Descent and Defeat
To Karl Borromaus Heinrich
Over the white fishpond
The wild birds have blown away.
An icy wind drifts from our stars at evening.
Over our graves
The broken forehead of the night is bending.
Under the oaks we veer in a silver skiff.
The white walls of the city are always giving off
sound.
Under arching thorns
O my brother blind minute-hands we are climbing
toward midnight
poem by Georg Trakl
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At the Cementary
Rotten stone towers sultrily warmed.
Yellow haze of incense hovers.
Bees hum chaotically swarmed
And the flower trellises shake.
Slowly a breath stirs there
By the sun-still walls,
Dwindles glimmering, like a deceit -
Songs for the dead deeply shiver away.
Long it listens after in the green,
Lets the bushes shine brighter;
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poem by Georg Trakl
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The Dream of an Afternoon
Be silent! the ancestor arrives;
And his step dusks away again.
Shadows float up and down -
Birches hanging in the window.
And on the old vine-hill
The round dance of fauns romps anew,
And the slender nymphs rise
Quietly from the fountain-mirror.
Hear! A far thunderstorm threatens.
Incense steams from dark cresses,
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poem by Georg Trakl
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Sleep
Not your dark poisons again,
White sleep!
This fantastically strange garden
Of trees in deepening twilight
Fills up with serpents, nightmoths,
Spiders, bats.
Approaching stranger!
Yo u r a b a n d o n e d s h a d o w
In the red of evening
Is a dark pirate ship
Of the salty oceans of confusion.
White birds from the outskirts of the night
Flutter out over the shuddering cities
Of stee
poem by Georg Trakl
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Deliriums
[1 is missing]
2
Dark interpretation of the water: forehead in the mouth of the night,
Sighing in black pillows the rosy shadow of man,
Redness of autumn, the rustle of the maple in the old park,
Chamber concerts which fade on decayed stairs.
3
The black excrement, which runs off the roofs.
A red finger dips into your forehead
Blue snow sinks in the attic,
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poem by Georg Trakl
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Demise (Untergang)
["Fifth and last version:
To Karl Borromaeas Heinrich"]
Across the snowy pond
the wild birds have moved away.
From our stars blows an icy wind in the evening.
Over our graves
bows the broken forehead of night.
Under oak trees we sway in an argentine pram.
Forever resound the city's niveous walls.
Under thorny bows,
blind pointers we, oh my brother, are climbing to
midnight.
poem by Georg Trakl (1 March 1913), translated by Walter Aue
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In The East
Like the wild organs of the winter storm
Is the people gloomy rage,
The purple billow of battle
Of stars leaf-stripped.
With broken brows, silvery arms
The night beckons to dying soldiers.
In the autumnal ash-tree’s shade
The ghosts of the killed are sighing.
Thorny wilderness surrounds the town.
From steps that bleeds the moon
Drives off dumbfounded women.
Wild wolves have burst through the gate.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Untitled: The stillness of the deceased loves the old garden,
The stillness of the deceased loves the old garden,
The madwoman who dwelled in blue rooms,
In the evening the still shape appears in the window
She, however, closes the yellowed curtain -
The trickling of the glass beads reminded of our childhood,
At night we found a black moon in the forest
The soft sonata sounds in a mirror's blueness
Long embraces
Her smile glides over the dying one's mouth.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Winter Evening
When snow falls against the window,
Long sounds the evening bell...
For so many has the table
Been prepared, the house set in order.
From their wandering, many
Come on dark paths to this gateway.
The tree of grace is flowering in gold
Out of the cool sap of the earth.
In stillness, wanderer, step in:
Grief has worn the threshold into stone.
But see: in pure light, glowing
There on the table: bread and wine.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Along Walls
An old path goes along
Near wild gardens and lonesome walls.
Thousand-year-old yews shudder
In the rising falling chant of the wind.
The moths dance as if they would die soon,
My glance drinks weeping the shadows and lights.
Far away women's faces float
Ghostly painted in the blue.
A smile trembles in the sunshine,
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poem by Georg Trakl
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