Freedom comes like a thief in the night - Georg Herwegh

Allow me to tell you all
a silly story:
it's just come to mind,
patience is German,
that's what it's about.


There was a good, good woman,
who always did her duty precisely,
and however good she was,
she never thought it was much.


The woman had a lively rooster,
that crowed at her every morning,
and following his rooster-nature
was the best alarm clock she had.


As soon as the day announced itself,
the woman woke her lazy maid,
which made our girl so grumpy
that she once decided grimly


to cut off his noise
and, I'll say it quickly, to kill him.
No sooner thought than done,
the gods received a rooster.


But what did the maid get for it?
While before she was woken with the sun,
she was now woken at midnight,
after she killed the rooster.


Ach! said the maid, who felt very foolish,
if only I could hear the rooster crow!
His crowing sounded as beautiful
as a nightingale singing.


"And now you're joking? Please!"
You know the woman as well as I do;
she is the loveliest far and wide,
to look at her is sheer bliss.


You also know the neighbor's rooster,
that has bothered you so much;
and when you ask me what comes next:
"You, German people, are the maid!"


So when you kill the rooster, you slaves,
don't think you'll get to sleep any longer,
first the woman woke you at the rooster's cry,
now slumber is past forever.


Freedom comes like a thief in the night
and calls to you, "Wake up! Wake up!"
 -
-Georg Herwegh (1817-1875)



Parabel

Erlaubt mir, daß ich 'mal berichte
Euch eine alberne Geschichte:
Sie kommt mir eben in den Sinn,
Geduld ist deutsch, drum nehmt sie hin.

War eine brave, brave Frau,
Die nahm's im Dienste wohl genau,
Und macht', so brav sie auch gewesen,
Doch niemals vieles Federlesen.

Die Frau hatt' einen muntern Hahn,
Der kräht' ihr stets den Morgen an,
Und war nach seiner Hahn-Natur
Für sie die allerbeste Uhr.

Sobald den Tag er angesagt,
Da weckt' die Frau die faule Magd,
Was unsre Magd gar schwer verdroß,
Daß sie im Grimme einst beschloß,

Dem Vogel zu stutzen seine Schwingen
Und, meld' ich's kurz, ihn umzubringen.
Es war gedacht, es war getan,
Die Götter bekamen einen Hahn.

Was aber hat die Magd gewonnen?
Die sonst geweckt ward mit der Sonnen,
Ward nun geweckt um Mitternacht,
Nachdem den Hahn sie umgebracht.

Ach! sprach die Magd, die schwer Betörte,
Wenn ich den Hahn doch krähen hörte!
Sein Krähen hat so schön geklungen,
Als hätt' eine Nachtigall gesungen.

"Und nun der Witz? wir bitten dich!"
Ihr kennt die Frau so gut wie ich;
Sie ist die schönste weit und breit,
Ihr Anblick die volle Seligkeit.

Ihr kennt wohl auch des Nachbars Hahn,
Dem ihr soviel zuleid getan;
Und wenn ihr mich nach dem Dritten fragt:
"Du, deutsches Volk, du bist die Magd!"

Doch wenn ihr den Hahn auch mordet, ihr Sklaven,
So denkt darum nicht länger zu schlafen,
Erst weckt' euch die Frau nach dem Hahnenschrei,
Nun ist's mit dem Schlummer auf ewig vorbei.

Die Freiheit kommt wie ein Dieb in der Nacht
Und ruft euch zu: "Erwacht! erwacht!"

THE STIRRUP-CUP[49] (1840)

GEORG HERWEGH

  THE STIRRUP-CUP[49] (1840)

  The anxious night is gone at last,

  Silent and mute we gallop past

    And ride to our destiny.

  How keen the morning breezes blow!

  Hostess, one glass more ere we go,

    We go to die!

  Thou soft young grass, why now so green?

  Soon like the rose shall be thy sheen,

    My blood thee red shall dye.

  The first quick sip with sword in hand

  I drink, a toast to our native land,

    For our native land to die.

  Now for the next, the time is short,

  The next to Freedom, the queen we court,--

    The fiery cup drain dry!

  These dregs--to whom shall we dedicate?

  To thee, Imperial German State,

    For the German State to die!

  My sweetheart!--But there's no more wine--

  The bullets whistle, the lance heads shine--

    To her the glass where the fragments lie!

  Up! Like a whirlwind into the fray!

  O horseman's joy, at the break of day,

    At the break of day to die!

20 July

- the habit of reading signs, billboards, etc. along the street, in the car, here everything is undecipherable, nice to feel like an illiterate.
- North is now a disillusion. Condemned to remain in the Southeast. Flashed by, the thought of the marriage between science and revolution. Seems to be 'a short love with a long divorce'.

A Song for Anti-Humanism (Non-Structural)

A Song for Anti-Humanism (Non-Structural)
For Chien Swee-Teng and Stolichnaya Andronnikov

A day of six apologies
Arrested by a sentence from a page

 - I was dragged out from that evening bar
no strangers there
(no puerile, self-pitying urban alienation).
Everyone looks familiar here
the same bastards, the same kind of motherfuckers
reproduced en masse
(because their parents wanted, but half-understood, pleasure)
the same pasty faces
who can't wait to get their claws on feminine skin,
get themselves drunk, get the ladies drunk.

'I apologise for six days
Arrested by a sentence
read out
on the radio

the voice told a tale I am more or less familiar with
- the boys hummed a tune and moved their mishapen, spastic hips.
(they needed something to rub on,
and there were many legs of tables and high stools)

Techno beat, we thought of Africa, the beat that could move the most primal soul
the most visceral beat.
I just couldn't use a single word 'dancing' to describe this movement.

We half-understood Hegel
but we remember he said Africa has no history
Their pseudo dialogues have no subject'.

Arrested by six sentences
recorded on the tape.

- I was dragged out of the country I was born.
but I find it hard to call this island factory a country.
But I am not that fucking yellow skin conceptual artist
who claims to have lived in Berlin, New York and been to Venice
who thought he's too good for this place.
Global, international and contemporary citizen of the world, liberal open society.

I hear he's married: amazing, somebody actually opens her legs for him.
I imagined his face when he's having an orgasm.
I have one word for it: non-aesthetic
And I understand beauty is not the chief concern of most conceptualists,
but this guy must have done some dematerialising work on his face too.

He is not a refined, intelligent elitist motherfucker like Borges or Roger Scruton.

My summary for this rant:
fucking artists, writers, philosophers and laid men.

p.54
Mars is expert in the things of war and exercises a certain power by the way of ardor igneous, and for him, Geometry spreads a blood-drenched veil on which one sees Strength draped in red... - Musaeum Hermeticum
p.43
The moon also finally appeared and, in front of her, Dialectic spread a resplendent veil of silver, on which Prudence was depicted clothed in celestial hue... - Musaeum Hermeticum

Details are always vulgar

One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar - Oscar Wilde