7 Vademecum – Vadetecum*
Lured by my style and tendency,
you follow and come after me?
Follow your own self faithfully–
take time – and thus you follow me.
10 Scorn
There is much I drop and spill:
I am full of scorn, you think.
If your beaker is too full,
There is much you drop and spill
Without scorning what you drink.
14 The good man
Better a whole-hearted feud
Than a friendship that is glued.
18 Narrow souls
Narrow souls I cannot abide;
There's almost no good or evil inside.
24 Medicine for pessimists
Nothing tastes good to you, my friend?
I'm tired of your belly-aching.
You spit, rage, slander without end;
My patience and my heart are breaking.
I have a remedy; just follow
My good advice and rest assured:
A toad is what you need to swallow,
And your dyspepsia will be cured.
33 The solitary
I hate to follow and I hate to lead.
Obey? Oh no! And govern? No indeed!
Only who dreads himself inspires dread.
And only those inspiring dread can lead.
Even to lead myself is not my speed.
I love to lose myself for a good while.
Like animals in forests and the sea,
To sit and think on some solitary isle,
And lure myself back home from far away,
Seducing myself to come back to me.
43 Admonition
What you want is fame?
Then note the price:
All claim
To honour you must sacrifice.
55 Realistic painters
'True to nature, all the truth: that's art.'
This hallowed notion is a threadbare fable.
Infinite is nature's smallest part.
They paint what happens to delight their heart.
And what delights them? What to paint they're able.
57 Choosy taste
If it depended on my choice,
I think it might be great
To have a place in Paradise;
Better yet – outside the gate.
59 The pen is stubborn
The pen is stubborn, sputters – hell!
Am I condemned to scrawl?
Boldly I dip it in the well,
My writing flows, and all
I try succeeds. Of course, the spatter
Of this tormented night
Is quite illegible. No matter:
Who reads the stuff I write?
*Vademecum: a manual or guidebook; literally, 'go with me.' Vadetecum: go with yourself.
Fair warning: There is likely to be a fair bit of Nietzsche on its way.
2 comments:
Nietzsche was a great poet, but his writing needed to be tempered by an audience. If you write with an audience in mind, you gain focus. Still, enough people read him now! I wonder if he ever copy-edited anything...
I have never seen a pen which flows so freely. He is egregious.
Thanks for posting the poems.
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