Saturday, 20 June 2020

Klaus Høeck: 'Winterreise' (1979)

Frankfurt, butterfly of glass, concrete, stone.
Neon of course and Shell’s great scallop shell.
Beer halls as they were back in the old days,
Car headlamps with their galactic oval.

I do not know what I have come here for,
remembering or perhaps forgetting,
what guilt or punishment I’m to atone for.
I feel myself condemned upon this earth

hopelessly in love with a new lost cause.
Algol’s gleaming through its gossamer veil
of oil, sulphur dioxide and petrol.

While the urban guerrilla fights and dies
the metropolis sinks like a ruby,
down to night and fury’s sarcophagus.


This is one of the poems from 'Winterreise'. To see the translation of the whole collection, go to here

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