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Hello! Frigyes Karinthy here, poet from the 20th century!
Listen
closely, then repeat after me,
so you’ll remember I’ll
say it in rhyme,
I’ll pester and hound you
incessantly:
You’re a fool to be a man in this time
on
this earth, which with its false scales will weigh
and cheat you
tomorrow like yesterday.
At noon a host of temptations
torment,
at night apparitions wail and lament.
They
bewailed Christ’s crucifixion and then
the killer was made
a hero again.
The man drank blood and the woman ate
bone,
outside by the storefront the poet moaned.
On the
dead they bestowed silk, a brocade,
the living, in tatters,
vomited blood.
They strewed flowers on the pit of the grave,
the living shivered outside in the mud.
The oaths they
swore on the tomb resounded,
in the corner the living feebly
cried.
The child stood, eyes wide open, dumbfounded,
the
elderly cowardly slinked aside,
but the vile knave of a disciple
spat
in his master’s eye, the base, shameless rat.
On
the waters ships in flames hurried by,
the winds lifted the
whores’ skirt to the sky,
but the most wondrous, shining
beautifully,
rotted like a dog on a pile of debris.
So
wringing my hands, in tears I implore,
prepare, the scales will
be set right once more.
So listen, in your heart put this away
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If you must you’ll know the meaning someday.
—Whether you understand or not — MENE, TEKEL,
it speaks to and
for you, so remember it well,
The words of my song, once sung
in the dark,
will shine like a flame on the wall, so mark,
they
are grim words today, yet they live on,
and still will be here
long after I’m gone.
Still here long after I’m gone.
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