Wieder eine Nacht [English translation]

Just another night, this is one of far too many,

when you're tired, but again no sleep will come.

And like many times before, against your own intention,

you're heading for the dark streets, without a specific goal.

And carelessly, as if it were a wad of paper,

you kick along a dead pigeon in front of you.

Those girls are waiting, standing by the wall along the rails,

they know you, and since long they don't accost you any more.

Over there a man hides in the shadows, pretending that he's reading,

and only dares to come out, when your steps have died away.

Some of those you use to meet here, are like you, they're lonely, too,

some because they've got nobody, others chose to be alone.

And they do not look at you, and they feel their way past you,

yet they only hide their mistrust and their fears unskilfully,

as if their loneliness was already an offense.

And in every bar on your nightly tour, you see

many strangers, holding filled glasses in their hands.

They do not want to lay their heads on greasy stains on walls,

caused by hundreds of other men's heads

above shabby hotel beds,

who lay here before, and also were damned

to drink, so that the barmaid had a word with them,

with whom they'd never want to be seen, not by daylight.

She also is aware of that, without revealing it,

but certainly she will not have anyone of them in her bed.

Some of those you use to meet here, are like you, they're lonely, too,

some because they've got nobody, others chose to be alone.

And they do not look at you, and they feel their way past you,

yet they only hide their mistrust and their fears unskilfully,

as if their loneliness was already an offense.

And by the urinal, where hustlers are usually waiting,

under bushes, trees, which you never before noticed to be so gloomy,

you immediately turn back again and avoid that garden,

because from the past you have a picture in your head.

The gay old man, in the pansy flower bed in the morning,

with his scull smashed, was he turned on his belly.

His brain already sucked up by the flowers during the night,

he lay there without trousers, very skinny, and drained

by a life full of destitution, as grey as his death,

his toupee still in the thorn bush, wet with blood and dew.

Some of those you use to meet here, are like you, they're lonely, too,

some because they've got nobody, others chose to be alone.

And they do not look at you, and they feel their way past you,

yet they only hide their mistrust and their fears unskilfully,

as if their loneliness was already an offense.

Drunk men are now dozing in the waiting room,

talking to themselves, always just the same sentence.

You, too, sit down at the table with that vermouth bum,

who finds his warm place here every night,

fresh scars and days-old dirt nearly cover

the prison tattoo on his wrist,

sunk forward on the table, like most of the fellows here,

his head lying in a puddle of red wine, snot and beer.

You wonder how he is able to sleep

in such a bent, kinked and crooked position, and you envy him therefore.

Some of those you use to meet here, are like you, they're lonely, too,

some because they've got nobody, others chose to be alone.

And they do not look at you, and they feel their way past you,

yet they only hide their mistrust and their fears unskilfully,

as if their loneliness was already an offense.

You are sitting there and gradually begin to dream,

see yourself as a sick pigeon that can hardly move.

You lay down to die, far from the sun,

from air and from tall trees, in the air shaft of a house.

And from the dreary window holes above your grave

sputum and stink fall down non stop on you.

You hear noises, while your force of life is trickeling off,

of which gasping, spitting, swearing aren't the worst ones.

But very high above you, you can see a shining square,

a piece of the sky, a piece of hope, and at once you move your toes,

you stand up, flap your wings and wake up, trying

to fight your way up to that spot that means life for you,

that looks only like a frequently used handkerchief yet.

Some of those you use to meet here, are like you, they're lonely, too,

some because they've got nobody, others chose to be alone.

And they do not look at you, and they feel their way past you,

yet they only hide their mistrust and their fears unskilfully,

as if their loneliness was already an offense.