Till Lindemann's 'Messer' - "Tänzerin"

"Tänzerin", due to the '-in' suffix, specifically means a female dancer.

Not the only poem that will invoke 'Heirate Mich'-ish imagery in Messer. A lot more plaintive and melancholy than most, I think.

(Poem no. 37 out of 54, located pg. 100 of ‘Messer’, 2010 print.)

Disclaimer: Poem copyrighted to Till Lindemann. This post does not include photos/illustrations of said poem from 'Messer'. The original German text is also not included. This is only a interpretive translation and accuracy is not guaranteed.




Dancer

I saw the beautiful dancer
Where the mistral blew around the hips
She had her legs up to the chin
An altar for the nightly prayers

The hips were firm and without greaves
The backside plump just like a horse
She could push them into such heights
Then kissed him up in the gray skies

She then broke her neck in two
And my heart into a thousand crumbs
Her last sigh - a forgiveness -
Smelled like a wood of garden flowers

From this forest, rank and file,
Emerged an army of little birds
They were singing her one last song
While my heart fed on her tombstone

Her limbs shall soon become pale blue
But shyly breathe in the sunshine
As long as the heavy hips are warmed
Perhaps I could also love her bones.

Original Meter: Iambic tetrameter, largely, with a few additions or truncations here or there - all of the second stanza has an extra unaccented syllable at the end of each line, for example.

Original Rhyme Scheme: ABAB.

Comments: A few lines needed adding to, a few lines needed things taking out. It's not a perfect translation, but now it reads a little cleaner than before, I think.

'Mistral' in the first stanza refers to the mistral wind; it is a strong, cold and usually dry regional wind in France, coming from the north or northwest. So we actually know roughly where the setting of this poem is.

The fourth line of the second stanza mentions a 'him' ('er' in the text). I translated this as 'them', referring to the dancer's legs, the first time around - but since then my view has changed, and I believe that the 'him' mentioned here does refer to a God figure of sorts. 'Skies' in that same line is actually 'Himmel' ('heaven') in the original text, which backs that up somewhat.

This poem has a second part. I shall get to it sometime. Quite beautiful.