Metafiziko

Timothy B. Carr

GLOSOJ

MILTONO — fama angla poeto (1608-1671), aŭtoro de la “Perdita Paradizo”.

PANDEMONIO — loĝejo de ĉiuj diabloj; (f) loko de senbrida furiozo kaj tumulto.

TEKNOKRATO — iu el la teknikaj spertuloj, al kiu oni komisias, oficiale aŭ ne, la solvon de ekonomikaj problemoj, kaj kiuj ofte ignoras la humanajn flankojn de la problemoj. P.I.V. 1987.

FONTO: Carr, Timothy Brian. “Metafiziko,” La Kancerkliniko, n-ro 58, aprilo-junio 1991, p. 28.

The Esperanto text in Gubbins and on this site is the original version. The last line of Auld’s translation of ‘Jam falsis universon teologoj!’ reads literally as ‘Theologians have falsified the universe!’. ‘Falsified’ can be read as ‘counterfeited’, ‘forged’, ‘misrepresented’, or ‘deceptively manipulated’. Following this poem is Carr’s poem “Subite,” followed by Baldur Ragnarsson’s “La celo sen difino.” —RD

Paul Gubbins notes:

The raw despair of the doom-mongers gives way in “Metafiziko” (“Metaphysics”) to gentle regret, garbed in lightly sardonic humour, and to a yearning for quieter times. Characteristic of the poet’s work is the ease with which he moves between the ages, from harps and sulphuric ponds to supermarkets and “plenty’s yuppy posers”.

“Metafiziko” was published […] in 1991 in La Brita Esperantisto (The British Esperantist) in the November/December edition of that year. It appeared, slightly amended, in the collection Sur Parnaso (On Parnassus) in 1998.

Metaphysics
(1991)

By Timothy Brian Carr
Translated by William Auld

If people now should read the agents’ brochures
for residences in the Great Beyond,
would they be rushing, plenty’s yuppy posers,
to order harps or a sulphuric pond?

No doubt they’d spite the terrors wild and stark
if Hell had supermarket and boutique;
and everywhere in Heaven they’d stamp their mark
with summer cottages bijou and chic.

Oh lucky Dante, Milton, brothers wise,
sheer fantasy was all your narrative;
but I in Pandemonium have to LIVE,

the perfect technocratic paradise.
No wonder that so many lies are heard!
Theology the universe has marred!

SOURCE: Carr, Timothy Brian. “Metaphysics,” translated by William Auld, in Star in a Night Sky: An Anthology of Esperanto Literature, edited by Paul Gubbins (London: Francis Boutle Publishers, 2012), pp. 247-248. (Lesser Used Languages of Europe; Volume 5)