The poem below is one of the best I've read since a long, long time written by Gyorgy Faludy, the enfant terrible of the Hungarian literature. Of Jewish origin who survived the Nazis and was put to prison by the communist regime in his country, he died last year in Budapest at the age of 96, leaving the world with literary treasures like his widely-acclaimed novel "My Happy Days in Hell" (the English and German translations of which I tried hard to get, but until now in vain). I find his long and eccentric life very interesting and I'll gonna write a blog on it one day. Promise.
Learn by heart this poem of mine
Learn by heart this poem of mine;
books only last a little time
and this one will be borrowed, scarred,
burned by Hungarian border guards,
lost by the library, broken-backed,
its paper dried up, crisped and cracked,
worm-eaten, crumbling into dust,
or slowly brown and self-combust
when climbing Fahrenheit has got
to 451, for that’s how hot
your town will be when it burns down.
Learn by heart this poem of mine.
Learn by heart this poem of mine.
Soon books will vanish and you’ll find
there won’t be any poets or verse
or gas for car or bus - or hearse -
no beer to cheer you till you’re crocked,
the liquor stores torn down or locked,
cash only fit to throw away,
as you come closer to that day
when TV steadily transmits
death-rays instead of movie hits
and not a soul to lend a hand
and everything is at an end
but what you hold within your mind,
so find a space there for these lines
and learn by heart this poem of mine.
Learn by heart this poem of mine;
recite it when the putrid tides
that stink of lye break from their beds,
when industry’s rank vomit spreads
and covers every patch of ground,
when they’ve killed every lake and pond,
Destruction humped upon its crutch,
black rotting leaves on every branch;
when gargling plague chokes Springtime’s throat
and twilight’s breeze is poison, put
your rubber gasmask on and line
by line declaim this poem of mine.
Learn by heart this poem of mine
so, dead, I still will share the time
when you cannot endure a house
deprived of water, light, or gas,
and, stumbling out to find a cave,
roots, berries, nuts to stay alive,
get you a cudgel, find a well,
a bit of land, and, if it’s held,
kill the owner, eat the corpse.
I’ll trudge beside your faltering steps
between the ruins’ broken stones,
whispering “You are dead; you’re done!
Where would you go? That soul you own
froze solid when you left your town.”
Learn by heart this poem of mine.
Maybe above you, on the earth,
there’s nothing left and you, beneath,
deep in your bunker, ask how soon
before the poisoned air leaks down
through layers of lead and concrete. Can
there have been any point to Man
if this is how the thing must end?
What words of comfort can I send?
Shall I admit you’ve filled my mind
for countless years, through the blind
oppressive dark, the bitter light,
and, though long dead and gone, my hurt
and ancient eyes observe you still?
What else is there for me to tell
to you, who, facing time’s design,
will find no use for life or time?
You must forget this poem of mine.
–Gyorgy Faludy (1910-2006)
______
8 Kommentare:
It's a good poem, sure - but a bit too despairing for my personal taste.
i look for poems that lift me out of my dark moods, or at least give meaning to them, not make them worse. this is too depressing for me jack.
interesting how poems work differently on people. I was down actually when I "discovered" his poetry, and somehow, after reading it, I felt light and relieved to know that my - for lack of better term for now- "sufferings" were not really that bad. Schadenfreude? I don't know.
Schadenfreude? I shouldn't think so. Katharsis, maybe? The idea being that by empathizing with the poet's despair, "black" visions of the future etc., you release your own similar feelings (Aristotle, Poetics).
There's love here too, although of a sad kind:
What words of comfort can I send?
Shall I admit you’ve filled my mind
for countless years, through the blind
oppressive dark, the bitter light,
and, though long dead and gone, my hurt
and ancient eyes observe you still?
And maybe Man doesn't have to end this way. Maybe, if we learn the poem by heart in time, our future will be different.
Yes, Ulla! there's an element of hope here and an element of prophetic warning there! I just love this poem, but maybe if I live in the Philippines, I would have another take on his poetry.
When did he write it? There's a 60es' atmosphere in it - but that may be because those were the years that shaped me. I grew up with lyrics like: "Come away, Melinda, come in and close the door; it's nothing but a picture book we had before the War".
That I'll try to find out, Ulla! But I can't resist sharing you this, from him, too:
You left me thirty years ago. I'm still in love with you.
Remember how I kissed your lifeless lips in vain?
We hoped to have eight children once, but only one came true.
In exile life is cursed with misery and pain.
Our love was like a rock, not like a wilting flowerbed.
For fifteen years it had been standing proud and tall,
though making love was laceration, cruelty, you said.
You loathed it, so I hardly troubled you at all.
But once, not long before you died, in the dark of night,
you held my body in your arms, embracing me so tight
that I did try. By now you sank fast, cancerous, diseased.
"It can't be true. It's ecstasy, it's paradise!", you wheezed
and fell asleep there. I was kneeling on the bed, aghast.
The first time in our life. I wept. The first time and the last.
It's wonderful!!
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