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Best Poems From
ERHARD HANS JOSEF LANG
(January 8,1957)
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41.
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To The Fountain Of Bandusia (translation)
Fountain of Bandusia,
thou clear as a crystal,
here I offer wine,
flowers unto thee now;
tomorrow I promise to sacrifice yet
a young capricorn, whose horns already
Are swelling from its head's callous hide
toward the clashing-on of the sexes' passion.
In vain will they come to be with it:
tomorrow your cold wave will crimson
the heated cattle fellow's gore.
Into your hidden place Sirius does not cast his glow,
in the evenings your fresh waters given away
the bull will drink exhausted from the plough,
by your side will stay the roving cattle.
For once, you will gain to fame, O fountain,
when thus today my song will sound forth
from the shade of an oak-tree by the mouth of your cavern,
whose rock joyously challenging your current glides off.
* * *
Bandusian Lähteelle
Lähde Bandusian
kristallikirkas sa,
uhraan viiniä näin,
kukkia sulle nyt;
lupaan huomenna vielä
nuoren jäärän, min sarvet jo
paisuu pahkasta pään
kiimojen otteluun.
Hukkaan hältä ne jää:
huomenna purppuroi
kylmää aaltoas hurme
karjan kiihkeän veitikan.
Piiloos Sirius ei
sinkoa hehkuaan;
illoin tarjoamaas
raittista vettä juo
aurast' uupunut härkä,
luokses kiertävä karja jää.
Maineen kerran sa saat,
lähde, kun sulle näin
tänään lauluni soi
varjosta tammipuun
luolas suulla, min paatta
soluu hauskasti haastain vuos.
by Quintus Horatius Flaccus
(65 - 8 b.Chr.)
(translated by Erhard Lang from Finnish after a translation from its
original Latin into the Finnish language by Valter Juva [1865 - 1922])
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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42.
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Uuno Kailas - At The Frontier (translation)
The frontier opens like a lane across the ice but it's broken up.
In front is Asia, the East.
Behind what is the West and Europe:
I am watching it, border guard.
Behind is a beautiful father country
with its towns and villages.
Your son protects you, my country,
highest of treasures.
The howling wind in the night
brings snow from behind the border -
Lord, grant my father, my mother to have a quiet dream!
Give grains into the barn chestbox,
from these to the cattle too!
Your hands may bless the fields! -
Here I shall protect these.
Dreary, cold is the winter's night,
frosty breathes the East.
There exist servitude and forced labor;
the stars are watching it.
From afar, from the steppes
rises the image of Ivan the Terrible.
A spirit of disaster, it forebodes:
morning is to see blood.
But the gray fathers from out of their graves come riding on horses of
ghosts;
with bear-hunter spears in their fists storming towards the border. -
Spirits of fathers, blissful ones,
hear the word of your son -
if I were to betray it, you come hither as an army of revenge -:
The enemy's iron-sole shall not trample shamefully
the abode of your heroes rest, -
I shall protect my country's border!
Never will strangers take away your precious legacy.
They may come as a wind hound from their steppes!
Getting onto the soil here.
Strong-breasted as a bear I shall run against the lances
protecting woman's spinning-wheel and the cradle of children!
The frontier opens like a lane across the ice but it's broken up.
In front is Asia, the East.
Behind what is the West and Europe:
I am watching it, border guard.
by Finnish poet
Uuno Kailas (1901 - 1933)
transl. by Erhard Lang
here the poem's original Finnish version:
RAJALLA
Raja railona aukeaa.
Edessä Aasia, Itä.
Takana Länttä ja Eurooppaa:
varjelen, vartija, sitä.
Takana kaunis isänmaa
kaupungein ja kylin.
Sinua poikas puolustaa, maani,
aarteista ylin.
Öinen, ulvova tuuli tuo rajan takaa lunta -
Isäni, äitini, Herra suo nukkua tyyntä unta!
Anna jyviä hinkaloon,
anna karjojen siitä!
Kätes peltoja siunatkoon! -
Täällä suojelen niitä.
Synkeä, kylmä on talviyö,
hyisenä henkii Itä.
Siell' ovat orjuus ja pakkotyö;
tähdet katsovat sitä.
Kaukaa, aroilta kohoaa Iivana Julman haamu.
Turman henki, se ennustaa:
verta on näkevä aamu.
Mut isät harmaat haudoistaan aaveratsuilla ajaa;
karhukeihäitä kourissaan syöksyvät kohti rajaa. -
Henget taattojen, autuaat,
kuulkaa poikanne sana -
jos sen pettäisin, saapukaat koston armeijana -:
Ei ole polkeva häpäisten sankarileponne majaa
rauta-antura vihollisen, -
suojelen maani rajaa!
Ei ota vieraat milloinkaan kallista perintöänne.
Tulkoot hurttina aroiltaan!
Mahtuvat multaan tänne.
Kontion rinnoin voimakkain ryntään peitsiä vasten
naisen rukkia puolustain
ynnä kehtoa lasten!
Raja railona aukeaa.
Edessa Aasia, Itä.
Takana Länttä, Eurooppaa;
varjelen, vartija, sitä.
Uuno Kailas
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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43.
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Wanna Have A Non-Fictional Poem Popularized By Having It Sued Through American Courts?
Wanna have a poem popularized by having it sued through American
courts?
Yes! ?
Then write a non-fictional address, disguised as a poem,
To all and whoever else it may concern,
That runs like this (and leave the dots out!) :
What Had Unleashed The Wave Of Massive Drug Addiction In This Modern World?
At the turn of the 19th to 20th century, it chanced to happen that
More & more innovations
By freaky inventor-scientists of the Modern World
Came tumbling in,
Pepping up, around the globe,
Wealthier people's taste for mechanized comforts in life,
Most especially so, and also,
In this new-world melting pot country there overseas,
This new country of hopes for the many
Of meanwhile emporealistic high global acclaim,
That until to-date couldn't have found
A name proper for itself,
Still calling themselves simply united states of America.
(What, if in a European context
The French should have said, if the Germans had opted
To call themselves
U.S.E, as an example? !)
Better comforts in life also meant
To come up with a new class of
Delicious and enjoyable thirst-quencher drinks,
Given to the masses,
And they had contrived and, bottled up en masse,
Put out on the tables of all homes,
Something unique, a Black Liquid as drink.
They came to call it after one of the juice's main ingredients -
Latin America's coca plant, a traditional locals' cheer-up medicine,
And, as we all know,
Its name has become so much of a standard,
Meanwhile, all over the globe.
Co.a-Co.a was said by a smiling certain actress,
- Hillary, or so, her name, -
It was yet before the year 1900 -
In a funny ad of the day,
To be 'an exhilarating and invigorating drink'.
Then afterwards on came the stern Puritans sweeping in,
And in basic conflict with major business interests,
The high aspiring drink plant was to give in
Chosing to replace their chemistry of
The original Co.a-Co.a formula
By taking the 'flavour's stress off its 'exhilarating' component -
To the effect that thus plain 'invigorated'
NewWorld coolant imbibers
Were left, and still are so, everafter,
When enjoying the mysterious black juice,
With a subtle craving for the 'exhilaration' of the old days,
With this craving subconsciously mounting up over time
Into one mass movement of undistilled desires.
The tickle of its primeval coka inebriation
The said sad drink, it still holds,
The satisfaction of which but has ultimately passed away
With the coming of the new lighter, and,
A hundred years later now into time,
All the more so, with the new
Expressedly 'light' you-name-it-what.
Co.a-Co.a drinkers of yore,
When the new Co.e was to be taking over then,
Over one hundred years ago,
Must have felt themselves betrayed,
From one day to the other
Left with a sheer toothless version of their old-time favourite.
Instinctively, huge numbers of people,
When victims of mass disappointment
Tend to easily identify themselves as
One large group of same-minded,
Eventually more and more of them
Setting out for amending the loss they were made to suffer.
And thus also then, it simply had to happen
That those thirsty souls of then,
Suddenly then deprived of their old Co.a-Co.a 'exhilarant',
Over time were to go and find for themselves
Their wanted additives that make up for
That fun state of one's life's -,
That selfsame fun which once upon a time
Cheering Co.e bibbing fans of great American poetesse
Ella Wheeler Wilcox' time,
Were quite happy with.
And lo! washing in came all over the thirsty countrysides
Abundantly, and even overly so,
All the many natural & chemical
Enlivener stuffs, -
This time not from one single manufacturing plant anymore that
Could have been put under pressure as before,
But instead from syndicated interests of towers of power,
Tested well enough any time to be
Outsmarting any administrational-vested anti-agents -
Plus, along the surge of these potents' wash-over
Came all the many dreaded physical addictives and givers of confusion & paranoia,
A focused theme problem of today, called 'illicit drugs'
Of world-wide extent,
Of which it is no fun, but rather appalling to speak.
Whereas I, for one, had silently always hoped that they
- At length at a land that had arrived
At a 'lend-a-cock-to-your-coax'
For its mind-relishing people -
Would have been as smart,
Ready right in for the year 2000,
To chip in back the original pioneers Co.a-Co.a formula,
As THE Century Promo Gimmick of the millennium, and:
And I bet you what,
This would have been THE great savior to relieve the burdens of
This drugs-infested new millennium
They're still hassling themselves with,
No end in sight to the unforgiving damages
Done to young and old!
'Why further dive underworld for an illegal, dangerous high,
When we've gotten back our old original Co.a-Co.a? ',
Why were we contemporaries not allowed to
Hear that type of applause,
We the kids of a new era?
Atalanta, the golden apple has been dashed your way,
Dashed again by your horse-minded sprint contest partner Hippomenes!
He's wooing you and he will be outrunning you once more.
Better be shrewder this time, Atalanta!
Take up the golden apple, yes, you can!
But give in to your marriage, right at the winning post!
And lasting happiness will be beginning
Right from the end of the old spell.
* * * *
(You may want to read more on the invention of this black drink in 1886 and of its inventor, U.S. pharmacist John Stith Pemberton. You may get its story at http: //www.cocaine.org/coca-cola/index.html.
My informations on the black juice's original formula are based on an article I read about it in an old National Geographic Magazine issue from the '50s, which sadly cannot be retrieved anymore, I believe. In that lengthy article of then, there was also a copy of that advertisemnt header with an image of a then famous U.S. actress, by the name of something like Hill, if not Hillary, I just can't recall anymore exactly, under whose little drawn picture with her smiling face was her promo statement, that is mentioned in my non-fictional poem. I recollect the year 1903 as the year the article had mentioned that the original drink formula was eventually replaced - its inventor John Pemberton not having lived up to that time anymore...)
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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44.
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Wretched Abel (translation)
In the fir forest on the heath there's a hut quite miserable,
and even more miserable life is for the dwellers of the hut.
But, yes, also he has once been rich, been young in his time,
decrepit he now is, eats bread baked of tree bark flour,
his only daughter his happiness & joy.
Late one autumn evening it was, bright fire flaring in the oven.
'What is the commotion there outside?
Who in the night is getting here? '
Through the low door steps into the hut a man, proud in his moves.
From his dress shines gold and from his eyes lustful desire.
'Good evening! ' - 'Peace be in the Lord! '
'What is it that brought the earl into a hut? ' -
'You are poor, I'm bringing help to you
which can remove your wants.'
And pieces of gold he scattered a handful on the table,
and they glittered so wonderful by the shine of the fire.
'And your daughter so beautiful I shall lead into a gorgeous court,
dress her in gold, silk and in costly stones.'
Thus he spake, the gold was glistening,
and that virgin blushing red,
and he fast went over
stroking her cheek by his hand.
But a burning flame flew into the meek eye of the Old Man,
and he got up, and a look full of fire he thrust to the stranger.
'Be gone, daring one! ' so he shouted taking hold of his stick,
'be gone, daring one; off your hands obscene!
Let the maiden be at peace with herself! '
'You have drunk the blood of your people, robbed them of their sweat,
their toil,
and now you still want to bereave a wretched of his honour? '
'This dear one with gold to buy.
Be gone, along you take your gifts!
I have never moved about in shame,
and even now there is no need to do so.'
'If it's the Creator's wish, I may die in my hunger,
but to sell the honour of my child, this, o Lord, this cannot be.'
He sat down and wiped the gold away from him,
as though it got him burntbut;
the stranger, fallen silent, took his means
without a word and sneaked away.
And beaming with joy, the daughter rushed to her father's loving side,
and the fire dwindled into a burning coal slowly dying.
written by Finnish poet
Paavo Cajander
(24.12.1846 - 14.6.1915) and published in Finland's National
Enlightenment Calender in 1882
transl. by Erhard Lang
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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