(source: Semsakrebsler)
no copyright infringement intended
Verses of elegant minimalism, like an image by Ruscha. Two black ravens ... you'd say it's a tautology, but poetry has its own rules, and sometimes needs to defy logic. Their fly draws superb lines making sky and land alike, while reminding us of hidden sins, of the Daemon from inside, who's trying to escape.
Zwei schwarze Raben streichen
Geduckt am Acker hin,
Ihr Flug ist wie voll Zeichen
Und voll geheimen Sinn,
Als wollten Dämonen entweichen.
Die Himmel plötzlich klopfen
Auf Steine und auf Staub,
Aus Wolken fallen Tropfen
Und blättern in dem Laub.
Wie finstre Tarnenkappen
Drin eins versteckt sich hält,
Fällt Rab' und Rab' ins Feld.
Die Tropfen im Himmel stocken,
Die Raben hüpfen und hocken -
Lieb' und Hunger umlungern die Welt.
Slumber having the white of snow, doors like ultimate winter gates, windows with the pale of eggshells, streets full of ghosts, people like portraits of distant voices, old memories begging to be warmed in your inner... loneliness and winter alike.
Jetzt sitzt der weiße Schlaf vor allen Wintertüren,
Die Fenster sind gleich blassen Eierschalen,
Dahinter leben Straßen voll Gespenster
Und Stimmen, die uns ferne Menschen malen.
Man kann die Welt nicht sehen und nur spüren.
Wie Blinde ahnt man dunkel das Geschehen,
Alleingelassen bei Erinnerungen,
Die an den Türen wie die Bettler stehen,
Die bei den Ofenflammen warm sich rühren,
Erregt mit nimmersatten Hungerzungen.
Sie können uns an magern Händen führen
Und haben in der Asche noch nicht ausgesungen.
Now, white sleep sits before all winter doors,
With windows, eggshell pale, displayed.
Streets, full of ghosts, live behind them
Where distant people by voices are portrayed.
One cannot see the world but only sense it.
Like the blind, one feels darkly its allure
And is left alone with memories
That stand like beggars at the door.
Stirring in the warmth of flaming stoves,
Unsated pangs of hunger still are wrung.
They can lead us by emaciated hands
And, in ashes, not yet have been completely sung.
I came upon this poem while browsing an album with reproductions from Caspar David Friedrich. In his paintings, as in this poem, it is the same feeling: David d'Angers named it "the tragedy of landscape."
Ich fühle mich tot, als wär ich erfroren,
Als hätt sich die Welt zu sterben verschworen.
Ich grübe mir gern in die Stille ein Grab
Und warte begraben deine Wiederkehr ab.
Vom langen Warten versteinen die Wangen,
Doch lebt auch im Stein noch ein sehnend Verlangen.
Ich weiß nur, daß ich nicht fühlen will;
Vielleicht steht dann endlich das Warten still.
Der Wind, der heult vor den nächtlichen Toren,
Als würde da draußen nur Unglück geboren.
Er klagt wie ein Hund in die Leere hinein,
Und stets drängen Hunger und Sehnsucht herein.
I feel dead as if I were frozen,
As if to die was what the world had chosen.
I, happily, dig my grave into silence
And, buried, await the end of your absence.
My cheeks have hardened after waiting so long;
But, even in stone, my yearning lives on.
I know only, that I want no longer to feel;
Perhaps then, finally, will waiting stand still.
The wind in the night that howls round the gate,
As if, there, outside, must it only misfortune create,
Cries like a dog into the empty extent
And, always, hunger and yearning torment.
German author and artist painter belonging to Impressionism, considered one the the most influential authors of his epoch (wiki); began a career as a painter and remained highly responsive to sensuous impressions, especially of color (The Oxford Companion to German Literature); excelled in Impressionism but was later dismissed by the Nazi regime as egotistic and lacking German orientation (Poems without Frontiers).
I sent this month a Hanukkah greeting to my friend Yale Strom. He answered me in Yiddish, as he does every time: Freylekhe Khanike tsi Dir und Dayn Mishpokhe! He is always very nice, and always responds in Yiddish. I had today the surprise to see Yale on the cover of the January issue of San Diego Troubadour, a free magazine dedicated to alternative country, Americana, roots, folk, blues, Gospel, jazz, and bluegrass. Here is what the magazine posted on its Facebook page:
Yikes! What day is it? What time is it? Time to start work on the January issue, that's what. Troubadour photographer John Hancock and I had a marvelous time at the home of cover boy, Yale Strom, a week ago, shooting photos of him and his wife, the lovely Elizabeth Schwartz. What charming people and what a story Yale has to tell. Read all about it in the January Troubadour.... plus much more interesting stuff!
On a stretch of the East Village, New York City’s Christmas hush was interrupted by a peculiar melody. It was not a Bing Crosby croon or Mariah Carey’s melismatic whistle, but the faint hum of a clarinet playing along to Undzer Nigndl....
Soy tan grande como Dios, él es tan pequeño como me ... Yo mismo soy la Eternidad cuando deje el tiempo Y resumir mi mismo en Dios y Dios en mí El tiempo es como la eternidad y la eternidad como el tiempo
...
Ich bin so groß wie Gott, er ist als ich so klein
Er kann nicht über mich, ich unter ihm nicht sein
Ich selbst bin Ewigkeit, wenn ich die Zeit verlasse
Und mich in Gott und Gott in mich zusammenfasse
Zeit ist wie Ewigkeit und Ewigkeit wie Zeit
So du nur selber nicht machst einen Unterscheid
Ich sage, weil allein der Tod mich machet frei
Daß er das beste Ding aus allen Dingen sei
Gott ist dir worden Mensch; wirst du nicht wieder Gott
So schmähst du die Geburt und höhnest seinen Tod
O hohe Würdigung! Gott springt von seinem Thron
Und setztet mich darauf in seinem lieben Sohn
Halt an, wo laufst du hin, der Himmel ist in dir
Suchst du Gott anderswo, du fehlst ihn für und für
Ich trage Gottes Bild: wenn er sich will besehen
So kann es nur in mir, und wer mir gleicht, geschehn
Der Himmel ist in dir und auch der Hölle Qual
Was du erkiest und willst, das hast du überall
Ich weiß, daß ohne mich Gott nicht ein Nu kann leben
Werde ich zunicht, er muß von Not den Geist aufgeben
Die Ros' ist ohn' Warum; sie blühet, weil sie blühet
Sie acht' nicht ihrer selbst, fragt nicht, ob man sie siehet
Mensch, wirst du nicht ein Kind, so gehst du nimmer ein
Wo Gottes Kinder sind; die Tür ist gar zu klein
Ich bin so reich als Gott, es kann kein Stäublein sein
Das ich - Mensch, glaube mir! - mit ihm nicht habe gemein
Die Lieb' ist unser Gott; es lebet all's durch Liebe
Wie selig wär' ein Mensch, der stets in ihr verbliebe
Wer ist, als wär er nicht und wär' er nie geworden
Der ist, o Seligkeit, zu lauter Gotte worden
Die Ros, welche hier dein äuß'res Auge sieht
Die hat von Ewigkeit in Gott also geblüht
Je mehr du dich aus dir kannst austun und entgießen
Je mehr muß Gott in dich mit seiner Gottheit fließen
Mensch, werde wesentlich! Denn wenn die Welt vergeht
So fällt der Zufall weg; das Wesen, das besteht
Ein wesentlicher Mensch ist wie die Ewigkeit
Die unverändert bleibt von aller Äußerheit
Wer über Berg und Tal und dem Gewölke sitzt
Der achtet's nicht ein Haar, wenn's donnert, kracht und blitzt
Mensch, liebst du Gott, den Herrn, und suchest Lohn dabei
So schmeckest du noch nicht, was Lieb' und lieben sei
Mensch, willst und liebst du nichts, so willst und liebst du wohl
Wer gleich liebt, was er will, liebt doch nicht, was er soll
Es muß gekreuzigt sein, Freund, wer in jener Welt will lauter Rosen brechen
Den müssen vor all hier die Dornen g'nugsam stechen
Blüh auf, gefror'ner Christ, der Mai dist vor der Tür
Du bleibest ewig tot, blühst du nicht jetzt und hier
Halt deinen Leib in Ehr'n; er ist ein edler Schrein
In dem das Bildnis Gott's soll aufbehalten sein
Der höchste Friede, den die Seele kann genießen
Ist, sich aufs möglichst' eins mit Gottes Willen wissen
Nichts ander's stürzet dich in Höllenschlund hinein
Als das verhaßte Wort - merk's wohl! - das Mein und Dein
Der nächste Weg zu Gott ist durch der Liebe Tür
Der Weg der Wissenschaft bringt dich gar langsam für
Viel haben macht nicht reich. Der ist ein reicher Mann
Der alles, was er hat, ohn' Leid verlieren kann
Christ, bist du nicht ein Narr? Du glaubst die Ewigkeit
Und hängst mit Leib und Seel' verblendet an der Zeit
Borges famously said that the essence of poetry can be found in a single line from Angelus Silesius. He pronounced that line in Spanish, and repeated it in German:
La rosa es sin porqué; florece porque florece
Die Rose ist ohne warum; sie blühet weil sie blühet
... so I was in one of the state's most delightful bars where big men meet and share there one night and some guys for playing pool and I noticed that leaning against the wall was this old guy who was an old cowboy with its scuffed up boots and its stained hat, obviously still working at the trade and he was looking at the guys playing pool with an expression that was different: very unusual expression; it was kind of longing and sad and odd, and I couldn't quite figure it out, and then after a while I began to wonder if maybe he was gay, and then I thought, well, what would it be like to be in his mid-sixties or so, I said, what would it be like to be an old cowboy who was gay and who lived in a place where to be gay was asking to be really seriously hurt, so I began thinking about it and I thought about it for months and months and months and months and as I thought about it the story began to take some shape and so I wrote it ...
Angelus Silesius war ein deutscher Lyriker, Theologe und Arzt; seine tiefreligiösen, der Mystik nahestehenden Epigramme werden zu den bedeutendsten lyrischen Werken der Barockliteratur gezählt (http://gutezitate.com/autor/angelus-silesius/); seine Heilige Seelenlust ist eine Sammlung von etwa 200 religiöse Hymne Texte, die von Katholiken und Protestanten benutzt worden sind; und Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann hat 1676 kurze Gedichte, meist "Alexandrine" Couplets; ihre Gefühlstiefe gibt ihnen ein "Haiku" Resonanz (https://briefpoems.wordpress.com/tag/angelus-silesius/); ein Freund erzählte mir, wie er Angelus Silesius entdeckt hatte; es in einem kleinen siebenbürgischen Stadt geschehen war; trat er in eine Antiquariat; alle Bücher wurden in deutscher Sprache verfasst; einige wurden mit gotischen Buchstaben; unter ihnen, Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann; es war Liebe am ersten Anblick.
Ao Entardecer (Pessoa - como Alberto Caeiro - sobre Cesário Verde)
(source: luso livros)
no copyright infringement intended
Ao entardecer, debruçado pela janela,
E sabendo de soslaio que há campos em frente,
Leio até me arderem os olhos
O livro de Cesário Verde.
Que pena que tenho dele! Ele era um camponês
Que andava preso em liberdade pela cidade.
Mas o modo como olhava para as casas,
E o modo como reparava nas ruas,
E a maneira como dava pelas cousas,
É o de quem olha para árvores,
E de quem desce os olhos pela estrada por onde vai andando
E anda a reparar nas flores que há pelos campos...
Por isso ele tinha aquela grande tristeza
Que ele nunca disse bem que tinha,
Mas andava na cidade como quem anda no campo
E triste como esmagar flores em livros
E pôr plantas em jarros...
Al atardecer, asomado por la ventana,
Y sabiendo de soslayo que hay campos en frente,
Leo hasta que me arden los ojos
El libro de Cesário Verde.
¡Que pena tengo de él! Él era un campero
Que andaba preso en libertad por la ciudad.
Pero el modo en que miraba hacia las casas,
Y el modo como reparaba en las calles,
Y la manera como daba por las cosas,
Es el de quien mira hacia los árboles,
Y de quien desciende los ojos por el camino por donde va andando
Y anda reparando en las flores que hay por los campos...
Por eso él tenía aquella gran tristeza
Que él nunca dijo bien que tenía,
Pero andaba en la ciudad como quien anda en el campo
Y triste como aplastar flores en libros
Y poner plantas en jarros...
In the evening, leaning out my window,
Watching the fields out front in the corner of my eye,
I read Cesário Verde’s Book
Until my eyes were burning.
I felt so sorry for him! He was like a man from the country
And he walked through the city like he was out on bail.
But the way he looked at houses,
And the way he saw the streets,
And the way he had of taking things in,
Was like someone looking at trees,
Or lowering their eyes to the road where they go walking
Or taking in the flowers in the fields...
That’s why he had that great sadness
He could never really say he had,
But walked in the city like someone walking in the country,
Sad like pressing flowers in books
And putting plants in jars...
while mostly ignored during his lifetime and not well known outside of the country’s borders even today, is generally considered to be among the most important Portuguese poets (wiki), a forerunner of the Portuguese poetry of the 20th century (um precursor da poesia que seria feita em Portugal no século XX - wiki)
There were six of us: the master, the apprentices and the white elephant. We built everything together. Mosques, bridges, madrasas, caravanserai's, alms houses, aqueducts... But Istanbul is a city of easy forgettings. Things are written in water over there, except the works of my master, which are written in stone.
I bought the book today. A Romanian translation published at Polirom.
O poveste plină de culori și de lumină, care se desfășoară în neuitata vreme a sultanului Soliman Magnificul. Un băiat pirpiriu, numai ochi și păr zbârlit, coboară de pe o corabie la Istanbul, să ducă un dar fără seamăn la seraiul sultanului: un elefant cu totul și cu totul alb. Cei doi sunt repede prinși într-o înlănțuire de istorii tainice, în care se amestecă iubiri fără speranță, viziri plini de cruzime, cadâne și sultane viclene, vrăjitoare și uneltiri de curte. Nedespărțit de prietenul lui, elefantul, băiatul ajunge în scurtă vreme ucenicul lui Mimar Sinan, unul dintre cei mai faimoși arhitecți din Imperiul Otoman, alături de care ridică, ani în șir, moschee dupa moschee.
When Jahan travels to 16th-century Istanbul as a stowaway carrying the gift of a white elephant for the sultan, little does he know the journey on which he is about to embark. As he settles into life in Istanbul, Jahan's fortunes are shaped by chance encounters. In the palace gardens he meets Mihrimah, the beautiful and mischievous princess, and loses his heart in an instant. Later he catches the eye of grand architect Sinan, who chooses Jahan as his apprentice and changes the young boy's destiny for ever. Full of magic, color and societal upheaval in the architectural renaissance of turkey, this is the sweeping tale of plagues, wars, forbidden romance and the simple love between a boy and his elephant.
Ma première rencontre avec Maupassant (j'avais quinze ou seize ans à l'époque) eut lieu par l'entremise du livre d'Axel Munthe. Il le connaissait et nous en raconta de lui dans son Livre de San Michele. Il l'avait connu comme ami, mais d'abord comme docteur et c'est ainsi que j'ai commencé ma relation avec l'univers de Maupassant, en apprenant de sa tragique maladie. Et après, au cours des années, autres rencontres, dans des espaces étroits où les antiquaires tenaient leurs affaires et parfois je trouvais un bouquin issu de la plume du grand maître, une de ces très vieilles éditions, Victor Havard, ou Paul Ollendorff, ou Albert Quantin, vieilles choses cachées dans de vieilles places. Et après la visite faite aux antiquaires, l'immense plaisir de lire, assis chez moi dans le fauteuil, charmé par sa maîtrise de construire les phrases, sa science de raconter ses histoires avec ce ton si naturel, aussi par son regard sur la vie, ce mélange fin de scepticisme, de restreint élégant et de générosité, ce regard si français fin dix-neuvième siècle.
Pepys was not an easygoing commuter. In the struggle to get from Seething Lane to Whitehall, he exhibited something close to the mindset of the average London cyclist, deploying the word ‘cunt’ while slowly inflating with murderous feeling. Today is worse. Andrew O'Hagan made for us the experience and spoke about it in an essay published in LRB:
Passou a diligência pela estrada (Pessoa - como Alberto Caeiro)
Diligência do coronel Macerone (source: Era Moderna) no copyright infringement intended
Passou a diligência pela estrada, e foi-se;
E a estrada não ficou mais bela, nem sequer mais feia.
Assim é a acção humana pelo mundo fora.
Nada tiramos e nada pomos; passamos e esquecemos;
E o sol é sempre pontual todos os dias.
Pasó la diligencia por el camino y fuése;
y el camino no se volvió más bello, ni siquiera más feo.
Así por esos mundos es la acción humana.
Nada quitamos y nada ponemos; pasamos y olvidamos;
y el sol siempre es puntual, todos los días.
A stagecoach passed by on the road and went on;
And the road didn’t become more beautiful or even more ugly.
That’s human action on the outside world.
We take nothing away and we put nothing back, we pass by and we forget;
And the sun is always punctual every day.
Trecu pe-aici o diligență, și își văzu de drum; Nimic nu se schimbă în bine, și nici măcar în rău. Asta-i ce facem noi în lume, urma noastră, Nimic nu luăm, nimic nu punem, doar trecem și uităm. Şi singur soarele-i punctual, în fiecare zi.
Pensar em Deus é desobedecer a Deus (Pessoa - como Alberto Caeiro)
(source: superdownloads) no copyright infringement intended
I was this morning at the English Bookshop (in Bucharest, of course), as I do any given Saturday or Sunday. I saw there a Fernando Pessoa edition (A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe : Selected Poems). I browsed it a little bit, considering whether to buy it or to postpone the decision (which eventually I did). A short poem caught my immediate attention, "Thinking about God is Disobeying God." Back home I found the Portuguese original on the web, and tried then a Romanian rendering (but I'm far from a poet, as you probably know, so my translation is very, very far from what should be).
Pensar em Deus é desobedecer a Deus,
Porque Deus quis que o não conhecêssemos,
Por isso se nos não mostrou...
Sejamos simples e calmos,
Como os regatos e as árvores,
E Deus amar-nos-á fazendo de nós
Belos como as árvores e os regatos,
E dar-nos-á verdor na sua primavera,
E um rio aonde ir ter quando acabemos! ...
Thinking about God is disobeying God
Because God wants us not to know him,
And so he doesn’t show himself to us...
Let’s be simple and calm,
Like brooks and trees,
And God will love us by making
Beautiful things like the trees and brooks for us,
And give us greenness in his spring,
And a river for us to go to when we end...
Cu atitudinea ta nu o să ajungi să te apropii niciodată de țigani, să vezi și să simți frumosul și umanitatea din ei! Astea sunt universuri ale frumosului uman care ție îți sunt interzise!
De obicei folosirea cuvântului țigan are o clară tentă peiorativă și este o manifestare a unor mentalități rasiste (sau măcar înapoiate) care fac mult rău societății. Sunt însă și cazuri când acest cuvânt este folosit frumos, de oameni care sunt frumoși la suflet. Timotei Rad este un asemenea om. A călătorit în multe țări, în Europa, în Asia Centrală, în America Latină, doar cu un laptop și un rucsac (în care avea strâns și un cort), fără prea mulți bani, făcând autostopul, trimițându-ne de peste tot pe unde ajungea imagini și povestea aventurilor lui. Peste tot a cunoscut oameni de toate rasele și de toate culorile și astfel a învățat (ca să folosesc aici un vers din Pessoa) să nu aibă văluri pe ochi și nici pe suflet.
