Vienna 1921
…. where, cigarladen, the “social vampire” steals
from a drunken greenhorn his daddy’s crowns:
Stören Sie nicht der Spiel!
Pornography, illustrations by Rops.
In the Cabaret Hölle your table, monsieurs
An occasional word with the cops
To smooth down any controvers.
The song surrenders to the singer
Her shorn eyebrows, her glossed back hair
its lips of glass, its sacre coeur.
Shall we linger
by the fall guy’s latest lair?
… his wife threw vitriol
At one of Europe’s famous flirts?
That face was not, although,
Marked – her hat received the worst
Of it… in the “fameux hôtel Sacher”
Behind the Opera, there they built
A love nest out of Masoch and Schnitzler
Everything in gold late Habsburg gilt.
Later: “Les femmes m’ont trompé, le jeu m’a trahi »
The cat, the fatal cat, is out for a spree.
Yellow gloved player in your mental cabaret
Your belly up deuces are leaden and gray.
- Karen Chamisso
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