Colored Land
In the dreamlit night I chase shadows
to their rest,
and I stare at the colorless land
to direct infinity towards the place where imagination rules,
and the adventurous wind
that scatters dreams into this dreamlit night,
and the dreamlit night caresses the golden wings of the heavenly bird,
because it knows that this is the bird
that gives birth to colored dreams.
From your rainbow eyes, golden bird,
I am stealing rays of light
with the childish hope
that I shall dream a colored dream someday,
because people say that dreams are but the reflection of our lives,
and my dreams are so black and wistful,
like the shadows
I chase to sleep.
For hours, days and months I am faithfully following the golden bird,
that shines so beautifully
in this dreamlit night,
in all the nights of this life,
I follow it like a black crow
that never dreamed a colored dream,
as if death had branded me with its black gaze.
If only for a moment I could dream a colored dream,
like that golden bird,
so I could fly that high,
high,
to the very heart of the rainbow;
Into the land of colors,
where colored dreams are born,
Oh, Lord, how sad each man
who dreams my dreams must be.
Is there no end to this infinity
traveling through my dreams
to the colorless land?
Tell me, Lord, how can I touch my colored dreams?
How do I get to the colored land,
so that my dreamy nights
shall once
become bright?
Oh Mute Night, Oh Mute Mother
Driven by the darkness above all that is dark;
driven by human vanity,
and by resounding envy,
I once again return
to the glory of the poetry eternal.
I branch my verses into the sky;
I return to the earth with my verses
I am blessing my verses in tears.
Haunted by the scream of my own solitude,
I am calling out to the mute night
to hear its poet’s confession;
to hear the crystal tear
banging against the dry crust of Life.
I am calling out to the mute night:
“Be my mother, oh night, so mute!”
Sing loudly and proudly,
like you did that day
when I first called you mother;
Sing and bestow your kisses on me,
moist and silent,
warm and dreamy.
Take me into your tender and yearning embrace,
just like you hug the southern wind.
Now I sense your restlessness,
oh mute night,
oh mute mother.
In the maelstrom of my dreams you are looking
for a place to rest.
Do not worry,
oh mute night,
oh mute mother!
Your son shall sing instead of You!
I, the poet, the vagabond, the minstrel of Liberty,
I am calling You my mother,
because I could never gather the courage
to address my own mother like that.
Inside me, there might be something of Yours,
oh mute night,
oh mute mother!
There is a sad and endless loneliness,
there is a timid and trembling longing.
Inside me, there is something of You,
oh mute night,
oh mute mother.
Old Oak
In the shadow of solitude now I see Your eyes,
that so faithfully carry about the light
through my thoughts so dark,
and the pen trembles in the hand,
waiting for the prodigal son's acknowledgement.
My one and only, acknowledgements arrive in solitude's embrace,
just like tears, and where there is a tear, there is love,
always faithful and unbribable, invisible but so real
that you can touch it with thoughts
and with the fiery breath in the infinity of solitude.
I admit to using my verses as ransom for my guilt,
(and guilt is my silence),
and I listen to the rumor
that perpetually, like a bat,
whirls across the lonely poet's street.
They say that me and You,
my one and only,
are fantasy, but a pen immersed in ink.
But You know, don't You,
that me and You are perfectly real, full of wishes,
dreams and memories.
My one and only, I am listening to the whisper of the wind
in this warm, dreamy summer night...
It is silent, horribly silent without You,
and the wind's whisper is dying down, farther away, oh so far,
as if called by death to its black hearse,
and I have waited for so many days, months and years to appear,
to bring Your voice to me,
gentle, soft, warm and yearning,
but it is so silent, oh so silent now,
that I can hear the screams of solitude
chase away memories
into this warm summer night,
my one and only, I am standing in the shadow of the dignified oak,
and I am looking into his empty sleepiness,
as if its playfulness left along with You,
it is silent like the wind.
Its dear, green, eternally waking young leaves,
who used to whisper in Your vicinity, untrammeled and confidential,
are completely silent now, completely dead.
Now I am trembling in the shadow of our oak,
fearfully looking at it as it drags its dignified old face along the ground,
its memories are as lively as mine.
Once, yes, once the memories,
who live so inaudibly,
shall become so weak,
so humanly weak,
that they shall find their dark home
next to our wooden crosses.