Crazy

Crazy

Oh yes, friend! I'm crazy- that's just the way I am.

I see sounds,
I hear sights,
I taste smells,
I touch not heaven but things from the underworld,
things people do not believe exist,
whose shapes the world does not suspect. (...)

- oh yes, friend! I'm crazy- that's just the way I am.

You're clever, quick with words,
your exact equations are right forever and ever.
But in my arithmetic, take one from one-
and there's still one left.
You get along with five senses,
I with a sixth.
You have a brain, friend,
I have a heart.

(...)
Your world is solid, mine vapor,
yours coarse, mine subtle.
You think a stone reality;
harsh cruelty is real for you.
I try to catch a dream,
the way you grasp the rounded truth of cold, sweet coin.
You think the hills are mute
- I call them eloquent.
Oh yes, friend! I'm free in my inebriation
- that's just the way I am.

Look at the withered tongues of shameless leaders,
The dance of the whores
At breaking the backbone on the people's rights.

(...)When I see the tiger daring to eat the deer, friend,
or the big fish the little,
then my teeth grind together, all thirty-two,
top and bottom jaws.
And then,
red with rage my eyeballs rool
round and round, with one sweep
like a lashing flame
taking in this inhuman human world.
My organs leap out of theirs frames
my breathing becomes a storm,
my face distorted,
my brain on fire, friend!

Oh yes, friend,
my brain is whirling, whirling- that's just the way I am.


Laxmi Prasad (adaptado)