Translated from the German by Dinah Livingstone
Chair, bring me a guest.
Table, bring me a cheerful meal.
Lamp, show me a friendly face,
not my own in the mirror.
Chair, bring me a guest.
Table, bring me a cheerful meal.
Window, open onto a warm land.
Suitcase, take my hand
and fly me to Egypt.
Chair, bring me a guest.
Table, bring me a cheerful meal.
Telephone bird, sing for me.
Or bring me a cellar-deep winter sleep,
bed.
Ernst Jandl was an Austrian poet born in 1925. His poem ‘Oktobernacht’, written in 1954, was published in his collection Andere Augen (Bergland, Vienna 1956).