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3 Ekphrastic Expressionist Poems by Franz Werfel

(translated by James Reidel)
Photographie der Duse

Die allzusehr geliebt hat, fröstelt viel.
Wie soll sie denn auch warm werden?
Es wärmt ja kein Umarmtwerden.
Man kann die liebste Seele nicht genießen,
Nicht essen diese süße Nuß.
Blut kann und Blut nicht ineinanderfließen,
Zum Wort zum Wort verblüht der Kuß.
Nun schaut sie groß und immer auf die Uhr
Mit blicklos langem Blick.
Sie wartet nur, sie wartet nur
Aufs End-Geschick,
Aufbruchbereit mit ihrer armen Habe.
Indes stolziert der immer junge Knabe
Zum alten Wahn und Hahnenkampf der Männer.

Photograph of Duse

The one loved too much, shivers a great deal.
How then shall she ever feel warmth?
Being embraced surely gives no warmth.
You cannot savor the most beloved soul,
This sweet nut is not for eating.
Blood can and blood doesn’t merge one another.
The kiss blows into word after word.
Now she looks wide-eyed and always at the clock
With a sightless long regard.
She just waits, she just waits
For the end fate,
Ready to go with her meager possessions.
Meanwhile the eternal little boy parades
To the old madness and the cockfight of men.

Note: title, Duse, i.e. Eleonora Duse (1858-1924), the Italian stage actress of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.


Der dicke Mann im Spiegel

Ach Gott, ich bin das nicht, der aus dem Spiegel stiert,
Der Mensch mit wildbewachsner Brust und unrasiert.
            Tag war heut so blau,
            Mit der Kinderfrau
Wurde ja im Stadtpark promeniert.

Noch kein Matrosenanzug flatterte mir fort
Zu jenes strengverschlossenen Kastens Totenort.
            Eben abgelegt,
            Hängt er unbewegt,
Klein und müde an der Türe dort.

Und ward nicht in die Küche nachmittags geblickt?
Kaffee roch winterlich und Uhr hat laut getickt.
            Atmend stand verwundert,
            Der vorher getschundert
Übers Glatteis mit den Bründerchen geschickt.

Ach hat die Frau mir heut wie immer Angst gemacht
Vor jenem Wächter Kakiz, der den Park bewacht.
            Oft zu öder Zeit
            Hor im Traum ich weit
Diesen Teufel säbelschleppen in der Nacht.

Die treue Alte, warum kommt sie denn noch nicht?
Von Schlafesnahe allzuschwer ist mein Gesicht.
            Wenn sie doch schon kame
            Und es mit sich nahme,
Das dort oben leise singt, das Licht.

Ach, abendlich besanftigt tont kein stiller Schritt.
Und Babi dreht das Licht nicht aus und nimmt es mit.
            Nur der dicke Mann
            Schaut mich hilflos an,
Bis er tieferschrocken aus dem Spiegel tritt.



The Fat Man in the Mirror

Oh God, that can't be me staring from the mirror,
That unshaven man with the wild hairy chest.
    Today was so blue,
    With my nursemaid
I did indeed promenade in the city park.

Yet no sailor suit fluttered away on me
At this dead place of a wardrobe kept shut tight. 
    Just now taken off,
    It hangs motionless
There on the door looking small and tired. 

And didn't I peek into the kitchen this afternoon?
The coffee smelled of winter and the clock 
ticked loud.
    I stood breathing, stunned,
    He who was once sent
Sliding across the ice with the little brothers.

Today, like always, my nursemaid scared me too
Before the watchman, Kakiz, minding the park.
    At drearier times,
    I often hear this devil
In my dreams, dragging his sword far in the night. 


That loyal old woman, why has she not yet come?
My face is all too heavy with the nearness of sleep.
    If only she'd come
    And take it with her,
That light singing softly overhead.

But no hushed comforting step with evening sounds.
And Babi doesn’t turn out the light and take it away.
    There's just that fat man
    Looking helpless at me
Until steps from the mirror in far more horror.


Note: line 5, city park, Prague in this autobiographical poem; line 17, the watchman, Kakiz, Czech surname and a real person from Werfel's childhood; line 25, light singing, i.e., the hiss of a gas lamp; line 27, Babi, diminutive of Barbara, for Barbara Simünkovä, Werfel's Czech nursemaid

Nächtliche Kahnfahrt und Erinnerung

Tschibuktürke auf dem Ladenschild,
Was verbeugt sich dein vergessnes Bild?

Mit dem Nacht- und Wassergang im Bund
Grüsst dein pfiffig zugespitzter Mund.

Während Boot und Welle steigt und taucht,
Zum gemalten Blau dein Tschibuk schmaucht.

Und es spricht, der längst zerspalten ward:
Nimm mich mit auf deine Ruderfahrt!

Ach, wie Wasser, drängend, sich nicht lässt,
Halt ich dich mit leichten Farben fest.

Kind, vernimm zu nächtlichem Geleit:
Ewig sind wir. Wahn ist alle Zeit.

Dieser Turban, der dich einst gerührt,
Wird von dir unendlich fortgeführt.

Dich und ihn gibst du im Wechsel preis,
Bis ihr wieder euch berührt im Kreis.

Den zur Kinderstund dein Auge sah,
Lieber Bruder, schmauchend ist er da.

Tschibukturke uberm Ladenschild,
Was verbeugt sich dein verstorbnes Bild?

Anmerkung: Über den Tabakverschleißen des alten Österreich hing oft ein Bild, das einen hockenden Türken darstellte, der die Wasserpfeife raucht.

Night Row and Memory

Pipe-smoking Turk upon the shop sign,
What makes your forgotten image bow?

With the night’s and water’s course in league,
Your sly, tapered lips bid me welcome.

While the boat and the waves rise and fall,
Your pipe puffs into the painted blue.

And then someone speaks long parted from:
Take me along with you on your row!

Oh, how water, surging, keeps on going,
With light colors I hold on to you.

Child, hear out your nocturnal escort:
We’re eternal. All time’s a mirage.

This turban that so impressed you once,
Will be unwound from you forever.

By turns you give it up and yourself,
Till you meet once more in a circle.

During children’s hour your eyes saw this,
Dear brother, he is smoking there now.

Pipe-smoking Turk over the shop sign,
What makes your departed image bow?

Note: line 1, Pipe-smoking Turk (Tschibuktürke), according to Werfel’s own note, “signs that hung over tobacconists’ shops in the old Austrian empire often depicted a Turk with legs folded, smoking a water pipe”; line 17, children’s hour (Kinderstund), time set aside for taking children to the park, on walks, reading bible stories, and the like.





Franz Werfel (tr. James Reidel)

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Franz Werfel (1890–1945) is best known for his novels, such as The Forty Days of Musa Dagh and The Song of Bernadette. However, Werfel began his career as an Expressionist poet in the second decade of the twentieth century and continued to write and publish verse throughout his career. His poetry has enjoyed a revival interest in Europe, especially among younger literary scholars.

James Reidel is a poet, translator, and biographer. He recently published his translation of Georg Trakl’s 1913 collection Poems (Seagull Books, 2015) and a collection of plays by Robert Walser, Fairy Tales (New Directions, 2015). His translation of five verse fragments by Georg Trakl appeared in an earlier issue of Map Literary.

published by
The Department of English
College of Humanities & Social Sciences
The William Paterson University of New Jersey
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