Attila Jozsef: Without Hope
I am as one who comes to rest
by that sad, sandy, sodden shore
and looks around, and undistressed
nods his wise head, and hopes no more.
Just so I try to turn my gaze
with no deceptions, carelessly.
A silver axe-swish lightly plays
on the white leaf of the poplar tree.
Upon a branch of nothingness
my heart sits trembling voicelessly,
and watching, watching, numberless,
the mild stars gather round to see.
In heaven’s ironblue vault …
In heaven’s ironblue vault revolves
a cool and lacquered dynamo.
The word sparks in my teeth, resolves
- oh, noiseless constellations! - so -
In me the past falls like a stone
through space as voiceless as the air.
Time, silent, blue, drifts off alone.
The swordblade glitters; and my hair -
My moustache, a fat chrysalis,
tastes on my mouth of transience.
My heart aches, words cool out to this.
To whom, though, might their sound make sense?
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As quoted in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6Av0D8HUzs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attila_J%C3%B3zsef
>He died on 3 December 1937, aged 32, at Balatonszárszó, where he was staying at the house of his sister and brother-in-law. Crawling through the railway tracks, he was crushed by a starting train.