Resistance

 

! I’m an ordinary poet,

an ordinary guy like anyone else,

I’ve glorified youth and death

will I enjoy

my old age as well ?… I don’t think…

I’ll ever be happy…

I own a fabulous experience

of poverty, I simply have it

and that can’t be helped…

but what’s the use of poverty

and of suffering… nothing but asceticism ?

they can facilitate your transparency…

but let’s make it clear

both these expiations

must be made in sheer joy

no grudge or resentment

in utmost admiration

of the most beautiful works :

the beautiful bodies

chased in the gravest attention

in lonely backstreets

or in full brightness of the sun…

as if walking on Bouddha’s footprints

I’ve pursued beauty like in a hallucination…

if this guy called the Poet

doesn’t tell us whether we are living

in beauty and in moderation

or in sin and debauchery,

then what the hell is he supposed to tell us about ?

(this supreme office

has been bestowed on the fool

by some supreme court –)

guys ruled by arrogance

on having a heart’s motherland

who measure everything at a glance

welcome you no shade of rage

with a smile in the corner of the mouth

like a gilded necklace –

they’re not stiff,

they can’t be replaced by masks

one must seek them in the street dust, down the lane…

oh, yes, I’ve glorified youth and death

and I’ve never taken

old age seriously… will I enjoy

my old age as well? – enjoy walking

behind this magnificent and silent procession

of golden-yellow dead leaves

reaching the heavens ?

yes, there’ve been disagreements (there’ll be more),

– some disconnected, disinfected clinicians –

in fact like Mr. Martin Heidegger

I used to define the individual as

a being fighting against death…

and against its accomplices…

my only resistance

to the hideous appearance of sterility :

suffering for suffering

poverty for poverty

the devil’s voice

the sadism of the impotents !

 

English version by Gabriela PACHIA