Thursday, May 31, 2012

`In a Small Dirty Hotel'

“if art for its subject
will have a broken jar
a small broken soul
with a great self-pity

“what will remain after us
 will it be lovers' weeping
 in a small dirty hotel
 when wall-paper dawns”

[final lines from Zbigniew Herbert’s “Why the Classics,” Selected Poems, 1977, translated by Peter Dale Scott and Czeslaw Milosz]  

1 comment:

WAS said...

I assume Herbert's referring here to the fin de siecle alienation of Eliot, et al.

An interesting thought that inspired this poem:

The Lure of Modernity