ANWAR, Chairil

No, Woman!

No, woman! What lives in me

still easily evades your fevered and dark embrace,

intent on finding the greenness of another sea,

to be again on the ship where we first met,

surrendering the rudder to the wind,

our eyes fixed on waiting stars.

Something flapping its wings, again conveys

Tai Po and the secret of the Ambonese Sea.

Such is woman! A single vague line

is all I can write

in my flight towards her enigmatic smile.

Announcement

To dictate is not my intent,

Fate is separate loneliness-es.

I choose you from among the rest, but

in a moment we are snared by loneliness once more.

There was a time I truly wanted you,

to be as children in crowning darkness,

and we kissed and fondled, not tiring.

I did not want to ever let you go.

Do not unite your life with mine,

for I cannot be with anyone for very long

I write now on a ship, in some nameless sea.

Pines in the Distance

Pines scatter in the distance,

as day becomes night,

branches slap weakly at the window,

pushed by a sultry wind.

I’m now a person who can survive,

so long ago I left childhood behind,

though once there was something,

that now counts for nothing at all.

Life is but postponement of defeat,

a growing estrangement from youth’s unfettered love

a knowing there’s always something left unsaid,

before we finally acquiesce.

Diponegoro

In this time of building

you live again

And the embers of admiration are kindling

Far in front you wait

earless. The enemy are a hundredfold.

A sword in your right hand) a dagger in your

left

Girt with a spirit that cannot die.

FORWARD

This column has neither drums nor clubs

Faith is the signal for attack.

To him meaningful once

And then die.

FORWARD

For you the Country

Prepares a fire.

Rather destruction than slavery

Rather annihilation than oppression

Although (it is) achieved only in death

In life (one) must experience (it).

Forward.

Charge.

Attack.

Crush