Saturday, September 18, 2010

Don't Sleep

No, don’t sleep while the governors of the world are busy!
Be suspicious of the power they claim to have to acquire on your behalf!
Stay awake to be sure that your hearts are not empty, when others calculate on the emptiness of your hearts!
Do what is unhelpful, sing songs from out of your mouths that go against expectation!
Be ornery, be as sand, not oil in the thirsty machinery of the world!

(from Dreams by Gunter Eich, in Angina Days: Selected Poems (Princeton University Press, 2010), translated by Michael Hofmann)

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