I burned my candle at both ends
Thinking to get more light —
But drowned its wick in red wine
Then tumbled down a flight.
Final Fig
1
Category Archives: biography
No Evil Star
The world laments with many tongues;
You had your one.
But you said enough, with your rhymes and your songs
And your crying, crying, crying all night long.
You were just killing time till it was time to go
But found time dies too slow.
It’s all right now, I think you’d say.
Maybe there was a better change you could have made
But finally they’re all the same.
After the games you’d played with pain
The gas was easy, anyway.
Were you afraid? Who wouldn’t be?
You knew the soul is what it feels.
A private pain is no less real:
Yours grew until it had to be set free.
I guess you did it perfectly.
Post-Script (Anno 1945)
(by Mascha Kaléko; translated from the German)
I’ve traveled far in thirteen years –
Although what I looked for was hardly romantic;
But without any taste for new frontiers
Still I seem to have crossed the Atlantic.
All that I had, I’ve left behind
But the moment I look around, I find
I’ve a child like the one my parents knew:
His parents are immigrants, through and through.
My son writes “ALIEN” – learning to spell.
He tells me, “Don’t speak German, dear.”
He’s eight. He wants to know, as well,
Is it “all right” not to be from here?
Just what I once asked Rector May!
And like me, too, in another way:
For he’s sure that peace will come to stay
Once the stupid War has gone away.
Interview with Myself (Anno 1932)
(by Mascha Kaléko; translated from the German)
In the talkative town where I made my debut
My parents were immigrants, through and through.
We had a church, a doctor or two,
And a loony bin with a lovely view.
My favorite word as a child was “NO.”
If I made Mother happy, it didn’t show.
And thinking back to that long-ago
I wouldn’t wish my own child so.
The Great War found me under the sway
Of the parish school and Rector May,
And thinking that peace would come to stay
If only the War would go away.
Well, I entered the academic race
And the teachers were pleased at my rapid pace –
Despite my having not a trace
Of Nordic hair or an Aryan face –
At graduation, Teacher said
We were all so smart, and so well-bred,
We could go forth, work hard, get ahead.
But I took an office job instead.
I work eight hours of every day
And my duties are light, but so’s my pay;
And at night I while the time away
With poetry – to Dad’s dismay.
I love to brave the wilderness
Of maps, and wander, bodiless;
Still there are days, I must confess
I sometimes wish for happiness.
That Old Feeling
(by Mascha Kaléko; translated from the German)
The first time that I thought to die
–I still recall the scene–
I died with so much skill and grace
In Hamburg, just the perfect place,
And I was just eighteen.
And when I died the second time,
It filled my heart with woe
That I could leave you nothing more
Than just my heart, laid at your door,
And footprints, red in snow.
And when I died the third time,
I hardly felt the pain;
Familiar as my toast and tea,
Like an old shoe, is death to me.
I needn’t die again.
Still awake
That time you lay with me
and the moon so bright
we doubted our own eyes: springtime,
and silver frost on the ground!
Like a blow, your absence.
I look for you under the bright moon
in the springtime
but the moon sinks. You are absent.
That’s why.
what / should I fly
what
should I fly
unto
my senses
delight
with
crowns and rich apparel
dance and then depart
show
what magic can perform
and do
a thousand
deeds?
I
shall
backseat stationwagon
the endless susurrus of tires
strove with us through the night’s great room
we trusted to its purpose: home
Visiting the Taoist Priest Dai Tianshan, but Not Finding Him
(after Li Po)
I heard his dog barking down by the creek, but when I tried to follow
A hard rain fell, scattering the peach blossoms, hiding the path.
I’ve long since lost the dog, the creek, the path; I can’t hear the temple bell,
And one stand of bamboo is like any other.
I think it’s spring now, or will be soon: it’s greener, anyhow,
And sometimes I see deer, off in the woods.
No one else can tell you the right way to go, that’s what he always said;
Meaning, I thought: Trust yourself. See where that’s got me?
I Won’t Get Up Today
(a song for music)
I won’t be getting up at seven
I won’t be on the bus at eight
I may not get up till the weekend
Everybody’s gonna have to to wait
I don’t care if the coffee’s brewing
I don’t care that eggs are in the pan
I’m snug and warm and I ain’t moving
Is that so hard to understand?
I won’t get up today
That’s all I’ve got to say
It’s just gonna be that way.
Last night I dreamed myself a city
Where everybody spoke in rhyme
Smelled nice, and everyone was pretty
That’s where I want to spend my time
That’s why I won’t get up today
That’s all I’ve got to say
It’s just gonna be that way
Bag of Anything 