Justinus Kerner · Kleksographs · 5 of 7

Hades Pictures

Hadesbilder.

Hades Pictures.Hadesbilder.

A dark symmetrical figure under a black pointed cap, a pale face and two round eyes in the blot — *Kleksographien*, Stuttgart, 1890. Getty Research Institute, by way of the Internet Archive.

These pictures out of Hades,
All black and full of dread,
(Spirits they are, of very low degree,)
Formed themselves
Without my doing, to my fright,
Solely: out of ink stains.
I have always thought, as I did it,
That everywhere it is black and night

A long pale face with a drawn mouth, above a body in a dark coat with a fur collar; a thin tail curls out at the right — *Kleksographien*, Stuttgart, 1890. Getty Research Institute, by way of the Internet Archive.

The ghostly race goes haunting,
And so in the inkwell too.
You who write, beware!
For I, the kleksographer, have discovered
That in the inkwell there often lurks
The power of a poisonous demon.

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