Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein by Lichtenstein Alfred
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 223 lines and 14601 words, and 5 pages
The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein
Because I believe that many do not understand the verse of Lichtenstein, do not correctly understand, do not clearly understand--
The first eighty poems are lyric. In the usual sense. They are not much different from poetry that praises gardens. The content is the distress of love, death, universal longing. The impulse to formulate them in the "cynical" vein may, for example, might have arisen from the wish to feel superior. Most of the eighty poems are insignificant. They were not presented to the public. All except one That is:
I want to bury myself in the night, Naked and shy. And to wrap darknesses around my limbs And warm luster. I want to wander far behind the hills of the earth. Deep beyond the gliding oceans. Past the singing winds. There I'll meet the silent stars. They carry space through time. And live at the death of being. And among them are gray, Isolated things. Faded movement Of worlds long decayed. Lost sound. Who can know that. My blind dream watches far from earthly wishes.
The following poems can be divided into three groups. One combines fantastic, half-playful images: The Sad Man, Rubbers, Capriccio, The Patent-Leather Shoe, A Barkeeper's Coarse Complaint. . Pleasure in what is purely artistic is unmistakable.
Examples: The Athlete: in the background is a demonstration of a view of the world. The Athlete... means that it is terrible that a man must also intellectually move his bowels.--Rubbers: a man wearing rubbers is different without them.
The earliest poetry forms a second group:
Twilight
The intention is to eliminate the difference between time and space in favor of the idea of poetry. The poems want to represent the effect of twilight on the landscape.
In this case the unity of time is necessary to a certain degree. The unity of space is not required, therefore not observed. In twelve lines the twilight is represented on a pond, tree, field, somewhere... its effect on the appearance of a young man, a wind, a sky, two cripples, a poet, a horse, a lady, a man, a young boy, a woman, a clown, a baby-carriage, some dogs is represented visually.
The author of the poem does not want to portray a landscape that is thought to be real. The poetic art has the advantage over painting of offering "ideal" images. That means--in respect to the Twilight: the fat boy who uses the big pond as a toy, and the two cripples on crutches in the field and the woman on the city street who was knocked down by a cart-horse in the half-darkness, and the poet who, filled with desperate longing, is thinking in the evening , and the circus clown in the gray rear building who is sighing as he puts on his boots in order to arrive punctually at the performance, in which he must be funny--all these can produce a poetic "picture," although they cannot be composed like a painting. Most still deny that, and for that reason recognize, for example, in the "Twilight" and similar pictures nothing but a mindless confusion of strange performances. Others believe, incorrectly, that these kinds of "ideal" pictures are possible in painting .
The intention, furthermore, to grasp the reflex of things directly--without superfluous reflections. Lichtenstein knows that the man is not stuck to the window, but stands behind it. That the baby-carriage is not screaming, but the child in the baby-carriage. Because he can only see the baby-carriage, he writes: the baby-carriage cries. It would have been untrue lyrically had he written: a man stands behind a window.
Sometimes the representation of reflection is important. Perhaps a poet goes mad--makes a deeper impression than--a poet stares stiffly ahead--
Something else compelling in the poem: fear and things that resemble reflection, like: all men must die... or: I am only a little book of pictures... that will not be discussed here.
That Twilight and other poems take things strangely , to notice the unbalanced, incoherent nature of things, arbitrariness, confusion... is not, in any case, the characteristic of "style." Proof is: Lichtenstein writes poems in which the "grotesque" disappears, without notice, behind the "ungrotesque."
Other differences between older poems and later ones in the same style are detectable. One might observe that ever increasing idiosyncratic reflections about landscape clearly break through. Certainly not without artistic purpose.
The third group consists of the poems of Kuno Kohn.
Alfred Lichtenstein
The Athlete
A man walked back and forth in his torn slippers In the small room He inhabited. He thought about the events About which he was informed by the evening paper. And sadly yawned, the way only that man yawns Who has read much that is strange-- And the thought suddenly overcame him, Like a timid person who gets gooseflesh, And the way the person who stuffs himself Starts to burp, Like a mother in labor: The great yawn might perhaps be a sign, A nod from fate, To lie down to rest. And the thought would not leave him. And then he began to undress... When he was stark naked, he lifted something.
Rubbers
The fat man thought: In the evening I gladly walk in rubbers, But also when the streets are clean and spotless. I am never entirely sober in rubbers. I hold the cigarette in my hand. My soul skips in little rhythms. And all one hundred pounds of my body skips.
The Patent-leather Shoe
The poet thought: ah, I have enough trash! The whores, the theater, and the moon in the city, The dress-shirts, the streets, and smells, The nights and the coaches and the windows, The laughter, the street-lights and murders-- I'm really fed up now with all the crap, Damn it! Whatever will be will be--it's all the same to me: The patent leather shoe Hurts me. And I take it off-- People might turn around, surprised. Only it's a shame about my silk socks...
Smoke on the Field
Lene Levi went out in the evening, Mincing, her skirt bunched up, Through the long, empty streets Of a suburb.
And she spoke weeping, aching, crazy, Strange words, Which the wind tossed, so that they popped, Like pods.
They made bloody scratches on trees, And, shredded, hung on houses And in these deaf streets died all alone.
Lene Levi went out, until all The roofs made their crooked mouths grimace, And the windows and the shadows Made faces
They had a completely drunken good time-- Until the houses became helpless And the mute city passed Into the broad fields, Which the moon smeared...
Little Lene took out of her pocket A box of cigarettes, Weeping took one Out and smoked.
Dreaming
Paul said:
Ah, but who wouldn't want to drive a car forever-- We burrow our way through high-stemmed woods, We pass by spaces that seem endless. We pass through the wind and attack the towns, which speed up. But the odors of the sluggish cities are hateful to us-- Ah, we are flying! Always alongside death... How we despise and scorn him who sits on our lives! Who lays out graves for us and makes all streets crooked--ha, we laugh at him, and the roads, overcome, die with us-- Thus we shall auto our way through the whole world... Until, on some clear evening We find a violent ending against a sturdy tree.
The Sad Man
No, I have no capacity for life. I could be considered foolish-- Today I am not going to the restaurant. I am after all this time weary of the waiters, Who scornfully bring us, with their smug grimaces, Dark beer and make us so confused That we cannot find our home And we must Use the foolish street lights To prop ourselves up with weak hands. Today I have bigger things in mind-- Ah, I shall find out the meaning of existence. And in the evening I shall do some roller skating Or go at some point to Temple.
Capriccio
Here is the way I shall die: It's dark. And it has rained. But you can no longer detect the imprint of the clouds Which up there cover the sky in soft silk. All streets are flowing, black mirrors, Over the piled up houses, where streetlights, Strings of pearls, hang shining. And high above thousands of stars are flying, Silver insects, around the world-- I am among them. Somewhere. And sunken, I watch very seriously, somewhat pale, But rather thoughtful about the refined, heavenly blue legs of a lady, While an auto cuts me to pieces, so that my head rolls like a red marble At her feet... She is surprised. And swears like a lady. And kicks it Haughtily with the dainty heel Of her little shoe Into the gutter.
The Turk
A totally perverse Turk bought for himself, Out of grief for the recent death Of plump Fatme, his favorite wife, From his white-slaver, two former mannequins, in quite good condition-- You could almost say: brand new-- Just imported from France. When he had them, he sang, in celebration of himself:
Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Barber
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, They sleep limply. And others read again And look slowly through long lids, As though they had sucked everything dry. Still others open the red cracks of their mouths wide And tell jokes. For my part, I smile courteously. Ah, I hide Deep under these smiles, as though in a coffin, The terrible, repressed, wise complaints About the fact that we are forced into this existence, Jammed in, firmly and inescapably trapped As though in jail, and we wear chains, Confusing, hard, that we do not understand. And the fact that each man is distant and estranged from himself As though from a neighbor whom he does not know at all, And whose house he has always only seen from the outside. Sometimes, when I am shaving a chin, Knowing that a whole life Is in my power, that I am now master, I, a barber, and that a missed stroke, A slice too deep, cuts off the round, cheerful head That lies before me from his body, As though it were a loose button on a vest-- I am overcome. Then the feeling came over me... this animal. Is there. The animal... both my knees knock. And like a small boy tearing paper Without knowing why, And like students who kill gas lamps, And like children who turn so red When they tear the wings of captured flies, So I would like to do the same, As if it were a slip, To make a scratch with my knife on such a chin. I would too gladly watch the red stream of blood spray.
Spring
A certain Rudolf called out: I have eaten too much. Whether it's healthy is very questionable. After such a greasy lunch I really feel uncomfortable. But I belch beautifully and smoke Cigarettes now and then. Lying on my heavy belly, I chirp nothing but songs of spring. Longingly, as though on a ramp The voice squeals from the throat. And like an old lamp The wind blackens the bitter soul.
A Barkeeper's Coarse Complaint
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... Isn't that strange... isn't that enough to make you puke,,, The damned jerks--the miserable phonies-- Everyone goes right by me... Bloody mess... Here I am burning gas and electricity-- May God and the devil damn me to hell: Damn It all... why is my bar the only empty one... Grumpy, reproachful waiters standing around-- It is my fault-- Not one damned person comes to the door-- Cramped in a corner I sit with a hopeful face. No customers come.-- The food rots, the wine and bread. I might as well shut the joint. And cry myself to death.
A Trouble-making Girl
The Drunkard
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page