Vade retro, Satana.
Another night, one of the far too many
In which once again sleep will not come
And, as so often before, you are drawn against your will
Into the dark streets without a specific destination
And carelessly you push as if it were a ball of paper
With your feet a dead pigeon in front of you
The girls stand waiting on the wall by the train
They know you and haven't spoken to you for a long time
The man there stays in the shade, pretending to read
And only dares to come out when your footsteps have faded away
Some of those you meet here are like you, are alone
Some because they have no one, others want to be alone
And they don't look at you, feel their way past you
And yet they do a poor job of hiding their mistrust, their fear
As if their loneliness is already an offense
And in every bar at night you see on your way
Many strange men, full glasses in their hands
They don't want to lay their heads on the grease stain
Which, above every shabby hotel bed, on the wall
From the heads of many hundreds of other men
Who lay here before them and how they were condemned
So drink that the barmaid speaks a word to them
With whom they would not show themselves, not in daylight
She knows this too, without revealing it
But surely she won't let any of them into her bed
Some of the people you meet here are like you, they are alone
Some because they have no one, others want to be alone
And they don't look at you, feel their way past you
And yet they do a poor job of hiding their mistrust, their fear
As if their loneliness were already an offense
And at the urinal, where the hustlers are waiting again
Under bushes, trees you've never seen so dark
You turn around again and avoid this garden
Because you still have an image in your mind's eye from before
The gay old man, early in the morning in the pansy patch
His skull bashed in and turned on his stomach
His brains sucked up by the flowers during the night
He lay there without pants, all skinny and exhausted
From a life of misery, like his death so gray
And his toupee still hung in the thorn bush, wet with blood and dew
Some of those you meet here are like you, are alone
Some because they have no one, others want to be alone
And they don't look at you, feel their way past you
And yet they do a poor job of hiding their mistrust, their fear
As if their loneliness were already an offense
Even in the waiting room, drunken men are dozing now
Talking to themselves, always the same sentence
You too sit down at the table with that wormwood bum
He finds his warm place here every night
Fresh scars, days-old dirt almost cover
The tattoo on his wrist from prison
Slumped over on the table, like most here
The head in a pool of red wine, snot and beer
You wonder how he can sleep so bent, bent and bent
Can still sleep and you envy him for it
Some you meet here are like you, are alone
Some because they have no one, others want to be alone
And they don't look at you, feel their way past you
And yet they hide their mistrust, their fear only poorly
As if their loneliness is already an offense
You sit there and gradually begin to dream yourself
See yourself as a sick pigeon that barely moves
Far from the air and the sun and the tall trees
Lying down to die in the air shaft of a house
And from the dreary window holes above your grave
Sputum and stench fall down on you without a break
Sounds you hear as your life force trickles away
Of which rattling, spitting, cursing are not the worst
But high above you, you can see a bright square
A piece of sky, a piece of hope, you're already moving your toes
Stand up, flap your wings and wake up trying
To fight your way up to the spot that is called life for you
Which only looks like an often-used handkerchief
Some of those you meet here are like you, are alone
Some because they have no one, others want to be alone
And they don't look at you, feel their way past you
And yet they do a poor job of hiding their mistrust, their fear
As if their loneliness were already an offense
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
