bendk
Grimscribe
HORROR
I saw myself walking through deserted rooms.
The stars were dancing madly against their blue background,
Dogs howled in the fields,
A wild wind screamed in the trees.
Yet suddenly: silence. A fever's dull glow
Sends poisonous flowers blossoming from my mouth,
And how the dew falls, pale and shimmering, from the branches
As if from a wound, and falls, and falls like blood.
Out of the deceitful emptiness of a mirror
A face rises slowly and indistinctly
From the horror and darkness: Cain!
The velvet curtain rustles quietly.
The moon shines into emptiness through the window.
I am alone with my murderer.
Georg Trakl killed himself on the night of November 3, 1914.
"He (TL) introduced me to the exquisite work - as bleak and beautiful as bone- of Georg Trakl, who remains one of my most-loved writers and one, like Tom, who exists in that crepuscular world between prose and poetry."
- David Tibet
Georg Trakl (1887-1914) is acknowledged as one of the great melancholy pessimists of the 20th century. Born in Salzburg, Austria, to middle-class parents, he led a relatively normal life until his teenage years. Then a black mood descended upon him and the start of a spiritual decomposition began. Some have speculated that he suffered from undiagnosed schizophrenia. His emotional instability coupled with a worsening drug addiction would precipitate his demise.
He started writing poetry in his late teens. Some of his influences were: The Bible, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Kierkegaard, Poe, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche. Haunted by the "cold radiance" of death, Trakl's poems portray a hyperacute awareness of suffering; sometimes from a strangely detached perspective: "The dance of the living appears unreal." He envisioned "an angry God" and "the icy wave of eternity," and an inevitable sense of doom pervades much of his work.
The last year of Trakl's life was unbearable. While serving as a dispensing chemist in the Austro-Hungarian Army, he was immersed in the brutality of WWI. After the defeat at Grodek, in Austrian-occupied Poland, he was left in charge of 90 wounded men, who he could not help. He witnessed some shoot themselves. Shortly after, he was confronted with the horrific scene of deserters who were hung from trees nearby. He attempted to kill himself, but was disarmed. He was then hospitalized for a mental breakdown. Later that year, he injected himself with a lethal dose of cocaine.
More of his poetry can be found at:
www.poemhunter.com/georg-trakl/poet-11451/
More biographical information can be found at:
http://www.littlebluelight.com/lblphp/intro.php?ikey=27
I saw myself walking through deserted rooms.
The stars were dancing madly against their blue background,
Dogs howled in the fields,
A wild wind screamed in the trees.
Yet suddenly: silence. A fever's dull glow
Sends poisonous flowers blossoming from my mouth,
And how the dew falls, pale and shimmering, from the branches
As if from a wound, and falls, and falls like blood.
Out of the deceitful emptiness of a mirror
A face rises slowly and indistinctly
From the horror and darkness: Cain!
The velvet curtain rustles quietly.
The moon shines into emptiness through the window.
I am alone with my murderer.
Georg Trakl killed himself on the night of November 3, 1914.
"He (TL) introduced me to the exquisite work - as bleak and beautiful as bone- of Georg Trakl, who remains one of my most-loved writers and one, like Tom, who exists in that crepuscular world between prose and poetry."
- David Tibet
Georg Trakl (1887-1914) is acknowledged as one of the great melancholy pessimists of the 20th century. Born in Salzburg, Austria, to middle-class parents, he led a relatively normal life until his teenage years. Then a black mood descended upon him and the start of a spiritual decomposition began. Some have speculated that he suffered from undiagnosed schizophrenia. His emotional instability coupled with a worsening drug addiction would precipitate his demise.
He started writing poetry in his late teens. Some of his influences were: The Bible, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Kierkegaard, Poe, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche. Haunted by the "cold radiance" of death, Trakl's poems portray a hyperacute awareness of suffering; sometimes from a strangely detached perspective: "The dance of the living appears unreal." He envisioned "an angry God" and "the icy wave of eternity," and an inevitable sense of doom pervades much of his work.
The last year of Trakl's life was unbearable. While serving as a dispensing chemist in the Austro-Hungarian Army, he was immersed in the brutality of WWI. After the defeat at Grodek, in Austrian-occupied Poland, he was left in charge of 90 wounded men, who he could not help. He witnessed some shoot themselves. Shortly after, he was confronted with the horrific scene of deserters who were hung from trees nearby. He attempted to kill himself, but was disarmed. He was then hospitalized for a mental breakdown. Later that year, he injected himself with a lethal dose of cocaine.
More of his poetry can be found at:
www.poemhunter.com/georg-trakl/poet-11451/
More biographical information can be found at:
http://www.littlebluelight.com/lblphp/intro.php?ikey=27
