PITCH-BLACK DARK

Everything is still dark now. The pearls of heaven are extinguished, and in the rich darkness of the sulphur the wind tears and roars with fierce teeth. Man huddles like a caterpillar in a warming shelter, and seldom speaks. I should stand by the gears of receding Time, with hope-lost enduring doubt, piteous sorrow pervades; among men a ghost-shadow that wanders hesitatingly, crawls round me, while the jelly of fish scales is the jelly of the dew.

These hours can no longer give me comforting, tamed sleep On the edge of open-mouthed chasms, Like a wavering tightrope walker I balance myself nor in this pitiless blindness Can my prophetic word penetrate. My language: this rich dictionary of words is now frozen, rooted in the holy land of silent utterances: now stupidity is still among us like a contagious disease, a mass article of cheaply driven masses!

They spread like an inviting pestilence, or a pestilence, and no alliance of unknown friendships can be built by the lost, wavering man like Lego blocks. For he who builds his home today, piles it stone by stone, will sooner or later have his door knocked on, as the ultimate mercy, the oppressive salvation.

Now all is gloomy and dark! In the hearts of men there seldom flickers an empathic compassion, that man should rebel among wolves, while his armoured will can fight again! - I myself would stand ready to go on the road; there in the well of my enriched soul some secret spark of hope is stirring, that I should never give up at last, when all have forsaken me!

The wild winds of snarling emotion often get me in the back. I'm sorry it had to be this way, but I'll get up and go on my way!