To the Devout Believer
My Lord
In desolation
Even though I face great tribulation
I remember You fully, completely
Your searing holy light
Now just a candle’s flicker in darkness silent
My Lord
I have lost form
Am shattered
My Lord
I journey in a foreign country
My Lord
At Your door I knock
I can not turn away
13/11-1943.
Pantja Raja, p. 17.
Featured image: “Landmijnen van Engels fabrikaat, door onze troepen in Lahat gevonden.”
I
Is this journey far?
Just the twinkle of an eye! – How could it be any longer!
Then what?
Of the falling leaves, you ask for yourself,
And of the soft sound which becomes a melody!
Does it remain only as a memento?
Look at the woman no longer gazing upward
Nor wistful, the stars have vanished!
So how long is this journey?
Could be a century… oh, just the blink of an eye!
A journey for what?
Ask my childhood home which is mute!
My ancestors frozen there!
Is someone touching me to follow?
Is someone lost?
Ah, answer for yourself! – I am still
Homeless and forlorn………
II
By Chairil Anwar
Just as my mother and my grandmother too
And as seven generations before
I too ask to be allowed into heaven
which say Masyumi and Muhammadiyah flows with rivers of milk
and is full of beautiful maidens
But there’s a voice inside me weighing this up,
which dares to scoff: Can heaven really be
barren of the waters of the blue oceans,
of the soft touch of every harbor how come?
And also who can say for sure
there definitely awaits beautiful maidens
sounds like they have trouble swallowing like Nina, have Jati’s wry glance?
Malang, 28/2-’47
Published in Pantja Raja, p. 338.
Photo: From the Dutch National Archives’ Elsevier Photo Collection this image by an unknown Dutch National News Agency (ANP) photographer is described as “The provisional [Indonesian] Republican Parliament (Komite National Indonesia Pusat or KNIP) met in Malang from 25 February to 5 March 1947. Prime Minister Sutan Sjahrir is seen here outlining government policy.” 25 February 1947.
Source: Dutch National Archives
Photo: Indian troops with four armed Indonesians captured at Bekassi before the village was burnt as a reprisal for the murder of five members of the Royal Air Force and twenty Maharatta riflemen whose Dakota transport aircraft crash landed near the village.
By Chairil Anwar, 1947
Just as my mother and my grandmother too
And as seven generations before
I too ask to be allowed into heaven
which say Masyumi and Muhammadiyah flows with rivers of milk
and is full of beautiful maidens
But there’s a voice inside me weighing this up,
which dares to scoff: Can heaven really be
barren of the waters of the blue oceans,
of the soft touch of every harbor how come?
And also who can say for sure
there definitely awaits beautiful maidens
sounds like they have trouble swallowing like Nina, have Jati’s wry glance?
Malang, 28/2-’47
Masyumi was a post-World War II Islamic political party.
Muhammadiyah, founded in 1912, continues to be a major Islamic non-government organization.
Photo: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205208464
Between happiness now and in the future yawns a great canyon,
My little sis, lapping up an arctic ice dessert;
This afternoon you were my love, I decorated you with eclair and Coca-Cola,
My wife in training: we made the clock tick stop.
You’re really good at kissing, there’s a cut I can still feel
– When we rode our bicycles I took you home –
You’re blood’s so hot, how fast you became woman
Visions vivid flying high into the sky
Every day you meet your choice, every time changing;
Tomorrow we’ll pass in the street and we’ll totally blank each other;
Just playing for a moment is heaven.
I am like you too, everything passes away quickly
Me and Tuti and Greet and Chinese Honey…… souls abandoned,
Love’s a joy that fades so quickly.
Arctic Tuti (Tuti Artic), Pantja Raja, No. 1 Vol. 2, 15 Nov 1946, p. 482.
Featured Image: Tjikini moskee aan de Raden Saleh te Jakarta, Indonesië (1947) Fotograaf: Cas Oorthuys Vervaardigingsjaar 1 januari 1947 tot 28 februari 1947 http://resolver.kb.nl/resolve?urn=urn:gvn:NFA02:cas-10031-11
I wonder: Is it this moon that makes
the cold,
makes the houses pallid and freezes the forest?
This is the first time I’ve been so completely able to respond
to the desire:
Hey, there’s a little kid playing tips
with her shadow!
Pantja Raja, No. 1 Vol. 2, 15 Nov 1946, p. 482.
