In the Hopeless

Forms like a worn-out echo glide past me.

Jelly-flesh veils a great doll,

That in a lonely square is placed.

In the hopeless there is groaning.

The darksome shadow crown, weighing upon the world,

Will not be heaved away.

Where are the meadows of Heaven violet-blue?

The blessèd have long since carried them

All away in their eyes.

All my dreaming slogs away in evil, stony beds.

I went in vain a thousand ways.

The towers always threatened to come down,

The which I longed to look out from.

Against abyssal heavens of ash lurk evil, agèd spiders.

In jarring noises their heart cries.

They too are accursed like me.

I have lost the path of light.

From my gray homeland I cannot escape.

What care I for songs,

That turn from one side to the other.

They’re like a mountain guide dead-tired,

Always answering the same propositions from withered hearts:

The noble blue is also but a dream-spark.

Who mirroring hands has, let him beware,

Lest a breath cloud them...

Hans Arp