2  To
release the grip from that appearance
which has been given a name for the
world; which built its consciousness
through ambition in society and a
restrained will to form.
To let loose, in order to fall, falling
— trusting in blind devotion.
Towards something else, someone else.
Directed by what will continue to live,
once we do not live any longer as someone
„interested“ or as someone
„knowing-it-all“.
Being all ears and being able to see in
us what remains in darkness.
And being silent …
 Through
which tunnel did you enter, Dag? You, the
Christian Mystic — You, the
Philosopher of Far Eastern fashion —
You, the Pantheist of nature-based
religious faith! Can you show us, at all,
a ticket? And, do you have the fifty
bucks for a visa at the border? You want
to earn it by reading from your last
will?
Now, that is what we call a jolly good
idea! Take a seat …
Hey! Anybody interested to listen to
poems by someone so much disheartened, by
someone so tired of life? By someone, who
got grinded by Africa‘s quicksand!
2
To
wait where they shall take me
naked, at the target spot
nailed down by first arrows.
Once more, the bowstring strained
Whizzing of arrows.
Is it over?
Did they play?
Did the hand tremble?
Or, was it the wind?
What do I fear?
once they hit
and kill.
What will be left to deplore?
Others preceded.
Others will follow.
No,
Dag, you never have been so much
disheartened, so tired of life — you
have earned yourself a seat, long time
ago! Take your time, tell us from your
Congo-days … tell us about …
2
…
the Evil, crawling, sneaking, gnawing and
depressing, trying to long for you like
quicksand. It has the sweet smell of
decay, decline and feigned love, it is
demanding fellow feeling and sympathy,
and it calls for help once it is unable
to drag others into its morass …
Some fifty years ago, he dotted this
down, the old Swede?
This suit is fitting him nicely, finest,
dark-blue fabric, time-less style! Would
have been a pearl in my portfolio,
first-class-reference for my African
diplomat-clientele!
Although …
Those are not dependent anymore on
services provided by travelling tailors
from China. It was a different situation,
back in the Sixties and in the Seventies
of last century. We used to tailor the
one or the other three-piece-suit for the
emerging Black Class, and …
guerrilla-trainers, doctors,
railway-engineers — all of them came
as travelling tailors, tailoring
everything for everybody — out of
that RED FABRIC!
That was the time, when the wind, blowing
from China, would still be felt as a
lively odour, like released from
„Puff — The Magic Dragon”.
The friendly dragon has changed into a
tiger. My Mr. Moon is not attracted
anymore by „international
solidarity“, even less by
„South-South-cooperation“, as
promoted by some swaying African regimes.
He let loose the tiger to devour what, in
the past, only predaceous animals from
U.S.A. and Europe used to hunt for prey.
… Ah, the white chief had not
finished his text.
2
…
for this kind of Evil, there is no help
and no remedy.
Isn‘t he sweet? But shy!
Have a look at his hands, how he is
moving them, I‘d say, rather neutral
in a sexual sense … believe me,
girls, this one can‘t be approached!
2
Thus,
the firmament is resting on the earth.
The calmness of the wood‘s lake does
reveal itself as womb of forest.
And, like the man is covering her womb
with his outlasting tenderness
Is the nakedness of the earth and of the
trees wrapped by early morning‘s
serene, solid light.
I, myself, do feel a burning, which is a
longing for a union, for spreading out,
for participating in such encounter.
A burning, which is at one with worldly
love — but directed towards earth
and water, and firmament, and from the
tree‘s rustling, from the
earth‘s fragrance, from the
wind‘s cajole, and from the
embracing by air and by water does come
an answer.
Contented? No, no, no — but cooled,
rested — waiting.
We try
to imagine your face, Dag, during endless
debates in pale neon-light of this
glass-palace at the East River, as
principal of this black-white-yellow
union of peoples, engaged in talks with
political fire-heads, with Nasser, Ben
Gurion, with Lumumba — listening
quietly — expectantly —
weighing — arguing politically, but
at your very heart, carrying with you the
nightly silence of North-Swedish
mountain-ranges ...
2
…
the ancient composure of the earth, much
more real than the restlessness of man
…
The
ones who do mistake „Lumumba”
for a cocktail of hot chocolate with
brandy would not listen to your last
will, anyway, Dag! To those, all of this
would be too queer …
This train, my dear, is rolling towards
that location where they had set up the
target spot for you, on 18th of
September, 1961 — degree of
latitude: 12° 58’ South, degree of
longitude: 28° 31’ East — in
the bush, some ten kilometres from Ndola,
just a bit northerly from Kapiri Mposhi,
where our journey is supposed to wind-up
…at Zambia‘s copper-belt …
What dream could have dawned there, three
years later, Dag!
1964, when Zambia became independent, she
was one of the most wealthy states of
Africa — thanks to her copper-mines.
However, your Congo sent, with
compliments, a reminder — Katanga!
As you, of course, will know …
TREASURES OF AFRICAN SOIL
ARE NO TREASURES OF AFRICAN PEOPLE
Sponsored
wars among neighbours — in Angola,
in Mozambique — prevented transport
to the coast in the West or to the coast
in the East. And those ports in the
South? Your own club rendered them
worthless: U.N.-sanctions against
apartheid-regimes in South Africa and in
Rhodesia!
And there is that other coordination of
your professional life — a bit more
precise, even to the second, thanks to
GOOGLE … no idea, what this is? Did
not exist during your lifetime, Dag.
Nevertheless, we got it on the monitor:
Degree of latitude: 40°42’42”
North, degree of longitude:
74°0’45” West ... a property,
which, in 1946, was known in New York as
„X-City”, located at the
Eastern border of Manhattan, promising a
certain profit ...
„I donated it!”
„Who are you?”
„John D. Rockefeller Jr. — I am
delighted, Mr. Hammarskjöld!”
„Did you take the same tunnel?”
„There is a special saloon-car for
V.I.P.s … the transfer from there is
a bit more comfortable!”
… In addition, perhaps, the beer
might still be cool there! …
We
would like to introduce you to each
other: Hammarskjöld — Rockefeller
...
… the first one born in 1905, the
other one in 1874 — the first
one‘s life taken by force — as
a victim of cartels, the other one,
having passed away quite peacefully, one
year earlier — as an icon of such
cartels … and, with rather
sustainable assets:
$ Rockefeller-Bank
$ Rockefeller-Foundation
$ Rockefeller-University
$ et cetera ... et cetera ...
„Please, don‘t forget the
Rockefeller-Forest in the Humboldt
Redwoods State Park —
apart from so many other stretches of
land, donated by me, and turned into one
or the other National Park of my United
States of America ... You see, back then,
I used to have already what you call a
‚green finger’.”
„How I would have loved it to walk
with you, sir! … Grand Teton,
Acadia, Great Smoky Mountains, Yosemite,
Shenandoah ... Perhaps, even together
with you? Did you ever try it yourself?
... Ah, if you would have wandered with
me, then, in Lapland … perhaps, I
may not have listened to this hymn
...”
2
The
Eastern autumn-wind of Lapland,
rain-loaded and mild, is rolling
down the dried-out riverbed.
Along its bank, yellowing birches are
rattling in the storm.
The first measures of the grand hymn of
destruction.
Not a hymn for destruction or out of
destruction.
Not a hymn in spite of destruction.
But, the destruction which is the hymn.
„Well, you see, walking has never
been one of the talents, which my father
dropped into my cradle … I mean, as
someone who, at the dawn of the age of
industrialisation, would supply its
lubricant … instead of wandering
around, you would be eager to drive a car
in my United States of America …
That‘s why I donated the ‚John
D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial
Parkway’, linking the Yellowstone
National Park with the Grant Teton
National Park.”
Excuse
us — at the time, when your father
discovered the advantages of oil-business
in Pennsylvania, in the Seventies and
Eighties of the last but one century,
there was no highway, there was no
filling-station … no car was
produced in series.
„My father brought the light to the
world!
 When I was born,
an American traveller observed in the
antique settlements of Nineveh and
Babylon how kerosene was burnt in
flickering lanterns — produced by
father‘s Standard Oil ...”
Nineveh
and Babylon! — Well, Old Swede, does
anything ring within your stock of
humanistic education?
„Mesopotamia — oldest
illustration of a wheel, shown on a
relief at Ur … Nineveh —
located at the left bank of the river
Tigris, capital of the Assyrian Empire,
destroyed in 612, B.C., by Babylonians
and Meder.
Babylon — along the old course of
the river Euphrates, its city-god, called
Marduk, being worshipped throughout the
Middle East … Nebuchadnezzar …
the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews
… Belshazzar and the writing on the
wall, the menetekel …”
It‘s
familiar to you, Mr. Rockefeller,
isn‘t it?
„Book Daniel, Chapter Five! You
know, our family-bible has been to me an
early source of wisdom.”
„I love the story most as written
down by the German poet Heinrich Heine,
in his famous ballad … if everyone
would agree? …
A poem
not penned down by you? … With
pleasure, Dag!
Towards midnight now the
hours moved on,
In silent sleep lay
Babylon.
Only up in the castle
there
The vassals shout, the
torches flare.
Up in the hall of the
mighty King,
Belshazzar's feast was in
full swing.
His armoured men sat
glittering round,
Goblet on goblet of wine
they downed.
The goblets' clinking,
the liegemen's cheer,
Are what the dour king
likes to hear.
His face is flushed, his
cheeks aglow,
The wine it makes his
courage grow.
Blindly he's drawn beyond
all bounds,
Till a sinful challenge
to God resounds.
He boasts and blasphemes
against the Lord,
To the roaring cheers of
his servile horde.
The King commands with an
eye that burns,
A servant hastens and
returns.
With golden vessels his
back is piled;
Jehovah's temple has been
defiled.
And the King he seizes
with hand of sin
A sacred vessel filled to
the brim.
And he drains it hastily,
drains it dry,
And with foaming mouth
they hear him cry:
'Jehovah, your power is
past and gone --
I am the King of
Babylon.'
But scarce the awful word
was said,
The King was stricken
with secret dread.
The raucous laughter
silent falls,
It is suddenly still in
the echoing halls.
And see! as if on the
wall's white space
A human hand began to
trace.
Writing and writing
across the stone
Letters of fire, wrote,
and was gone.
The King sat still, with
staring gaze,
His knees were water,
ashen his face.
Fear chilled the vassals
to the bone,
Fixed they sat and gave
no tone.
Wise men came, but none
was equipped
To read the sense of the
fiery script.
Before the sun could rise
again,
Belshazzar by his men was
slain.
Translation
by Jim Reed.
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„Your Heine seems to
have omitted the jest of it …
strange for a Jew … ump … he
was one, wasn‘t he?”
„You know it from your bible; the
menetekel had been read, indeed, by a Jew
…
For those who may not be that familiar
with the scripture:
Daniel was a Jewish
prophet, abducted from
Jerusalem. Since he had read dreams of
the king earlier on, he was much trusted.
Belshazzar called for Daniel, so that he
would interpret the signs on the wall.
When Daniel arrived, he recognized the
script as words from the Aramaic
language, and he read:
... Mene, mene tekel u-parsin.
He translated: ‚Counted, weighed and
divided.’
Then, he interpreted those words, written
on the wall by the God of the Jews:
‚Mene — that means
counted, and that is because the days of
your rule are counted, God will terminate
them. Tekel means weighed, God
found you too light in substance, you
cannot endure in front of him. U-parsin
means divided, that is divided between
the Meder and the Persians. Your kingdom
will become divided up.’”
The
writing on the wall, Dag — Heine
wrote a ballad, Rembrandt painted it,
Händel, Schumann, Rossini set it in
notes, Mr. Rockefeller did read it in his
family‘s bible … almost
everyone seems to know this story from
ancient Babylon … but, what does it
mean to a geo-strategist of more recent
thinking?
We guess, up there, you may have access
to a radio or something similar? In
addition, we would like to think, this
might be a bit more cunning than ours,
down here!
You know, down here, they want to make us
believe to broadcast everything WHAT
MOVES THE WORLD! Don‘t you, up
there, get to know rather WHO MOVES THE
WORLD?
„Nineveh and Babylon? — Ruins
in the land between two great rivers,
known to me, at my time, already as Iraq,
and — if I would not have been
caught up in Congo, 1961 — may be,
it would have happened the same year at
the Persian Gulf. It was then when an
Iraqi Revolutionary Council already
claimed to own Kuwait ...”
On the
target! Wouldn‘t this have been
ruins already, Mr. Rockefeller, your
United States of America would not have
had any trouble to turn them into rubble
… by the way, WITHOUT the blessing
of the recent successor in your office,
Dag. We want to make this very clear
… However; he was not that obstinate
as you have been during the Congo-affair.
He survived as a V.I.P.-pensioner …
CONTROL! … Hello! … ACTION!
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