WITHOUT HOPE

I never meant to call for hunger,

but it calls for me,

endlessly faithfull and accursedly hones,

it leads me,

like any given day,

into the soup kitchen of the darkest street in the world.

Everything around me is so unreal,

the smiling faces of those who pass by,

the full restaurants spreading the scent of food,

and the rustle of money bills, so unknown to me.

To many people, this is the brightest street in the world,

but it is so painfully cold and dark ti me.

I feel like a wingless fly in the silky home

of the biggest spider of the world when I walk it.

Outside, the sun is gildening the leaden faces of those who pass by,

those who headlessly chase after their own bright dreams,

and it is so dark inside,

yes, Lord, how could a soup kitchen be bright,

when its most frequent visitor is poverty.

The breath of hopelessness spreads around me,

and of horrible apathy,

as if I entered a coffin

that even death does not want to enter,

but I am not afraid that their hopelessness might kill my hope,

because it died long ago.

It's all the same in this coffin of human hopes,

the same poverty, the same food, the same nuns,

the same thick opaque glass

that keeps gazes from mixing,

there's only less homeless people,

because the long cold nights do not forgive poverty,

and while I drag my heavy leaden legs

towards the altar of my shame,

I can hear an unusually lively young voice,

a straying child singing a lullaby to its teddy bear.

Oh, Lord, can poverty be so hungry

as to even take away dignity from such a young being?

I am looking into these big, bright turquoise eyes of a child,

so dignifiedly spreading hope around him.

Nothing about him or within him

reveals that he is a victim of recession,

that he has lost his father and mother early.

Even though a big pearly tear

slid into his empty plate, spreading the echo of endless pain,

he is still patiently waiting for his piece of bread

hard as flintstone.

I am hiding from his gaze,

fearing that my apathy and hopelessness

might kill his hope.

You know, Lord, that I would give everything

to help this dear little being,

but how can a hopeless man help him?

If my help is the escape

and the hiding of my own inability and hopelessness,

I agree to remain hungry,

because there is no desire left in me to fight dilemmas,

because I have long since been without hope,

and so it is time for me to return

to my little home without light and hope,

into my little cardboard home

at the bottom of the old 134th street cemetery.

©Walter William Safar

SILVER STAR

I have long since lost Hope,

because my paths are so endlessly long and aimless,

as if sculpted out of my restless spirit

in the long nights of reverie.

You know, Lord... I used to have my Hope.

It was so nice to stand next to the Christmas tree

with my mother,

and look at its proud top,

where our silver star shone,

my favorite Hope.

To me, a child who never decorated his own tree,

it was the biggest Christmas tree in the world,

and the brightest star beyond the heavenly dome.

Each night before Christmas we would return to the same place

with the same desire and faith,

until our terrible companions, the long, cold nights

have invoked death

and stolen my mother.

I am motionlessly standing and staring into this dark, cold night,

like an avenger yearning for revenge,

and a thin woman in rags is passing me by,

whispering warm words into a child's frozen ear.

The child is looking up with the same gaze

like I did when my mother used to show me the silver star,

whispering into my frozen ear

that someday I shall touch that silver star too,

silvering all the orphanages of this dark world.

Her warm words are still crossing my mind:

„Son, always stand on your toes and look up...

and you shall touch your star!“

My eyes have long since stopped sparkling

and they don't look up.

They used to be the big, bright eyes of a child,

that shone in the dark,

like two young embers that were just set afire,

but now... oh, now my eyes are but burnt out embers

in the squeezing fist of the cold world.

You know, Lord, how much I wanted to stand on my toes

and look up,

but life always threw me back to my knees.

I admit that I haven't been standing on my toes for a long time,

but I am not kneeling, either,

I am only looking down

into the dark reflections of people's characters,

and my Hope is once again so far away,

as if it's afraid of my faithful squire,

which is standing at the bottom of the silky net,

not like a flym

but like a master of many a fly big and small,

because Death has that justified purpose

to come for its flies regardless of their size.

I am not looking at death like a fugitive,

but a penitent man,

who wants just another chance.

How strange it is, Lord,

that even a man abandoned by Hope wants his chance.

Yes, Lord, I admit

that I would like to stand on my toes once more,

below the biggest Christmas tree in the world,

and touch our silver star.

 ©Walter William Safar