AbsurdBeats

It’s pretty clear that I’ve been a bit off with the blogging in general and the Friday poem in particular.

Damn that full time job!

(How long can I damn or curse the bank-account-sustaining office job? Can I turn it into a ‘card’ to be pulled out whenever I get lazy or sullen?)

*Sigh*

Okay, so I know I have to readjust how I think about my free time and how I want to make use or live in it. I work M-F 9-5 and teach Thursday and Friday nights. That’s how it is.

There is time. Maybe not enough, maybe not in the shape or line I’d like, but there is time.

So, in casting about for a Friday/Sunday poem (and yes, I’ll continue to call it ‘Friday poem’ regardless of the day on which it is posted), the theme presented itself.

I thought I’d look for something funny or wry, something witty or sly.

I thought  it might take some time(!) to find the right poem, but I found the right poem in no time at all.

It’s not funny, but there is a taste of wry in the following poem by Abba Kovner (translated from the Hebrew by Eddie Levenston).

And the final admonishment is witty and sly and altogether human.

Detached Verses

1
Soon
Soon you will pass from the darkened room
to another world. Freed from debts
and contacts.

2
One more
One more look
at the neighbor’s garden
and his dog asleep
on the still warm tiles.

3
A headline
A headline still blaring
by the base of an overflowing garbage can.

4
A little
A little longer in the setting light of
the sun.

5
The stub of a moment of parting
from things we ignored when we could still
live erect on our feet.

6
Things we believed would never
fade have already been abandoned
by your memory.

7
If only you had been one of the philosophers!
Giving a flavor of meaning
to ruined buildings, to acts

of heroism, to our fate.

8
Was that leap
into the depths
any easier?

9
Soon
Soon we shall know
if we have learnt to accept that the stars
do not go out when we die.