Poetry Monday :: Not Afraid

  Diane of On the Border and Jenny of Procrastinating Donkey are taking turns hosting Poetry Monday.
   This week Diane had said, we'll talk of Things that Scare Us now

 A repeat post from Tuesday February 17, 2015

One of my favourite poets, Halfdan Rasmussen is famous for his playful and equilibristic poems for children. But he had a serious side too; he wrote poems filled with social indignation and courage. This verse was translated into English (by Mary McGovern?);  Roger Waters used it as the first verse of his Each Small Candle:

Not the torturer will scare me

Nor the body's final fall

Nor the barrels of death's rifles

Nor the shadows on the wall

Nor the night when to the ground

The last dim star of pain, is held

But the blind indifference

Of a merciless unfeeling world.


For next Monday Jenny has given us: Your Favourite Lunch.
 

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Gentagelse fra tirsdag den 17. februar 2015

Halfdan Rasmussen er nok mest kendt for sine vidunderlige og sprogligt legende børnerim, men han var også en alvorlig digter med et stort samfundsmæssigt engagement. I dag er det på sin plads med et af hans mere alvorlige digte:

Ikke bødlen gør mig bange.

ikke hadet og torturen,

ikke dødens riffelgange 

eller skyggerne på muren.

Ikke nætterne, når smertens sidste stjerne styrter ned,

men den nådesløse verdens blinde ligegyldighed.

 - Halfdan Rasmussen (1915-2002)