Poems of Paul Celan Quotes

“How you die out in me:

down to the last
worn-out
knot of breath
you're there, with a
splinter
of life.”
― Paul Celan, Poems of Paul Celan

“And the too much of my speaking:
heaped up round the little
crystal dressed in the style of your silence.”
― Paul Celan, Poems of Paul Celan

“DUMB AUTUMN SMELLS. The
marguerite, unbroken, passed
between home and chasm through
your memory.

A strange lostness was
palpably present, almost
you would have lived.”
― Paul Celan, Poems of Paul Celan

“Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown
we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night
we drink and we drink it
we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined
A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes
he writes when dusk falls to Germany your golden hair Margarete
he writes it and steps out of doors and the stars are flashing he whistles his pack out
he whistles his Jews out in earth has them dig for a grave
he commands us strike up for the dance

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink in the morning at noon we drink you at sundown
we drink and we drink you
A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes
he writes when dusk falls to Germany your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Shulamith we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined

He calls out jab deeper into the earth you lot you others sing now and play
he grabs at the iron in his belt he waves it his eyes are blue
jab deeper you lot with your spades you others play on for the dance

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at noon in the morning we drink you at sundown
we drink and we drink you
A man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Shulamith he plays with the serpents
He calls out more sweetly play death death is a master from Germany
he calls out more darkly now stroke your strings then as smoke you will rise into air
then a grave you will have in the clouds there one lies unconfined

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at noon death is a master from Germany
we drink you at sundown and in the morning we drink and we drink you
death is a master from Germany his eyes are blue
he strikes you with leaden bullets his aim is true
a man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete
he sets his pack on to us he grants us a grave in the air
he plays with the serpents and daydreams death is a master from Germany

your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Shulamith

("Death Fugue")”
― Paul Celan, Poems of Paul Celan

“What times are these when a conversation is almost a crime because it includes so much made explicit?”
― Paul Celan, Poems of Paul Celan

“I CAN STILL SEE YOU: an echo
that can be groped towards with antenna
words, on the ridge of parting.

Your face quietly shies
when suddenly
there is lamplike brightness
inside me, just at the point
where most painfully one says, never.”
― Paul Celan, Poems of Paul Celan

“Your hair waves once more when I weep. With the blue of your eyes
you lay the table of love: a bed between summer and autumn.
We drink what somebody brewed, neither I nor you nor a third:
we lap up some empty and last thing.

We watch ourselves in the deep sea’s mirrors and faster pass food to the other:
the night is the night, it begins with the morning,
beside you it lays me down.

("The Years From You To Me")”
― Paul Celan, Poems of Paul Celan

“A Leaf, Treeless

A LEAF, treeless
for Bertolt Brecht:

What times are these
when a coversation
is almost a crime
because it includes
so much made explicit?”
― Paul Celan, Selected Poems

“I Hear that the Axe has Flowered

I hear that the axe has flowered,
I hear that the place can't be named,

I hear that the bread which looks at him
heals the hanged man,
the bread baked for him by his wife,

I hear that they call life
our only refuge.”
― Paul Celan, Selected Poems

“You Were My Death

You were my death:
you I could hold
when all fell away from me.”
― Paul Celan, Selected Poems

“DUMB AUTUMN SMELLS. The
marguerite, unbroken, passed
between home and chasm through
your memory.

A strange lostness was
palpably present, almost
you would
have lived.”
― Paul Celan, Poems of Paul Celan

“The poem is lonely. It is lonely and enroute. —

from “The Meridian”
― Paul Celan, Selected Poems

“Homecoming

Snowfall, denser and denser,
dove-coloured as yesterday,
snowfall, as if even now you were sleeping.

White, stacked into distance.
Above it, endless,
the sleigh track of the lost.

Below, hidden,
presses up
what so hurts the eyes,
hill upon hill,
invisible.

On each,
fetched home into its today,
an I slipped away into dumbness:
wooden, a post.

There: a feeling,
blown across by the ice wind
attaching its dove- its snow-
coloured cloth as a flag.”
― Paul Celan, Selected Poems

“Autumn 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, September 17, 2017
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.

("Corona")”
― Paul Celan, Poems of Paul Celan

“A palavra de ir-a-pique
que lemos.
Os anos, as palavras desde então.
Ainda o somos.

Sabes, o espaço é infinito,
sabes, não precisas de voar,
sabes, o que em teu olho se gravou
aprofunda-nos a profundeza.”
― Paul Celan, Poems of Paul Celan

“Una palabra — vos sabés:
un cadáver.

Vamos a lavarla
vamos a peinarla,

vamos a volver su ojo
hacia el cielo.”
― Paul Celan, Antología poética

“Wie
faßten wir uns
an — an mit
diesen
Händen?”
― Paul Celan, Poems of Paul Celan