silence falls

softly, upon the veil that separates the beloved, the hand searches for an answer. silence falls into the heart. promise dawns. dark flowers bloom on the threshold of worlds. red and black mingle. light shines through vast, open spaces as it did on the first of days. blue. ink moves shiftly through the untouched air, creating a sign, then two, then many of them, the signs that will tell the story, pass it down to the others, the gentle ones who are not yet born.

purple in the shade

I wade into the thorny waters

to pick those plump rich berries

just a stretch away,

a scratch away, a curled hand,

two subtle fingers reaching up beneath a leaf,

the juice of picked berries staining

them, rich and red, purple in the shade.

...

I pick with either hand,

held in a cocoon of time,

lost in picking,

Lost in all the tangles of a life.

I eat a few; the juice exploding on my tongue.

David Fraser

das Heilige

Jetzt aber tags! Ich harrt und sah es kommen,
Und was ich sah, das Heilige sei mein Wort.

Friedrich Hölderlin, Wie wenn am Feiertage ...

Now day breaks! I watched and saw it coming,
And what I saw, the holy, let it be my word.

after all

and, after all, who knows what is real and what is not, what is mere coincidence and what is a pale wing of destiny. crawling between the less real and the more real, my knees have dried out, my bones have grown thinner, and the wild beating of my blood - oh the one, the same which once made the stars turn faster in their spirals of light - has faded to a rustle.

and then I became many, too many for you to count. my crowded souls stabbed the night.

Lilac Wine

I lost myself on a cool damp night
I gave myself in that misty light
Was hypnotized by a strange delight
Under a lilac tree

I made wine from the lilac tree
Put my heart in its recipe
It makes me see what I want to see
And be what I want to be

When I think more than I want to think
I do things I never should do
I drink much more than I ought to drink
Because it brings me back you...

cancelled meeting

I hide behind simple things so you'll find me;
If you don't find me, you'll find the things,
you'll touch what my hand has touched,
our hand-prints will merge.

The August moon glitters in the kitchen
like a tin-plated pot (it gets that way
because of what I'm saying to you),
it lights up the empty house and
the house's kneeling silence-
always the silence remains kneeling.

Every word is a doorway
to a meeting, one often cancelled,
and that's when a word is true:
when it insists on the meeting.

Yannis Ritsos, The Meaning of Simplicity

And I have to quote the Black Sun again. Our thoughts don't always take the same road, yet the beauty of the voyage lies in the small intertwining paths. At those crossroads the floating bridge grasps its reflection in the evening waters. And it is true that our search for the mirror of the Other sometimes ends in a solipsistic infinity of self-reflections - Romanticism had warned about this too, Jean-Paul's infinite mirrors blindly repeating their reflection and the reflection of the reflection and so on -, but I prefer to think of Novalis and his Umarmung, loving embrace, which I truly believe possible, that discovery of oneself in the Other and the integration of the Other - be it a shell or a cloud, a lover or a sword, a stranger in the corn field - in oneself as an "inner you". There, in this free-floating in-between, and how much I love this word, emerges the sparkling tissue of Life.

Every word is a doorway to a meeting. But only one word takes us there, only one unlocks the door. Then, and only then, do we unfasten our hair, loosen up our being, unfold our hands. And then there is no door, no inner or outer. Then, when everything silently falls away, how shall we speak face to face? (Black Sun)

red flowers

and all red flowers are for him, the fresh ones in the morning, brighter than the velvety girls

above all the withered ones late at night, when the veil of sorrow falls down on bed and mirror alike, on wild-weathery girls and ripening truths

ich war nicht stolz

Ich war nicht stolz. Ich vergaß keinen Augenblick, wie leicht es war, mich ganz zu vernichten.

Martin Walser

(I was not proud. I didn't forget any minute how easy it was to destroy myself completely).

the black circle

But sometimes we also want the heart to break; sometimes we want nothing more than to break free, to fall, to fly. We want what cannot be achieved - except by grace: to be a broken circle.

The Black Sun

the red circle

the circle is broken
the circle you put on my ankle
when you decided
I should be born

The Marsh Flower

Odilon Redon. The Marsh Flower, a Sad Human Head plate II

a sad and human head
like a signature
upon the waters of the stillborn
their flower heavy
with imaginary time
tell me about
the wounded in-between
if you still dare to speak

brown

Die Hand voller Stunden, so kamst du zu mir – ich sprach:
Dein Haar ist nicht braun.
So hobst du es leicht auf die Waage des Leids, da war es schwerer als ich…

Sie kommen auf Schiffen zu dir und laden es auf, sie bieten es feil auf den Märkten der Lust –
Du lächelst zu mir aus der Tiefe, ich weine zu dir aus der Schale, die leicht bleibt.
Ich weine: Dein Haar ist nicht braun, sie bieten das Wasser der See, und du gibst ihnen Locken…
Du flüsterst: Sie füllen die Welt schon mit mir, und ich bleib dir ein Hohlweg im Herzen!
Du sagst: Leg das Blattwerk der Jahre zu dir – es ist Zeit, daß du kommst und mich küssest!

Das Blattwerk der Jahre ist braun, dein Haar ist es nicht.

Paul Celan

Your Hand full of Hours, you came to me - and I said

‘Your Hair is not brown.’

So you lifted it, lightly, onto the Balance of Grief, it was

Heavier than I…

They come to you on Ships, make it their load, then place it

on sale in the Markets of Lust –

You smile at me from the Depths, I weep at you from the

Scale that’s still light.

I weep: Your hair is not brown, they offer Salt-Waves of the

Sea, and you give them spume.

You whisper: ‘They’re filling the World with me now, and for you

I’m still a Hollow-Way in the Heart!

You say: ‘Lay the Leaf-Work of Years beside you, it’s Time that you

came here and kissed me!

The Leaf-Work of Years is brown: your Hair is not brown.

(Translation: A.S. Kline)

mist

There was no airt or direction to guide one on one's way.
There was no place or time there, but one great, deep
stillness. The world was full of tenderness, under druidry
and under a cloak, and there was a fairy blindfolding on
my eyes in the smirry drizzle of mist.

Cha robh àird no iùl arm a stifiùreadh neach 'na ròd.
Cha robh àit no ùin' ann, ach aon chiùneas domhain, mòr.
Bha 'n saoghal Iàn de'n mhaoithe,
fo dhraoidheachd is fo chlèoc,
is bann-sithe air mo shùilean arms a' chiùran cheòban cheò.

Hillside and slopes were lost to sight in the clouds. There
was no colour or sound there, or hour, or light of day.
The slow, caressing rain was on hill and hollow and meadow,
and the Wee Patch was in a smoke in the
foggy drizzle of mist.

Chaidh sliosan agus leathadan à sealladh arms na neòil.
Cha robh dath no fuaim arm, no uair, no solus lò.
Bha 'n sileadh mall, rèidh, socrach air cnoc, air glaic, air lòn,
is bha 'm Paiste Beag fo dheataich
anns a' cheathach cheòban cheò.

The showers of drizzly mist came closely down, all
voiceless; whispering and fragrant, soft and fresh, without
voice or melody, they floated about hilltops and cliffs
and closed in about every hollow. Gentleness and
pleasure were drifting down in the smirry drizzle of mist.

George Campbell Hay,
The Smirry Drizzle Of Mist

Bha na ciothan ceathaich chùiranaich,
's iad dùmhail, dlùth, gun ghlòir,
gu cagarsach, gu cùbhraidh, tais, ùr, gun ghuth, gun cheòl,
a' snàmh mu mhill is stùcan, 's a' cùnadh mu gach còs.
Bha tlàths is tlachd a' tùirling anns a' chùiran cheòban cheò.

Deòrsa Mac Iain Deòrsa,
An Ciuran Ceoban Ceo

roses are not red and the sky is not blue

balloons

Odilon Redon

L'Oeil, comme un ballon bizarre se dirige vers l'infini

The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity

It was, if it was, numbers fly as balloons,
you said to me
the other day.
People need to tie everything down,
I replied,
taking my nets and ropes and twines
fastening myself into
the hollow space of your palm.

Luna

La Luna loves music, flamenco, rembetika, the sweat of the singers flung into the choked air of the dance floor. Sometimes she even dances, cigar clenched in her teeth, a rose in her hand and those dancers who do not see her, later they will swear there was something special in the air. La Luna drinks thick rum, sweet with the memory of molasses, the billow of sails and sailors laughter, brandy, cognac, anything with the scent of the cask or nameless concoctions in bottles without labels, bursting onto the tongue like gypsy music, words flying into the sky in a shower of sparks.

La Luna loves a sad story, will meet the Angel, who never sleeps, find him in his usual corner hunched over a drink, hiding his eyes an she will place a friend’s hand on his shoulder, the greeting of the otherwordly and he will begin to speak of advice rejected, help not given, lives lost and helpless. Sometimes Death will join them, wipe the seat with his handkerchief, and gently, for the Angel is a creature who still believes in hope, will tell his own stories.

La Luna cries for all the lost, all the disappointed, the heart broken but not least for herself as in her weeping comes the realisation that dawn is coming and with its light she must fade, evaporate and return once more to the blasted moon, to her lover, his empty eyes forever trapped in the gaping void.

excerpts from La Luna,
a gift from Swiss

I am fascinated with the moon, how writers have written about the moon, and how poets have been moonstruck [...] The Moon, as character here, is a performer, broken-hearted, but she still has to dress up and step onto the universal stage every night. If she doesn’t, it stays dark down here and all Chaos will ensue. This is her dilemma.

Patricia Barber

another kind of mathematics

Noi ştim că unu ori unu fac unu,
dar un inorog ori o pară
nu ştim cât face.
Ştim că cinci fără patru fac unu,
dar un nor fără o corabie
nu ştim cât face.
Ştim, noi ştim că opt
împărţit la opt fac unu,
dar un munte împărţit la o capră
nu ştim cât face.
Ştim că unu plus unu fac doi,
dar eu şi cu tine,
nu Ştim, vai, nu ştim cât facem.

Ah, dar o plapumă
înmulţită cu un iepure
face o roscovană, desigur,
o varză împărţită la un steag
fac un porc,
un cal fără un tramvai
face un înger,
o conopidă plus un ou,
face un astragal…

Numai tu şi cu mine
înmultiţi şi împărţiţi
adunaţi şi scăzuţi
rămânem aceiaşi…

Pieri din mintea mea!
Revino-mi în inimă!

Nichita Stănescu, Altă matematică

We know that one times one is one,
but an unicorn times a pear
have no idea what it is.
We know that five minus four is one
but a cloud minus a sailboat
have no idea what it is.
We know that eight
divided by eight is one,
but a mountain divided by a goat
have no idea what it is.
We know that one plus one is two,
but me and you, oh,
we have no idea what it is.

Oh, but a comforter
times a rabbit
is a red-headed one of course,
a cabbage divided by a flag
is a pig,
a horse minus a street-car
is an angel,
a cauliflower plus an egg
is an astragalus.

Only you and me
multiplied and divided
added and substracted
remain the same...

Vanish from my mind!
Come back in my heart!

(english translation by George Mustea)

it should have happened

in the other world
sometimes more real
a woman kneeling
her hair sweeping the earth
below the horizon line
it should have happened
a sky
a cloud even
birds
light breathing

it should have happened
the ivory gods
their thousand faces
prosperous in every wound
the gods refused
to walk on her flesh.

Solitary Tree

El a întins spre mine o frunză ca o mână cu degete.
Eu am întins spre el o mână ca o frunză cu dinţi.
El a întins spre mine o ramură ca un braţ.
Eu am întins spre el braţul ca o ramură.
El şi-a înclinat spre mine trunchiul
ca un umăr.
Eu am inclinat spre el umărul
ca un trunchi noduros.
Auzeam cum se-nţeteşte seva lui bătând
ca sângele.
Auzea cum se încetineşte sângele meu suind ca seva.
Eu am trecut prin el.
El a trecut prin mine.
Eu am rămas un pom singur.
El
un om singur.

Nichita Stanescu (Necuvintele)



He offered me a leaf like a hand with fingers.
I offered him a hand like a leaf with teeth.
He offered me a branch like an arm.
I offered him my arm like a branch.
He tipped his trunk towards me
like a shoulder.
I tipped my shoulder to him
like a knotted trunk.
I could hear his sap quicken, beating
like blood.
He could hear my blood slacken like rising sap.
I passed through him.
He passed through me.
I remained a solitary tree.
He
a solitary man.

(Unwords)

(for J)

M

and I sit by the stove
and try to catch time red-handed
the delicate ripple of curtains
the phosphorescence of walls
books dancing
on the wooden shelf
the abstract leaf on the rug
the Mexican flower
I enclose
in a single breath

Halina Poswiatowska

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish to be close to me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

e.e. cummings

Be quiet, Fiers

LOPAKHIN. Please attend carefully! Your estate is only
thirteen miles from the town, the railway runs by, and if the
cherry orchard and the land by the river are broken up into
building lots and are then leased off for villas you'll get at
least twenty-five thousand roubles a year profit out of it.

GAEV. How utterly absurd!

LUBOV. I don't understand you at all, Ermolai Alexeyevitch.

LOPAKHIN. You will get twenty-five roubles a year for each
dessiatin from the leaseholders at the very least, and if you
advertise now I'm willing to bet that you won't have a vacant plot
left by the autumn; they'll all go. In a word, you're saved. I
congratulate you. Only, of course, you'll have to put things
straight, and clean up. ... For instance, you'll have to pull down
all the old buildings, this house, which isn't any use to anybody
now, and cut down the old cherry orchard. ...

LUBOV. Cut it down? My dear man, you must excuse me, but you don't
understand anything at all. If there's anything interesting or
remarkable in the whole province, it's this cherry orchard of ours.

LOPAKHIN. The only remarkable thing about the orchard is that it's
very large. It only bears fruit every other year, and even then you
don't know what to do with them; nobody buys any.

GAEV. This orchard is mentioned in the "Encyclopaedic Dictionary."

LOPAKHIN. [Looks at his watch] If we can't think of anything and
don't make up our minds to anything, then on August 22, both the
cherry orchard and the whole estate will be up for auction. Make up
your mind! I swear there's no other way out, I'll swear it again.

FIERS. In the old days, forty or fifty years back, they dried the
cherries, soaked them and pickled them, and made jam of them, and
it used to happen that ...

GAEV. Be quiet, Fiers.

FIERS. And then we'd send the dried cherries off in carts to Moscow
and Kharkov. And money! And the dried cherries were soft, juicy,
sweet, and nicely scented. ... They knew the way. ...

LUBOV. What was the way?

FIERS. They've forgotten. Nobody remembers.


Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard

Als das Kind Kind war

Als das Kind Kind war,
wußte es nicht, daß es Kind war,
alles war ihm beseelt,
und alle Seelen waren eins.

When the child was a child,
it didn’t know that it was a child,
everything was soulful, and all souls were one.

Als das Kind Kind war,
erwachte es einmal in einem fremden Bett
und jetzt immer wieder,
erschienen ihm viele Menschen schön
und jetzt nur noch im Glücksfall

When the child was a child,
it awoke once in a strange bed,
and now does so again and again.
Many people, then, seemed beautiful,
and now only a few do, by sheer luck

griff im Wipfel eines Baums nach den Kirschen in einem Hochgefühl
wie auch heute noch

When the child was a child,
It reached for cherries in topmost branches of trees
with an elation it still has today

eine Scheu vor jedem Fremden
und hat sie immer noch,

has a shyness in front of strangers,
and has that even now.

wartete es auf den ersten Schnee,
und wartet so immer noch.

It awaited the first snow,
And waits that way even now.

Peter Handke
Lied vom Kindsein (Song of Childhood)

Pondering about Billoo's quote: what should have been. There is a whole world between "what should have been" and Eliot's "what might have been".
So here's looking at you, kid. The drunken soul will fly you to the in-between.

Towards the door we never opened

What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.

T.S. Eliot, Quartet No. 1, Burnt Norton

Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

T.S. Eliot, Quartet No. 1, Burnt Norton

and the dark red flowers are always for him... especially the floating ones.

In Praise of Shadows

We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates.

Tanizaki (In Praise of Shadows)

her hand

brushing my hair
bitter blades of grass
fragrance of wine
ages old
rising in the night
quietly quietly
mist
her hand resting now
open
on the other side of the looking glass
pale flowers
breathing low

We shall not even know

We shall not even know that we have met.
Yet meet we shall, and part, and meet again,
Where dead men meet, on lips of living men.

Samuel Butler, Mellonta tauta

trennen wollten wir uns?

Trennen wollten wir uns? wähnten es gut und klug?
Da wirs taten, warum schröckte, wie Mord, die Tat?
Ach! wir kennen uns wenig,
Denn es waltet ein Gott in uns.

Hölderlin (Die Liebenden)

So we wanted to part, thought it clever and good,
That we did it, why did it shock us like murder, the deed?
Oh, we know ourselves little
For a god is at work in us.

(The Lovers)