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Best Poems From
ERHARD HANS JOSEF LANG
(January 8,1957)
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93.
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What If The Stars Were Barred From Glittering
If scientists could put it to the test,
They might eventually want to check it out - for a minute or two,
To learn and see what effect the test could entrail:
Placing a huge repellent shield around and
Above the earth's highest skylines,
Wholly thus enveloping our globe's atmospheric layers
With the target being to see what could happen
If all the stars that are
Constantly beaming their shining faces down on all of us here
Were barred for just a moment or two
From their lightning-speed glittering through
Onto our world from out there in their
Open vastness of cosmunicative space.
- Somehow I feel thankful that it took another DaVinci,
For them not to be able to do
More of monstrous technological feats, like this one
envisioned here. -
Since we have to be afraid they might not be able
To reverse such a mighty fatal star-blocker shield,
Once set up,
And not be getting out back anymore to
Where we, the heads of the Earth, are
Standing on our feet now,
All of us earthlings getting stuck up in
A stars uprooting operation -
Plunging us for good into mental black-out.
Or would anyone of us - scientist or amateur - have
Premonitioned that, all of a sudden,
Every man on earth was to suffer
Total loss of all mental contents,
Now any time so much taken for granted
To always be there ready for our brains' taking,
All our customized reasoning powers,
Acquired rules of logic, and
All of everyone's memories and
Good-times resolutions
Instantly being blocked and barraged and
Rendered helplessly inaccessible?
All beings, all together, so mysteriously, all of sudden,
Becoming one heart and one soul -
Love without a thought for
Survival exponentially on the increase -
In a wholly new form of human co-existence
Mushrooming up after the hypothetical
Experimental push of just one tremendous
But fatal space-explorer button?
Mysteriously feeling no more need, all of a sudden,
For the many many stories of old
That they themselves, WE, as
All our forefathers alike, so far,
Ever had enjoyed making up in
The wonted communicable mind?
Mind thus knocked out along with all stars,
The very nodes of Mind's network blocked?
And wouldn't it be that without the stars' shining
Even the dogs stopped barking at each other? ! -
What a terribly vain boredom I feel would be
Spreading all over the places on our lush Earth
There where that starlit life once had come to
Sprout and to flourish so wonderful
- Then dying to see the light of stars on darkened days again!
And the irony of all of such a sudden
Darkness that were to come over us,
While Father Sun couldn't understand his world anymore:
Even all the remainders of highest intelligence,
On top of all creations - here on Earth -
All these many bits and bytes of all sorts of
Itemized, materialized memory and communications ware,
Serving these crafty days,
More and more densely to
Hold human mind together
In one shell spanning the
Networks of mind stuff,
All of these were likewise,
In the same one strike, but
Turned into being overstatedly gay and flamboyant
Redundant articles of litter,
Electronic carapaces of human mind's extensions
Scattered plain useless throughout,
What just a moment before the shooting up of the star barrage,
Before the sky-rocketing of the total star-blocker shield,
Were master aides for use in
One of the most intelligently comfortable animal settlements
On all manned planets,
With their former makers' and all the
Smartly organized matters' users' brains knocked out -
Knocked out to a total standstill -
Suddenly all connections in mind coming to a sudden full stop,
With the stars left out Mind's functions dropped off -
The gadgets remaining to be only
Excrements from a lost past
Only a hurt now to the dull eyes of
Millions and millions of unusable stand-by brains
That now all stopped their wonderings and
Ponderings and correlating with things.
The only one thinkable positive thing about it,
If anything at all:
Suddenly we could be, for the first time ever,
Re-living that speechless original awe of the animals
That some of them seem still to feel
When faced vis-a-vis this most elegant flower of life,
Our uplifted being's outstanding head.
Completely different heads then
Looking out from yesterday's mirrors,
Though yet looking all the same as before.
With our mother planet and ourselves robbed of the stars' shine,
Even the looks and features of people, in a generation or two,
Might but get lesser touches of nature's inborn beauty, alas!
For how could the old time-tested characters
That had all been once alive
Now in a starless world ever
Have chances of re-incarnating into
New contemporaries that were fit to
Continue the old surge of their lives' passion
When the akashic records cannot
Burn their genetic messages anymore through to
Where they were meant to go to _
Into new possibly most proper vessels of
Physical details dancing through time and space.
When it is that the dreaded global
Stars shield would be rendering defunct
The complete cosmic library of codeces
For all of life's character patterns,
Getting withheld along with the stars
From all who had ever incarnated through time before,
Once or through some more of life times,
In spite of the patterns safely being
Stored away in seed forms
There on cosmic mind's very intrastellar shoals of ether,
For determining possible future births of
Each and every past being -
After each and everyone's star written code.
The consequences of trying to see if it would make any
Difference with us here on our globe
If there were none of all these beautiful stars shining,
As they have been shining ever since
And are shining now, and hopefully will be for ever,
- Luckily a mere hypothetical disaster envisioned here only,
As it serves to be a perfect example for
Highlighting the true nature and functioning of Mind -
Seems to be an endless-liner
That, luckily, one doesn't have to repeat perusing
After once having comprehended what its message was -
About this our so glorious mind.
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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94.
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When The War Is Over
Nothing better to do
Than making many many more babies!
When the war is over.
But for God's sake and for
The hope of this new post-ethnic race of humans,
Let us for once come up with truly
Substantial improvements in
The lot of this lot of ours!
When will the good people's politicians of today
Eventually take to tackling
The most pressing needs of humans? -
Has anyone yet heard anyone ever say 'Abolish money', for example?
'Introduce a global panvoluntaristic economy system
There to work out all things as basic services totally free for everyone's taking?
With no more mean money and monstrous financial crises to further
Pester snug human life? ' -
When the war was already over!
When will we wake up from this bad joke of life
Persistently dreamt about in many-colored dreams
Still mixed with nightmares in blood-stained khaki?
After the war had been over!
When will we teach our children well enough so as
Next time around to
Keep their calm
And not at the first itch to
Strike out
And take
After an army of humans deemed enemies,
But rather to trace the foe
In times of critical trouble
In one's own bloated mind
Filled with torpid languor and with
Misconceptions of
One another's true basic needs and interests? !
Aren't people rightly interested in
A calm evolution of
The others' affairs, too?
When will our war be over?
* * * *
German version of the poem:
WENN DER KRIEG VORBEI IST
Es gibt nichts besseres zu tun als
Viele, viele Babys in die Welt zu setzen!
Wenn der Krieg vorbei ist.
Aber um Gottes Willen und auf daß es dieser neuen post-ethnischen Rasse
Von Menschen zur Hoffnung gereiche,
Lasset uns endlich einmal mit echt grundlegend wichtigen Verbesserungen
Im Los von diesem unserem Haufen
Auf den Plan treten!
Wann werden die Politiker der guten Leute von heute
Sich zu guter letzt daran machen,
Sich mit den pressantesten Belangen der Menschen auseinanderzusetzen? -
Hat irgendjemand schon mal irgendeinen zum Beispiel von 'Geld abschaffen'
Reden gehört?
Davon, 'ein globales panvoluntaristisches Wirtschaftssystem einzuführen,
Das alle Sachen und Dinge als fundamentale Dienstfertigkeit
Herausarbeiten würde, die jedem kostenlos zustünde?
Wo es das schnöde Geld nicht mehr gäbe,
Und auch keine übermächtigen finanziellen Krisen mehr, die
Weiterhin dem niedlichen menschlichen Leben zusetzen könnten'? -
Als der Krieg bereits zu Ende war.
Wann werden wir aufwachen aus diesem schlechten Witz von Leben,
Der ohne Unterlass in bunten Träumen zusammengeträumt wird, die
Immer noch durchsetzt sind mit Albtraumen in blutverschmiertem Khaki.
Nachdem der Krieg zu Ende gewesen war!
Wann werden wir unsere Kinder so erziehen, daß sie
Nächstes Mal, wenn's so weit ist,
Nicht die Ruhe verlieren
Und nicht gleich, wenn's irgendwo juckt und kratzt,
Ausholen und
Hinter einem Heer von Menschen her sein, von denen man glaubt, sie seien der Feind,
Sondern eher in brenzligen Zeiten den Feind
Im eigenen aufgeblasenen Kopf ausmachen, der
Angefüllt ist mit steifer Unwillfährigkeit und mit
Falschen Vorstellungen über die wahren zentral wichtigen Nöte und Interessen der anderen? !
Sind die Leute nicht berechtigterweise
An einer ruhig verlaufenden Entwicklung auch der
Angelegenheiten der anderen interessiert?
Wann wird der Krieg zu Ende sein?
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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95.
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Why Things Don't Think Of Us, Too, In Return?
Why not let troubled things talk and hold council with you?
Or do you relish the birth-pangs' banging between clashes?
Things can't talk, yes, or can they? !
You may only proffer your own fantasy
To give them a mouth-piece?
What are we then?
Just simply a piece of flesh, sensing the numbness of the chair we sit on?
Or are we the brain in the chair? !
I found it not to be a madman's pass-time, only, to let things talk to me through myself:
That perilous leaning tower did exactly not tumble over me when I walked past,
As I had beseeched it not to do so.
And be it that I was just delayed for its fateful fall for speaking my prayers.
And, as a trusting thanks-giver, I find,
I'm yet faring best with things.
And how sweet things may talk to one!
And then they won't talk more than I want them to.
And let us not forget: people are things, too!
And they say, all is in one.
Things called it god.
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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96.
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Wretched Abel (translation)
In the fir forest on the heath there's a hut quite miserable,
and even more miserable life is for the dwellers of the hut.
But, yes, also he has once been rich, been young in his time,
decrepit he now is, eats bread baked of tree bark flour,
his only daughter his happiness & joy.
Late one autumn evening it was, bright fire flaring in the oven.
'What is the commotion there outside?
Who in the night is getting here? '
Through the low door steps into the hut a man, proud in his moves.
From his dress shines gold and from his eyes lustful desire.
'Good evening! ' - 'Peace be in the Lord! '
'What is it that brought the earl into a hut? ' -
'You are poor, I'm bringing help to you
which can remove your wants.'
And pieces of gold he scattered a handful on the table,
and they glittered so wonderful by the shine of the fire.
'And your daughter so beautiful I shall lead into a gorgeous court,
dress her in gold, silk and in costly stones.'
Thus he spake, the gold was glistening,
and that virgin blushing red,
and he fast went over
stroking her cheek by his hand.
But a burning flame flew into the meek eye of the Old Man,
and he got up, and a look full of fire he thrust to the stranger.
'Be gone, daring one! ' so he shouted taking hold of his stick,
'be gone, daring one; off your hands obscene!
Let the maiden be at peace with herself! '
'You have drunk the blood of your people, robbed them of their sweat,
their toil,
and now you still want to bereave a wretched of his honour? '
'This dear one with gold to buy.
Be gone, along you take your gifts!
I have never moved about in shame,
and even now there is no need to do so.'
'If it's the Creator's wish, I may die in my hunger,
but to sell the honour of my child, this, o Lord, this cannot be.'
He sat down and wiped the gold away from him,
as though it got him burntbut;
the stranger, fallen silent, took his means
without a word and sneaked away.
And beaming with joy, the daughter rushed to her father's loving side,
and the fire dwindled into a burning coal slowly dying.
written by Finnish poet
Paavo Cajander
(24.12.1846 - 14.6.1915) and published in Finland's National
Enlightenment Calender in 1882
transl. by Erhard Lang
Erhard Hans Josef Lang
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