They say about me: He is of course no genius,- Yes, agreed - not many are proud of our century, - Integral and even other calculations I don’t understand - I don’t have that intellect. Once I said: "The ocean is like a basin", - And my friend not once approached me for that - But yet even the famous physicist Einstein, Understood everything, like I, relatively. I wrote a poem about padded clothing, - And similar! .. Without flattery I want to say the following: Once my late neighbour in the ward Got up, crept to me in the night and began to sob loudly. I write about everything: About animals, objects, And I wanted about people, secretly about the love of women, - But in the editor’s office they looked thus, I beg pardon, Muse, I abandoned you! They say that I am boring - yes I haven’t been to Nice, - Yes, in poems I spoke about water and steam... Alas, what a pity my mate perished in the hospital of periodic dipsomania He would’ve remembered, how I impressed him once! And now I woke up from a longlasting somnolence, From nights with nightmares - (and) now I breathe again, - I recovered my senses from delirium tremens - In anticipation of what I shall write next again.
© Elisabeth Jelinek. Translation, 2018