I

Because I believe that many do not understand the verse of
Lichtenstein, do not correctly understand, do not clearly understand—

II

The first eighty poems are lyric. In the usual sense. They are not much different from poetry that praises gardens. The content is the distress of love, death, universal longing. The impulse to formulate them in the "cynical" vein (like cabaret songs) may, for example, might have arisen from the wish to feel superior. Most of the eighty poems are insignificant. They were not presented to the public. All except one (one of the last) That is:

I want to bury myself in the night,
Naked and shy.
And to wrap darknesses around my limbs
And warm luster.
I want to wander far behind the hills of the earth.
Deep beyond the gliding oceans.
Past the singing winds.
There I'll meet the silent stars.
They carry space through time.
And live at the death of being.
And among them are gray,
Isolated things.
Faded movement
Of worlds long decayed.
Lost sound.
Who can know that.
My blind dream watches far from earthly wishes.

III

The following poems can be divided into three groups. One combines fantastic, half-playful images: The Sad Man, Rubbers, Capriccio, The Patent-Leather Shoe, A Barkeeper's Coarse Complaint. (First appeared in Aktion, in Simplicissimus, in March, Pan and elsewhere). Pleasure in what is purely artistic is unmistakable.