Mahler (Hmv 3) Poem by johannes lewinsky

Not yet I'll sing
I'll not yet
Sing to you
Nor ruffle

The placid surface
Of your indifference

For before all else
It is necessary
For me to listen
To this burgeoning within

Of an innermost
And most incontrovertible
Catastrophe

O man take heed
Dunkel ist das Leben
Ist das Lied

How long since we began
This reckless endeavour
This flight away from
These mountains and cataracts

Of the mind
And of the body
This desolate
Forgotten-how-to-be
Attempt at an existence

How long since we refused
Admittance
To these myriad streams

Not one of which
Can carry me beyond
This desolate
Forgotten-how-to-be
Attempt at an existence

When Moses wilfully
Drove his people before him
Out
Out into the wilderness
Did he feel like this
Did he suffer
Irrepressible pangs

Or had his ego by that time
Congealed
Into an indissoluble union
With the ideology
He preached

Did he speak from the outset
With a tongue that was fiery
With a tongue that was
Bristling with passion

Or was it just that he spoke
With a tongue that was coated
Coated
With the hard worn accretions
Of gall
And of spite

O man take heed
Dunkel ist das Leben
Ist das Lied

Frozen
Are we not all frozen
By this exceeding
Unction of the spirit
This perpetually remote
Fount of grace

Which will not be persuaded
To reveal itself
And if it does
Will not be encountered
Except through excessive
And some would say
Incongruous
Acts of love

What can the deeps
Beneath these glaciers
What can these deeps
That are deeper than all
Our regrets and desires
Say to us
These deeps that are so
So close to us
And yet
So obstinately
Inaccessible

Do they truly contain
Anything for us
We who have been conditioned
Daily to interact
We who refuse
Lest it compromise our integrity
To reach down

We who are terrified
Of waking from this dream
To discover ourselves
Banished

For in obscurity
There will be
Neither raft nor wing
To ferry us
Nor wine nor elegies
Nor antique porcelain
To shelter us

In that dark canyon
No bell tolls
Either for the wretched
Or the ennobled

And the night will compel us
To abandon
Not just hope
But all compulsion also

O man take heed
For verily I tell you
Dunkel ist das Leben
And the incongruity
Of this Lied