First Song before My Second Death

Is this the world whose soil gave away for long

fruits like buxom boobs and blossoms in springs,

being filled up with as well as cleft by her children's

labour, wisdom and love? Is this that Old World?

Once on the sea-beach I somewhat saw in the twilight

a white horse galumphing friskily like dancer-flames

prancing in the air – I remember I had left behind

days bright like deerskins, the yearning of fresh trees.

Once he who loved rivers and the blue by heart

and built these friendly banks like a skilled artist –

never will I find him animated on my eyes nor will

the stream be full of life in spring's failed greeting.

The conscience that came back to my life, tearing

across the fog of nightmares wildly like blind fortune,

never did I want such light whose intent is to adore

an inferno in an instant in a covetously thirsty chorus.

Who will put off the fire-pit setting things on fire

with clear silvery water? The heart that's gone sunless

through many exiles, only sings in utter darkness

songs of ghosts – no brighter face to hang out.

Dark dread is spread in blood, no response at all

in my locality, even at birds' frightened screeching

no wave trembles in the wind, dreadful silence on paths.

Stand over there – said someone I do remember,

where in silence a hundred lightless souls in a march

pick up insensate bloody yellow pus on to their mouths

in a delirious trance hit by terrific nightmares in the dark.

With dreadful signs of myriad unforgettable memories

their haggard existence is put on thorns; stand over there,

then go straight away, alone, with nothing to care for.

Isn't it death as a sense of this scene gets on one's nerves,

not death at all, is there anything that death stands for?

It seems I were just that often heard-of Lazarus,

stayed three days in a grave, dead – with the loving

touch of resurrection have I come back into the sunshine.

Yet the dazzle of my dress can't manage to hide at all

wounds on my deformed physique, frankincense

easily drowns in the stench of old corpses; at my blue

fingertips lies the merciless darkness of those three days.

Like an unfinished statue of a sculptor, I stick around

at dazzling festivals in this cheerful city; but yet

I can't mingle myself with the lustiness of pleasure,

in a weird, awry heaven. Like lethal flowers, many rapt

mysteries still flame up in these two eyes of mine.

In my soul I have carried an endlessly bizarre grief.

As flowers of dread blossom on the stalks of that grief,

none dares come close to me easily, all are afraid lest

the sad waters of the Lethe should flow into their veins.

Where in which country have I lost beauty in animals'

furry darkness, having carried my life from heaven?

Here skulls of the corpses roll in dust everywhere,

helpless like pawns in chess, with no future at all.

Sometimes a giant black bird with iron-hard beaks

swoops down to tear my flesh – I can't drive it away.

And I see the full moon blazing on skulls on this earth

like a sad memory, the voice of a second death floats.