Some day—­I have signs—­a mortal storm
Is coming from the far north. 
Everywhere is the smell of corpses. 
The great killing begins. 
The lump of sky grows dark,
Storm-death lifts its clawed paws;
All the lumps fall down,
Mimes burst.  Girls explode. 
Horses’ stables crash to the ground. 
Not a fly can ecape. 
Handsome homosexuals roll
Out of their beds. 
The walls of houses develop fissures. 
Fish rot in the stream. 
Everything meets its own disgusting end. 
Groaning buses tip over.

Winter Evening

Behind yellow windows shadows drink hot tea. 
Yearning people sway on a hardened pond
Workers find a soft woman’s corpse. 
Glowing blue snows cast a howling darkness. 
On high poles a scarecrow, implored, hangs. 
Stores flicker dimly through frosted windows,
In front of which human bodies move like ghosts. 
Students carve a frozen girl. 
How lovely, the crystalline winter evening burning! 
A platinum moon now streams through a gap in the houses. 
Next to green lanterns under a bridge
Lies a gypsy woman.  And plays an instrument.

Girls

They cannot stand their rooms in the evening. 
They creep out into deep starry streets.

How gentle is the world in the streetlights’ wind! 
How strangely buzzing life melts away... 
They go by gardens and houses,
As though very far off there might be a light,
And they look upon every horny man
As a sweet gentleman savior

After the Ball

Night creeps into the cellars, musty and dull. 
Tuxedos totter through the rubble of the street. 
Faces are moldy and worn out. 
The blue morning burns coolly in the city. 
How quickly music and dance and greed melted... 
It smells of the sun.  And day begins
With trolleys, horses, shouts and wind. 
Dull daily labor cloaks the people in dust. 
Families silently wolf down lunch. 
At times a hall still vibrates through a skull,
Much dull desire and a silken leg.

Landscape

Like old bones in the pot
Of noon the damned streets lie there. 
It’s a long time since I saw you here. 
A young man pulls at a girl’s pigtail. 
And a couple of dogs wallow in filth. 
I would like to go arm and arm with you. 
The sky is gray wrapping paper
On which the sun sticks—­a spot of butter.

Moonscape

The yellow mother’s eye burns up there. 
Everywhere night lies like a blue cloth. 
There is no question that I am sucking air. 
I am only a little picture book. 
Houses capture dreams of motley sleepers
As though in nets in the windows. 
Autos creep like ladybugs
Up luminous streets.