2010

Mit dem Jahr 2010 wollten wir hier anfangen zu sammeln! ;)

01-04-2010

Nada está perdido si se tiene el valor de proclamar que todo está perdido y hay que empezar de nuevo.
—Julio Cortázar

07-04-2010

Al Castellano
I.
En esta lengua que hablo, en estas frases de un eco
cuántas voces viven, cuánto eres la inmortalidad,
lengua de plurales que siendo una eres
metáfora de aquello que siendo uno es lo diverso.
El todo te contiene y tú contienes esa palabra: Universo.
Porque de qué otro modo podrían vivir en estos verbos,
en estas sonoridades, en estos silencios y alturas,
tantas sombras que fueron y tantas que serán mañana:
de las que serán ya están las palabras en las bocas
y estuvieron en la luna sangrienta de Quevedo,
en la mañana en que Díaz de Vivar tomó una ciudad
ya muerto, en la impávida marinería que otra mañana,
de octubre, vio una costa (sueño dentro de un sueño),
y estaba hecha de dolor, de hambre y de coraje.
Oh lengua donde cabalgan hombres y donde
tantas lenguas han desembocado,
ancho río de España que ha salido al mar,
es cierto que no conservaste para nosotros
la gracia leve de las declinaciones,
pero del sólido latín vienen tus huesos,
la carne somos hoy los que te hablamos
(el centurión que rige en la provincia
lejana de su imperio, no comprende
que al pedir el vino pide a la historia que conserve
unos distintos matices, unos cambios que no serán
fugaces como su humana sombra,
sino el futuro del habla de Virgilio).
El fenicio que apoyaba su balanza en su lanza
y desde lo conjeturable a cambio
nos dejó su sangre y sus palabras.
El doctor que en la Torá canta al Dios de Abraham,
el duro visigodo que bautiza a su hijo
con trabajosas frases que ya no son exactamente las sajonas
con que fue nombrado. El victorioso muslín,
que bajo el verde triángulo de sus banderas
no sabe que fue él el conquistado.
El probable griego que lejos de Bizancio
sumó a sus ciencias el arte de vivir en el exilio.
El capitán de hombres, asturiano,
que juró sobre la espada de hierro tomar esa colina
y en la colina duerme desde entonces.
El fraile que en la celda deleita las horas y las horas,
al resguardo del muro y de su tiempo,
inclinado sobre el tomo y que transcribe
siglos después el porvenir de esos ecos,
las frases de Aristóteles y los dobles sueños de Plutarco,
no conoce que en lo que ara su pluma
otro rumbo se ha abierto.
Lo supo el triste, el alto, el solo
que soñó en la cárcel que era Miguel de Cervantes
y que escribía el Quijote.
Ni el judío ni el moro ni el cristiano
que disputan y entremezclan sus sangres
en tu sonoro ancestro lo comprenden:
de qué miles de hombres y de historias
has salido, lengua de Gracián y las Américas.

II.
Veo en ti. No estás hecha de sonidos solamente,
ni de ideas solamente ni de conceptos. Fuiste hecha
también para nombrar esas penumbras de las imprecisiones,
la ambigua senda que entre la palabra y los hechos
declara su dominio. Otra proeza tuya, castellano.
Que la eternidad tenga un cuerpo y que podamos
palpar el peso de una hora en la palabra.
En Persia ciertas oraciones podían mover los astros;
sólo tú, ahora, puedes convocarlos. Que yo diga pradera
y la pradera se extienda, como una alfombra sin árboles,
amarillento cielo derramado de aquí hasta el horizonte.
Que yo diga volcán y que éste brote en la habitación sonora,
arrancando los pisos e hirviendo los aires y el aliento.
Que diga mar y pise el légamo del fondo
con los cabellos sacudidos por las olas, todo venido en torno
sueño líquido, blando peso en movimiento, inconmensurable.
Que diga aire y me eleve o todo hacia algún allá descienda,
como si cayera la tierra y en el mismo lugar me quedara, solo.
De alguna forma, en millones de bocas,
lo has abarcado todo, lo has devorado todo:
¿qué otras palabras, como gentes del futuro,
en ti, lengua infinita, allá adelante esperan por nosotros?
Cuáles habrá para nombrar lo que no ha nacido nunca,
como no habían nacido antes éstas que hablamos.
Si presente es eso que al nombrarlo en ti
es lo que ha sido, más el mañana de lo mismo, incluso,
lengua que has sido la de Góngora y es mía,
usando tus palabras yo te sueño tan eterna
como la tierra y el aire. A ti, que abarcas por igual
el fuego y el agua y la tierra y el aire.
—Luis Benítez

09-04-2010

The human shape is a ghost made of distraction and pain.
Sometimes pure light, sometimes cruel, trying wildly to open, this image tightly held within itself.
-Rumi

Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.
—Friedrich Nietzsche

10-04-2010

LATER
In poems it always looks different.
When I read sentences written by others,
everything seems clear and easy.
Like a sheet of paper which still resists fire,
which hardly feels the signs of ash
on it. In my yard
ash is so comprehensive.
Like an illusion, like a picture that inspires.
Many write about lost beauty,
about misfortune that comes suddenly and creeps
into a silent, abandoned heart.
However, I would like to say something
about my yard and about the big river
which you should see from the window.
About an ash-tree and two lime-trees which
disappeared the other day.
The mechanism of the fairy-tale has suddenly become
completely inconceivable to me.
The ash that falls from the window,
that black soot that only yesterday
used to be a table, a bed or books,
somebody’s life about which nobody thought very much,
that is stuck in my throat and blurring my sight.
When I wave with my hand,
will I still be able to feel anything?
-ZVONKO MAKOVIC


Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


De las tantas cosas que no puede
De las tantas cosas que no puede
mostrar ciertamente la palabra,
la primera imposible es el olor
tan propio y exacto de las cosas.
La poesía también es como el aroma.
Así quedan sin nombre
el olor definitivo de la lluvia
y el efímero matiz que se respira
al asomarse a las sombras de un aljibe;
el olor del primer mar, a los seis años,
la fragancia, que nos asustaba, de los cielos nublados,
y el olor a comida de una casa
que nos fue querida.
La memoria tal vez sea
sólo visión de olores olvidados,
como este papel a donde llamo
a la presencia ardiente de unas hojas quemadas
y a la clave del enigma de la rosa;
al olor de las sangres
que no vi derramarse,
al olor del incienso y al del alcanfor,
un olor que resplandece;
al de las jóvenes mujeres en los baños públicos,
al de las monedas, que abandonan la mano
y que retornan, al de la tierra de Pinzón
una mañana de octubre, al de los gatos,
al olor milagroso de las cosas vulgares,
de las que apenas se comprende
que emanan la noche poderosa,
al de un río que corre lejos
y al que sin razón evoco,
al de la palabra marisma, al de retablo,
a los de esta mañana
que partieron a un país sin dónde,
al de una muchacha que se fue,
el 2 de noviembre de 1982,
para que mis palabras
pidieran el perfume de unos versos
y me quedaran la fecha y la balada,
el de las ballenas que tiñen
la espuma de aceite y de tamaño,
el de un hombre que hablaba del origen del día,
al de las tantas cosas
a las que no pude acercarme y que me esperan.
Son otro mundo más sobre este mundo,
veo el bosque y entre el bosque
la selva del aroma.
Yo me voy de los hombres y las cosas
como un salvaje que marcha a las ciudades
y dice adiós a su mundo de olores;
también a mí ellos vuelven
bellos y pesados como un remordimiento.
Serán desde estos versos mi memoria,
seguirán sobre el mundo
cuando me haya muerto.
-Luis Benítez

11-04-2010

Time spent with cats is never wasted.

What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.
-Siegmund Freud

15-04-2010

Datos Biográficos

Me sacaron la tierra
de debajo
-a eso llaman destierro-
o sea que, de pronto,
me faltó el suelo
y me sobró distancia.

Pero un día,
antes de aquello,
me habían arrancado
la libertad de cuajo,
y entonces,
cuando me faltaba el aire
y me sobraban rejas,
me sentía
un poco mejor que antes,
que cuando me quitaron
a mi hija de los brazos:
en ese entonces
me faltaba todo -el futuro-
(podría decir que me sobró la vida).

Y sin embargo
todavía me acordaba
del día que los milicos
metieron a mi patria entre barrotes,
ese día me sobró la fuerza
y me faltó el miedo.
Allí empezó la cosa.

-Alicia Partnoy

Silver aus dem Works hat das Gedicht übersetzt.

19-04-2010

My sister, my little cricket
Listen sister,
sometimes it seems life’s
not worth a bowl
of old onions
but, like travel,
you should stick with it
for the points of interest
along the way.

Take love for instance,
that’s interesting
in any language.

-Jenny Bornholdt


Cancha Rayada
Caminamos, con mi viejo, por la playa de estacionamiento.
Es un día de calor sofocante
y en el asfalto recalentado
vemos la sombra de un pájaro negro
que vuela en círculos,
como satélite de nuestra desgracia.
Una multitud victoriosa, a nuestras espaldas,
ruge todavía en la cancha.
Acabamos de perder el campeonato.
La cabina del auto es un horno a leña;
los asientos queman y el sol que pega
en el vidrio, enceguece.
Pero no importa, como dos bonzos
dispuestos a inmolarse,
nos sentamos y enciendo el motor:
Fabián Casas y su padre
van en coche al muere.

-Fabian Casas

Sage aus dem Works hat das Gedicht übersetzt.

21-04-2010

Color
¡Color que, un momento, el humo
toma del sol que lo pasa;
vida mía, vida mía,
fugaz y coloreada!
—Juan Ramón Jiménez

ollie aus dem Works hat das Gedicht übersetzt.

23-04-2010

A lie does not consist in the indirect position of words, but in the desire and intention, by false speaking, to deceive and injure your neighbour.
-Jonathan Swift

24-04-2010

Das Zitat vom 23.04.2010 wurde durch das Folgende ersetzt:

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
-Jonathan Swift

Übersetzung:
Wir haben Religion genug,
um einander zu hassen,
aber nicht genug,
um einander zu lieben...

25-04-2010

DAWN
FLY hence, shadows, that do keep
Watchful sorrows charm'd in sleep!
Tho' the eyes be overtaken,
Yet the heart doth ever waken
Thoughts chain'd up in busy snares
Of continual woes and cares:
Love and griefs are so exprest
As they rather sigh than rest.
Fly hence, shadows, that do keep
Watchful sorrows charm'd in sleep!
-John Ford


Glazunoviana

The man with the red hat
And the polar bear, is he here too?
The window giving on shade,
Is that here too?
And all the little helps,
My initials in the sky,
The hay of an arctic summer night?

The bear
Drops dead in sight of the window.
Lovely tribes have just moved to the north.
In the flickering evening the martins grow denser.
Rivers of wings surround us and vast tribulation.
-John Ashbery


ODA AL VINO
Vino color de día,
vino color de noche,
vino con pies de púrpura
o sangre de topacio,
vino,
estrellado hijo
de la tierra,
vino, liso
como una espada de oro,
suave
como un desordenado terciopelo,
vino encaracolado
y suspendido,
amoroso,
marino,
nunca has cabido en una copa,
en un canto, en un hombre,
coral, gregario eres,
y cuando menos, mutuo.
A veces
te nutres de recuerdos
mortales,
en tu ola
vamos de tumba en tumba,
picapedrero de sepulcro helado,
y lloramos
lágrimas transitorias,
pero
tu hermoso
traje de primavera
es diferente,
el corazón sube a las ramas,
el viento mueve el día,
nada queda
dentro de tu alma inmóvil.
El vino
mueve la primavera,
crece como una planta la alegría,
caen muros,
peñascos,
se cierran los abismos,
nace el canto.
Oh tú, jarra de vino, en el desierto
con la sabrosa que amo,
dijo el viejo poeta.
Que el cántaro de vino
al beso del amor sume su beso.

Amor mio, de pronto
tu cadera
es la curva colmada
de la copa,
tu pecho es el racimo,
la luz del alcohol tu cabellera,
las uvas tus pezones,
tu ombligo sello puro
estampado en tu vientre de vasija,
y tu amor la cascada
de vino inextinguible,
la claridad que cae en mis sentidos,
el esplendor terrestre de la vida.

Pero no sólo amor,
beso quemante
o corazón quemado
eres, vino de vida,
sino
amistad de los seres, transparencia,
coro de disciplina,
abundancia de flores.
Amo sobre una mesa,
cuando se habla,
la luz de una botella
de inteligente vino.
Que lo beban,
que recuerden en cada
gota de oro
o copa de topacio
o cuchara de púrpura
que trabajó el otoño
hasta llenar de vino las vasijas
y aprenda el hombre oscuro,
en el ceremonial de su negocio,
a recordar la tierra y sus deberes,
a propagar el cántico del fruto.
-Pablo Neruda

Die englische Übersetzung und ein wirklich kleines Stück einer deutschen Übersetzung.

26-04-2010

CHAU PESIMISMO
Ya sos mayor de edad
tengo que despedirte
pesimismo

años que te preparo el desayuno
que vigilo tu tos de mal agüero
y te tomo la fiebre
que trato de narrarte pormenores
del pasado mediato
convencerte de que en el fondo somos
gallardos y leales
y también que al mal tiempo buena cara

pero como si nada
seguís malhumorado arisco e insociable
y te repantigás en la avería
como si fuese una butaca pullman

se te ve la fruición por el malogro
tu viejo idilio con la mala sombra
tu manía de orar junto a las ruinas
tu goce ante el desastre inesperado

claro que voy a despedirte
no sé por qué no lo hice antes
será porque tenés tu propio método
de hacerte necesario
y a uno lo deja triste tu tristeza
amargo tu amargura
alarmista tu alarma

ya sé vas a decirme no hay motivos
para la euforia y las celebraciones
y claro cuandonó tenés razón

pero es tan boba tu razón tan obvia
tan remendada y remedada
tan igualita al pálpito
que enseguida se vuelve sinrazón

ya sos mayor de edad
chau pesimismo

y por favor andate despacito
sin despertar al monstruo

-Mario Benedetti

ollie und Rio aus dem Works haben eine englische Übersetzung angefertigt.

29-04-2010

I SAW IN LOUISIANA A LIVE-OAK GROWING
I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing, All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches; Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves of dark green, And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself; But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone there, without its friend, its lover near--for I knew I could not;And broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss, And brought it away--and I have placed it in sight in my room; It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends, (For I believe lately I think of little else than them:) Yet it remains to me a curious token--it makes me think of manly love; For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana, solitary, in a wide flat space, Uttering joyous leaves all its life, without a friend, a lover, near, I know very well I could not.
-Walt Whitman

03-05-2010

To restrict the artist is a crime. It is to murder germinating life.
-Egon Schiele



Den Künstler hemmen ist ein Verbrechen, es heißt keimendes Leben morden!
Übersetzungs-Quelle

07-05-2010

Whenever you have truth
it must be given with love,
or the message and the
messenger will be rejected.
-Mahatma Gandhi-

No estudio para saber más,
sino para ignorar menos.
-SOR JUANA INÉS DE LA CRUZ-

15-05-2010

THE FAR FIELD
I
I dream of journeys repeatedly:
Of flying like a bat deep into a narrowing tunnel
Of driving alone, without luggage, out a long peninsula,
The road lined with snow-laden second growth,
A fine dry snow ticking the windshield,
Alternate snow and sleet, no on-coming traffic,
And no lights behind, in the blurred side-mirror,
The road changing from glazed tarface to a rubble of stone,
Ending at last in a hopeless sand-rut,
Where the car stalls,
Churning in a snowdrift
Until the headlights darken.
II
At the field's end, in the corner missed by the mower,
Where the turf drops off into a grass-hidden culvert,
Haunt of the cat-bird, nesting-place of the field-mouse,
Not too far away from the ever-changing flower-dump,
Among the tin cans, tires, rusted pipes, broken machinery, --
One learned of the eternal;
And in the shrunken face of a dead rat, eaten by rain and ground-beetles
(I found in lying among the rubble of an old coal bin)
And the tom-cat, caught near the pheasant-run,
Its entrails strewn over the half-grown flowers,
Blasted to death by the night watchman.
I suffered for young birds, for young rabbits caught in the mower,
My grief was not excessive.
For to come upon warblers in early May
Was to forget time and death:
How they filled the oriole's elm, a twittering restless cloud, all one
morning,
And I watched and watched till my eyes blurred from the bird shapes, --
Cape May, Blackburnian, Cerulean, --
Moving, elusive as fish, fearless,
Hanging, bunched like young fruit, bending the end branches,
Still for a moment,
Then pitching away in half-flight,
Lighter than finches,
While the wrens bickered and sang in the half-green hedgerows,
And the flicker drummed from his dead tree in the chicken-yard.
-- Or to lie naked in sand,
In the silted shallows of a slow river,
Fingering a shell,
Thinking:
Once I was something like this, mindless,
Or perhaps with another mind, less peculiar;
Or to sink down to the hips in a mossy quagmire;
Or, with skinny knees, to sit astride a wet log,
Believing:
I'll return again,
As a snake or a raucous bird,
Or, with luck, as a lion.
I learned not to fear infinity,
The far field, the windy cliffs of forever,
The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow,
The wheel turning away from itself,
The sprawl of the wave,
The on-coming water.
III
The river turns on itself,
The tree retreats into its own shadow.
I feel a weightless change, a moving forward
As of water quickening before a narrowing channel
When banks converge, and the wide river whitens;
Or when two rivers combine, the blue glacial torrent
And the yellowish-green from the mountainy upland, --
At first a swift rippling between rocks,
Then a long running over flat stones
Before descending to the alluvial plane,
To the clay banks, and the wild grapes hanging from the elmtrees.
The slightly trembling water
Dropping a fine yellow silt where the sun stays;
And the crabs bask near the edge,
The weedy edge, alive with small snakes and bloodsuckers, --
I have come to a still, but not a deep center,
A point outside the glittering current;
My eyes stare at the bottom of a river,
At the irregular stones, iridescent sandgrains,
My mind moves in more than one place,
In a country half-land, half-water.
I am renewed by death, thought of my death,
The dry scent of a dying garden in September,
The wind fanning the ash of a low fire.
What I love is near at hand,
Always, in earth and air.
IV
The lost self changes,
Turning toward the sea,
A sea-shape turning around, --
An old man with his feet before the fire,
In robes of green, in garments of adieu.
A man faced with his own immensity
Wakes all the waves, all their loose wandering fire.
The murmur of the absolute, the why
Of being born falls on his naked ears.
His spirit moves like monumental wind
That gentles on a sunny blue plateau.
He is the end of things, the final man.
All finite things reveal infinitude:
The mountain with its singular bright shade
Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow,
The after-light upon ice-burdened pines;
Odor of basswood on a mountain-slope,
A scent beloved of bees;
Silence of water above a sunken tree :
The pure serene of memory in one man, --
A ripple widening from a single stone
Winding around the waters of the world.
-Theodore Roethke

DOLOR
I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplicaton of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.
—Theodore Roethke

20-05-2010

TOMES
There is a section in my library for death
and another for Irish history,
a few shelves for the poetry of China and Japan,
and in the center a row of imperturbable reference books,
the ones you can turn to anytime,
when the night is going wrong
or when the day is full of empty promise.
I have nothing against
the thin monograph, the odd query,
a note on the identity of Chekhov's dentist,
but what I prefer on days like these
is to get up from the couch,
pull down The History of the World,
and hold in my hands a book
containing nearly everything
and weighing no more than a sack of potatoes,
eleven pounds, I discovered one day when I placed it
on the black, iron scale
my mother used to keep in her kitchen,
the device on which she would place
a certain amount of flour,
a certain amount of fish.
Open flat on my lap
under a halo of lamplight,
a book like this always has a way
of soothing the nerves,
quieting the riotous surf of information
that foams around my waist
even though it never mentions
the silent labors of the poor,
the daydreams of grocers and tailors,
or the faces of men and women alone in single rooms-
even though it never mentions my mother,
now that I think of her again,
who only last year rolled off the edge of the earth
in her electric bed,
in her smooth pink nightgown
the bones of her fingers interlocked,
her sunken eyes staring upward
beyond all knowledge,
beyond the tiny figures of history,
some in uniform, some not,
marching onto the pages of this incredibly heavy book.
-Billy Collins

21-05-2010

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”
-Charles Darwin

23-05-2010

It is a strange fact that freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically considered, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive.
-Thomas Mann

06-06-2010

A Problem
Let none resemble another; let each resemble the highest!
How can that happen? let each be all complete in itself.
-Friedrich von Schiller

"Keiner sei gleich dem andern, doch gleich sei jeder dem Höchsten. Wie das zu machen? Es sei jeder vollendet in sich."


The Sphinx
The Sphinx is drowsy,
Her wings are furled:
Her ear is heavy,
She broods on the world.
"Who'll tell me my secret,
The ages have kept?--
I awaited the seer
While they slumbered and slept:--
"The fate of the man-child,
The meaning of man;
Known fruit of the unknown;
Daedalian plan;
Out of sleeping a waking,
Out of waking a sleep;
Life death overtaking;
Deep underneath deep?
:Erect as a sunbeam,
Upspringeth the palm;
The elephant browses,
Undaunted and calm;
In beautiful motion
The thrush plies his wings;
Kind leaves of his covert,
Your silence he sings.
"The waves, unashaméd,
In difference sweet,
Play glad with the breezes,
Old playfellows meet;
The journeying atoms,
Primordial wholes,
Firmly draw, firmly drive,
By their animate poles.
"Sea, earth, air, sound, silence,
Plant, quadruped, bird,
By one music enchanted,
One deity stirred,--
Each the other adorning,
Accompany still;
Night veileth the morning,
The vapor the hill.
"The babe by its mother
Lies bathéd in joy;
Glide its hours uncounted,--
The sun is its toy;
Shines the peace of all being,
Without cloud, in its eyes;
And the sum of the world
In soft miniature lies.
"But man crouches and blushes,
Absconds and conceals;
He creepeth and peepeth,
He palters and steals;
Infirm, melancholy,
Jealous glancing around,
An oaf, an accomplice,
He poisons the ground.
"Out spoke the great mother,
Beholding his fear;--
At the sound of her accents
Cold shuddered the sphere:--
'Who has drugged my boy's cup?
Who has mixed my boy's bread?
Who, with sadness and madness,
Has turned my child's head?
I heard a poet answer
Aloud and cheerfully,
"Say on, sweet Sphinx! thy dirges
Are pleasant songs to me.
Deep love lieth under
These pictures of time;
They fade in the light of
Their meaning sublime.
"The fiend that man harries
Is love of the Best;
Yawns the pit of the Dragon,
Lit by rays from the Blest.
The lethe of Nature
Can't trance him again,
Whose soul sees the perfect,
Which his eyes seek in vain.
"To vision profounder,
Man's spirit must dive;
His aye-rolling orb
At no goal will arrive;
The heavens that now draw him
With sweetness untold,
Once found,--for new heavens
He spurneth the old.
"Pride ruined the angels,
Their shame them restores;
Lurks the joy that is sweetest
In stings of remorse.
Have I a lover
Who is noble and free?--
I would he were nobler
Than to love me.

"Eterne alternation
Now follows, now flies;
And under pain, pleasure,--
Under pleasure, pain lies.
Love works at the center,
Heart-heaving alway;
Forth speed the strong pulses
To the borders of day.

"Dull Sphinx, Jove keep thy five wits'
Thy sight is growing blear;
Rue, myrrh and cummin for the Sphinx,
Her muddy eyes to clear!"
The old Sphinx bit her thick lip,--
Said, "Who taught thee me to name?
I am thy spirit, yoke-fellow;
Of thine eye I am eyebeam.
"Thou art the unanswered question;
Couldst see thy proper eye,
Alway it asketh, asketh;
And each answer is a lie.
So take thy question through nature,
It through thousand natures ply;
Ask on, thou clothed eternity;
Time is the false reply.
Uprose the merry Sphinx,
And crouched no more in stone;
She melted into purple cloud,
She silvered in the moon;
She spired into a yellow flame;
She flowered in blossoms red;
She flowed into a foaming wave:
She stood Monadnoc's head.
Through a thousand voices
Spoke the universal dame
"Who telleth one of my meanings
Is master of all I am."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

13-06-2010

‘This is what I most want’

This is what I most want
unpursued, alone
to reach beyond the light
that I am furthest from.

And for you to shine there-
no other happiness-
and learn, from starlight,
what its fire might suggest.

A star burns as a star,
light becomes light,
because our murmuring
strengthens us, and warms the night.

And I want to say to you
my little one, whispering,
I can only lift you towards the light
by means of this babbling.
—Osip Mandelstam
Note: Written for his wife, Nadezhda.
(translated by A. S. Kline)




On The 100th Anniversary Of Anna Akhmatova
The fire and the page, the hewed hairs and the swords,
The grains and the millstone, the whispers and the clatter --
God saves all that -- especially the words
Of love and pity, as His only way to utter.
The harsh pulse pounds and the blood torrent whips,
The spade knocks evenly in them, by gentle muse begotten,
For life is so unique, they from the mortal lips
Sound more clear than from the divine wad-cotton.
Oh, the great soul, I'm bowing overseas
To you, who found them, and that, your smoldering portion,
Sleeping in the homeland, which, thanks to you, at least,
Obtained the gift of speech in the deaf-mute space ocean.
—Joseph Brodsky

16-06-2010

The Sea And The Man
You will not tame this sea
either by humility or rapture.
But you can laugh
in its face.
Laughter
was invented by those
who live briefly
as a burst of laughter.
The eternal sea
will never learn to laugh.
—Anna Swirszczynska
(Translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Natha)

18-06-2010

Não me Peçam Razões...
Não me peçam razões, que não as tenho,
Ou darei quantas queiram: bem sabemos
Que razões são palavras, todas nascem
Da mansa hipocrisia que aprendemos.
Não me peçam razões por que se entenda
A força de maré que me enche o peito,
Este estar mal no mundo e nesta lei:
Não fiz a lei e o mundo não aceito.
Não me peçam razões, ou que as desculpe,
Deste modo de amar e destruir:
Quando a noite é de mais é que amanhece
A cor de primavera que há-de vir.
—José Saramago (starb gestern) ("Os Poemas Possíveis")

22-06-2010

Whatever tears one may shed, in the end one always blows one's nose.
-Heinrich Heine

There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.
-Albert Einstein