Both poems are by Erich Fried <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> - I'll modify my post. A great Austrian poet, driven by the Nazis into Exile, a wanderer between many worlds, even in America - not only a passionate love poet but a powerful political one, who engaged himself deeply, e.g. in the Anti Vietnam War Movement, a poet for the working class, lovers, political people, those loving nature. It's very easy for me to start and very difficult to stop when it comes to his thoughts. And when I see how many English/American sites simply call him a German, I could scream about this ignorance. He was born in Austria and died in England.
Kiya

Cancellation Erich Fried

Being able to breathe out
one's unhappiness

breathe out deeply
so that one can
breathe in again

And perhaps also being able to speak
one's unhappiness
in words
in real words
which are coherent
and make sense
and which one can
understand oneself
and which perhaps
someone else can understand
or could understand

And being able to try

That again would
almost be
happiness


WO LERNEN WIR Erich Fried, my last one now, I promise

Wo lernen wir leben
und wo lernen wir lernen
und wo vergessen
um nicht nur Erlerntes zu leben?

Wo lernen wir klug genug zu sein
die Fragen zu meiden
die unsere Liebe nicht einträglich machen
und wo
lernen wir ehrlich genug sein
trotz unserer Liebe
und unserer Liebe zuliebe
die Fragen nicht zu meiden?

Wo lernen wir
uns gegen die Wirklichkeit zu wehren
die uns um unsere Freiheit
betrügen will
und wo lernen wir träumen
und wach sein für unsere Träume
damit etwas von ihnen
unsere Wirklichkeit wird?


Where do we learn translation

Where do we learn to live
and where do we learn to learn
and where to forget
so we don't have to live what we learned?

Where do we learn to be wise enough
to avoid questions
that are not profitable for our love
and where
do we learn to be honest enough
in spite of our love
and for the sake of our love
to not avoid these questions?

Where do we learn
to fight reality
that wants to betray us
from our freedom
and where do we learn to dream
and keep aware of our dreams
so part of them
may become our reality?


Last edited by kiya; 18/12/03 03:38 AM.