The Fairytale of Last Light

 
At last, they encircled me and crafted hell itself!
Here the wick of consciousness burns in fire
and its flame remains invisible.
I looked up at the sky and found it
so pointless that even the blue seemed unbearable!


I have known for a long time that she whom
I once thought incomparable,
whose walnut-brown eyes taught me
to dream day after day,
is essentially like an unwanted pillar, like a needless war, yet
it is to her that I have run breathlessly all this time!
Know this, honored one, I am not speaking only of myself!


The peaceful, beautiful days are no more.
That smooth lake high above is also gone today.
The mirror that could tell me
whether I am happy or not
has also vanished.
Seeing emptiness in everything, I felt only unrest.
When a father takes upon his own shoulders the burden of a dead child,
the sun evokes pity—poor thing burns in vain for some wrong people.


All the loving kisses of these two lips seem futile.
Here there is no world except hell,
conscience's sparks flutter helplessly here.
And the harsh stones rush, anguished,
toward his chest, who never knows
why he was wounded. Here humanity weeps silently beneath human feet.


On his way home at night, the man saw
something unknown trembling.
The curved benches in front of the house held no guests,
they floated silently in some hidden lake, though no one had ever seen a lake there.
The distant towers pray for storms.
The stale smoke of black factories turns bitter.
Seeing all this, the man began very easily
to disbelieve the moon's laughter or the wind's tears.
These days mystery has started frightening everyone.


The flower has been taught
that sin has no place in this great world,
so it goes carefree even to the murderer.
Poems hide in a colorful guitar—
this too is comforting to say, for it means
the poet's advance toward a beautiful death, despite strong objections!
Walking in a procession that looks like a temple parade,
lyricists light torches with weary hands and say in unison,
"We love to scatter across the whole world!"
The inevitable sighs of living poets are heard: these days one must stay alive to witness even this!


Those who know the secret mystery of milestones
have also learned the tale of the dark, faded fairy story.
Two men were advancing toward each other from a distance
since long ago. It was night then, darkness on the path,
their ears had been deafened by poured lead.
They were walking through a cold tunnel,
and the wall of stone, wet with deep fatigue,
rubbing against their palms, revealed that this stone had never known fire.
So they began searching for each other.


I have secretly observed that despair always
possesses that life which lives in the shadow of trees.
Gray life seeks white, silent, cool sky
and inevitably
hears the roar of snow.
The wind of fire burns any solitary tree it finds,
and our suffering, living under the tree's roof, increases!


The sea all around is endless,
trembling and whispering, seething silently.
Clusters of hopeless words tell stories here and there,
but all those stories are murky and confined.
The bells of the sanctuary sway, thick fog
penetrates through window frames into the house
and the entire city joins the ranks of the sleepless,
preparing for a melancholy night.


Dreams cannot be measured by one or two statistics,
the past cannot be erased by telling fairy tales.
Life grows weary, becomes peaceful too
and yet never
seems to be covered by fog,
rather I have often seen life fall asleep.


Pale and tired, yet serene—the little girl's face,
a gentle smile spreads over every patient.
Death breathes like smoke from a magician's mysterious bag—
on very low heat. Because of this little girl
life's last light does not leave the hospital bed,
if it did, it would never return.
Sea, fog, night are immersed in the dead man's last happy memory, though
no one will ever give this girl a peaceful posthumous Nobel.