Hans Magnus Enzensberger Poems

We can't complain.
We're not out of work.
We don't go hungry.
We eat.
...

She works away day and night,
bent over her darning-egg,
an end of thread between her lips,
mending all manner ofthings.
...

Something must be done right away
that much we know
but of course it's too soon to act
but of course it's too late in the day
...

When I looked up from my blank page
there was an angel in the room.
A rather common place angel,
presumably of lower rank.
...

don't read odes, my son, read time tables:
they're more exact. unroll the sea charts
before it's too late. be vigilant, don't sing.
the day will come they nail lists to the gate
...

something that has no colour, something
that smells of nothing, something tenacious
is dripping from the amplifier bureaus,
is hardening into the seams of time
...