free-verse27 lines
Songs to Berlin
by Alfred Lichtenstein1
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.
A man gets dizzy from the eye-play.
The little moon-candy sweetens the sky.
When the days struck the steeples.
The head still glows, a red Chinese lantern.
2
Soon I must leave you, my Berlin.
Must again travel into the desolate cities.
Soon I shall sit on the distant hill tops.
In dense woods carve your name.
Farewell, Berlin, with your bold fires.
Farewell, your streets full of adventures.
Who has known as much as I have of your pain.
Saloons, you, I press you to my breast.
3
In meadows and in pure winds peacefully
Cheerful people may glide along gleefully.
We, however, rotten and poisoned long ago,
Would deceive ourselves with this stepping into heaven
In strange cities I move about without direction.
The strange days are hollow and like chalk.
You, my Berlin, you opium rush, you bastard.
Only he who knows longing knows what I suffer.