Tuesday, June 13, 2006

No sour grapes here

To be a troll
To be a beggar with no money
And say you don’t like money
But like to beg to feed your tummy
Comes only from a dummy.

He is a bum, all scum
You listen not to him
When he says
He doesn’t like money.

So is with peace.
You have no power
To everyone you cower
And say you love peace.
No one will listen to you
People will mock at you.

But if you have power
And give up power for peace,
Everyone will love you
Everyone will believe you
And tell you:
You are a man of peace.

No sour grapes here!

Monday, June 12, 2006

Fernando Pessoa ( ) That tragedy is yours alone

Free Verse Rendering from Fernando Pessoa's Prose in Livro do Desassossego, in Portuguese

In a chair I sit
And forget the life
That so oppresses me.
The only pain I feel
Is the pain
Of having felt it sometime.
To be free is
To withdraw from the world.
You seek no one,
No money, no glory
No love, no society, no curiosity.
They flourish not
In silence and solitude.

Unable to live alone
Is like being a slave.
Even if superior in soul,
You still are a serf--
A noble slave.

Woe betide you,
Weight of life makes you a slave.
Woe betide you,
Born free, yet you seek
Others’ company for need.
That tragedy is yours alone,
You alone must bear it.

~ Fernando Pessoa
Rendering by Ravi Kopra