Germany
This mammoth monster of dynamics and complexity
is inexpressible and undefinable as anything specific,
being so exaggerated to extremes in all directions,
in philosophy to reach the ends and bottoms of insanity,
in music unsurmountable, supreme and more than glorious,
in architecture utterly fantastic, when you think of all the castles,
like Neuschwanstein, and the fairy tales of cruel romanticism,
the overstrained excesses of the brothers Grimm and Hoffmann,
the extreme idealism of Schiller and the perfect harmony of Goethe,
best in almost every field but also worst in some –
let's speak more silently of Wagner, Nietzsche, Marx and Hitler,
as if Germany just had to go too far in everything
in order to maintain and manifest herself,
regardless of the consequences.
I prefer to stay away from her, admire her
incredible accomplishments of beauty and romanticism
but never come too close, in order not to risk get burned
by that so unpredictable volcanic flame of genius
that, when it went wrong, just nearly ruined all the world.
Poetry by Christian Lanciai
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Written on 2007-09-15 at 11:54
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Christian Lanciai |
