Odd Odyssey

Fork in the Road

By: Charles Giuliano - Apr 28, 2017

Odyssey

What’s to be done
Hard to say
We wake and work
Day by day
Mostly for others
Perhaps drudgery
The lucky ones
Artists and thinkers
Joy of self
Exquisite indulgence
Arguably the hardest
So difficult to define
Limitless imagination
Unchartered terrain
Vast oceans
Dense forests
Endless possibilities
Trudging on
One foot after another
Into that abyss
Ever deeper
Path leading on
No end in sight
Fork in the road
Taking it
An Odyssey
Journey home
From our war
Ending all wars
Youthful adventures
Romantic follies
Friends and enemies
Battered warriors
The fallen strewn
Dimly remembered
Now stumbled steps
No Virgil to guide us
Shades slipping past
Just before dawn
Long slanted shadows
First bright light
Sanguine horizon
Of another day
Staggering on and on

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Reader Comments

"I think a looser translation, a more figurative rendering, would help and improvise this. As translated, however accurately, it coveys to me Holderlin’s extreme German Romanticism. The over- the- top-ness and melodrama reads like a Thomas Bernhard rant. The latter, however, is a genius of parody. vitriol, and very funny. I guess I object not to the translation, but to the forceful assertion and extremity of the original."

Posted By: Stephen Rifkin on 05-01-2017, 03:29 pm
"Just to straighten out, a little, the quote from Holderlin by The Romatic One in the comments box re. Odyssey. The poem is not An Die Parzen, It is Hyperions Schicksalslied, Hyperion's Song of Fate. The last stanza is as follows: But we are fated never to rest in any one place; suffering human beings dwindle and fall headlong from one hour top the next, hurled like water from cliff to cliff down through the years into obscurity. (I would not mind using 'eternity' but it's a bit of a stretch, though I think still in the area, for CG & FH both."

Posted By: Jonas Dovydenas on 05-01-2017, 10:49 am
"So difficult to define Terrain Oceans Forests One foot after another That abyss Ever deeper No end in sight An odyssey without home Or home unremembered Shades slipping past Endless possibilities Just before dawn Long slanted shadows First bright light Sanguine horizon Another day arguably the hardest Staggering on and on Ever deeper Artists and thinkers No Virgil to guide us."

Posted By: Stephen Rifkin on 04-28-2017, 02:45 pm
""But is our fate never to rest in any one place; suffering human beings are hurled like water from rock to rock, down through the years into eternity." Friedrich Holderlin, An die Partzen. Knowing what fate has in store for us is not the same as the hopelessness in your lines. Sign of our times. Not good. But a good poem."

Posted By: The Romantic One on 04-28-2017, 10:39 am
"In so many ways this poem is about being a creative person and connecting with other living persons. Old Bob Frost lurks here, as does the blind bard of antiquity. Some like lucky Dante have a guide like Virgil--as implied in this poem--and others have luck and yet others have less luck. Creators makes things not for therapy, or agit-prop, or dime store psychology, but to try and generate meaning for others, for as many others as possible––as is the case with this poem."

Posted By: RAFAEL SINCLAIR MAHDAVI on 04-28-2017, 09:54 am