Der Einsame (The Lonely)

Der Einsame (The Lonely)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Translation: Philipp Kellmeyer

Wie einer, der auf fremden Meeren fuhr,
so bin ich bei den ewig Einheimischen;
die vollen Tage stehn auf ihren Tischen,
mir aber ist die Ferne voll Figur.

In mein Gesicht reicht eine Welt herein,
die vielleicht unbewohnt ist wie ein Mond,
sie aber lassen kein Gefühl allein,
und alle ihre Worte sind bewohnt.

Die Dinge, die ich weither mit mir nahm,
sehn selten aus, gehalten an das Ihre -:
in ihrer großen Heimat sind sie Tiere,
hier halten sie den Atem an vor Scham.

***

Like someone who sailed distant seas
I am with the ever natives;
the full days standing on their tables,
but for me distance is full of shape.

In my face a world reaches in,
perhaps deserted like a moon,
but they leave no feeling alone,
and all their worlds are inhabited.

The things which I took with me
look rare compared to theirs -:
in their great home they are animals,
here they hold their breath in shame.

***

Artwork: Faraway by Joe Sorren

The Blind March

Does this darkness have a name?

This cruelty, this hatred, how did it find us?

Did it steal into our lives or did we seek it out and embrace it?

What happened to us that we now send our children into the world
like we send young men to war hoping for their safe return but
knowing that some would be lost along the way?

When did we lose our way?

Consumed by the shadows, swallowed whole by the darkness.

Does this darkness have a name?

Is it your name?

- OTH 3x16, With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept

None Among Me

Art builds from pain
From misery
From a deep-seated hurt
A monument to the human heart
That shines like a golden dome
Amongst roofs rain-glazed and leaden.

Paul Muldoon

City That Never Sleeps

Federico Garcia Lorca

In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the stars.

Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
In a graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of a dry countryside on his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.

Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead dahlias.
But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams do not exist;
flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a thicket of new veins,
and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever
and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulders.

One day
the horses will live in the saloons
and the enraged ants
will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the eyes of cows.

Another day
we will watch the preserved butterflies arise from the dead
and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats
we will watch our ring flash and roses spring from our tongue.
Careful! Be careful! Be careful!
The men who still have marks of the claw and the thunderstorm,
and that boy cries because he has never heard of the invention of the bridge,
or that dead man who possesses now only a head and a shoe,
we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes are waiting,
where the bear's teeth are waiting,
where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting,
and the hair of the camel stands on end with a violent blue shudder.

Nobody is sleeping in the sky. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is sleeping.
If someone does close his eyes,
a whip, boys, a whip!
Let there be a landscape of open eyes
and bitter wounds on fire.
No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one.
I have said it before.

No one is sleeping.
But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the night,
open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight
the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theaters.

Duino Elegies: An Excerpt

Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic
orders? And even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would fade
in the strength of his stronger existence.
For Beauty's nothing but the beginning of Terror
we're still able to hear and why we adore it so is
because it serenely disdains to destroy us.
Every angel is terrifying.

~Rainier Maria Rilke

Fable of The Mermaid & The Drunks

by Pablo Neruda

All those men were there inside
when she entered, utterly naked.
They had been drinking, and began to spit at her.
Recently come from the river, she understood nothing
She was a mermaid who had lost her way.
The taunts flowed over her glistening flesh
Obscenities drenched her golden breasts.
A stranger to tears, she did not weep.
A stranger to clothes, she did not dress.
They pocked her with cigarette ends and with burnt corks,
and rolled on the tavern floor in raucous laughter.
She did not speak, since speech was not known to her.
Her eyes were the colour of faraway love,
her arms were matching topazes.
Her lips moved soundlessly in coral light,
and ultimately, she left by that door.
Hardly had she entered the river than she was cleansed,
gleaming once more like a white stone in the rain;
and without a backward glance she swam once more,
swam towards nothingness, swam to her dying.

A Man of Words & Not of Deeds

A Man of Words & Not of Deeds

A man of words and not of deeds
Is like a garden full of weeds,
And when the weeds begin to grow,
It's like a garden full of snow;
And when the snow begins to fall,
It's like a bird upon the wall;
And when the bird away does fly,
It's like an eagle in the sky;
And when the sky begins to roar,
It's like a lion at the door;
And when the door begins to crack,
It's like a stick across your back;
And when your back begins to smart,
It's like a penknife in your heart;
And when your heart begins to bleed,
You're dead, and dead, and dead indeed.

Gacela of the Dark Death

Gacela of the Dark Death

I want to sleep the dream of the apples,
to withdraw from the tumult of centuries.
I want to sleep the dream of that child
who wanted to cut his heart on the high seas.

I don't want to hear again that the dead do not lose their blood,
that the putrid mouth goes on asking for water.
I don't want to learn of the tortures of the grass,
nor of the moon with a serpent's mouth
that labors before dawn.

I want to sleep awhile,
awhile, a minute, a century;
but all must know that I have not died;
that there is a stable of gold in my lips;
that I am the small friend of the West wing;
that I am the intense shadow of my tears.

Cover me at dawn with a veil,
because dawn will throw fistfuls of ants at me,
and wet with hard water my shoes
so that the pincers of the scorpion slide.

For I want to sleep the dream of the apples,
to learn a lament that will cleanse me to earth;
for I want to live with that dark child
who wanted to cut his heart on the high seas.

- Frederico Garcia Lorca

Image: In Her Silent Way by Joe Sorren