Pain gnaws into man,
lacerating with its claws.
It’s deposited like salt
somewhere between the vertebrae.
Shout something to the crowd?
That’s a lot of respect for cattle.
Confess to a priest?
Man doesn’t believe in God.
Confess to the wife?
A pain inscrutable for her.
Confess to the country?
That’s so immense it terrifies.
And the psychiatrist arrives
with a musketeer beard,
warmly phlegmatic,
faintly smelling of vodka.
And though you tear your hair-
he will listen for two hours
to your woes and vexations,
and all for two bills.
Afterward he goes on foot
through grimy lanes,
and under his tongue lays
a tranquilizer.
There’s a trick to attentiveness:
not the least merit in it,
and he himself longs for a fellow
psychiatrist-a friend for hire.
1978
Translated by Albert C. Todd
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
I'm a psychoanalyst and yes the tranquilliser under the tongue comforts the loss of what you gave or as Y. has it, that part of you you sold
To what end the tranquilizer under the tongue? The grimy lane remains before him, long and lonely, the fix ever so brief. And as he walks the two bills shrivel in his pocket.