THE SEVENTH PSALM

1

My beloveds, I know it: my hair is falling out with this wild living and I must lay me down on the stones. You see me drinking the cheapest schnapps and I go naked in the wind.

2

But, my beloveds, once upon a time I was pure.

3

I had a woman, she was stronger than me as the grass is stronger than the bull. The grass lifts up again.

4

She saw that I was bad and she loved me.

5

She did not ask where the way led that was her way and perhaps it led downward. When she gave me her body she said: That is all. And it became my body.

6

Now she is not anywhere anymore, she vanished like the cloud when it has rained, I let her go and she fell, for that was her way.

7

But at night sometimes when you see me drinking I see her face white in the wind and strong and turned my way, and I bow into the wind.

HEH. PSALM 9

1

Hear me, friends, I sing you the song of Heh, the dark-skinned, my beloved for sixteen months until her dissolution.

2

She did not grow old, she had undiscriminating hands, she sold her skin for a cup of tea and herself for a whip. She ran among the willows till she was tired, Heh!

3

She offered herself like a fruit but was not accepted. Many had her in their mouths and spat her out, the good woman, Heh. The beloved, Heh.

4

In her head she knew what a woman is but not with her knees. With her eyes in daylight she knew the way but in the dark she did not know it.

5

In the night she was wretched, blind with vanity, Heh, and women are nocturnal creatures and she was not.

6

She was not wise like Bi, the lovable, Bi, the plant, she ran hither and thither and her heart was unthinking.

7

And for that reason she died in the fifth month of year 20, a quick and secret death when nobody was looking and vanished like a cloud of which people say: it never was.

THE ELEVENTH PSALM

1

Evenings by the river in the dark heart of the bushes sometimes I see her face again, hers, the woman I loved, my woman, dead now.

2

It is many years ago and at times I know nothing about her anymore who was once all things to me but all things pass.

3

And she was in me like a small juniper on the Mongolian steppes, concave with a washed-out yellow sky and great sadness.

4

Our dwelling place was a black hut by the river. Often and grievously the horseflies bit her white body. I read the newspaper seven times, or I said: Your hair is the colour of dirt. Or: You are heartless.

5

But one day when I was washing my shirt in the hut she walked to the gate and looked at me and wanted to go out.