30 EXPRESSIONIST POEMS BY GREAT AUTHORS - LITERATURE - 2025

Expressionist poems are compositions that use literary resources typical of poetry, framed in the current called expressionism.

Expressionism is an artistic current that emerged in Germany in the early years of the 20th century and whose premise was to express the particular and internal vision of each artist, as opposed to Impressionism, a current that preceded it and whose basic principle was to reflect reality in the most reliable way possible.

Georg Trakl, author of Expressionism.

Expressionism sees a subjective reality and therefore deformed and capricious, where feelings are imposed on forms.

Other currents such as Fauvism, Cubism and Surrealism were included within Expressionism, so it was a quite heterogeneous movement that revealed the time so convulsed that he lived.

Expressionist poetry also adopted this concept, resulting in pieces loaded with freedom, irrationality and rebellion both in the topics addressed –sickness, death, sex, misery-, as well as in their form and structure: without linguistic rules or with a deformation of them, although the rhyme and meter were maintained in most cases.

You may also be interested in this list of romantic poems or this list of surrealist poems.

List of poems by the most representative authors of expressionism

To the Mute

Ah, madness of the great city, at dusk

to dark nailed walls look at shapeless trees,

in a silver mask the evil genius observes,

light with a magnetic whip repels the stone night.

Ah, plunged are of bells at sunset.

Whore that gives birth to a dead child amid frozen tremors.

Wrath of God that furiously lashes the forehead of the possessed,

purple plague, hunger that shatters the green eyes.

Ah, the hideous laugh of gold.

Calmer humanity flows in a dark lair, quieter,

and in hard metals it forms the saving head.

Author: Georg Trakl. Translation of José Luis Arántegui

Passion

When Orpheus strikes the silver lyre

a dead man cries in the evening garden,

who are you lying under the tall trees?

The reed bed in autumn murmurs its lament.

The blue pool

is lost under the green of the trees

following the shadow of the sister;

dark love of a savage race,

fleeing the day on its golden wheels.

Serene night.

Under gloomy fir trees

two

petrified wolves mixed their blood in an embrace;

the cloud died on the golden path,

patience and silence of childhood.

The tender corpse appears

next to the pool of Triton

sleeping in its hyacinth hair.

May the cold head finally break!

For always a blue animal continues,

lurking in the gloom of the trees,

watching over these black roads,

moved by its nocturnal music,

by its sweet delirium;

or by the dark ecstasy

that vibrates its cadences

at the frozen feet of the penitent

in the city of stone.

Author: Georg Trakl. Helmut Pfeiffer's version

Beautiful youth

The mouth of a girl who had been in the reeds for a long time

seemed so rotten.

When they broke his chest, his esophagus was so leaky.

Finally, in a pergola under the diaphragm they

found a nest of small rats.

A little sister was lying dead.

The others fed on liver and kidney,

drank cold blood and spent

a beautiful youth here.

And beautiful and fast, death surprised them: they were

all thrown into the water.

Oh, how the little snouts screamed!

Author: Gottfried Benn

The ascension (of Christ)

He tightened his belt until it was tight.

Its bare frame of bones creaked. In the side the wound.

He coughed up bloody drool. It flamed over her battered hair.

A crown of thorns of light. And always curious dogs.

The disciples sniffed around. It hit his chest like a gong.

For the second time long drops of blood shot,

And then the miracle came. The ceiling of the sky

opened lemon color. A gale howled on high trumpets.

He, however, ascended. Meter after meter in the

Espacio gap. The getas paled in profound astonishment.

From below they could only see the soles of his sweaty feet.

Author: Wilhelm Klemm. Version by Jorge Luis Borges

Garden love

When you arise

your body a clear temple blooms

My arms sink like a people that prays

and they lift you up from twilight

to the stars that around the bosom of the Lord

they chain

Thus our hours weave garlands around love

and your long gazes from the lands of the South

they make me sick to your soul

and I sink

and I drink you

and I find a drop of eternity in the sea of ​​your blood.

Author: Kurt Heynicke. Version by Jorge Luis Borges

I'm sad

Your kisses darken, on my mouth.

You do not love me anymore.

And how did you come!

Blue because of paradise;

Around your sweetest sources

My heart fluttered.

Now I want to make him up,

Just like prostitutes

Color the withered rose on their hips red.

Our eyes are half closed,

Like a dying sky

The moon has aged.

The night will no longer wake up.

You hardly remember me.

Where will I go with my heart?

Author: Else Lasker-Schüler

Sonia Almau's version

Loneliness

Solitude is like the rain,

which rises from the sea and moves towards the night.

From distant and lost plains it

rises to the sky, which always picks it up.

And only from the sky falls into the city.

It is like a rain in indecisive hours

when all the paths point towards the day

and when the bodies, which found nothing,

turn away from each other, disappointed and sad;

and when beings who mutually hate each other

must sleep together in the same bed.

So loneliness leaves with the rivers…

Author: Rainer María Rilke

Man and woman walk through the barrack of the cancerous

The man:

In this row destroyed laps,

in this other destroyed breasts.

Bed sucks next to bed. The nurses take turns every hour.

Come, lift this blanket without fear.

Look, this lump of fat and rotten moods, it

was once important to a man

and it was also called homeland and delirium.

Come look at these scars on the chest.

Do you feel the rosary of soft knots?

Play without fear. The meat is soft and does not hurt.

This woman bleeds like she has thirty bodies.

No human being has so much blood. She was first cut off

a child from her sick lap.

They let them sleep. Day and night. -To the new ones

they are told: here the dream is healing. Only on Sundays,

for visits, they are left awake for a while.

Little food is still consumed. The backs

are full of wounds. Look at the flies. Sometimes

a nurse washes them. How the banks are washed.

Here the tilled field swells around each bed.

Meat becomes plain. Fire is lost.

Humor prepares to run. Earth calls.

Author: Gottfried Benn

I would like

I would like to drink the water

from all the springs,

quenching all my thirst,

becoming a nayáde.

Know all the winds,

furrow all the roads,

suppressing my ignorance

for the neoteric of time.

Novar all my anxiety

for quiet harmony

and feel integrity

even though there is nothing left.

I would like to see at night,

not long for a new day,

soak up myself in the waste

of well-being and joy.

And if being I don't know anything

Author: Nely García

Reflections

I am born, I live, I die, repeated absurdity in this uncertain world.

The route is marked in the fleeting moment

of an ignored night.

Moments of end and dawn are interwoven

walking in darkness along the announced route.

Some daydream.

Others live laments.

Some take refuge in discovering silences

that they can teach you the unity of the times,

the why? Of the life, the why? Of the dead.

With these concerns some take for granted

the value of love, and burned by it

they rush to live with the stillness, or the wind.

Dreamed privilege !, soaking the feelings of few graceful

who enjoy joyful, simplicity and success!

Author: Nely García

The crutches

For seven years I could not take a step.

When i went to the doctor

He asked me: Why are you wearing crutches?

Because I'm crippled, I replied.

It is not strange, he said:

Try walking. Are those junk

those that prevent you from walking.

Come on, dare, crawl on all fours!

Laughing like a monster

took away my beautiful crutches, broke them on my back without stopping laughing, and threw them into the fire.

Now I am cured. I'm going.

A laugh healed me.

Only sometimes when I see sticks

I walk a little worse for a few hours.

Author: Bertolt Brecht

Ode to the King of Harlem

With a spoon

gouged out the eyes of crocodiles

and beat the butt of monkeys.

With a spoon.

Always fire slept in the flints

and the drunken anise beetles

they forgot the moss of the villages.

That old man covered in mushrooms

I went to the place where the blacks cried

while crunching the king's spoon

and the tanks of rotten water arrived.

The roses fled along the edges

of the last curves of the air, and in the piles of saffron

the children crushed little squirrels

with a blush of stained frenzy.

Bridges must be crossed

and get to the black blush

so that the lung perfume

hit our temples with her dress

of hot pineapple.

It is necessary to kill

to the blond liquor seller, to all the friends of the apple and the sand, and it is necessary to give with clenched fists

to the little beans that tremble full of bubbles, For the king of Harlem to sing with his crowd, for alligators to sleep in long lines

under the asbestos of the moon, and so that no one doubts the infinite beauty

of feather dusters, graters, coppers and kitchen pans.

Oh Harlem! Oh Harlem! Oh Harlem!

There is no anguish comparable to your oppressed reds, to your trembling blood within the dark eclipse,

to your deaf-mute garnet violence in the gloom, your great prisoner king in a janitor outfit!

Author: Federico García Lorca

In you

You want to flee from yourself, escape towards the far away, the past annihilates, new currents lead you -

and you find the return deeper in yourself.

Desecration of you came and cloistered bliss.

Now you feel your heart serving destiny, so close to you, suffering for all the loyal stars engaged.

Author: Ernst Stadler

To beauty

So we have pursued your miracles

like children who drunk from sunlight

a smile on the mouth full of sweet fears

and totally immersed in the haven of golden light

Twilights came running out of the portals of dawn.

Far away is the great city drowning in smoke, shivering, the night rises fresh from brown depths.

Now they make the burning cheeks tremble

in wet leaves that drip from darkness

and his hands full of longing tempt

on the last glow of the summer day

that behind the red forests disappeared -

her silent crying swims and dies in darkness.

Author: Ernst Stadler

Ah your long lashes

Ah, your long lashes,

the dark water in your eyes.

Let me sink into them,

descend to the bottom.

As the miner descends to the depths

and a very dim lamp oscillates

over the door of the mine,

in the shady wall, so I go down

to forget on your breast

how much rumbles above,

day, torment, radiance.

Grows together in the fields,

where the wind resides, with intoxication of harvest,

the tall delicate hawthorn

Against the blue sky.

Give me your hand,

and let us unite growing,

prey to every wind,

flight of solitary birds.

that in summer we listen to

the muffled organ of the storms,

that we bathe in the autumn light

on the shore of blue days.

Sometime we will go to look

at the edge of a dark well,

we will look at the bottom of the silence

and we will look for our love.

Or we will leave the shadow

of the golden forests

to enter, large, in some twilight

that gently touches your forehead.

Divine sadness,

wing of eternal love,

raise your jug

and drink from this dream.

Once we reach the end

where the sea of ​​yellow spots

quietly invades the

September Bay, we will

rest in the house

where the flowers are scarce,

while among the rocks

a wind trembles as it sings.

But from the white poplar tree

that rises towards the blue

a blackened leaf falls

to rest on your neck.

Author: Georg Heym

After the battle

In the fields lie cramped corpses,

on the green border, on flowers, their beds.

Lost weapons, rodless wheels,

and steel frames turned inside out.

Many puddles smoke with fumes of blood

that cover the brown battlefield black and red.

And the belly of

dead horses swells whitish, their legs extended in the dawn.

In the cold wind the crying

of the dying is still frozen, and through the east door

a pale light appears, a green glow,

the diluted ribbon of a fleeting dawn.

Author: Georg Heym

My blue piano

I have a blue piano at home

Although I don't know any notes.

It's in the shadow of the basement door,

Since the world got rude.

They play four star hands

-The woman-moon sang in the boat-,

Now the rats dance on the keyboard.

Broken is the top of the piano…

I cry to the blue dead woman.

Ah, dear angels, open

me -I ate the sour bread-

To me alive the door of heaven-

Even against the forbidden.

Author: Else Lasker Schüller. Translation by Sonia Almau.

To the end of the world

The bourgeoisie blows the hat off his sharp head.

Through the air there is like a resounding of screams.

Shingles fall apart, shatter

and on the coasts - it reads - the tide rises incessantly and rough.

The storm has come; the seas jump light

over the land until the levees break.

Almost all of them have colds.

Iron railings fall from the bridges.

Author: Jacob Van Hoddis. Translation of Antonio Méndez Rubio

Desperate

There rumbles a strident stone

night grained glass

times stop

I petrify myself.

I forget ,

you glaze away

!

Author: August Stramm

September

In the dark valleys

before dawn

in all the mountains

and valleys deserted

fields hungry

muddy villas

villages

cities

courtyards

huts and slums

in factories, in warehouses, in stations

in the barn

on farms

and in mills

in

headquarters electrical

establishments

on the streets and on the curves

up

between ravines, cliffs, peaks and hills sloping

field margins in the bleakest places and deserts in the yellow autumn forests on the stones in the water in the torbid eddies in the meadows gardens fields vineyards in the shepherds' shelters among bushes burning stubble swamps flowers with thorns: ragged muddy rags starving for numb faces from work emancipated from the heat and cold hardened deformed

cripples

Retintos

black

barefoot

tortured

ordinary

wild

rabid

rabid

- without roses

without chants

without marches and drums

without clarinets, eardrums and organs,

without trombones, trumpets and cornets:

tattered sacks on the shoulder,

rather shiny swords -

ordinary clothes in hand

beggars with sticks

with sticks

spikes

splinters

plows

axes

hawks

sunflowers

- old and young -

all rush, from everywhere

- like a herd of blind beasts

in maddening race to pounce,

a few glances

of furious bulls -

with

howling shouts

(behind them - the night time - petrified)

flew, advancing

in

unstoppable disorder

formidable

sublime:

THE PEOPLE!

Author: Geo Milev. Translation by Pablo Neruda.

Patrol

The stones harass the

window laugh ironically betrayal

branches strangle

mountains bushes leaf with crackle

resound

death.

Author: August Stramm

Clay poems

The breeze confuses the pages

of the newspaper of the citizen,

who, offended, complains

to the neighbor of the time.

His indignation is

blown away by the wind. His thick eyebrows

full of scowling hairs

look like ruffled screams.

The gale rips tiles

from village houses,

which fall to the ground and explode,

spraying the ground with red fumes.

On the coast the storm stars

gray and blue waves,

but the day promises sun and heat

(it is true, the newspapers say).

The storm arrives, the

raging waters assault the land

and make the rocks tremble,

dwarfed by the blue mountain.

The gray sky spits rain,

the gray street is flooded with grief,

Der Sturm ist da, die wilden Meere hupfen

An Land, um dicke Dämme zu zerdrücken. (The storm is here, the raging waters

storm the land to crush thick dikes.)

The Panther

His gaze, tired of seeing

the bars go by, no longer holds anything else.

He believes that the world is made

of thousands of bars and, beyond that, nothingness.

With his soft walk, flexible and strong steps, he

turns around in a tight circle;

like a dance of forces around a center

in which, alert, resides an imposing will.

Sometimes the curtain on his eyelids rises,

speechless. An image travels inward,

runs through the tense calm of her limbs

and, when it falls into her heart, melts and vanishes.

Author: Rainer Maria Rilke

Battle of Marne

Slowly the stones begin to move and speak.

Herbs go numb to green metal. The forests,

Low, hermetic hiding places, devour distant columns.

The sky, the whitewashed secret, threatens resale

Two colossal hours unwind in minutes.

The empty horizon swells steep.

My heart is as big as Germany and France together,

Pierced by all the bullets in the world.

The drums raise their lion voice six times into the interior of the country. The grenades howl.

Silence. In the distance the fire of the infantry boils.

Days, whole weeks.

Author: Wilhelm Klemm

Senna-today

Since you're buried on the hill

the land is sweet.

And wherever I go on tiptoe, I walk on pure paths.

Oh the roses of your blood

sweetly impregnate death.

I'm not afraid anymore

to the death.

I already flourish on your grave, with bindweed flowers.

Your lips always called me.

Now my name does not know how to return.

Every shovelful of dirt that I hid

he buried me too.

Therefore, the night is always with me, and the stars, just at twilight.

And our friends don't understand me anymore

because I am a stranger.

But you are at the gates of the most silent city, and you wait for me, oh angel!

Author: Albert Ehrenstein

Where do I approach, where do I land

Where do I approach, where do I land, there, in the shade and in the sand

they will join me

and I will rejoice, tied with the bow of shadow!

Author: Hugo von Hofmannsthal

The poet speaks

The poet speaks:

Not towards the suns of the premature journey, not to the lands of cloudy afternoons, your children, neither loud nor silent, yes, it is hardly recognized, in what mysterious way

the life to the dream we snatch

and to him with a quiet vine-garland

from the spring of our garden binds us.

Author: Hugo von Hofmannsthal

I kissed him goodbye

Kissed him goodbye

And I still nervously held your hand

I warn you over and over again:

Beware of this and that

man is mute.

WHEN is it that the whistle, the whistle finally blows?

I feel like I'll never see you in this world again.

And I say simple words - I don't understand.

The man is stupid.

I know that if I lost you

I'd be dead, dead, dead, dead.

And still, he wanted to run away.

My God, how do I fancy a cigarette!

the man is stupid.

Was gone

I for me, lost in the streets and drowned by tears, I look around me, confused.

Because not even tears can tell

what we really mean.

Author: Franz Werfel

Smile, breathe, walk solemn

You create, carry, carry

The thousand waters of the smile in your hand.

Smile, blessed moisture stretches

All over the face.

The smile is not a wrinkle

The smile is the essence of light.

Light filters through the spaces, but not yet

it is.

The light is not the sun.

Only on the human face

Light is born as a smile.

Of those sonorous gates light and immortal

From the gates of the eyes for the first time

Spring sprouted, celestial foam, The never burning flame of the smile.

In the rainy flame of the smile the withered hand rinses, You create, carry, carry.

Author: Franz Werfel

Oh poetry, in the lucid verse…

Oh poetry, in the lucid verse

that the anxiety of spring exalts,

that the victory of summer assails,

that hopes in the eye of heaven flames,

that joy in the heart of the earth conflagrates,

oh poetry, in the livid verse

that mud of autumn splashes,

that breaks winter icicles,

that splashes poison in the eye of the sky,

that squeezes wounds in the heart of the earth,

oh poetry, in the inviolable verse you

squeeze the forms that within

malvivas fainted in the ephemeral

cowardly gesture, in the

breathless air, in the

indefinite and deserted passage

of the scattered dream,

in the pleasureless orgy

of the drunken fantasy;

and while you get up to remain silent

about the hubbub of those who read and write,

about the malice of those who profit and vary,

about the sadness of those who suffer and blind,

you are the hubbub and malice and sadness,

but you are the brass band

that beats the I walk,

but you are the joy

that encourages the neighbor,

but you are the certainty

of the great destiny,

oh poetry of manure and flowers,

terror of life, presence of God,

oh dead and reborn

citizen of the world in chains!

Author: Clemente Rebora. Translation by Javier Sologuren.

References

1. Vintila Horia (1989). Introduction to 20th century literature. Editorial Andrés Bello, Chile.
2. Poems by Georg Trakl. Recovered from saltana.org
3. Else Lasker-Schüler. Recovered from amediavoz.com
4. Rainer Maria Rilke. Recovered from trianarts.com and davidzuker.com
5. The Assumption (of Christ). Recovered from poemas.nexos.xom.mx
6. Carlos Garcia. Borges and Espressionism: Kurt Heynicke. Recovered from Borges.pitt.edu
7. Four poems by Gottfried Benn. Recovered from digopalabratxt.com
8. Expressionism. Recovered from es.wikipedia.org.