Moondrunk.
Thirsty, you think, as you pace out the half-deserted urban thoroughfares, the full moon blazing overhead. Here, in the thick of life, this yearning has emerged – a pull at your solar plexus, drawing you out into the cooling night… and for what? Perhaps to find what you’ve been missing? Your mind’s eye shifts its gaze from cognitive dissonance, reaching for those old hopes that what you’re looking for can be found in the back booth of some dim bar, under the jacarandas in purple summer, or out in the urban chiaroscuro, where moonlight and streetlight dance their twisted torques around your body.
1. Moondrunk
The wine we drink with our eyes,
the moon pours out each night in torrents
and a spring tide overwhelms
the silent horizon.
Desires, shocking and sweet,
swim through the flood without number!
The wine we drink with our eyes,
the moon pours out each night in torrents.
The poet, driven by rapture,
intoxicated by holy liquor
turns, ecstatic, heavenwards
dizzily sucking and slurping
the wine we drink with our eyes.
1. Mondestrunken
Den Wein, den man mit Augen trinkt,
Gießt Nachts der Mond in Wogen nieder,
Und eine Springflut überschwemmt
Den stillen Horizont.
Gelüste schauerlich und süß,
Durchschwimmen ohne Zahl die Fluten!
Den Wein, den man mit Augen trinkt,
Gießt Nachts der Mond in Wogen nieder.
Der Dichter, den die Andacht treibt,
Berauscht sich an dem heilgen Tranke,
Gen Himmel wendet er verzückt
Das Haupt und taumelnd saugt und schlürft er
Den Wein, den man mit Augen trinkt.