LONELY NIGHTS

Against the old oak I cling my cheek

to hear a lost voice inside;

The voice of a lost friend,

the voice of my lost father and mother,

the voice of lost love.

And in this lonely night the voices

inside the old oak are quiet and inaudible,

as if dying along with my spirit.

The night has turned its beautiful lonely face to the sky,

and I,

I call out my own name in this lonely night.

which became perfectly strange to me –

with some desperate hope

that I shall hear the echo of my own spirit.

Wise people say that each spirit is made of memories,

and my memories are dead;

dead like those lost voices inside the old oak,

which, like vampire claws,

raises its old, barren branches towards a black crow,

to steel its voice and to call out into this silent, lonely night,

like the voice of many friends of men,

that someone’s tear sometime dies before it’s born.

Inside me, there is still hope

that someone shall hear my name,

and that it won’t sound as strange

as it does to me.

Slowly and ghastly I tread the shadows

like a sinner treads the skulls in hell,

and I call out with a solitary cry

into this lonely night,

to chase away death, if I can’t chase away solitude.

But what is life worth without voices,

not the ones you can buy,

but voices of conscience,

which are born and eternally live along with human souls.

Against the old oak I cling my cheek,

and I listen in to a thousand souls,

Now I know,

yes, Lord, now I know that someone will call my name as well,

because when you hear the voices of souls

of dear people you’ve lost,

you have the power

to bear memories of yourself in someone else.

THE OLD MAN AND THE BUTTERFLY

How many wishes and hopes pass through a man’s mind?

This is what I am thinking about while looking

into the sad face of an old man

who is motionlessly starring into the distance,

as if down there,

in the blue eye of the dreamy sea

he shall find all the answers.

And while the turquoise hands of the moon drive the shadows

into the old man’s embrace,

a turquoise butterfly merrily flaps its wings

and radiates rays of light

along the dark ridges of this warm summer night

above his trembling tired head.

Perhaps this is the reason why

the old man’s sad face looks up

instead of down,

why the sparkle of life still glows

in his tired eyes.

This butterfly is very young,

but his noble parentage is very old,

and that noble parentage used to spread its turquoise light

in the times of the old man’s parents

and grandparents,

back in the time when hope was born

(and people say that hopes are younger than solitude).

It seems that the old man feels it,

and he raises his tired eyes whenever he hears

the harmonious sound of the butterfly’s turquoise wings,

and death,

like a dark lady,

respectfully waits for its turn,

as if it took pity on the old man’s boyish gaze;

How many wishes and hopes pass through a man’s mind

while he helplessly sits

and waits for death?

I wonder where his thoughts are traveling now

and which soul in heaven do they touch?

His mother’s soul?

His father’s soul?

His brother’s and sister’s souls?

Because souls are like butterflies,

crawling the earth with people,

only to eventually fly up to the sky,

perfectly free and magically bright.

All of this must be passing through the old man’s thoughts

while he looks at the turquoise butterfly

in such a childish and lively manner.

Everything on him is dead,

apart from that childish gaze,

which makes his old man’s thoughts so young

and so full of hope

that his soul might soon enough fly up

like his dear butterfly;

How many wishes and hopes pass through a man’s mind;

yes, Lord, how many wishes and hopes are passing

my old father’s mind now.

YOUR VOICE

Where did your voice disappear, man?

In the demonic fires of passion?

In golden castles of terrible greed?

In the dark gorge of vanity?

You voices wander the golden mirages,

Your tired spirit wanders the golden dusts,

Like a warning for the new age;

When the golden bell rings on Wall Street,

Your voice will be even quieter,

Caught in the silky spider web you look up

To see the reflection of your lost spirit in the heavenly dome;

When the golden bell rings on Wall Street,

You find your limbo in the blue ink!

You are seeking your resurrection in verses!

In which verse do I find your voice?

In Walt Whitman’s verse of freedom?

In Ezra Pound’s tragic verse?

In Robert Frost’s accusing verse?

Your voice is hiding in the column of abandoned shadows,

Escaping the lunatic gazes of golden masks,

In which many inebriated eyes found their home.

Whose eyes are they?

The eyes of maddened street lights?

The eyes of hungry death?

The eyes of a lost man?

The shadows march the streets of funeral processions,

The terrible voice of the golden bell chases the poor into the graves,

Golden masks steal human faces,

The eyes of conscience become blind,

Your voice is ever quieter.

Walter William Safar is the author of a number of a significant number of prose works and novels, including “Leaden Fog”, “Chastity On Sale”, “In The Flames Of Passion”, “The Price Of Life”, “Above The Clouds”, “The Infernal Circle”, “The Scream”, “The Devil’s Architect”, “Queen Elizabeth II”, as well as a book of poems.