Georg Trakl

Rotten fruits smell stunning.

Swarms of black flies singOn the brown forest glade.In the pool’s deep bluenessThe light of weed-fires blazes.Hear sudden love cries whirringFrom yellow flower walls.Butterflies chase themselves for a long time;Drunkenly my shadow dancesOn sultry meadows of thyme.Brightly ecstacized blackbirds trill.Clouds show stiff breasts,And wreathed by foliage and berriesUnder dark pines you seeA skeleton play the…

A blue brook, path and evening along decayed huts.

Some swap the forehead and the hands rot in the brown foliage.In bony stillness the heart of the lonely one shines,A small boat rocks on blackish waters.Through dark woods hair and laughter of brown maids flutters.The shadows of the old people cross the flight of a small bird;Mystery of blue flowers on their temples.Others sway…

The Ravens

at noon the ravens rush with rusty cries.Their shadows touch the deer’s backand at times they loom in gnarled rest.O how they derange the brown stillness,in the one acre itself entranced,like a woman married to grave premonitions,and at times you can hear them bickerabout a corpse they sniffed-out somewhere,and sharply they bend their flight towards…

At evening jugglers travel through the forest

A golden stash seems locked in clouds.In the dark plain villages are painted.The red wind billows linen black and cold.A dog rots, a shrub smokes blood-doused.The reed is flown through by yellow horrorAnd placidly a funeral procession pilgrimages to the cemetery.The old man’s hut dwindles nearby in the gray,In the pond a brilliance of old…

Where one goes in the evening is not the angel’s shadow

The stranger’s hands grope coolness and cypressesAnd his soul is taken by an astonished languishing.The market is emptied of red fruits and garlands.Harmoniously the church’s blackish pageantry attunesIn a garden the tones of soft play sound,Where tired ones find each other after the meal.A carriage rushes, a spring very far away through green puddles.There a…

Very bright tones in the thin winds,

That makes us dream after never-felt showersCompletely filled with unimaginable smells.Like mementos to lost companionsAnd quiet echo of delights sunken in night,The foliage falls in the long ago abandoned gardens,Which sun themselves in the silence of paradise.In the bright mirror of the clarified floodsWe see the dead time strangely animate itselfAnd our passions in the…

December

At evening jugglers travel through the forestOn quaint wagons, small steeds.A golden stash seems locked in clouds.In the white plain villages are painted.The wind swings shield and billet black and cold.A raven follows the morose comrades.From the sky a ray falls on bloody guttersAnd placidly a funeral procession pilgrimages to the cemetery.The shepherd’s hut dwindles…

Far on the hill flute-sounds.

Where sluggishly the slender nymphsRest hidden in reed and seaweed.In the pond’s mirror-glassGolden butterflies ecstacize,Quietly an animal with two backsMoves in the velvety grass.Sobbing in the birch groveOrpheus breathes tender love-babble,Softly and jokingly the nightingalesJoin in his song.Phoebus a flame glowsStill on Aphrodite’s mouth,And drizzled from ambergris scent –The hour reddens darkly.