Paul Celan poems
Paul Celan(23 November 1920 - 20 April 1970 / (Cernăuţi, Bukovin) Chernivtsi, Ukraine)
Corona
- by Paul Celan 26
Autunm eats its leaf out of my hand: we are friends.From the nuts we shell time and we teach it to walk:
then time returns to the shell.
In the mirror it's Sunday,
in dream there is room for sleeping,
our mouths speak the truth.
My eye moves down to the sex of my loved one:
we look at each other,
we exchange dark words,
we love each other like poppy and recollection,
we sleep like wine in the conches,
like the sea in the moon's blood ray.
We stand by the window embracing, and people look up from
the street:
it is time they knew!
It is time the stone made an effort to flower,
time unrest had a beating heart.
It is time it were time.
It is time.
Translated by Michael Hamburger
Psalm
- by Paul Celan 22
No-man kneads us again out of Earth and Loam,no-man spirits our Dust.
No-man.
Praise to you, No-man.
For love of you
we will flower.
Moving
towards you.
A Nothing
we were, we are, we shall
be still, flowering:
the Nothing-, the
No-man's-rose.
With
our Pistil soul-bright,
our Stamen heaven-torn,
our Corolla red
with the Violet-Word that we sang
over, O over
the thorn.