Everything is a question of decor.
Changing beds, changing bodies,
What's the point, since once again, it's
Me who betrays myself,
Me drags and scatters myself
And my shadow undresses itself
In the girlish arms
Where I believed I'd find a country.
A light heart becomes a heavy heart.
The time for dreaming is very short.
What am I supposed to do with my days?
What am I supposed to do with my nights?
I didn't have love, and no place
Where I live or die remains.
I passed like a rumour,
I slept like the noise.
It was an unreasonable time,
We put the dead at the table
We made sandcastles
We took wolves for dogs.
Everything changed, from center to shoulder
The play, whether it was funny or not.
Me, if I managed to badly hold on to my role
It was from not understanding anything.
Is this how men live?
And their kisses which follow them from afar?
In the Hohenzollern district,
Between the Saar and the barracks,
Like the flowers of the alfalfa
Flowered Lola's breasts.
She had the heart of a swallow.
On the brothel-couch,
I had just lain down beside her
Among the hiccups of the piano.
The sky was grey with clouds
There were wild geese flying in it
Who cried of death, in passing
Above the houses of the docks.
I saw them through the window.
Their sad song entered into my being,
And I thought I recognised in it
Rainer Maria Rilker.
Is this how men live?
And their kisses, which follow them from afar?
She was dark, she was pale,
Her hair fell to her hips.
And during the week, and on Sunday,
She opened her naked arms to everyone.
She had eyes like furnaces.
She worked valiantly
For a worker from Mayence
Who never came back to her.
There are other soldiers in the city,
And at night, the civilians come up.
Reapply mascara to your eyelashes,
Lola, who will be with you soon.
Another glass of liquor.
It was in April, at five o' clock,
At dawn, when into your soft heart
A dragon plunged his knife.
Is this how men live?
And their kisses, which follow them from afar?