Retrospective

By autumnal walls, there at the hill
Shadows seek the singing gold
Grazing evening clouds
In the repose of withered sycamores.
This time breathes darker tears,
Damnation, since the dreamer's heart
Overflows with purple afterglow,
The sorrow of the smoking city;
From the cemetery a golden coolness drifts after
The walking man, the stranger,
As if a delicate corpse followed in the shadow.

Gently the stone building rings;
The garden of the orphans, the dark hospital,
A red ship in the canal.
Dreaming in the darkness
Decaying people rise and fall
And from black gates
Angels with cold foreheads emerge;
Blueness, the death laments of the mothers.
Through their long hair
A fiery wheel rolls, the round day
Earth's agony without end.

Utensils molder in cool rooms
Without meaning, with bony hands
Unholy childhood
Gropes in the blueness after fairy tales,
The plump rat gnaws door and chest,
A heart
Grows stiff in snowy stillness.
Purple curses of hunger reverberate
In putrefying darkness,
The black swords of the lie,
As if a brazen gate slammed shut.