In Sack und Asche [English translation]

What a lot of life

and no weightless hovering

in the velvet shield of heavenly poetry.

Always weights.

No glimmer of poems;

Leaf by leaf wasted with pointed meticulousness.

With sharp tongues

then you have to sing for punishment,

as if by the senses, think it is art.

To complain

instead of moving swinging.

Waiting for the uplift in the spheres.

And now you carry sack and ashes

firm knots in the hair.

You taste blood on your tongue,

flee at their own risk.

Today you are already a boy,

yesterday you were still too old.

Whiteness of leaves

you stumble out of your forest.

You want finally without hesitation

of course.

But you are freeing black lightning on white leaves.

Wishing to revive,

unrestrained.

But instead of love, you only doodled.

If the Muses do not see you,

in diffuse light:

Every word in the bud stifled and undigested undefined.

You do not want to make a rose

at the large spines.

Your voice whispers only gibberish.

And now you carry sack and ashes

firm knots in the hair.

You taste blood on your tongue,

flee at their own risk.

Today you are already a boy,

yesterday you were still too old.

Whiteness of leaves

you stumble out of your forest.

Do you see the leaves fall?

And lures the bait's fragrance?

You will claw yourself as a savior

and throw yourself into the air.

Do you feel in intervals?

And soon the fall takes place.

How to fog in the winter.

Your fall was much too short.

And now you carry sack and ashes,

both are terribly good to you.

No, you do not want to hurt yourself,

but what remains to you without courage?

You hide yourself from the nets,

while you dye the leaves.

You never escape their stitches

and never escape the autumn