Every day, when it gets so very dark
That I can read no more,
I walk along the street singing,
Look at every girl…
Whether perhaps—who knows—
Today of all days a miracle will take place:
That I shall come home redeemed,
Peaceful and forever free…
From such pursuits I come back
To the house tired and confused,
I know a secret remedy
That can extinguish all suffering—
Going for a Walk
Evening comes with moonshine and silky darkness.
The roads become weary. The narrow world widens.
Winds of opium move in and out of the field.
I widen my eyes like silver wings.
I feel as though my body were the whole earth.
The city lights up: thousands of street lamps sway.
Now the sky also piously enkindles its candlelight.
… Huge above everything my human face wanders—
Ash Wednesday
Yesterday I still went powdered and addicted
Into the many-colored sounding world.
Today everything has long since drowned.
Here is a thing.
There is a thing.
Something seems like this.
Something seems otherwise.
How easily someone blows out
The whole flowering earth.
The sky is cold and blue.
Or the moon is yellow and flat.
A forest has many individual trees.
There's nothing more to cry about.
There's nothing more to scream about.
Where am I—
The Son
Mother, don't hold me,
Mother, your caress hurts me,
See through my face,
How I glow and wane.
Give the last kiss. Let me go.
Send a prayer after me.
That I broke your life,
Mother, forgive me.
To Frida
(Dedicated to L.L.)
Walls separate us.
Strange spider webs.
But I often fly, gaunt in my sinking
Hand wringing room, a bleeding chirping twit.
If only you were there.
I am so murdered.
Frida.