellyfish.
And all around are fields, rolling
meadows--
Peaceful world, you great mousetrap,
Would that I
might finally escape from you.. O if I had wings-- One plays dice.
Guzzles. Chatters about future countries. Each person puts in his own
two cents.
The earth is a succulent Sunday roast,
Nicely dunked
into a sweet sun-sauce.
If only there were a wind... that ripped
The
gentle world with iron claws. That would amuse me.
But if a storm
comes... It would shred
The lovely blue eternal sky into a thousand
pieces.
Afternoon, Fields and Factory
I can no longer find a place for my eyes.
I cannot hold my legs
together.
My heart is hollow. My head is going to burst.
Mushiness
all around. Nothing wants to take shape.
My tongue breaks. And my
mouth twists.
In my skull there is neither pleasure nor goal.
The sun,
a buttercup, rocks itself
On a chimney, its slender stalk.