De Profundis
My earliest strait-jacket was the womb
and though today I am seemingly free
the Universe is still an oversize
division of a mental ward to me
I banged there on the walls but all in vain
I cried out of the depths altough the Lord
is just a chronic gasping of the soul –
that's all there is: this gasping and the ward
I tap-tap but the Morse reply is faint
I try to understand it but I fail
is it a man or angel or an inmate
perhaps a secret warder in this jail
who stuffed these rags of daytime in my mouth
who stops me thundering that nothingness
is all that has remained and that even this:
this nothing is becoming less and less
Translated by Peter Zollman
From 'Selected Poems' by István Baka