The Poetry Corner

Reflecting upon a Human Lung in Alcohol

By Alfred Lichtenstein

Without horror you devour dead flesh every day. And dead blood is a sweet syrup for you. Aren't you afraid? - Indeed your earliest fathers also had, And before you awoke, Crammed thousands of the dead into your body. However, how deeply frightened must the first person who killed An animal have been - Because, when he saw that what roamed about, What could jump and cry out and in the moment of death Still could watch the beseeching world, In a moment Was not there.