LATE ARRIVAL ON EARTH
(1932)
FERRY SONG (1941)
NON SERVIAM (1945)
STROUNTES (1955)
GUIDE TO THE
UNDERWORLD (1967)
5
“Give me poison to die or dreams to live” – Just now
I’d rather have poison to die before dreams
A skipper without a crew, as they all
ate of the lotus, turned into swine, that I scorn to command –
Alone exhausted helmsman I too was driven ashore
with these corpses onboard, onto a shore unknown to me
Give me water! I have long drunk from the salty
Give me water, from some stream or spring
Give me the magical water the washes the blood off me
Give me back that island where I sank into dreams
Where I carried the yoke of freedom under golden reins
He who once stranded in its sucking cleft
does not fight the rudder, has no hands to sail
From him is required to teach them to caress –
As the prince who once dipped his head in a spring
who in one moment felt the vertigo of time well
back in Time, 1001 years back, I see you mirror
yourself in your gaze, that is mine. So I have stranded
By the Nymph, who gives poison to die or dreams to live
Without charts, without stars, with and against the currents
I have now stranded on the red blonde one’s isle.
Gunnar Ekelöf - Guide to the underworld. Björn Thegeby. Wordpress.com 2018.
