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Best Poems From
ERHARD HANS JOSEF LANG
(January 8,1957)
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5.
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The World's Complex Differences Are Of Aztec Dimensions (with orig. in German)
What holds true for the past
will have to hold true
also for the future.
Not all things will have to stay the way
they are today.
Likewise thinkable were, indeed,
at a suitable time to come,
once also a world wholly without money
which came to redeem one beautiful day
this money-mediated madness of
the capitalistically exaggerated world
which sows so much sorrow next to additional work
and all the unloved pains.
Thus rode, yet completely different from us today,
no real Aztec of his day
ever along on any vehicle on wheels.
To him the round of the wheel exclusively
belonged to the greatest of stars,
to the sun,
so as by visibly keeping with this law
to see to it that he would be walking alway
under his beneficial influence.
Thus on foot only he walked
- moving forward on beasts to ride on
offered itself in hilly areas -
otherwise, if his aristocratic stature allowed for it,
on silent soles he was carried through the countryside
in swaying carriages.
Thus had been the custom among true Aztecs,
and none of them could imagine,
not even in hushed tones,
that things with regards to that would ever be run different.
And yet, all of us today do drive on wheels.
Not even the virgin sacrifices of the early Aztecs
performed with divinely statistical prudence
could have prevented that long since
also their offspring's heads
had become twisted
by the wheel to be ridden on for one's own motion
— though this passed to happen for them
in a through and through ill-forboding shadowy light
far off the old lucky, strictly sunwheel-driven lanes of life.
What holds true for the past
will have to hold true
also for the future.
Not all things will have to stay the way
they are today...
* * * **
the original version of this poem in German:
Die Andersartigkeiten Der Welt Sind Aztekischen Ausmaßes
Was für die Vergangenheit gilt,
hat auch für die Zukunft zu gelten:
Es muß nicht immer alles so bleiben, wie es heute ist.
Denkbar wäre dementsprechend zur gegebenen Zeit
durchaus auch einmal eine Welt so ganz ohne Geld,
die den geldvermittelten Wahn der kapitalistisch übertriebenen
und so viel Leid nebst zusätzlicher Arbeit
und all den ungeliebten Nöten aussähenden Welt
eines schönen Tages abzulösen käme.
So fuhr, noch ganz anders als wir Heutigen,
ein wahrer Azteke seiner Zeit niemals
auf einem beräderten Gefährt mit.
Für ihn blieb das Rund des Rades ausschließlich
dem größten Gestirn, der Sonne, vorbehalten,
um mit dem sichtlichen Einhalt dieses Gebots
gewährleistet zu sehen,
daß er stets und immer auch ja
unter deren wohltuendem Einfluß wandelte.
So wandelte er nur zu Fuß -
das Sich-Vorwärtsbewegen auf Reittieren bot sich im hügeligen Gelände an -
oder, so seine aristokratische Figur dies erlaubte,
er wurde auf leisen Sohlen
in einer wiegenden Sänfte durchs Terrain getragen.
So war der Brauch gewesen unter den wahren Azteken
und keiner der Ihren konnte auch nur im leisesten sich vorstellen,
daß die Dinge diesbezüglich je irgendwann einmal anders laufen würden.
Und doch fahren wir heute alle auf Rädern.
Auch die mit göttlich statistischem Vorwitz durchgeführten Jungfernopfer der frühen Azteken
konnten nicht verhindern,
daß schon längst auch deren Nachkommen das Rad
zum eigenen Befahrenwerden den Kopf verdreht hat —
wenn auch ganz und gar im üblen Schattenlicht
fernab der alten glücksverheißenden, ausschließlich sonnenradbefahrenen Straßen des Lebens.
Was für die Vergangenheit gilt,
hat auch für die Zukunft zu gelten:
Es muß nicht immer alles so bleiben, wie es heute ist...
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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6.
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Verses Of The Sacred Vedas Of India On The Act Of Creation (traditional)
The Seer, our father, once offered all these worlds in oblation,
assuming a priestly role,
and sought to gain riches by the power of prayer;
he himself entered later creations, while shrouding in mystery
the first creative moment.
What was the primal matter, what the substance?
How can it be discerned, how was it made?
From where that Designer of all things, who supervising the actions,
fashioned the Earth and shaped the glory of Heavens?
A myriad eyes are his, a myriad faces,
a myriad arms and feet, turning each way!
When he, sole God, creates the Earth and Heavens,
he welds them together with whirring of arms and wings.
What was the timber and what the tree
from which the Heavens and also the Earth were chiseled forth?
Ponder, O wise Men. Question your hearts.
On what did he rely when he formed these worlds?
The haunts where you dwell,
O designer ever true to your laws,
on high, in the depths, and in every region between,
disclose to your friends at the hour of oblation.
Willingly offer your body in sacrifice, thus enhancing its vigor.
He indeed, the Lord, who pervades all regions,
was the first to be born and it is
He who dwells in the womb of the universe.
It is He, again, who is born as a child and
He will be born in the future,
He stands behind all persons and
His face is everywhere.
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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7.
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Ο β λ α δ ί ... Ο β λ α δ ά ...
Ob-la-dee... Ο β λ α δ ά ...
Ο β λ α δ ί ... Ob-la-daa...
Splash one more
Oblation... oblation...
Oblation... oblation...
The ritual sweat of never-ending servitude
Dash it all over
Our high-rising monuments
Of the endeavoring firm
That stand out aloof,
So untouchably of a kind of their own
Though evermore will
Fill most of our days and our simplest self
To shield and yield all lives' ambitions & needs
Here on earth
Where everyone - everyone - is to serve.
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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8.
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Against All Odds - Meetings With An Indian Railway God
This is a true story that occurred in my life,
Which goes to show
What a limitless power it is -
The urge of Mind's sway.
I am a German boy of an
Old hoof-smiths' gender,
The first in line to fall out of my forefathers' mould
Due to the innovations of modern day surpassing
Our handling of the beasts of burden of yore.
And as major push towards a life of wanderings and explorations,
That, in the end, led me to encounter
This story of which I am telling here,
May be counted the fact that a certain
Hereditary restlessness was in my veins,
Possibly already stemming
From a very outgoing nature in my good mother's parental home
Where traditionally the village folk, young and old,
Used to gather for common parlour -
A hub knob of a whole tiny big world in itself -
Instilling in me a thirst to go out
Into the world to explore for myself
The hidden truths behind the phenomenal and ephemeral.
And I landed, eventually, in Southern India,
In the city of Madurai,
Dressed myself up like as any good local boy does,
In gallantly draped white cloth.
Coming in by train. I
Met at the Madurai station,
While idly loitering around after arrival,
Their local railway station master -
One imposing, smart-looking figure.
We were dressed both the same style, he and I,
And he might have liked my going after
His country's fashion, thus sifting me out.
He took me upstairs to the station's cafeteria,
And it was there and then that I realized
How stupendously wise
Great people of India are.
This station master was such a cosy pychnic -
Garrulously talking it away
In lovely tones telling me and my travel companion,
Who had an amuleted dog with him,
Wise, well-focused words in a stream of various contexts -,
And most amazingly:
He knew everything even about dogs,
Since my companion had brought one cute dog
All the way from far Varanasi.
Yes, he knew all about
What's common and what's different with various pets,
With their behaviour, their likes and dislikes,
And everything about them.
But not only that - he left me with
The feeling that this was a man
Who could tell you about anything -
Any other topic - you name it! - as expediently -
Things one wouldn't have come to think of, otherwise.
From the cafeteria Madurai's station master then walked to downtown
Together with us two tourists
Finally to bid farewell at the junction to his home.
In those days I then had commenced to
Study to read the Tamil alphabet.
Thus it had come about that some Tamil man told me
That Madurai station master
Was commonly known in town as
The Railway God of Madurai.
I was, at that time, at the tender age of twenty.
For the next ten years to come
I had not taken to travelling at all
Spending time in my German home.
But I had never forgotten, whenever
I recalled my trips to India,
About one impressive Tamil man - and his eloquent wisdom:
This man was the one they called the Railway God of Madurai.
And many many times it was that
I told stories to friends
About my endearing encounter with this one impressive Indian figure.
Another ten years into time I moved out from Germany
And I settled down in a town
On the southern island of Mindanao
In the Philippines.
And again, I came to tell many of my new friends there
The story of my one-time meeting in Madurai
With one whom they called their Railway God.
Another eight years later,
I came to visit the town of Madurai
Once again, and I went to look for the old station master.
I stepped inside the office room, where,
At the Madurai station it read 'station master',
But the old man I was looking for,
Was not there, instead four flabberghasted young men
Asking me what I was up to there.
They wouldn't give me any clues, and seemed to be engaged
In a power dispute among each other at the time.
So I just left it all at that.
Another two years later in time, travelling once more,
Again I happened to be
For a few days' stay in that same city of Madurai.
I had made, in the meantime, some acquaintances
With local boys there, all very friendly to me.
During that one stay then,
Suddenly I was invited by the boys
To join a Hindu funeral party.
'If I would like to come - and see
How we Hindus deal with death? '
So I went with them, and
Already on the way to the house of the deceased person,
I somehow felt a premonition in my chest.
I asked my friendly guides -
Really but knowing yet nothing, just giving it a try -
If the dead person were the old
Railway station master of their town.
And lo! to my very surprise,
This is what they confirmed:
'Yes, station master! the station master has died, '
So they replied,
'And his sons want you to be there for their father's funeral.'
And there I was, face to face, with my
'Most Remembered Indian of All Times', once more,
As he was seated,
Having passed on to a higher world
After one dignified full life-time,
In his grandfather chair there, with his horned glasses on,
Looking toward the main door
As if he were still alive.
There were dozens of mourners,
Women, men, and children, lining up on all sides,
In and around the departured one's house,
And they were, as it seemed,
All waiting for me, -
To anoint the forehead of
The Railway God of my memories.
This is a true story that occurred in my life,
Which goes to show
What a limitless power it is -
The urge of Mind's sway.
My mother's maiden name was Sedlmeir.
Sedl in Tamil means a fair ground's carousel.
Ayyar denotes any Tamil family of good standing.
In my mother's German parental village home
May well have stood in the old days
Such a Sedl carousel.
We are all still linked up together
Through the cultural links created
By our ancient fathers,
Which at times bring us together, quite mysteriously,
In present days,
As I've enjoyed to experience in this outstanding story.
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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