Compromissión

Estoy.
Estoy comprometido.
Estoy comprometido con todos.
Estoy comprometido con todos los días.
Estoy comprometido con todos los días hasta que muera.

Discussional Metaphorce

Let us polish our swords with our enemy's unseen blood!
Or let his buckler meet our thrust and the return blow
Silence the brilliance that came out from our throat...
Otherwise, let us summon the soured scapegoat!

I Fear No Man

I fear no man!

Except those who are here
those who stay at bay
those who come too near

those who hear their prayer
those who are ever right
those who fake their might

those who fight for war
those who shed a tear
those who rest in peace

those who miss a coin
those who are a group
those who have no greed

those who feed no vice
those who have no food
those who have no voice

those who face no dad
those who dream of death
those who have a nurse

those who close no door
those who have no dose
of those who had no drugs

and those who feared no man.

 

 

My Falling Angel

There are many angels above
Playing one chorded violins
And who in dark clouds abide;
They used to play loud drums
But Father God forbade those.

There, many angels in the sky!
Believe what I see. They dance,
Dream and, while you laugh, cry.
If you ever get to look at one,
That same one will surely die.

All fallen angels tend to fall
A brief time before they do die
In your arms or in an empty hall.
But you could not keep that eye
From looking. Look now, they fall!

If it is a fallen angel you see
Take care of him; don't hurt his
Wings fragile - charge no fee.
A fallen angel might be a bliss
Or that fallen angel might be me.

 

 

Discovering the World - Jaan Kross

All people were born
By the blue sea.
All fathers
Are bent over their looms
Weaving the texture
Their children proceed.
All children run from the chatter of the loom
To watch on the coast of the blue sea,
With their toes in the water,
Ships vanishing into the horizon.
Because children must run there
And ships must vanish there,
And their toes must get wet.
And everyone gets under way
As everyone must set off.
Everyone.
Some for the sake of all,
A few for the sake of many,
Each for their own good.
Because everyone should discover their own world.


Jaan Kross
(Author discovered during my Estonian expedition)

Who come from far away - Endre Ady

Endre Ady - 1887-1919 (Spanish flu)

We are the men who are always late,

we are the men who come from far away.
Our walk is always weary and sad,
we are the men who are always late.

We do not even know how to die in peace.
When the face of distant death appears,
our souls splash into a tam tam of flame.
We do not even know how to die in peace.

We are the men who are always late.
We are never on time with our success,
our dreams, our heaven, or our embrace.
We are the men who are always late.


Endre Ady (1877-1919)

(Thank you, Gergõ, for introducing this poet to me)

Prayer Before Birth - Louis MacNeice

I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.


Louis MacNeice
(Poem introduced to me by Lilla, who is reported to be organizing a rebellion to get the whole of Transylvania back to Hungary)

Ancient wisdom for modern times

(...) Alexander was sailing with a powerful Armada in the Eritrean Sea conquering India, and because a pirate was brought to his presence, who was robbing fishermen in those waters, Alexander admonished him for having such an evil trade; but he, who was not scared nor slow of mind, answered thus: 'Enough, my lord! I, who rob with one ship, am a thief, and you, who rob with an Armada, are an emperor?' And so it is. Robbing a bit is guilt, robbing a lot is greatness; robbing with not much power makes the pirates, robbing with a lot of it makes the Alexanders. (...)

in Father Antonio Vieira's "Sermon of the Good Thief," 1655

________

Translated by António Dinis Lopes