It's enough to make me throw the chair through the panes of the mirror Into the street - There I sit with raised eyebrows: All bars are full, My bar is empty - isn't that terrific......
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....
A frozen moon stands waxen, White shadows, Dead face, Above me and the dull Earth. Throws green light Like a garment, A wrinkled one, On bluish land. But from the edge...
I stand this way on cloudy winter days From dawn to dusk and I soap heads, Shave them and powder them and speak Indifferent words, stupid, foolish. Most heads are completely shut,...
The heat sticks closely to the gun and to the hand. It pricks the eyes. Nothing remained forgotten. The troops stepped, half drunk, into the fire. The non-coms stand rigidly in front....
The troops are singing fervently, each for himself: God, protect me from misfortune, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, That no grenades strike me, That the bastards, our enemies,...
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....
O you Berlin, you colorful stone, you beast. You cast me with street lamps like briars. Ah, when one flows in the night through your lamps After women, silky, plump....
The earth grows moldy in fog. The evening is as oppressive as lead. Electric sparks crackle and whimper all around, Breaking everything in two. Like wretched hobos Cities are smoking on the horizon....