Cloudy Evening

A poem by Alfred Lichtenstein

The sky is swollen with tears and melancholy.
Only far off, where its foul vapors burst,
Green glow pours down. The houses,
Gray grimaces, are fiendishly bloated with mist.

Yellowish lights are beginning to gleam.
A stout father with wife and children dozes.
Painted women are practicing their dances.
Grotesque mimes strut towards the theater.

Jokers shriek, foul connoisseurs of men:
The day is dead... and a name remains!
Powerful men gleam in girls' eyes.
A woman yearns for her beloved woman.