Two poems from Paul Celan

  "Untitled"

You lie amid a great listening,
enbushed, enflaked.

Go to the Spree, to the Havel,
go to the meathooks,
the red apple stakes
from Sweden--

Here comes the gift table,
it turns around an Eden--

The man became a sieve, the Frau
had to swim, the sow,
for herself, for no one, for everyone--

The Landwehr Canal won't make a murmur.
Nothing

       stops.

(From the translation by John Felstiner.)

"Death Fugue"


Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at noon death is a master from Germany
we drink you at sundown and in the morning and we drink
and we drink you
death is a master from Germany his eyes are blue
he strikes you with leaden bullets his aim is true

(Excerpt from the translation by Michael Hamburger.)