Map Literary: A Journal of Contemporary Writing and Art
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Picture


Georg Trakl


tr. James Reidel

                                I

Ein Blasses, ruhend im Schatten verfallener Stiegen--
Jenes erhebt sich nachts in silberner Gestalt
Und wandelt unterm Kreuzgang hin.

In Kühle eines Baums und ohne Schmerz
Atmet das Vollkommene
Und bedarf der herbstlichen Sterne nicht--

Dornen, darüber jener fällt.
Seinem traurigen Fall
Sinnen lange Liebende nach.


                            I

Something pale, lying in the shadows of a
     ruined staircase--
Which arches up at night in silver form
And wanders beneath the cloister walk.

In the coolness of a tree and without pain
The perfect breathes
And has no need of the autumn stars--

Thorns, over which that other falls.
Lovers long
Contemplate his sad fall.




Die Stille der Verstorbenen liebt den alten Garten
Die Irre die in blauen Zimmern gewohnt,
Am Abend erscheint die stille Gestalt am Fenster

Sie aber ließ den vergilbten Vorhang herab--
Das Rinnen der Glasperlen erinnerte an unsere

     Kindheit,
Nachts fanden wir einen schwarzen Mond im Wald

In eines Spiegels Bläue tönt die sanfte Sonate
Lange Umarmungen
Gleitet ihr Lächeln über des Sterbenden Mund.





The stillness of those who are dead loves the old

     garden
The madwoman who lived in blue rooms,
With evening her still form appears in the window

But she lowered the yellowed curtain--
The sliding of glass beads reminds one of our

     childhood,
At night we found a black moon in the forest

In a mirror’s blueness echoes the soft sonata
Long embraces
Your smile slips across the dying’s mouth.





Mit rosigen Stufen sinkt ins Moor der Stein
Gesang von Gleitendem und schwarzes Lachen
Gestalten gehn in Zimmern aus und ein
Und knöchern grinst der Tod in schwarzem                Nachen.

Pirat auf dem Kanal im roten Wein
Dess’ Mast und Segel oft im Sturm zerbrachen.
Ertränkte stoßen purpurn aus Gestein
Der Brücken. Stählern klirrt der Ruf der Wachen.

Doch manchmal lauscht der Blick ins Kerzenlicht
Und folgt den Schatten an verfallnen Wänden
Und Tänzer sind mit schlafverschlungnen Händen.

Die Nacht, die schwarz an deinem Haupt zerbricht
Und Tote, die sich in den Betten wenden
Den Marmor greifen mit zerbrochnen Händen.





With pink steps the stone descends into the moor
A song of gliding away and black laughter
In rooms the figures exit and enter
And Death gives a bone smile in a black skiff.

In red wine a pirate on the canal
Whose mast and sail shattered often in the storm.
The drowned buffet crimson from the bedrock
Of the bridge. The sentry’s cry rattles of steel.

Yet sometimes the candlelit stare listens
And follows the shadows along ruined walls
And are dancers with their hands entwined in  

     sleep

The night, blackly crashing against your head
And the dead, tossing and turning in bed
Grasp at the marble with their agonized hands.





Die blaue Nacht ist sanft auf unsren Stirnen
     aufgegangen.
Leise berühren sich unsere verwesten Hände
Süße Braut!

Bleich ward unser Antlitz, mondene Perlen
Verschmolzen in grünem Weihergrund.
Versteinerte schauen wie unsre Sterne.

O Schmerzliches! Schuldige wandeln im Garten
In wilder Umarmung die Schatten,
Daß in gewaltigem Zorn Baum und Tier über sie

     sank.

Sanfte Harmonien, da wir in kristallnen Wogen
Fahren durch die stille Nacht
Ein rosiger Engel aus den Gräbern der Liebenden tritt.





The blue night has softly risen on our brows.
Our festered hands softly touch.
Sweet bride!

Our faces turned white, lunar pearls
Melting into a green pond’s depths.
Turned stone watch like our stars.

O the suffering! Shadows in the garden
The guilty wander in wild embrace,
Such that tree and beast in towering fury fell

     upon them.

Soft harmonies as we go in crystal waves
Through the still night
A rose angel steps from the graves of lovers.





O das Wohnen in der Stille des dämmernden
     Gartens,
Da die Augen der Schwester sich rund und dunkel

     im Bruder aufgetan,
Der Purpur ihrer zerbrochenen Münder
In der Kühle des Abends hinschmolz.
Herzzerreißende Stunde.

September reifte die goldene Birne. Süße von

     Weihrauch
Und die Georgine brennt am alten Zaun
Sag! wo waren wir, da wir auf schwarzem Kahn
Im Abend vorüberzogen,

Darüberzog der Kranich. Die frierenden Arme
Hielten Schwarzes umschlungen, und innen rann

     Blut.
Und feuchtes Blau um unsre Schläfen. Arm’
     Kindlein.
Tief sinnt aus wissenden Augen ein dunkles
     Geschlecht.





O living in the stillness of the twilit garden,
When the sister’s eyes opened wide and dark in

     the brother,
The crimson of their agonized mouths
Melted away in the chill of evening.
Heart-rending hour.

September ripened the golden pears. Sweetness 

     of incense
And the dahlias blaze along the old fence
Tell me where we were in a black boat,
When we drifted by in the evening,

The crane flew overhead. The freezing arms
Kept embracing blackness, and inside flowed  

     blood.
And moist blue down our temples. Poor babe.
From knowing eyes a dark sex thinks deeply.





Georg Trakl   (tr. James Reidel)

Picture
Despite his short life, addiction to drugs and incest, and his enervating depressions, the Austrian Expressionist poet Georg Trakl (b. 1887) produced poems that are as important, beautiful, and fascinating for their range of meanings and his work is now part of the world canon. These verse fragments echo Trakl’s finished poetry—as well as its ductility. They are taken from Our Trakl, a three-volume collection that marks the hundredth anniversary of Trakl’s death in November 1914, when he died of an overdose in a Cracow military hospital. The first volume, Poems, is forthcoming from Seagull Press in 2015.

James Reidel recently published a new book of poems, Jim's Book (Black Lawrence Press, 2014). In addition to Georg Trakl, he has also translated and published works by Robert Walser, Franz Werfel, and Thomas Bernhard.

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