k 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.

Lonely Watchman

City and beloved are far behind.
I am so betrayed and alone.
Slowly I move from one
Leg to the other.
Around me strange doors screech.
I reach for dagger and gun.
Ah, if I were only at home
With my mother.

Soldiers' Songs

1

It's good and beautiful to be a soldier for a year.
You live longer that way. And one is certainly pleased
With each scrap of time that one snatches from death.
This poor brain, shredded by longing for the city,
Bloody from books, bodies, evenings,
Inconsolably sad and filled with every sin,
Three quarters destroyed already--can only,
Standing at attention and marching on parade,
Swinging arms and legs,