Featured Poem: Morning Mudslinging

Marion Leibl has chosen 'Morning Mudslinging' by Erich Fried as our featured poem for today. She writes: 'Sometimes I meet the people I see every day in my dreams as well. When in dreams I have conversations with them, or something happens that upsets me or makes me happy, I cannot help but either hold it against them or feel more warmly towards them the next time I see them. There’s always a little voice in the dark recesses of my brain that says: you know very well what happened – you can pretend now that it was nothing, but we both know better. Reading this poem, I am relieved to find that I’m not the only one with this problem.

Morning Mudslinging

When I proposed love
you declined
and explained to me:
‘I just met
a nice man
in a dream
He was blind
And a German
Isn’t that funny?’

I wished you sweet dreams
and went down
to my desk
but so jealous
I was hardly ever before

___

This poem appears in Eric Fried's Love Poems, published by Calder
Publications, £11.99
Translation (c) Stuart Hood, 1991, reprinted with permission