Advice to a Young Poet
Don’t spend yourself in the small copper coins
of complaint and accusation.
Don’t answer those in authority, those who fancy
themselves all-powerful,
with grubby, fingered words
for which you’ll be picked up at three in the morning.
Answer with pictures that no one has ever painted,
answer with thoughts which no one has ever thought,
answer with verses which no one has ever fashioned,
answer with a language which no one has ever uttered.
Not with the sword, poet, will you sly tyranny
but with the freshness of spring and autumn’s maturity.
Beaten and blood-stained, strike your gold coins,
heavy with the destiny of your age,
heavy with your own destiny,
golden coins bearing your own likeness,
reflecting mankind’s suffering
against the background
of man’s two million years upon our planet.
Such coins
shall stay in circulation even after ten thousand years,
valid like life’s rebellious spring,
like life repeating itself, ever-youthful—
while the coins
with the theatrical, proud and imperial gestures—
the measure of pride reflecting stupidity—
will long have lain dead in the museum show-cases
under artificial light,
shunning the sun,
dead for a thousand years.
of complaint and accusation.
Don’t answer those in authority, those who fancy
themselves all-powerful,
with grubby, fingered words
for which you’ll be picked up at three in the morning.
Answer with pictures that no one has ever painted,
answer with thoughts which no one has ever thought,
answer with verses which no one has ever fashioned,
answer with a language which no one has ever uttered.
Not with the sword, poet, will you sly tyranny
but with the freshness of spring and autumn’s maturity.
Beaten and blood-stained, strike your gold coins,
heavy with the destiny of your age,
heavy with your own destiny,
golden coins bearing your own likeness,
reflecting mankind’s suffering
against the background
of man’s two million years upon our planet.
Such coins
shall stay in circulation even after ten thousand years,
valid like life’s rebellious spring,
like life repeating itself, ever-youthful—
while the coins
with the theatrical, proud and imperial gestures—
the measure of pride reflecting stupidity—
will long have lain dead in the museum show-cases
under artificial light,
shunning the sun,
dead for a thousand years.
— Ondra Lysohorsky
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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lemme hear ur thoughts :)