I have no words, so I'm using someone else's
Radnóti Miklós
SEVENTH ECLOGUE
Do you see, it's nearing night and the barbed wire-hemmed wild oak
fence, the barracks, hovering, are soaked up by the evening.
The slow gaze releases the confines of our imprisonment
and just the mind, just the mind is conscious of the tautness of the wires.
Do you see, dear; here, even imagination can only be freed thus;
sleep, the lovely liberator, releases our broken bodies
and the prison camp sets off for home.
Ragged and bald, the prisoners fly, snoring,
from Serbia's blind peaks to the hidden landscapes of home.
Hidden landscapes of home! Oh, does that home still exist?
Have the bombs left it untouched? And is it the same as when we left it?
And will he, whimpering on the left, and he, lying on the right, return home?
Tell me, is there still a home there where this hexameter will be understood?
Without accents, just groping line below line,
I write this poem here in the gloom just as I live, blindly,
like a caterpillar inching my way across the paper;
flashlights, books, the Lager guards took everything,
and the mail does not come; fog alone descends onto our barracks.
Amidst rumours and maggots live here Frenchmen, Pollacks,
loud Italians, dissenting Serbs, moping Jews in the mountains.
A fragmented, feverish body and still, they live one life here:
they wait for good news, a woman's kind word, a free man's life,
and they wait for the end, for that tumble into thick gloom, for miracles.
I lie on the planks, a captive animal among maggots. The fleas constantly
renew their siege, but the army of flies have grown placid.
It's evening, and see, captivity is another day shorter and
so, too, is life. The camp is asleep. The moon shines onto the landscape
and in its light the wires tighten once more and, cast
onto the walls, the armed guards’ shadows can be seen through
the windows, pacing through the noises of the night.
The camp is asleep. Do you see it, dear? The dreams soar swiftly
someone starts awake with a snort, turns in his narrow spot and is
already asleep again, his face basking in light. Only I sit awake,
the taste of a half-smoked cigarette in my mouth instead of the flavour
of your kiss and sleep does not come, that giver of relief, for
I can no longer die, nor can I live, without you any longer.
July, 1944.
Lager Heidenau, in the mountains above Žagubica.
(Translated by Gina Gönczi, 2010)
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Everything is HERE. I'm accepting comments over there for the sake of convenience.
SEVENTH ECLOGUE
Do you see, it's nearing night and the barbed wire-hemmed wild oak
fence, the barracks, hovering, are soaked up by the evening.
The slow gaze releases the confines of our imprisonment
and just the mind, just the mind is conscious of the tautness of the wires.
Do you see, dear; here, even imagination can only be freed thus;
sleep, the lovely liberator, releases our broken bodies
and the prison camp sets off for home.
Ragged and bald, the prisoners fly, snoring,
from Serbia's blind peaks to the hidden landscapes of home.
Hidden landscapes of home! Oh, does that home still exist?
Have the bombs left it untouched? And is it the same as when we left it?
And will he, whimpering on the left, and he, lying on the right, return home?
Tell me, is there still a home there where this hexameter will be understood?
Without accents, just groping line below line,
I write this poem here in the gloom just as I live, blindly,
like a caterpillar inching my way across the paper;
flashlights, books, the Lager guards took everything,
and the mail does not come; fog alone descends onto our barracks.
Amidst rumours and maggots live here Frenchmen, Pollacks,
loud Italians, dissenting Serbs, moping Jews in the mountains.
A fragmented, feverish body and still, they live one life here:
they wait for good news, a woman's kind word, a free man's life,
and they wait for the end, for that tumble into thick gloom, for miracles.
I lie on the planks, a captive animal among maggots. The fleas constantly
renew their siege, but the army of flies have grown placid.
It's evening, and see, captivity is another day shorter and
so, too, is life. The camp is asleep. The moon shines onto the landscape
and in its light the wires tighten once more and, cast
onto the walls, the armed guards’ shadows can be seen through
the windows, pacing through the noises of the night.
The camp is asleep. Do you see it, dear? The dreams soar swiftly
someone starts awake with a snort, turns in his narrow spot and is
already asleep again, his face basking in light. Only I sit awake,
the taste of a half-smoked cigarette in my mouth instead of the flavour
of your kiss and sleep does not come, that giver of relief, for
I can no longer die, nor can I live, without you any longer.
July, 1944.
Lager Heidenau, in the mountains above Žagubica.
(Translated by Gina Gönczi, 2010)
---
Everything is HERE. I'm accepting comments over there for the sake of convenience.