A gong’s sound, dying out –
\nA lover wakes in black chambers
\nCheek to stars, that flicker at the window.
\nOn the river, rope, mast and sail blaze.<\/p>\n
A monk, a pregnant woman in the crowd.
\nGuitars that strum, the shimmer of scarlet frocks.
\nSultry, in golden gleams the chestnuts wither away;
\nBlack looms the churches’ dismal panoply.<\/p>\n
From pale masks peers the spirit of evil.
\nA square darkens morbid and terrible;
\nWhispers well up on the islands at nightfall.<\/p>\n
Lepers who may rot away at night
\nRead confused omens from the bird flight.
\nBrother and sister spy on each other
\nTrembling in the park.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Psalm<\/strong> There is a light which the wind has extinguished. The nymphs have left the golden woods. The sister again appears in someone’s evil dreams. Behind him stands his dead brother, or else he descends There is an empty boat, which drifts down the black canal Slowly above the place of skulls God’s golden eyes <\/p>\n Decline<\/strong> Over the white pond, Over our graves Ever the white walls of the city ring out. <\/p>\n Wayfaring<\/strong><\/p>\n At nightfall they carried the stranger Oh, how mild is autumn. Softly our footsteps ring out A song for guitar rings out from an unknown tavern, Oh how dark is this night. A crimson flame <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The poet Will Stone<\/strong> translates a selection of poetry by Georg Trakl<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n For Karl Kraus<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThere is an inn on the heath, which a drunk abandons
\n in the afternoon.
\nThere is a vineyard, black and burnt with holes full of spiders.
\nThere is a room, which they have whitewashed with milk.
\nThe madman has perished. There is an island of the
\n South Sea,
\nTo receive the sun god. Drums are beaten.
\nThe men lead dances of war.
\nThe women hipsway in fireflowers and creepers,
\nWhen the sea sings. O our lost paradise.<\/p>\n
\nThe stranger is buried. Then a shimmering rain arises.
\nThe son of Pan appears as an earthworker,
\nWho sleeps through noon against glowing asphalt.
\nThere are little girl in a courtyard in tiny frocks
\n full of heart-rending want!
\nThere are rooms filled with accords and sonatas.
\nThere are shadows which embrace before a mirror
\n gone blind.
\nAt the windows of hospitals convalescents warm
\n themselves.
\nUp the canal a white steamer carries the boody epidemic.<\/p>\n
\nResting in the hazel bush she plays with his stars.
\nThe student, perhaps a double, follows her from the
\n window for a long time.<\/p>\n
\n the old spiral staircase.
\nIn darkness, brown chestnut trees fade the figure
\n of the young novice.
\nThe garden is in evening. Bats flutter about the cloister.
\nThe caretaker’s children surrender play and seek the gold
\n of heaven.
\nFinal chord of a quartet. The little blind girl runs trembling
\n down the avenue.
\nAnd later her shadow feels its way along cold walls,
\n surrounded by fairytales and holy legends.<\/p>\n
\n at evening.
\nIn the gloom of the old asylum human ruins decay.
\nThe dead orphans lie by the garden wall.
\nFrom grey rooms step angels with filth-spattered wings.
\nWorms drip from their yellowed lids.
\nThe square before the church is dark and silent,
\n as in the days of childhood.
\nOn silver soles earlier lives glide by
\nAnd the shadows of the damned decline towards
\n the sighing waters.
\nIn his grave the white magician plays with his serpents.<\/p>\n
\n are opening.<\/p>\n
\n To Karl Borrom\u00c3\u00a4us Heinrich<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThe wild birds have journeyed on.
\nAt evening an icy wind blows from our stars.<\/p>\n
\nLeans the shattered brow of night.
\nBeneath oaks we rock in a silver boat.<\/p>\n
\nBeneath arches of thorn
\nO my brother, our blind hour-hands climb towards
\n midnight.<\/p>\n
\nInto the room of the dead;
\nAn odour of tar; the red plane tree’s soft rustling;
\nDark flight of jackdaws, the guard marched
\n on the square.
\nThe sun has sunk in black linen; forever
\n this bygone evening returns.
\nIn the next room the sister is playing a Schubert sonata.
\nSo softly sinks her smile into the ruined fountain,
\nWhich rustles bluish in the twilight. Oh how ancient
\n our lineage.
\nSomeone whispers below in the garden; someone has
\n left this black heaven.
\nAroma of apples on top of the cupboard. Grandmother
\n is lighting the golden candles.<\/p>\n
\n in the old park
\nBeneath tall trees. Oh, how sober is the hyacinthine
\n face of twilight.
\nThe blue spring at your feet, mysterious your mouth’s
\n red stillness
\nMade sombre by the leaves slumber, the dark gold
\n of decayed sunflowers.
\nYour lids are heavy with poppy and dream softly
\n against my brow.
\nGentle bells quiver in the breast. A blue cloud
\nYour face is sunk over me in the twilight.<\/p>\n
\nThe wild elder bushes there, a long bygone
\n November day,
\nFamiliar steps on the dusking stairway, the sight of beams
\n turned brown,
\nAn open window, at which a sweet hope lingered –
\nUnspeakable it all is, Oh God one falls to one’s knees
\n overwhelmed.<\/p>\n
\nDied at my mouth. In the stillness
\nThe anxious soul’s lonely music fades to perish.
\nEnugh, when drunk with wine the head sinks down
\n into the gutter.<\/p>\n![\"trakl1908\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/trakl1908.jpg\")
\nABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong>
\nGeorg Trakl<\/strong> was born in Salzburg in 1887. A po\u00c3\u00a8te maudit<\/em>, his writing emerged from a tempestuous life of drug addiction, rumoured incest and madness. For all its undoubted bleakness, his is a work of startling terrible visions and fleeting transcendence amidst the most abyssal despair, the poet Rilke stating, “For me, the Trakl poem is an object of sublime existence…” Having experienced the full savagery of the First World War as a medical orderly in the Austrian army, Trakl suffered a final mental breakdown in the winter of 1914. He died from a cocaine overdose whilst under psychiatric observation in a military hospital in Krakow, Poland. He was 27. <\/p>\n![\"will_-_emmas_garden_july_2009_3\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/will_-_emmas_garden_july_2009_3.jpg\")
\nABOUT THE TRANSLATOR<\/strong>
\nWill Stone<\/a>, English poet and translator, was born in 1966. In 2008 his first poetry collection Glaciation<\/em><\/a>, published by Salt, won the international Glen Dimplex Award for poetry. The featured translations come from his collection To The Silenced<\/em><\/a> – selected poems of Georg Trakl (Arc Publications). A number of his translations were also selected for the Tate anthology of German Expressionist, Music While Drowning<\/em><\/a> in 2003, the title of which is taken from a poem by Egon Schiele. He has collections of translations of the long-neglected Belgian poets Emile Verhaeren and Georges Rodenbach forthcoming this year with Arc. His first English translation of Stefan Zweig’s travel writings Journey<\/em><\/a> is also due out on Hesperus Press. His reviews have appeared in the TLS<\/em>, Guardian<\/em>, Independent on Sunday<\/em>, The London Magazine<\/em>, Poetry Review <\/em>and PN Review <\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"trakl\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/trakl-150x150.jpg\")
At nightfall they carried the stranger
\nInto the room of the dead;
\nAn odour of tar; the red plane tree’s soft rustling;
\nDark flight of jackdaws, the guard marched
\non the square.
\nThe sun has sunk in black linen; forever
\nthis bygone evening returns.
\nIn the next room the sister is playing a Schubert sonata.
\nSo softly sinks her smile into the ruined fountain,
\nWhich rustles bluish in the twilight. Oh how ancient
\nour lineage.
\nSomeone whispers below in the garden; someone has
\nleft this black heaven…<\/p>\n