Deluge
Three Holocaust poems
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I. MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
Beneath a mast of wails, in a typhoon of tears
as the genesis of a vast new deluge recurs,
on board a lost and battered, rudderless galley
afloat on the blood of this dreadful time of folly --
like sailors who trust their news to a bottle in the current,
I thrust these final verses into the torrent
so that, beyond death and terror and darkness, you
may still receive them one day in a better future,
you, in whom we have placed our faith and hopes
in vain, for we shall never reach your shores:
free shores, our home ever since the centaurs’ idylls,
cultured Europe, our ancient, classical cradle.
* * *
We say our last farewells before
the night covers us
while helplessly waving our fog lamps over the flood
as we signal to the offspring of tomorrow,
we the galley slaves of the present, the ship and the oars
whose festive garlands have been torn away,
we sad and sensitive souls of this brutal age
who have foretold the worst and seen it all
who had screamed out in fear before we fell,
the children born with lust for mirth and sunshine
before the depth of hell roared over us:
before our plight sinks into blind oblivion,
I send you these lines, the final news of our lives.
* * *
Beyond the final Capes of Good
Hope of existence,
chained to the galley’s oar-bench beneath the mast,
we still survive like beasts in filthy stables,
abused as apes are, locked up in a cage,
our ears are cocked, our fur is bristling with fear
but silence! the guards assault us through the bars,
our human pride destroyed, we huddle dismayed,
we have consumed... even our flesh and blood,
we know that all our endeavours must be in vain,
that we must perish without release or escape:
despite the lights we’ve lit here forever, you
have abandoned your children, cultured Europe!
* * *
Beneath a mast of wails, in a typhoon of tears
as the genesis of a vast new deluge recurs,
like sailors who trust their news to a bottle in the current,
I thrust these final verses into the torrent
that bears me towards the jaws of fate through the spray
...here, in the year of 1938.
II. ONLY YOU
Despite your barefaced lying
despite your naked lewdness
and in your degradation
and in your destitution,
with obdurate defiance
I fear for you, I love you,
you easy slut, my trifle,
my only, only life.
III. DISTINCTION
Generous age, how you burn to trace
the race of your humble, itinerant son!
Allow me to make a gift in return.
Take this book, before I pass on.
Tamás Emőd
(translated from the Hungarian by Thomas Land)
If you have any comments on these poems, Thomas Land would be pleased to hear from you.
