Franz Werfel
Preview of poems forthcoming in the Adirondack Review translated by ©James Reidel
James Reidel is a poet ("My Window Seat for Arlena Twigg"), translator, and biographer.
His rendering of Thomas Bernhard’s long poem "Ave Virgil" appears in the new Conjunctions 53:
Not Even Past issue. In spring–summer 2010, his translation of Franz Werfel’s A Pale-Blue Lady’s
Handwritingwill be published by Godine, a 1941 novella about interwar Austria (which also
reimagines the bouquet event from "Six Septets …").
Tranlator's Note
These three poems by Franz Werfel (1890–1945) were composed early and late in his
career. "I Am Still Just a Child" is from the collection Wir Sind (1913) and its closure
ends with the title’s existential exaltation— "we are". Poems like this one earned Werfel
an early reputation and lost it, too, due to the enmity of Karl Kraus and his followers—
notably Elias Canetti—who could not stand his "O man!" themes.
"The Patient" and "Six Septets to Honor the Spring of 1905" were drafted in 1943. The
former is a meditation on approaching death, one of several Werfel committed to verse
after suffering a heart attack in December of that year. As he convalesced, he also set
down some of his vivid dreams. These often reprised formative events in Werfel’s
childhood and early life, when he began producing his first writings. The "Six Septets"
expresses belated gratitude to an early "muse". the actress Maria Immisch. A leading
lady in Prague’s German-language theater, Marie—as her name is more often spelled—
had already established her reputation for playing exaggerated (überspannte) women in
romantic comedies (Lustspiele). In Prague’s May Festival, however, coming on the
hundredth anniversary of Friedrich Schiller’s death, she performed as the title character
in the tragic history play Maria Stuart. Soon after, she left Prague for the German theater
world as it once existed in New York City, where she performed at Irving Place Theatre.
Her career ended in Berlin, and she’s only remembered now for Werfel’s poem (I thank
Violet Lutz and Daniele Pantano for their close readings and suggestions.)
James Reidel 20091115
Der Kranke
Der Kranke sieht im Garten draussen Flammen
Der Christussterne purpurroten Brand.
Sie blühen, fühlt er, schön am Strauch beisammen;
Doch er ist mit sich selbst nicht mehr verwandt.
Er prüft den Atem scheu bei Nacht und Tage,
Ins innre Kreisen seines Seins versenkt.
Hat er geatmet einmal ohne Frage?
Wie seltsam, dass er jetzt das Atmen denkt!
Die Menschen sind so lieb und ungelegen,
Sie bringen Neigung dar, die schweben bleibt.
Der Kranke schämt sich des Akzentes wegen,
Der alle Hoffnungsreden übertreibt.
Die Morgenzeitung ruht auf seiner Decke
Mit einer riesigen Balkenschrift, die gellt.
Der Kranke liest sie aus dem Augenecke,
Wobei sie dem Gedächtnis schon entfällt.
Was, Bomben, Hekatomben, Untergänge
Von Völkern und von Städten, früh und spät?
Ist das die Welt?—Das Ich ist ein Gedränge
Von längst geborstener Identität.
Das Ich gleicht einem jener Bienenschwärme,
Zur Übersiedlung hängend flugbereit...
Es ist nur eines Wunsches voll: Nach Wärme,
Und unaufmerksam wie die Ewigkeit.
The Patient
©James Reidel
The patient looks outs into the garden burning
With Christmas* stars of vermillion fire.
They flower, he feels, nicely on that bush together,
But he is no longer akin to himself.
Timidly he plumbs his inhalations night and day,
Sinking into that inner circle of being him.
Has he ever breathed without doubt?
How strange that now he thinks each breath.
People are so dear and ill-timed.
They offer their care, which lingers.
The patient is ashamed because of that stress
Which accentuates all talk of hope.
On his blanket lies the morning paper
With a giant headline screaming.
From the corner of his eye the patient reads
What already escapes his memory.
What, bombs, hecatombs slaughtered, downfalls
Of people and cities, early and evening?
Is this the world then?—The ego is a throng
Of identity burst long ago.
The I is like one of those swarms of bees,
Pendent, ready to fly, relocate …
It is filled with only one desire: For warmth,
And unmindful as forever is.
*Christmas stars, i.e., poinsettias, from the German, Christussterne (Christ’s stars).
Sechs Setterime zu Ehren des Frühlings von Neunzehnhundertundfünf
Maria Immisch war der Lenz.
Mit Rührung und mit Reverenz
Entreiss der Schattenwelt ich ihren lieben Namen.
Im Jahre Fünf, als ich schon fünfzehn war,
—Man feierte das grosse Schillerjahr
—Da sah ich sie als Heldin der berühmten Dramen.
Noch heute ist mein Herz voll Dank.
Der Stadtpark war schon dicht belaubt.
Der Flieder rief. Mir ward erlaubt,
Das Klassische Theater zu betreten.
Ich sass auf überfüllter Gallerie.
Im Rausch des Bühnen-Zauberbilds stand sie,
Dass Stürme des Gefühls mein frisches Herz durchwehten,
Gleich Schillers jambischem Gesang.
Ihr Haar war schwarz. Ihr Aug war blau.
Sie spielte Mädchen, Kind und Frau,
In Peplon, Reifrock, Stuartkragen, Schaube.
Sie sprach den Text in dunklem Contra-Alt.
Sie schritt und litt und starb mit schwebendster Gestalt.
Sie war das Weib! Sie war mein heiliger Liebesglaube,
Der unverwundbar mich durchdrang.
Der Lenz Maria Immisch hieß,
Der mir den Weg zur Ferne wies.
Sie war der Lenz. Ich aber stand in Blüte.
Ich schwieg mich tot. Das Leben war zu gross.
Mein Fall lag in der Schule hoffnungslos,
Weil ich den lieben langen Tag ihr Bild bemühte,
Schmerzhaft gesund und doch so selig krank.
Nachts floh ich einmal aus dem Haus
Und stand mit manchettiertem Blumenstrauss,
Bar aller Kühnheit, vor der Bühnenpforte.
Sie kam mit einem pelzverbrämten Herrn,
Sie war der Star der Stadt, sie war ein Stern.
Ich räumte mich mit meinem Strauss sehr still vom Orte,
Erlöst beinah, dass es misslang.
Die Nacht im Park war mondenbleich.
Ich warf die Blumen in den Teich.
Dort schwammen sie. Doch tat ichs nicht zum Zeichen.
Mein Herz blieb frei von Grimm und gierigem Harm.
Zum erstenmale ahnt ich tränenwarm,
Dass wir nur das erreichen, was wir nie erreichen.
Maria Immisch, Frühling Fünf, hab Dank!
Six Septets to Honor the Spring of 1905
©James Reidel
Maria Immisch was the springtime.
With feeling and reverence
I snatch her adored name from the underworld.
When I was fifteen in ’05, that year
—they celebrated the big Schiller centennial
—and I saw her as heroine in his famous plays.
To this day my heart’s still thankful.
The city park was already dense in leaf.
The lilacs beckoned. I was allowed
Entry into the Classical Theater.
I sat in the overpacked balcony.
She stood inflamed with her stage magic presence
While a storm of emotions raged through my fresh heart
As did the song of Schiller’s iambs.
Her hair was black. Her eyes were blue.
She played girl, child, and lady
In peplum, petticoat, Stuart collar, cloak.
She spoke the words in a dark contralto.
She strode and suffered and died, her character on air.
She was that woman. She was my dear and holy faith,
The one who pierced the invulnerable me.
The spring named Maria Immisch
Showed me the way to this far shore.
She was the springtime. But I was in bloom.
I became dead quiet. Life was too big.
My hopeless case was at school
For I studied her picture all the live-long day
Painfully healthy, so blissfully sick.
That night I fled from the house
And stood with that cuffed bouquet,
Lacking the audacity, outside the stage door.
She came out with a gentleman trimmed in fur,
She was the star of the city, she was a star.
In utter silence I retreated with my flowers from that place
Almost relieved that I had failed.
The night was moon-white in the park.
I tossed those flowers in the pond.
There they floated. I didn’t mean it to be symbolic.
My heart wasn’t hurt, wasn’t greedy for pain.
For the first time I had an inkling of warm tears,
That we only get what we never get.
Maria Immisch, the spring ’05, be thanked.
Ich bin ja noch ein Kind
Oh Herr, zerreisse mich!
Ich bin ja noch ein Kind.
Und wage doch zu singen
Und nenne dich
Und sage von den Dingen:
Wir sind!
Ich öffne meinen Mund,
Eh du mich liessest deine Qualen kosten.
Ich bin gesund
Und weiss noch nicht, wie Greise rosten,
Ich klammerte mich nie an Pfosten
Wie Frauen in der schweren Stund.
Nie müht ich mich durch müde Nacht
Wie Droschkengäule, treu erhaben,
Die ihrer Umwelt längst entflohn,
(Dem zaubrisch zerschmetternden Ton
Der Frauenschritte und allem, was lacht.)
Nie müht ich mich, wie Gäule, die ins Unendliche traben.
Nie war ich Seeman, wenn das Öl ausgeht,
Wenn die platzenden Wasser die Sonne verhöhnen,
Wenn die Notschüsse dröhnen,
Wenn die Rakete zitternd aufsteht.
Nie warf ich mich, dich zu versöhnen,
Oh Herr, aufs Knie zum letzten Weltgebet.
Nie war ich ein Kind, zermalmt in den Fabriken
Dieser elenden Zeit, mit Ärmchen ganz benarbt!
Nie hab ich im Asyl gedarbt,
Weiss nicht, wie sich Mütter die Augen aussticken,
Ihr alle, die ihr starbt, ich weiss nicht, wie ihr starbt!
Du aber, Herr, stiegst nieder, auch zu mir.
Und hast die tausendfache Qual gefunden,
Du hast in jedem Weib entbunden,
Du starbst im Kot, in jedem Stück Papier,
In jedem Zirkusseehund wurdest du geschunden,
Und Hure warst du manchem Kavalier.
Oh Herr, zerreisse mich!
Was soll dies dumpfe, klägliche Geniessen ?
Ich bin nicht wert, dass deine Wunden fliessen.
Begnade mich mit Martern, Stich um Stich!
Ich will den Tod der ganzen Welt einschliessen.
Oh Herr, zerreisse mich!
Bis dass ich erst in jedem Lumpen starb,
In jedem Hund und jedem Gaul verreckte,
Und ein Soldat im Wüstendurst verdarb,
Bis, armer Sünder ich, das Sakrament weh auf der Zunge
schmeckte,
Bis ich den aufgefressnen Leib aus bitterm Bette streckte,
Nach der Gestalt, die ich, verhöhnt, umwarb.
Und wenn ich erst zerstreut bin in den Wind,
Aus jedem Tod, aus jedem Leben tauche,
Dann lodre, Herr, mir auf im Dornenstrauche!
Ich bin dein Kind.
Dann, Wort, dann prassle auf, das ich in Ahnung brauche,
Flamm unverzehrbar dich durchs All: Wir sind!!
I’m Still Just a Child
©James Reidel
O Lord, tear me to pieces.
I’m still just a child.
And dare to sing
And call upon you
And tell you about things:
We are.
I open my mouth
Before you unleash your agonies upon me.
I have my health
And have no idea how old men rust away,
I’ve never braced myself against the posts
The way women do for hours.
I never push myself through the tired night
Like truly august droshky nags
That long escaped their background,
(Amid that enchanting, dashing sound
Of lady’s footsteps and all, something laughs).
I never pushed myself like hacks trotting on ad infinitum.
I was never the sailor when the oil’s extinguished,
When the water rushing in sneers at the sun,
When the distress shot thunders,
When the rocket convulses upward.
I never dropped myself, to make it up to you,
On my knees, Lord, with a last world prayer.
I was never a child crushed in the fabric
Of this miserable time, a little arm all bandaged.
I have never starved inside the asylum,
Don’t know how mothers stitch the eyes,
All of you, those who die, I don’t know how you die!
But You, Lord, came down for me too.
And you found the thousandfold torments,
You delivered in every woman,
You died in the shit, in every piece of paper,
You were mistreated in every circus seal,
And you were some cavalier to a whore.
Lord, tear me to pieces.
Why this dull, miserable delicacy?
I’m not worth what flowed from your wounds.
Bless me with mortifications, prick after prick.
I want the death of the whole world included.
Lord, tear me to pieces.
Until I’m dead in every shred first,
Worked to death in every dog, every horse,
And dying of thirst, a soldier in the desert,
Until, poor sinner I, painfully tasted the sacrament on my
tongue,
Till I’m this eaten body stretched out on a bitter bed,
Taking the form that I mocked, courted.
And only when I’m scattered to the wind,
Plunge from each death, from each life,
Then, Lord, torch me in the thorns.
I’m your child.
Then, Word, sizzle skyward, that I can tell I need,
Burn inconsumable through the universe: We are!!
James Reidel is a poet and translator who lives in America. His book of poems is My Window Seat for Arlena Twigg and Other Poems (Black Lawrence Press, 2006). His translations include In Hora Mortis/Under the Iron of the Moon (Princeton University Press, 2006) by Thomas Bernhard. His translation of Franz Werfel’s novel Eine blaßblaue Frauenschrift will appear as Pale Blue Ink in a Lady’s Hand (Godine, forthcoming) in the summer of 2011 as well as a revised and expanded translation of Werfel’s The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (Godine, forthcoming). He appears in The Adirondack Review for National Poetry.
The title of Jim’s Book is taken from James Reidel’s close encounter with James Merrill’s first book, which Merrill’s father had printed as a surprise. The title also marks Reidel’s winter–spring residency at the James Merrill House in 2013.
Too much of this spooked the Moses of their race —
Athena’s owls mortared up on pediments,
Iron-spiked sills baring their fangs,
Lintels arching their backs like cats,
The jettatore of rondel with broken panes,
Flight holes wrapped in chicken wire,
Those courtships pursued into the street,
Crushed to a flatbread of slate blue pinions.
Thus that first flock spun a last time over the city
and homed to it no more,
To roost above the railway,
To perch beneath the viaduct,
To beard the bridge with nests,
Its girders and piers weeping chalk droppings for
joy.
Here, between the ties, the rails,
The trains might spill corn in the city park again,
In children’s handfuls.