To crave the hurt of variant memory
Out of unstanched spools of actuality,
And fashion an extravaganza or a
Phantasmagoria of plot and purpose,
Is a romantic trance.
Words can be defined, refined;
But let not the inter-mesh of language
Mould and shape the feeling:
Words like Angst and anomie, despair.
Let us not assign labels to
What we think we feel.
But how can we describe it?
No way. No language can do it,
Neither painter, sculptor nor poet.
Music perhaps, but not in blobs;
Words are blobs or rocks. Nonetheless
Cliché helps. No need for a cadenza.
A new idiom will hazard obscurity.
That would cramp the lilt of common speech.
Words in usage, though demotic,
Allow ironic brevity, satire and wit.
Feelings leak away, drip drop drip.
‘Angst' and bleak despair. Chinese painting
Is sometimes very sharp in outline,
While avoiding the certitude of lines.
The tone, the voice and its timbre.
Self-communion is easy, it defines
The line that cuts ‘this' and ‘not-this'.
But that degenerates into a whimper.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem