Manchmal [English translation]

Sometimes we are tired

Sometimes we are blind

Are scared and stupid

because we are so lost

Hey, that's how they want us

and that's how they need us

Everyone buried inside himself

there's just barely enough to die.

We're shouting and marching

are compliant and obeying

thereby fetching the prey

like dogs, on all fours

We are to be dictated

want to establish ourselves

and to arrest the ones

who write on the walls

That means to function

to freeze while making love

harrassing the wife

and to compensate quickly

attacking the friend

to number oneself.

And the ones candidating

and the ones residing

operating with us

the ones commanding us

in the exercise for war

in the scalping of other people

and in occupying

in liquidating enemies

in wiping out countries

and also in dying a wretched death,

they can congratulate themselves.

Yet we were born

without boots and spurs

as humans, not as apes

nude, without weapons

unprotected and open

to learn and to hope

to make poetry and to rhapsodize

and to warm others

To cry and to laugh

and to sleep and to wake

To dream and to fly

and to have children

With love and sorrows

for nights and mornings

To knit and to sew

to harvest and to sow

to eat and to drink

to sink into wishes

to talk and to quarrel

and to spread curiosity

To celebrate and to mourn

to tremble with longing

To act and to want

to play and to frolic

To tear the fear

to smash the cold

into thousands of shards

not to die lonely

and to make peace

and never to shoot again