GO SINK INTO THE GROUND!

By Yasen Vedrin

(The Copper Bowl)

I do not play at dice with the Deceiver.

Do not assume this choice is just a right.

Once his authoritative die gets over –

It pulls and binds so many in its might.

And afterwards – just like a stringed puppet

The captured man betrays his own poor heart.

To be a living corpse where dead men sit,

And look as if his death became his part.

I would not ask great Goethe for advice –

How Mephistopheles tempts with his art,

But it’s enough my head through sacrifice

Refused a crown of fame for thorns apart.

And not for even one single moment’s trace

Will I whisper a call in demonic chaos.

And in the claws of that old cynic’s face

I will not be the learned doctor Faust.

Why is that so? Because I’m simple-born,

And simplicity holds me in its wonder.

The absinthe of my guest, whom I now scorn,

I would not sip for any price or plunder.

He holds a contract in his fingers high,

But with no seal from Christ's own Blood divine...

“...Absorb with thrills each calculated lie!

And lick the poison from your lips like wine!

I can bestow this world to be your gain.

Become your halo and your dark enigma.

Be like a nail to me! With you in pain

To burn within the holes of God’s own stigma...”

No, devil! Your accursed and wicked die

I do not want for fate and blinded madness.

You turned the world into a flea market high,

Where filthy crowds look at your stalls with gladness.

Though you are king of rulers in this land,

In your charisma of deceit and shame –

I do not play at dice with your own hand!

Go sink into the ground, from where you came!