Livet en lördag

Mardrömsvakna. Siffror, flimrande. Dovt mullrande tvättmaskin. Formula 1 på TV. Heartbreak warfare. Intorkad mat på tallrikar. Regnmoln. Ovisshet. Valkampanj. Överraskningsblommor. Gröna tomater. Tandkrämstub. Pubfrukost. Ignorera. Tunnelseende. Bortlängtan. Bädda sängen. Rastlöshet. Klockan tickar. Historia som upprepar sej. 30-tals-poesi. The clever hopes expire. Ändå, naiv hoppfulhet. We must love one another or die.

I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire 
Of a low dishonest decade: 
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright 
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

(...)

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire  
To make this fort assume 
The furniture of home; 
Lest we should see where we are, 
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
(...)

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority 
Whose buildings grope the sky: 
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.  

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere, 
Ironic points of light 
Flash out wherever the 
Just Exchange their messages: 
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Ett urval av verser från dikten 'September 1, 1939' av W. H. Auden (kursiveringar mina)