‘Dream of Evil

A gong’s brown-golden tones no longer loud--
A lover wakes in chambers growing dimmer,
His cheek near flames that in the window glimmer
Upon the stream flash rigging, mast and shroud.

A monk, a pregnant woman in the crowd;
Guitars are strumming, scarlet dresses shimmer.
In golden gleam the chestnuts shrink and simmer;
The churches’ mournful pomp looms black and proud.

The evil spirit peers from masks of white.
A square grows gloomy, hideous and stark;
Whispers arise on islands in the dark.

Lepers, who rot away perhaps at night,
Read convoluted omens of birdflight.
Siblings eye each other, trembling in the park.’

--G*org Trakl, Song of th* W*st (tr R Firmag*1988)