Franz Kafka

Monday, November 10, 2014

"Anxiety," a Poem from the Collection "Midnight 30, American Poems"

Anxiety, by Edvard Munch, 1894, Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway

Anxiety



Thus, I had a recollection
That we were as good as dead already
Dwelling in our seething megalopolis
Suffocating as we gasped for a breath
Going crazy with the noise
Unbearably crisscrossing paths and streets
Teeming with beings and desires.

Death, grim death,
Was all over us like mushroom clouds
Inexplicably holding us down
The fierce claw of the eagle
Clutching our thumbing limbs
Beating the living hell out of a body
Relentlessly and unforgivably.

Though I knew not the word that opened up
The way, yet I sought for salvation as
The brooding, tarred sky closed down upon the earth
The galaxies ripped open and the cold stars blinked
Thus, I had a recollection
That immortal was all
That never lived and never will.


From the Collection "Midnight 30, American Poems," by A. Baruffi,  published by LiteraryJoint Press, available as e-book on Amazon Kindle, iBookstore, NOOK Book, Kobo, and Lulu.

Midnight thirty: half-hour past "Geisterstunde," as it is still called in the broody hillsides hamlets of inner, rural Pennsylvania. In the deep stillness of the night, the tongue is loose, the eye quick, the ear alert, and the mind finally conducive to grasp all that in daylight is hidden. It is only at that time that truth is said, or whispered...
"In this surprising work of modern American literature, like a shimmering, wild creek under the full moonlight, the vein of poetry taps into the inexhaustible resources and riches of the land, and runs with inspiration and wisdom..."
 

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