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Best Poems From
ERHARD HANS JOSEF LANG
(January 8,1957)
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89.
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The Legend Of The Clocks (translation)
Oh those clocks, those!
It is as if the ore were alive
and ringing like the crying of a man!
Thus said a teenager who was drinking beer.
And the alert keeper of the pub
knew something to say about it: -
In them there is flesh and blood.
A certain madman founded them once,
a man who arrived from over the mountains,
a sad fellow, who only drank pure water,
who only nibbled dry bread.
Since he repented for sins, took to suffering.
'Conscience, ' he exclaimed, 'brought me here;
I came to found clocks;
the handicraft trust had been looking for a foundery blacksmith.'
He got the work,
arranged for a shop, for the moulds.
Until late at night he wrestled in his shop.
And clocks he did found.
He founded many clocks - bad ones, all not ticking.
What could have been lacking, only heaven knew.
He melted the clocks - again to be founding mute ones.
Deep pain came to burn in his eyes.
His mouth was heard babbling strange things:
'No sound of clocks will be carrying up to heaven,
to where the Father is,
unless you give the weightiest of sacrifice; '
thus spoke the Master in the night, verily.'
The man melted his pieces of metal ore;
there, in front of the shop,
his lovely-haired daughter was playing,
a golden child, her father's only treasure on earth.
And when his dear one's laughter rang out,
it gave the man a jolt, as if hit by lightning,
that went into his soul
and paralyzed it by the loading of sin.
In pain he shouted:
'I can't do this! I can't do this! '
The silent clocks to the melting oven he took,
made new ones founded.
A fire, like mad burnt in his eyes.
The clanking of the bronze didn't come alive,
no, it just didn't.
Facing the Holy Virgin the man was,
praying fervently,
staying up all night, until morning.
Had left speaking loudly in delirium:
'Oh mother, with the clock clinking,
I shall not go down to a hell of trouble,
but, enveloped by heaven,
with its sin washed away,
my soul may ring.'
The man melted his pieces of ore;
at the door of the shop sat the lovely-haired daughter,
a golden child, her father's only treasure on earth.
Like snakes of fire the oven glowed.
The father turned his eyes to the child,
hurt, love exhausted his mind.
Like in a dream the hapless man was walking.
Pulled onto his lap his daughter and kissed her,
covered her eyes -
threw her into the molten bronze.
That one devoured the dear one,
hizzing.
Heaven only knows, how in that way,
that day the ore began to be alive.
You may hear how it is ticking.
By nightfall that man was a crazy man.
by Finnish poet Uuno Kailas (1901-1933) ,
transl. by Erhard Lang
note: in the year 1978, in the holy city of Rishikesh, India,
I vowed by myself never again to wear
a time-piece on my body; a vow I kept until now.
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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90.
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There Is Always Also Madness In A Sound Society (translation with original in German)
In these cells it is where they sleep,
These things here in between human and animal,
Treated they are like good old cattle,
stretched out like the latter on all fours.
How sullen, how dusky it feels all around this house,
And inside of it what a rummaging, stomping and yelling there is!
Here are songs filled with glee and shudder,
There are limbs gone mad chastising themselves.
O madness! Terrible ghost,
Scourge held in hands stripped of flesh,
When soon you come running past with bold looks,
When soon with prying eyes you go stealing yourself off along the walls,
Who shall be there to safe-guard that not your fist all of a sudden
Will be hitting our heads,
And that the mind of one who has shacked up with the insane,
Not long from now will be aping our own selves?
Love fallen sick, pride fallen sick,
We are shutting them all away in iron bars,
From around our measurements made of dried wood,
We tear off each and every unasked-for berry from the vine,
Whatever doesn't think and feel as we do,
We reckon as being of the sickly,
And what if exactly it were a sense of health
Which is speaking from out of their tumbling thoughts?
This is the way you might as well lock away a lion,
With a heartful of courage you'd keep him on display within his bars,
And still your heart be trembling full of fear at his yelling;
Will you call him gorgeous, will you call him free and wild,
When he tears apart the one who cares of him,
And when past his forceful master
He is rambling through the alleys thirsty of blood?
Don't rely too fast on claiming monopoly to 'reason'
Up there on your seats,
The guild of the fools is a big one,
This house of theirs is always kept open for novices.
The one there at the last window,
Years ago she had been a handsome girl,
Diamonds glistening in her hair,
And graceful beauty on her forehead.
For the smiles from her mouth
A gang of foolhardy urchins once were competing,
Now she is laughing on the hallway in a manner,
That makes her voice echo preposterous;
Once they were kneeling down in front of this woman,
Look now, how shameless she is winding herself and
How greedy she is bowing her desecrated body
Toward the knight who is to bind her hands.
I did feel sometimes, when on a walk at night,
Something like the proximity of madness,
Close by, behind of me, clumsy steps,
Laughing and crawing in my ears;
Being seized by the hair in the neck
While hollering my way a frightening tune,
And clear from out of the dark
An eye looking at me in flaming circles.
This is it what makes me shudder and fear:
Not to get into this dreaded house,
Not to be under the fist of these hangmen!
Not to get into that shrieking and that flaunting of teeth!
But yet to this gate all the while
I am being drawn by a mysterious lingering...
Into there, away from it? ...
My foot is on the escape,
As soon as the heavy locks creak.
* * * *
From SONGS OF A COSMOPOLITAN NIGHTWATCH MAN
by Franz Baron von Dingelstedt (1814 - 1881)
[German poet critical of aristocrats' privileges,
leader of Vienna's Burgtheater in later life],
translated by Erhard Hans Josef Lang after its original in German:
In diesen Zellen schlafen sie,
die Mittelding' von Mensch und Tiere,
Behandelt wie das liebe Vieh,
wie dieses gestreckt auf alle Viere.
Wie dumpf, wie dunstig rings um's Haus
Und drin welch' Toben, Stampfen, Schreien!
Hier Lieder voller frohem Graus,
Dort irrer Glieder Selbstkasteien!
O Wahnsinn! Schreckliches Gespenst,
Die Geißel in entfleischten Händen,
Wenn du bald frech vorüberrennst,
Bald lauernd schleichst an uns'ren Wänden,
Wer bürgt dafür, daß deine Faust
Nicht plötzlich uns'ren Scheitel treffe,
Und daß, der bei den Tollen haust,
Der Geist nicht längst uns selber äffe?
Die kranke Lieb', den kranken Stolz,
Wir sperren sie in eh'rne Stäbe,
Um unser Maß aus dürrem Holz
Zieh'n wir jedwede Wucherrebe,
Was nicht so denkt, wie wir, und nicht
So fühlt, das zählen wir zu Kranken,
Und ob nicht just Gesundheit spricht
Aus ihren taumelnden Gedanken?
So sperrst Du auch den Löwen ein,
Du zeigst ihn keck in deinen Gittern,
Und fühlest doch bei seinem Schrei'n
Das Herz im Leib' Dir bang erzittern;
Nennst Du ihn toll, nennst Du ihn frei,
Wenn er zerreißt, der ihn gehütet,
Und seinem Zwingherrn stolz vorbei
Blutlechzend durch die Gassen wütet?
Pocht auf das Monopol 'Vernunft'
Nicht allzufest in Eu'ren Sitzen,
Groß ist der Narren heil'ge Zunft,
Dies Haus stets offen für Novizen.
Die dort am letzten Fenster, war
Vor Jahren eine schmucke Dirne,
Diamanten blitzten ihr im Haar
Und Anmut von der schönen Stirne.
Um ihres Mundes Lächeln rang
Ein Heer von albernen Gesellen,
Jetzt lacht sie, daß den Gang entlang
Die Töne schrecklich widergellen;
Einst kniete man vor diesem Weib,
Jetzt sieh', wie sie sich schamlos windet
Und gierig den entweihten Leib
Dem Knechte beut, dessen Hand sie bindet.
Ich fühlte, wenn ich nächtig schritt
Wohl oft so was von Wahnsinns Nähe,
Dicht hinter mir ein plumper Tritt,
Im Ohr Gelächter und Gekrähe;
Es packte mich im Nackenhaar
Und raunte schauerliche Weisen,
Und aus dem Dunkel starrte klar
Ein Aug' mich an mit Flammenkreisen.
Das ist, wovor mir bangt und graust:
Nur nicht in dieses Hauses Schrecken,
Nicht unter jener Henker Faust.
Nicht in das Schrei'n und Zähneblecken!
Und doch zu diesem Tore zieht
Mich immerfort ein heimlich Harren...
Hinein, hinaus? ...
Mein Fuß entflieht,
Sobald die schweren Riegel knarren.
* * * *
Franz Freiherr von Dingelstedt (1814 - 1881)
XIX - Lieder eines Kosmopolitischen Nachtwächters
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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91.
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They're Coming To Take Me Away Ho Ho He He Ha Ha (translation)
He was the bright spot in that water
that came to be mixed into that mortar
which was put between those letters
with which were formed the words
that expressed the thing
which was bright as the bright spot or
the water itself.
in Finnish:
Hän oli kirkkaus siinä vedessä
joka tuli siihen laastiin
joka pantiin niiden kirjainten väliin
joista muodostettiin ne sanat
joilla ilmaistiin se asia
joka oli kirkasta kuin
kirkkaus tai
vesi itse
(written by Karri Kokko on March 28,2006 about Finnish poet of the fire-bearer era Uuno Kailas)
SUBMITTED IN COMMEMORATION OF JOURNALIST ANNA STEPANOVNA POLITKOVSKAYA REPORTEDLY POISONED EN ROUTE TO HOSTAGE NEGOTIATIONS ON 7 OCTOBER 2006.
Statement of the EU Presidency (currently with Finland) on the killing
of Anna Politkovskaya from 8 October 2006:
The Presidency of the European Union has learned with deep regret about the killing in Moscow of Anna Politkovskaya, well-known journalist and defender of freedom of expression in Russia.
The Presidency calls for a thorough investigation of this heinous crime and the bringing of its perpetrators to justice.
On behalf of the European Union, the Presidency expresses its deepest sympathy to the family and friends of Anna Politkovskaya.
Anna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist well known for her
opposition to the Chechen conflict and the Putin administration.
Politkovskaya was born Anna Mazepa in New York City on 30 August 1958, where her Soviet Ukrainian parents were diplomats at the United Nations (according to various sources her father was a high-ranking KGB officer) .
She studied journalism at Moscow State University, graduating in
1980, and began her career with the Izvestia newspaper.
From June 1999 to 2006, she wrote columns for the news publication Novaya Gazeta.
She published several award-winning books about Chechnya and President Putin's regime, most recently the book Putin's Russia.
She often received death threats as a result of her work. I
n 2001, Politkovskaya fled to Vienna following e-mail threats claiming that the OMON police officer whom she had accused of committing atrocities against civilians was looking to take revenge.
The officer, Sergei Lapin, was arrested and charged in 2002, but the case against him was closed the following year. In 2005, Lapin was convicted and jailed for torturing and 'disappearing' a Chechen
civilian detainee, the case exposed by Anna Politkovskaya in the
article 'The Disappearing People'.
She had, on several occasions, been involved in negotiating the release of hostages, including the October 2002 Nord-Ost crisis in which Chechen rebels stormed a Moscow theatre.
Politkovskaya was also invited in supporting the legal rights of victims' families.
During the Beslan school hostage crisis in September 2004 and while on her way to Beslan to help in negotiations with the hostage-takers,
Politkovskaya fell violently ill and lost consciousness.
Politkovskaya never made it to the school and claimed that she was
poisoned after drinking tea on that flight.
While attending a conference on the freedom of press organised by
Reporters Without Borders in Vienna in December in 2005 Politkovskaya said:
'People sometimes pay with their lives for saying aloud what they
think. In fact, one can even get killed for giving me information. I am not
the only one in danger. I have examples that prove it.'
Politkovskaya received wide acclaim for her work in Chechnya, where she frequently visited hospitals and refugee camps to interview the
victims.
She authored numerous articles critical of the war in Chechnya,
including a number that specially aimed at exposing abuses committed under the Russian-backed Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov, as well as his son Ramzan.
In 2003, she published a book called A Small Corner Of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya, which painted a picture of brutal war in which thousands of innocent citizens have been tortured, abducted or killed at the hands of Chechen or federal authorities.
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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92.
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Uuno Kailas - Contemplation (translation)
Above my head a new day doesn't clear up, it brings the old clouds.
And each new day here is a small eternity.
It's lingering at my door, like a poor wife, to walk off, -
or it is, as if it were rising from my dreams, as though it were a
ghost.
It might not have anything to give to me out of its hands of being one
that died away.
I don't have an eye ogling for heaven or earth,
I see but the range of the clouds.
It doesn't dissolve, it doesn't clear up;
the new day brings the old clouds.
Life isn't getting on, not by the span of a hand -
there's only flowing time's stream.
My life! your grand solstice has come.
Like an island, now my heart is - after swaying with the waves - a
sea, so immobile, having embraced a shadow-life.
The wine of the veins, the blood, does not strike a fire as before.
The land's spring time calls the country's grasses and trees to life,
and so my other brothers, -
I, for one, remained leafless, -
but, oh my life! I grant you have a solstice.
Although the eye does search for the east -
it does not do so from the extremes of time's stream.
Its look does not dash as far as for the shelter of a morning,
to the moment a-coming.
It does not believe in the good luck that a wave brings, not in
events of accident.
Away from the squirmings of hope,
and from the shores shimmering of a new day,
it turned itself around facing another stream and another side of east.
For me, time has nothing to give,
not out of its hands of a stranger.
Now my heart only carries on its fate by itself.
The sea of phenomena doesn't wash its banks temptingly.
It claims the silence and hears only that.
If mornings still shine on in it, and the blue in the sky,
this spring, by itself, had but been as what had been that fall.
An island of a deep sea, it is similar to a pearly shell:
if a good pearl is to be created, it will be created so out of its
pain.
Like stocks of semen that live in their dying, it sleeps - and does
not sleep:
it is sipping power from its sleep.
And once being free of pain, it will wake up to a new life -
like a mute flute, it is waiting for its melody.
transl. by Erhard Lang from Finland's 'fire-bearer' poet Uuno Kailas'
(1901 -1933) original in the latter's native Finnish:
CONTEMPLATION
Ei seesty pääni päällä, tuo vanhat pilvet päivä uus.
Ja joka päivä täällä on pieni ikuisuus.
Se viipyy ovellani, kuin köyhä vaimo, menee pois, -
tai on, kuin unistani se nousis, aave ois.
Ei mitään antaa saata se mulle kuolleen-käsistään.
En taivast' enkä maata, vaan pilvipiirin nään.
Ei haihdu se, ei seesty;
uus päivä vanhat pilvet tuo.
Ei vaaksaa elo eesty -
vain virtaa ajan vuo.
On tullut, elämäni, suur päivänseisaukses sun.
Kuin saarta, sydäntäni nyt - jälkeen aaltoilun - on varjo-elon meri,
niin liikkumaton, syleillyt.
Ei suonten viini, veri, kuin ennen polta nyt.
Maan ruohoja ja puita maan kevät kutsuu elämään ja veljiäni muita, -
mä lehdettömäks jään. -
Mut, elämäni, pitää sun päivänseisausta suon.
Vaikk' etsii silmä itää - ei äärelt' ajan vuon.
Ei kiidä aamun huomaan sen katse, hetkeen tulevaan.
Ei usko aallon tuomaan se onneen, sattumaan.
Pois toivon kuplain luota ja aamun rantain päilyväin se kääntyi toista
vuota ja toista itää päin.
Ei aika mulle antaa voi mitään vieraan-käsistään.
Nyt kohtaloaan kantaa vain sydän itsessään.
Ei ilmiöiden meri sen rantaa huuhdo houkuttain.
Se hiljaisuuden peri ja kuulee sitä vain.
Jos sille siintelevät viel' aamut, taivaan sinisyys, on itselleen se
kevät kuin ollut on se syys.
Se, saari meren syvän, on näkinkengän kaltainen:
jos luo se helmen hyvän, luo kivustaan se sen.
Kuin siemenien suku, jok' elää kuolemisessaan, se nukkuu - eikä nuku:
juo voiman unestaan.
Ja kerran tuskaa vailla se herää uuteen elämään -
nyt mykän huilun lailla vain vartoo säveltään.
Uuno Kailas
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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