I one day will die - we are always dying at times, I wish death not on my own accord, but by a knife to my spine: The murdered are spared, given tickets to paradise, But I won’t speak of the living, but of the rested. My face will hit the dirt, turn on its good side, And my fallen soul will gallop up the hill on a stolen jade horse. In those glorious gardens of paradise, I will gather purple-pale apples. However, these gardens are guarded and they shoot you between the eyes. Galloping up, I see before my eyes no kind of paradise: Only a barren desert and all around - infinite nothingness. And in between rise cast-iron gates and A massive Ètape of five thousand sitting on their knees. How my horse whines! I calm him with affectionate words, But the burrs have almost but torn away his mane. The old man gatekeeper struggles with the bolt too long - Failing to open it, he grunts and grumbles, and leaves. And the exhausted mass produce not one squeak. They squat, their knees growing numb from it all. A den of thieves, brothers, I hear the pealing of bells! Returning full circle, He hangs crucified on the cross. Blessings have been bestowed upon me, would I have wanted more? Just my friends and my wife - let her fall on my coffin. I will pick for them some of those pale apples, But the gardens are guarded, and they shoot you between the eyes. I know this old man by the tears upon his worn cheeks: It is Saint Peter - he is an apostle, I am just a fool. Here is the orchard, with a lot of frozen apples, But the gardens are guarded, and they have just started shooting between the eyes.                
       
So I drive my horse away, from this wretched hellhole. Though the horses are begging for oats, I can’t stop biting at the bit. Along the cliff, with a lash, on the precipice, clutching apples For you I bring them: you are waiting for me from paradise.
© Adrian Erlinger. Translation, ?