tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45182589953311655162024-03-24T17:44:11.426+00:00Inspirational Others“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” Andre GideBeatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-91807153460405742632021-02-18T10:53:00.000+00:002021-02-18T10:53:19.163+00:00I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You<p> Sonnet LXV1 <a class="nocolor fn" href="https://allpoetry.com/Sonnet-LXVI:-I-Do-Not-Love-You-Except-Because-I-Love-You" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #8d3800; font-family: Georgia, Palatino, serif; font-size: 23px; text-decoration-line: none;"> </a>Pablo Neruda</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">I do not love you except because I love you;</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">I go from loving to not loving you,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">From waiting to not waiting for you</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">My heart moves from cold to fire.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">I love you only because it's you the one I love;</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">I hate you deeply, and hating you</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Maybe January light will consume</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">My heart with its cruel</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Ray, stealing my key to true calm.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">In this part of the story I am the one who</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #141823; font-family: Roboto, "Droid Sans", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /></p>Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-79049606196655801152013-07-04T17:05:00.002+01:002013-07-04T17:05:33.654+01:00In Blackwater Woods <i><span style="font-size: x-small;">by Mary Oliver</span></i><br />
<br />
Look, the trees<br />
are turning<br />
their own bodies<br />
into pillars<br />
<br />
of light,<br />
are giving off the rich<br />
fragrance of cinnamon<br />
and fulfillment,<br />
<br />
the long tapers<br />
of cattails<br />
are bursting and floating away over<br />
the blue shoulders<br />
<br />
of the ponds,<br />
and every pond,<br />
no matter what its<br />
name is, is<br />
<br />
nameless now.<br />
Every year<br />
everything<br />
I have ever learned<br />
<br />
in my lifetime<br />
leads back to this: the fires<br />
and the black river of loss<br />
whose other side<br />
<br />
is salvation,<br />
whose meaning<br />
none of us will ever know.<br />
To live in this world<br />
<br />
you must be able<br />
to do three things:<br />
to love what is mortal;<br />
to hold it<br />
<br />
against your bones knowing<br />
your own life depends on it;<br />
and, when the time comes to let it go,<br />
to let it go.Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-1965822273566586622012-11-20T10:14:00.000+00:002012-11-20T10:14:54.734+00:00Sonnet of the Garland of Roses<i style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Federico Garcia Lorca</i><br />
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
A garland, quick, a wreath: I come and die.<br />
Braid flowers as they fade. Sing, cry, and sing!<br />
Heart in my throat, a storm swelling a gorge<br />
shadowed and silvered by a thousand falls.<br />
Between your own desire and my desire<br />
the space is starry, each step quakes the ground,<br />
and forests of anemones will spring<br />
to round the year, making their secret sound.<br />
Lovers in my wound's landscape, overjoyed,<br />
can watch the reeds bend in the crossing currents,<br />
can drink from red pools in the honeyed thigh.<br />
But hurry, let's entwine ourselves as one,<br />
our mouth broken, our soul bitten by love,<br />
so time discovers us safely destroyed.</div>
Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-7303363405436387262012-10-31T19:51:00.001+00:002012-10-31T19:59:48.993+00:00Beneath my hands <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.199999809265137px; line-height: 24px;"><i>Leonard Cohen</i></span><br />
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Beneath my hands<br />
your small breasts<br />
are the upturned bellies<br />
of breathing fallen sparrows.<br />
<br />
Wherever you move<br />
I hear the sounds of closing wings<br />
of falling wings.<br />
<br />
I am speechless<br />
because you have fallen beside me<br />
because your eyelashes<br />
are the spines of tiny fragile animals.<br />
<br />
I dread the time<br />
when your mouth<br />
begins to call me hunter.<br />
<br />
When you call me close<br />
to tell me<br />
your body is not beautiful<br />
I want to summon<br />
the eyes and hidden mouths<br />
of stone and light and water<br />
to testify against you.<br />
<br />
I want them<br />
to surrender before you<br />
the trembling rhyme of your face<br />
from their deep caskets.<br />
<br />
When you call me close<br />
to tell me<br />
your body is not beautiful<br />
I want my body and my hands<br />
to be pools<br />
for your looking and laughing.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18.146665573120117px;"><i>From Selected Poems, 1956-1968 by Leonard Cohen, 1971</i></span></span></div>
Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-65194296189360985242011-05-30T21:39:00.001+01:002011-05-30T21:41:00.599+01:00‘Unclothed, you are true, like one of your hands’<i>XXVII From: ‘Cien sonetos de amor’ - Pablo Neruda</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
Unclothed, you are true, like one of your hands,<br />
lissome, terrestrial, slight, complete, translucent,<br />
with curves of moon, and paths of apple-wood:<br />
<br />
Unclothed you are as slender as a nude ear of corn.<br />
Undressed you are blue as Cuban nights,<br />
with tendrils and stars in your hair,<br />
undressed you are wide and amber,<br />
like summer in its chapel of gold.<br />
<br />
Naked you are tiny as one of your fingertips,<br />
shaped, subtle, reddening till light is born,<br />
and you leave for the subterranean worlds,<br />
as if down a deep tunnel of clothes and chores:<br />
your brightness quells itself, quenches itself, strips itself down<br />
turning, again, to being a naked hand.<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
<i>Desnuda eres tan simple como una de tus manos, </i><br />
<i>Lisa, terrestre, mínima, redonda, transparente, </i><br />
<i>Tienes líneas de luna, caminos de manzana, </i><br />
<i>Desnuda eres delgada como el trigo desnudo.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Desnuda eres azul como la noche en Cuba, </i><br />
<i>Tienes enredaderas y estrellas en el pelo, </i><br />
<i>Desnuda eres enorme y amarilla </i><br />
<i>Como el verano en una iglesia de oro.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Desnuda eres pequeña como una de tus uñas,</i><br />
<i>Curva, sutil, rosada hasta que nace el día </i><br />
<i>Y te metes en el subterráneo del mundo</i><br />
<i>Como en un largo túnel de trajes y trabajos:</i><br />
<i>Tu claridad se apaga, se viste, se deshoja </i><br />
<i>Y otra vez vuelve a ser una mano desnuda.</i>Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-18586714569311838612011-03-17T15:13:00.001+00:002011-03-17T15:14:34.034+00:00Ode to the Moon<i>by Tabish Khair</i><br />
<br />
A stab of Moon<br />
between two trees<br />
<br />
fireflies impersonating<br />
stars<br />
<br />
light<br />
tangled in the branches of the night<br />
<br />
on the road to the riverside<br />
where did aloneness end<br />
and loneliness beginBeatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-25567114063260078452010-11-04T10:48:00.000+00:002010-11-04T10:48:37.284+00:00TankaOn her cheek and mine<br />
although our minds so differ,<br />
like utter strangers,<br />
the pine winds blow equally--<br />
almost as though we were friends<br />
<br />
<i>Yosano Akiko 1878-1942</i>Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-43629550321660180282010-10-27T21:03:00.000+01:002010-10-27T21:03:03.160+01:00The World and I<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><i>by Laura Riding </i></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span><br />
This is not exactly what I mean<br />
Any more than the sun is the sun.<br />
But how to mean more closely<br />
If the sun shines but approximately?<br />
What a world of awkwardness!<br />
What hostile implements of sense!<br />
Perhaps this is as close a meaning<br />
As perhaps becomes such knowing.<br />
Else I think the world and I<br />
Must live together as strangers and die—<br />
A sour love, each doubtful whether<br />
Was ever a thing to love the other.<br />
No, better for both to be nearly sure<br />
Each of each—exactly where<br />
Exactly I and exactly the world<br />
Fail to meet by a moment, and a word.Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-65731474377941339732010-10-13T19:59:00.002+01:002010-10-13T20:01:07.917+01:00The Owl Cries at Night<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 11.6667px; line-height: 19px;">-<i> Freya Manfred's "The Owl Cries at Night," as it appears in her collection </i><em style="font-weight: inherit;">Swimming with a Hundred Year Old Snapping Turtle,</em><i> published by </i><a href="http://www.reddragonflypress.org/" style="color: #02627c; text-decoration: none;"><i>Red Dragonfly Press</i></a><i>. </i></span><i><br />
</i></span></span><br />
<div style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 3px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div>The owl cries at night,</div><div>and I imagine her wide gold eyes</div><div>and feathered ears tuned</div><div>to the trembling woods and waters,</div><div>seeing and hearing what</div><div>I will never see or hear:</div><div>a red fox with one bloody paw,</div><div>a hunch-backed rabbit running,</div><div>sand grains grating on the shore,</div><div>a brown leaf crackling</div><div>under a brown mouse foot.<br />
<br />
</div><div>With so much to learn,</div><div>I could stop writing forever,</div><div>and still live well.</div><br />
<div style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 3px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br />
- Freya Manfred</div>Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-14920305931199038282010-09-20T11:19:00.001+01:002010-09-20T11:20:02.375+01:00FATE<i> by Andrei Voznesensky</i><br />
<br />
Fate is above me. Why should I browse?<br />
Sleeping in dosses, an outcast, I rove.<br />
Grief is a cellar,<br />
that opens in every old house.<br />
A ditch is below me and fate is above.<br />
<br />
What did I want? Well, a life of contentment.<br />
What did I get? Just a coffin and wreath...<br />
Under the cradle a grave has been latent.<br />
Fate is above me, a ditch is beneath.<br />
<br />
Up in the sky my soul, like a hound,<br />
howls, despaired,<br />
the trigger to pull it was keen.<br />
Fate has come over my family background,<br />
and on the earth where fate is my kin.<br />
<br />
What have I done, apart from the simple<br />
poems I've written in passing to date?<br />
I've been a lightening conductor for people.<br />
Now I have broken my back. Such is fate.<br />
<br />
© Alec Vagapov's translationBeatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-49191699977154499612010-06-30T19:04:00.000+01:002010-06-30T19:04:05.743+01:00Joyful Heart, Winged Heart<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">by Nikolay Gumilyov</span></i></span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></span><br />
Joyful heart, winged heart.<br />
in my light small boat<br />
I skim over the freedom of the ripples<br />
all day from dawn to sunset<br />
and love the reflection of the mountains<br />
on the surface of clear lakes.<br />
<br />
Formerly a thousand troubles engulfed me,<br />
my heart beat like a beast at bay,<br />
and longed for unknown distances<br />
and longed for... But now<br />
I love the reflection of the mountains<br />
on the surface of clear lakes.<br />
<br />
<i>The Pillar of Fire, selected poems -trans. Richard McKane</i>Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-70725881207572830742010-06-29T12:34:00.000+01:002010-06-29T12:34:47.044+01:00The Flea<i>by John Donne</i><br />
<br />
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,<br />
How little that which thou deny'st me is;<br />
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,<br />
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;<br />
Thou know'st that this cannot be said<br />
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;<br />
Yet this enjoys before it woo,<br />
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,<br />
And this, alas, is more than we would do.<br />
<br />
Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,<br />
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.<br />
This flea is you and I, and this<br />
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;<br />
Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met,<br />
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.<br />
Though use make you apt to kill me,<br />
Let not to that, self-murder added be,<br />
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.<br />
<br />
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since<br />
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?<br />
Wherein could this flea guilty be,<br />
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?<br />
Yet thou triumph'st and say'st that thou<br />
Find'st not thyself, nor me the weaker now;<br />
'Tis true, then learn how false fears be:<br />
Just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me,<br />
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee<br />
<br />
<br />
John DonneBeatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-55502302562286194842010-04-16T17:05:00.001+01:002010-04-16T17:08:24.089+01:00Tanka<i>by Ono no Komachi</i><br />
<br />
<br />
My longing for you --<br />
<br />
too strong to keep within bounds.<br />
<br />
At least no one can blame me<br />
<br />
when I go to you at night<br />
<br />
along the road of dreams.<br />
<br />
<br />
Ono no Komachi<br />
<i>The Ink Dark Moon, trans. by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratami (Vintage October1990)</i>Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-75499596600456304892009-10-11T19:57:00.000+01:002009-10-11T19:57:54.585+01:00We grow accustomed to the Dark<i> by Emily Dickinson </i><br />
<br />
We grow accustomed to the Dark --<br />
When light is put away --<br />
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp<br />
To witness her Goodbye --<br />
<br />
A Moment -- We uncertain step<br />
For newness of the night --<br />
Then -- fit our Vision to the Dark --<br />
And meet the Road -- erect --<br />
<br />
And so of larger -- Darkness --<br />
Those Evenings of the Brain --<br />
When not a Moon disclose a sign --<br />
Or Star -- come out -- within --<br />
<br />
The Bravest -- grope a little --<br />
And sometimes hit a Tree<br />
Directly in the Forehead --<br />
But as they learn to see --<br />
<br />
Either the Darkness alters --<br />
Or something in the sight<br />
Adjusts itself to Midnight --<br />
And Life steps almost straight.Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-84525811892050742522009-07-13T23:34:00.007+01:002009-09-19T14:51:22.046+01:00Pour ne pas mourir<span style="font-style: italic;"><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">by Patrick Dubost</span></span> <span style="font-style: italic;"> (</span><span style="font-style: italic;">excerpt from Pour ne pas mourir)</span><br />
<br />
1<br />
J'écris pour ne pas mourir.<br />
7<br />
Je demande « Quelle heure est-il ? » et je me sauve sans attendre la réponse pour ne pas mourir.<br />
8<br />
Bazarder systématiquement les souvenirs, s'attacher au présent jusqu'à l'impossible, ne plus respirer, ne plus vivre pour ne pas mourir.<br />
18<br />
Accumuler, additionner, entasser. Des listes d'objets, des listes de mots, des listes de livres. Des kilomètres d'écrits pour ne pas mourir.<br />
27<br />
Tisser, au fil dans ans, un prodigieux manteau de solitude pour ne pas mourir.<br />
30<br />
Je marcherai volontiers sur les mains pour ne pas mourir.<br />
34<br />
On tombe amoureux tous les cent mètres, depuis l'enfance, pour ne pas mourir.<br />
39<br />
Le silence contient tous les ingrédients de la mort pour ne pas mourir.<br />
43<br />
Photographie en noir et blanc d'un homme endormi, couleurs en dedans pour ne pas mourir.<br />
52Cultiver un jardin d'erreur pour ne pas mourir.<br />
53<br />
Applaudir en silence pour ne pas mourir.<br />
57<br />
Le mot « aimer » cousu de fils très fins dans la doublure pour ne pas mourir.<br />
62<br />
Les musées saturés d'objet pour ne pas mourir.<br />
71<br />
Lire à voix haute et sans prendre sa respiration comme s'il y avait une issue ou peut-être une clef ou peut-être une solution ou peut-être un obstacle à franchir pour ne pas mourir.<br />
75<br />
On joue de l'éphémère comme d'un instrument de musique pour ne pas mourir.<br />
78<br />
Fou mais pas trop pour ne pas mourir.<br />
79<br />
Plus je suis amoureux plus je me tais plus je suis amoureux pour ne pas mourir.<br />
84<br />
Courir plus vite que la poésie pour ne pas mourir.<br />
88<br />
Le monde vu depuis les coulisses pour ne pas mourir.<br />
90<br />
L'enfant qui refuse de se laisser photographier ignore qu'il se bat pour ne pas mourir.<br />
93<br />
Une bouteille (vide) à la mer pour ne pas mourir.Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-36515921208804567282009-05-15T13:49:00.003+01:002009-05-15T13:54:57.643+01:00To his lost lover<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">by Simon Armitage</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></span><span><span style="font-size:100%;">Now they are no longer<br />any trouble to each other<br /><br />he can turn things over, get down to that list<br />of things that never happened, all of the lost<br /><br />unfinishable business.<br />For instance… for instance,<br /><br />how he never clipped and kept her hair, or drew a hairbrush<br />through that style of hers, and never knew how not to blush<br /><br />at the fall of her name in close company.<br />How they never slept like buried cutlery –<br /><br />two spoons or forks cupped perfectly together,<br />or made the most of some heavy weather –<br /><br />walked out into hard rain under sheet lightning,<br />or did the gears while the other was driving.<br /><br />How he never raised his fingertips<br />to stop the segments of her lips<br /><br />from breaking the news,<br />or tasted the fruit<br /><br />or picked for himself the pear of her heart,<br />or lifted her hand to where his own heart<br /><br />was a small, dark, terrified bird<br />in her grip. Where it hurt.<br /><br />Or said the right thing,<br />or put it in writing.<br /><br />And never fled the black mile back to his house<br />before midnight, or coaxed another button of her blouse,<br /><br />the another,<br />or knew her<br /><br />favourite colour,<br />her taste, her flavour,<br /><br />and never ran a bath or held a towel for her,<br />or soft-soaped her, or whipped her hair<br /><br />into an ice-cream cornet or a beehive<br />of lather, or acted out of turn, or misbehaved<br /><br />when he might have, or worked a comb<br />where no comb had been, or walked back home<br /><br />through a black mile hugging a punctured heart,<br />where it hurt, where it hurt, or helped her hand<br /><br />to his butterfly heart<br />in its two blue halves.<br /><br />And never almost cried,<br />and never once described<br /><br />an attack of the heart,<br />or under a silk shirt<br /><br />nursed in his hand her breast,<br />her left, like a tear of flesh<br /><br />wept by the heart,<br />where it hurts,<br /><br />or brushed with his thumb the nut of her nipple,<br />or drank intoxicating liquors from her navel.<br /><br />Or christened the Pole Star in her name,<br />or shielded the mask of her face like a flame,<br /><br />a pilot light,<br />or stayed the night,<br /><br />or steered her back to that house of his,<br />or said “Don’t ask me how it is<br /><br />I like you.<br />I just might do.”<br /><br />How he never figured out a fireproof plan,<br />or unravelled her hand, as if her hand<br /><br />were a solid ball<br />of silver foil<br /><br />and discovered a lifeline hiding inside it,<br />and measured the trace of his own alongside it.<br /><br />But said some things and never meant them –<br />sweet nothings anybody could have mentioned.<br /><br />And left unsaid some things he should have spoken,<br />about the heart, where it hurt exactly, and how often.<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></span>Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-55137266420726126742009-04-28T12:21:00.004+01:002009-04-28T12:29:39.423+01:00I Live My Life in Widening Circles<span style="font-style: italic;">by Rainer Maria Rilke</span><br /><br />I live my life in widening circles<br />that reach out across the world.<br />I may not complete this last one<br />but I give myself to it.<br /><br />I circle around God, around the primordial tower.<br />I've been circling for thousands of years<br />and I still don't know: am I a falcon,<br />a storm, or a great song?<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /><br />From Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, trans. by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy</span><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;">---------<br /></div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Ich lebe mein Leben im wachsenden Ringen</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Ich lebe mein leben im wachsenden Ringen,</span><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: italic;">die sich über die Dingen ziehen.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Ich werde den letzen vielleicht nicht volbringen,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">aber versuchen will ich ihn.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Ich kreise um Gott, um den uralten Turm,</span><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: italic;">und ich kreise jahrtausendelang;</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">und ich weiß nocht nicht: bin ich ein Falke, ein Sturm</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">oder ein großer Gesang.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />Rainer Maria Rilke (Paris, 1913)</span></span><br /></div><br /></div>Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-42007134682290797892009-04-21T10:20:00.002+01:002009-04-21T10:29:25.968+01:00How to Disappear<span style="font-style: italic;">by Amanda Dalton</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">(from "How to Disappear, Bloodaxe Books, 1999)</span></span><br /><br />First rehearse the easy things.<br />Lose your words in a high wind,<br />walk in the dark on an unlit road,<br />observe how other people mislay keys,<br />their diaries, new umbrellas.<br />See what it takes to go unnoticed<br />in a crowded room. Tell lies:<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I love you. I'll be back in half an hour.</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />I'm fine.</span><br /><br />The childish things.<br />Stand very still behind a tree,<br />become a cowboy, say you have died,<br />climb into wardrobes, breathe on a mirror<br />until there's no one there, and practice magic,<br />tricks with smoke and fire --<br />a flick of the wrist and the victim's lost<br />his watch, his wife, his ten pound note. Perfect it.<br />Hold your breath a little longer every time.<br /><br />The hardest things.<br />Eat less, much less, and take a vow of silence.<br />Learn the point of vanishing, the moment<br />embers turn to ash, the sun falls down,<br />the sudden white-out comes.<br />And when it comes again - it will -<br />just walk at it. walk into it, and walk,<br />until your know that you're no longer<br />anywhere.Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-48546276878919940532009-03-03T17:59:00.006+00:002009-03-03T18:10:46.205+00:00Ithaka by Constantine P. CavafyWhen you set out on your journey to Ithaca,<br />pray that the road is long,<br />full of adventure, full of knowledge.<br />The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,<br />the angry Poseidon -- do not fear them:<br />You will never find such as these on your path,<br />if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine<br />emotion touches your spirit and your body.<br />The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,<br />the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,<br />if you do not carry them within your soul,<br />if your soul does not set them up before you.<br /><br />Pray that the road is long.<br />That the summer mornings are many, when,<br />with such pleasure, with such joy<br />you will enter ports seen for the first time;<br />stop at Phoenician markets,<br />and purchase fine merchandise,<br />mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,<br />and sensual perfumes of all kinds,<br />as many sensual perfumes as you can;<br />visit many Egyptian cities,<br />to learn and learn from scholars.<br /><br />Always keep Ithaca in your mind.<br />To arrive there is your ultimate goal.<br />But do not hurry the voyage at all.<br />It is better to let it last for many years;<br />and to anchor at the island when you are old,<br />rich with all you have gained on the way,<br />not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.<br /><br />Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.<br />Without her you would have never set out on the road.<br />She has nothing more to give you.<br /><br />And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.<br />Wise as you have become, with so much experience,<br />you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Constantine P. Cavafy (1911) </span></span><br /><div style="text-align: center; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);">--------<br /></div><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 102);font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">(Greek original</span>)</span><br /><h2 style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Ιθάκη<br /></span></h2>Σα βγεις στον πηγαιμό για την Ιθάκη,<br />να εύχεσαι νάναι μακρύς ο δρόμος,<br />γεμάτος περιπέτειες, γεμάτος γνώσεις.<br />Τους Λαιστρυγόνας και τους Κύκλωπας,<br />τον θυμωμένο Ποσειδώνα μη φοβάσαι,<br />τέτοια στον δρόμο σου ποτέ σου δεν θα βρεις,<br />αν μεν' η σκέψις σου υψηλή, αν εκλεκτή<br />συγκίνησις το πνεύμα και το σώμα σου αγγίζει.<br />Τους Λαιστρυγόνας και τους Κύκλωπας,<br />τον άγριο Ποσειδώνα δεν θα συναντήσεις,<br />αν δεν τους κουβανείς μες στην ψυχή σου,<br />αν η ψυχή σου δεν τους στήνει εμπρός σου.<br /><p> Να εύχεσαι νάναι μακρύς ο δρόμος.<br />Πολλά τα καλοκαιρινά πρωϊά να είναι<br />που με τι ευχαρίστησι, με τι χαρά<br />θα μπαίνεις σε λιμένας πρωτοειδωμένους,<br />να σταματήσεις σ' εμπορεία Φοινικικά,<br />και τες καλές πραγμάτειες ν' αποκτήσεις,<br />σεντέφια και κοράλλια, κεχριμπάρια κ' έβενους,<br />και ηδονικά μυρωδικά κάθε λογής,<br />όσο μπορείς πιο άφθονα ηδονικά μυρωδικά,<br />σε πόλεις Αιγυπτιακές πολλές να πας,<br />να μάθεις και να μάθεις απ' τους σπουδασμένους.<br /></p> <p> Πάντα στον νου σου νάχεις την Ιθάκη.<br />Το φθάσιμον εκεί ειν' ο προορισμός σου.<br />Αλλά μη βιάζεις το ταξείδι διόλου.<br />Καλλίτερα χρόνια πολλά να διαρκέσει<br />και γέρος πια ν' αράξεις στο νησί,<br />πλούσιος με όσα κέρδισες στο δρόμο,<br />μη προσδοκώντας πλούτη να σε δώσει η Ιθάκη.<br /></p> <p> Η Ιθάκη σ'έδωσε τ' ωραίο ταξείδι.<br />Χωρίς αυτήν δεν θάβγαινες στον δρόμο.<br />Άλλα δεν έχει να σε δώσει πια.<br /></p> Κι αν πτωχική την βρεις, η Ιθάκη δε σε γέλασε.<br />Έτσι σοφός που έγινες, με τόση πείρα,<br />ήδη θα το κατάλαβες οι Ιθάκες τι σημαίνουν.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em style="font-weight: bold;">Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης</em></span>Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-35437498964361443572009-03-01T19:26:00.003+00:002009-03-01T19:28:09.542+00:00The Measure of a Man<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span><br />Not, "How did he die?" but "how did he live?"<br />Not, "What did he gain?" but "What did he give?"<br />These are the units to measure the worth<br />Of a man as a man, regardless of birth<br />Not, "What was his station?" but "Had he a heart?"<br />And "how did he play his God-Given part?<br />Was he ever ready with a word of good cheer,<br />To bring a smile, to banish a tear?<br />Not, "What was his church?" nor "What was his creed?"<br />But "Had he befriended those really in need?<br />Not, "What did the sketch in the newspaper say?"<br />But "How many were sorry, when he passed away?"<br />These are the units to measure the worth<br />Of a man as a man, regardless of birth.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">(Anon)</span></span>Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-32192021126973195002009-02-11T13:28:00.003+00:002009-02-11T13:32:47.880+00:00Prayer by Carol Ann DuffySome days, although we cannot pray, a prayer<br />utters itself. So, a woman will lift<br />her head from the sieve of her hands and stare<br />at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.<br /><br />Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth<br />enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;<br />then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth<br />in the distant Latin chanting of a train.<br /><br />Pray for us now. Grade I piano scales console<br />the lodger looking out across a Midlands town.<br />Then dusk, and someone calls a child's name<br />as though they named their loss.<br /><br />Darkness outside. Inside, the radios prayer -<br />Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Carol Ann Duffy, Mean Time (Anvil, 1993)</span>Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-64060947433696856092009-02-02T10:01:00.002+00:002009-02-02T10:03:56.911+00:00A Thought for Today:<div style="font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(170, 170, 170); font-weight: bold; font-size: 13px;"><br /></div> Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the other water-power.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., poet, novelist, essayist, and physician (1809-1894)</span>Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-16180293264121863792009-01-16T15:07:00.003+00:002009-01-19T14:48:13.853+00:00Melodeon on the Road Home<p><span style="font-style: italic;">by Jen Hadfield</span><br /></p> <p>I love your slut dog,<br />as silent with his three print spots<br />as a musical primer.<br />He sags like a melodeon<br />across my spread knees.<br />When I did my fingers<br />into the butterfly hollows<br />in his chest, he pushes my breasts<br />apart with stiff legs.<br />Isn’t it good to be hearing your dog’s tune<br />on the broad curve out of town,<br />a poem starting,<br />pattering the breathless little keys.<br />To see more than me, I flick<br />the headlamps to high beam<br />and it’s as if I pulled an organ stop–<br />black light wobbling<br />in the wrinkles of the road,<br />high angelus of tree.</p>Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-73699033458467421872008-11-18T12:00:00.003+00:002008-11-20T23:00:08.390+00:00The Pen<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" >By Solomon Ibn Gabirol</span><br /><br />Naked without either cover or dress,<br /><br />Utterly souless, and hollow--<br /><br />from its mouth come wisdom and prudence,<br /><br />and in ambush it kills like an arrow.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >ABU AYYUB SULAIMAN IBN YAHYA IBN JABIRUL, </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >born Shelomoh Ben Yehudah Ibn Gabirol, in either 1021 or 1022, in Malaga, to an undistinguished family that may have fled the collapsing capital of the Umayyad Caliphate, Córdoba, with the same wave of refugees that included Shmuel Ha-Nagid, who would go on to become the period's first great Hebrew poet. At some point his father moves the family north to Saragossa, and Ibn Gabirol--or, in Arab circles, Abu Ayyub Sulaiman Ibn Yahya Ibn Jabirul--is raised in that important center of Islamic and Jewish learning. Ibn Gabirol's father dies while the precocious son is still in his early teens, and the young man is looked after by a Jewish notable at the Saragossan court, Yequtiel Ibn Hasan al-Mutawakkil Ibn Qabrun. </span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >In 1039 Yequtiel is killed, and Ibn Gabirol loses his patron. He leaves Saragossa sometime after 1045, and most scholars assume that he goes south, to Granada, to the court of HaNagid, who is, at that point, governor (nagid) of the region's Jews, prime minister of that Muslim ta'ifa (party state) under its Berber king, and commander-in-chief of the Granadan army. He writes secular verse, and later in life he is supported by his writing for the synagogue, composing radical and, in comparison with his court-centered verse, remarkably self-deprecating piyyutim, or liturgical poems. Apart from his diwan and his philosophical masterwork, The Fountain of Life, he produces a short but striking ethical treatise, On the Improvement of the Moral Qualities, and claims in one of his poems to have written some twenty books--now lost--on philosophical, linguistic, scientific, and religious topics. </span><br /></div><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" ></span>Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4518258995331165516.post-20440078951342845682008-11-11T11:39:00.001+00:002008-11-11T11:51:23.091+00:00Albert CamusAs usual I finish the day before the sea, sumptuous this evening beneath the moon, which writes Arab symbols with phosphorescent streaks on the slow swells. There is no end to the sky and the waters. How well they accompany sadness!<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Albert Camus (1913-1960), American Journals (1978, trans. 1988). Written July 3, 1949 while crossing the Atlantic en route to South America.) </span>Beatrice Vhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09492224274542764248noreply@blogger.com1