the zen blog

spiel nicht mit den schmuddelkindern

2011-11-14T20:46:00.001-05:00

Franz Josef Degenhardt RIP 12/3/31-11/14/11

Spiel nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern,
sing nicht ihre Lieder.
Geh doch in die Oberstadt,
machs wie deine Brüder!

So sprach die Mutter, sprach der Vater, lehrte der Pastor.
Er schlich aber immer wieder durch das Gartentor
und in die Kaninchenställe, wo sie Sechsundsechzig spielten
um Tabak und Rattenfelle -
Mädchen unter Röcke schielten -
wo auf alten Bretterkisten
Katzen in der Sonne dösten -
wo man, wenn der Regen rauschte,
Engelbert, dem Blöden, lauschte,
der auf einen Haarkamm biß,
Rattenfängerlieder blies.
Abends am Familientisch, nach dem Gebet zum Mahl,
hieß es dann: Du riechst schon wieder nach Kaninchenstall.
Spiel nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern,
sing nicht ihre Lieder.
Geh doch in die Oberstadt,
mach´s wie deine Brüder!

Sie trieben ihn in eine Schule in der Oberstadt,
kämmten ihm die Haare und die krause Sprache glatt.
Lernte Rumpf und Wörter beugen.
Und statt Rattenfängerweisen
mußte er das Largo geigen
und vor dürren Tantengreisen
unter roten Rattenwimpern
par cur Kinderszenen klimpern -
und, verklemmt in Viererreihen,
Knochen morsch und morscher schreien -
zwischen Fahnen aufgestellt
brüllen, daß man Freundschaft hält.
Schlich er manchmal abends zum Kaninchenstall davon,
hockten da die Schmuddelkinder, sangen voller Hohn
Spiel nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern ...

Aus Rache ist er reich geworden. In der Oberstadt
hat er sich ein Haus gebaut. Nahm jeden Tag ein Bad.
Roch, wie bessre Leuten riechen.
Lachte fett, wenn alle Ratten
ängstlich in die Gullys wichen,
weil sie ihn gerochen hatten.
Und Kaninchenställe riß er
ab. An ihre Stelle ließ er
Gärten für die Kinder bauen.
Liebte hochgestellte Frauen,
schnelle Wagen und Musik,
blond und laut und honigdick.
Kam sein Sohn, der Nägelbeißer, abends spät zum Mahl,
roch er an ihm, schlug ihn, schrie: Stinkst nach Kaninchenstall.
Spiel nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern ...

Und eines Tages hat er eine Kurve glatt verfehlt.
Man hat ihn aus einem Ei von Schrott herausgepellt.
Als er später durch die Straßen
hinkte, sah man ihn an Tagen
auf ´nem Haarkamm Lieder blasen,
Rattenfell am Kragen tragen.
Hinkte hüpfend hinter Kindern,
wollte sie am Schulgang hindern
und schlich um Kaninchenställe.
Eines Tags in aller Helle
hat er dann ein Kind betört
und in einen Stall gezerrt.
Seine Leiche fand man, die im Rattenteich rumschwamm.
Drumherum die Schmuddelkinder bliesen auf dem Kamm:
Spiel nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern ...

thank you, Papa Franz.

schubertiana: allegro

2011-10-06T14:24:00.000-04:00

Tomas Tranströmer reads Schubertiana (recital starts at 3:41)

And here is "Allegro":

After a black day, I play Haydn,
and feel a little warmth in my hands.
The keys are ready, kind hammers fall.
The sound is spirited, green, and full of silence.
The sound says that freedom exists
and someone pays no tax to Caesar.
I shove my hands in my haydnpockets
and act like a man who is calm about it all.
I raise my haydnflag. The signal is:
"We do not surrender. But want peace."
The music is a house of glass standing on a slope;
rocks are flying, rocks are rolling.
The rocks roll straight through the house
but every pane of glass is still whole.

Congratulations Literature Nobel 2011 ...

Li: jade engenders smoke

2008-05-22T16:28:00.006-04:00

.

The ornamented zither, for no reason, has fifty strings.
Each string, each bridge, recalls a youthful year.
Master Chuang was confused by his morning dream of the butterfly;
Emperor Wang's amorous heart in spring is entrusted to the cuckoo.
In the vast sea, under a bright moon, pearls have tears;
On Indigo Mountain, in the warm sun, jade engenders smoke.
This feeling might have become a thing to be remembered,
Only, at the time you were already bewildered and lost.

Li Shang-yin (812-858) The Ornamented Zither
Trans. Eugene Eoyang and Irving Y. Lo
In Wu-chi Liu & Irving Y. Lo (ed.), Sunflower Splendor
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975), p. 240

Li: living on thin air

2008-05-10T15:23:00.008-04:00

.

To fly high hardly fills the belly.
Wasted effort, distressing, your useless crying --
At dawn, intermittent, about to break.
A whole tree stands indifferently green.
A hapless official, flotsam floating about,
My old garden is already level with weeds.
Much obliged I am for your admonition:
I too, with my family, live on thin air.

Li Shang-yin (812-858) The Cicada
Trans. Eugene Eoyang and Irving Y. Lo
In Wu-chi Liu & Irving Y Lo (ed.), Sunflower Splendor
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975), p. 243

Rilke: good, fair, and happening

2008-04-26T13:40:00.014-04:00

.

"Diese Geschichte des alten Lübecker Patriziergeschlechtes Buddenbrook (in Firma Johann Buddenbrook), welche mit dem alten Johann Buddenbrook um 1830 einsetzt, endet mit dem kleinen Hanno, seinem Urenkel, in unseren Tagen. Sie umfaßt Feste und Versammlungen, Taufen und Sterbestunden (besonders schwere und schreckliche Sterbestunden), Verheirathungen und Ehescheidungen, große Geschäftserfolge und die herzlosen unaufhörlichen Schläge des Niederganges, wie das Kaufmannsleben sie mit sich bringt ... Auch der Letzte, der kleine Hanno, geht mit nach innen gekehrtem Blick umher, aufmerksam die innere seelische Welt belauschend, aus der seine Musik hervorströmt. In ihm ist noch einmal die Möglichkeit zu einem Aufstieg (freilich einem anderen als Buddenbrooks erhoffen) gegeben: die unendlich gefährdete Möglichkeit eines großen Künstlerthums, die nicht in Erfüllung geht ... Es ist ein Buch ganz ohne Überhebung des Schriftstellers. Ein Act der Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben, welches gut und gerecht ist, indem es geschieht."

"This tale of the old patrician family Buddenbrook (of the Johann Buddenbrook company) in the city of Lubeck begins with the old Johann Buddenbrook around 1830, and ends with little Hanno, his great-grandson, in our days. This family tale contains feasts and gatherings, baptisms and deathbeds (particularly heavy and awful deathbeds), weddings and divorces, and great corporate triumphs as well as the heartless incessant poundings of decline, just as what happens in business life ... Even the last one, little Hanno, walks around with introverted senses, carefully attuned to the inner world of the soul, from where his music flows. With him, one more time the chance is given to a new rise (granted, a rise of a different kind than wished by the Buddenbrooks): the infinitely imperiled possibility of a great artist; a possibility that fails to lead to fruition ... It is a book completely devoid of auctorial arrogance. It is a rite of reverence of life, which is good and fair through its happening."

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
on Buddenbrooks--Decay of a Family (1901)
by Thomas Mann (1875-1955),
in a review for Bremer Tagblatt und General-Anzeiger 16 April 1902.

Milton: the sheep look up

2008-04-18T21:07:00.005-04:00

.

The hungry Sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim Woolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing sed,
But that two-handed engine at the door,
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.

John Milton (1608-1674)
Lycidas (1637)
lines 125-131

Hildegard: power of greening

2008-04-02T18:21:00.008-04:00

.

O nobilissima viriditas
quae radicas in sole,
et quae in candida serenitate
luces in rota,
quam nulla terrena
excellentia
comprehendis,
tu circumdata es
amplexibus divinorum
mysteriorum.

Tu rubes ut aurora
et ardes ut solis flamma.

O most honored Greening Force,

You who roots in the Sun;
You who lights up, in shining serenity, within a wheel
that earthly excellence fails to comprehend.

You are enfolded
in the weaving of divine mysteries.

You redden like the dawn
and You burn: flame of the Sun

Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)
Viriditas
Mad Hun translation

Read different translation here
Hear it sung (track 2)

Whitman: the learn'd astronomer

2008-03-13T15:36:00.011-04:00

.

When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and
measure them,
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

Walt Whitman (1818-1892)
Leaves of Grass (1900; No. 180)

Tao Qian: birds returning home

2008-02-22T00:03:00.015-05:00

.

I settled in a place where others dwell.
But I hear no clamor from cart or horse.
Sir, you ask me how this is so?
The distant heart is a remote place.
I pluck blossoms below the eastern hedge.
I gaze lazily at the southern peaks.
The mountain air is lovely at sunset.
Flying birds return home together.
There is a deeper meaning in all of these-
I want to express it, but I cannot find the words.

Tao Qian (365-427)
Drinking Wine

Big Bill Neidjie: cannot touch

2007-11-28T17:14:00.007-05:00

.

We walk on earth,
we look after,
like rainbow sitting on top,
under the ground.
We don't know.
You don't know.
What do you want to do?
If you touch,
you might get cyclone, heavy rain or flood.
Not just here,
you might kill someone in another place.
Might be kill him in another country.
You cannot touch him.

Big Bill Neidjie (1920-2002)
Gagadju Man
In Tim Flannery, The Weather Makers:
How Man is Changing the Climate
and What it Means for Life on Earth
(New York: Grove, 2006), 69

Thoreau: the outward

2007-11-26T19:30:00.007-05:00

.

I live so much in my habitual thoughts that I forget there is any outside to the globe, and am surprised when I behold it as now--yonder hills and river in the moonlight, the monsters. Yet it is salutary to deal with the surface of things. What are these rivers and hills, these hieroglyphics which my eyes behold? There is something invigorating in this air, which I am peculiarly sensible is a real wind, blowing from over the surface of a planet. I look out at my eyes. I come to my window, and I feel and breathe the fresh air. It is a fact equally glorious with the most inward experience. Why have we ever slandered the outward?

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
From Journal vol. 4 (1852-1853)
In Kim Stanley Robinson, Sixty Days and Counting
(New York: Bantam 2007), 286

Basho v. Tennyson: 1:0

2007-11-21T14:44:00.007-05:00

.

== Enlightened ==

When I look carefully
I see the nazuna blooming
By the hedge!

Basho (1644-1694)
Translation b. Erich Fromm

== Dumbed-Down ==

Flower in a crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower -- but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

Alfred "Gringo Moron" Tennyson (1809-1892)

Hölderlin: der ister

2007-11-08T16:33:00.004-05:00

.

Jetzt komme, Feuer!
Begierig sind wir
Zu schauen den Tag,
Und wenn die Prüfung
Ist durch die Knie gegangen,
Mag einer spüren das Waldgeschrei.
Wir singen aber vom Indus her
Fernangekommen und
Vom Alpheus, lange haben
Das Schickliche wir gesucht,
Nicht ohne Schwingen mag
Zum Nächsten einer greifen
Geradezu
Und kommen auf die andere Seite.
Hier aber wollen wir bauen.
Denn Ströme machen urbar
Das Land. Wenn nämlich Kräuter wachsen
Und an denselben gehn
Im Sommer zu trinken die Tiere,
So gehn auch Menschen daran.

Man nennet aber diesen den Ister.
Schön wohnt er. Es brennet der Säulen Laub,
Und reget sich. Wild stehn
Sie aufgerichtet, untereinander; darob
Ein zweites Mass, springe vor
Von Felsen das Dach. So wundert
Mich nicht, dass er
Den Herkules zu Gaste geladen,
Fernglänzend, am Olympos drunten,
Da der, sich Schatten zu suchen
Vom heissen Isthmos kam,
Denn voll des Mutes waren
Dasselbst sie, es bedarf aber, der Geister wegen,
Der Kühlung auch. Darum zog jener lieber
An die Wasserquellen hieher und gelben Ufer,
Hoch duftend oben, und schwarz
Vom Fichtenwald, wo in den Tiefen
Ein Jäger gern lustwandelt
Mittags, und Wachstum hörbar ist
An harzigen Bäumen des Isters,

Der scheinet aber fast
Rückwärrts zu gehen und
Ich mein, er müsse kommen
Von Osten.
Vieles wäre
Zu sagen davon. Und warum hängt er
An den Bergen gerad? Der andre
Der Rhein ist seitwärts
Hinweggegangen. Umsonst nicht gehn
Im Trocknen die Ströme. Aber wie? Ein Zeichen braucht es,
Nichts anderes, schlecht und recht, damit es Sonn'
Und Mond trag' im Gemüt', untrennbar,
Und fortgeh, Tag und Nacht auch, und
Die Himmlischen warm sich fühlen aneinander.
Darum sind jene auch
Die Freude des Höchsten. Denn wie käm er
Herunter? Und wie Hertha grün,
Sind sie die Kinder des Himmels. Aber allzugeduldig
Scheint der mir, nicht
Freier, und fast zu spotten. Nämlich wenn

Angehen soll der Tag
In der Jugend, wo er zu wachsen
Anfängt, es treibet ein anderer da
Hoch schon die Pracht, und Füllen gleich
In den Zaum knirscht er, und weithin hören
Das Treiben die Lüfte,
Ist der zufrieden;
Es brauchet aber Stiche der Fels
Und Furchen die Erd',
Unwirtbar wär es, ohne Weile;
Was aber jener tuet, der Strom,
Weiss niemand.

Hölderlin: der ister II

2007-11-08T16:01:00.005-05:00

.

Now come, Fire!
We are eager
To see the Day,
And when the Trial
Ran through the knees
One might hear the woods scream
We, though, sing, coming from
the Indus afar, and from
the Alpheus; long we've
Sought the Rites,
And not without wings may
One reach for the Next
-- like that --
And make it to the Far Side.
Here, though, we want to build.
For Streams make Green
The Land. For wherever Herbs grow
And the animals go there
During Summer, to drink,
Then humans will go there too.

---

Now they call Him the Ister.
He lives prettily. His pillars' leaves
Are burning and stirring. Wildly
The pillars stand upright, together; above them
A second measure, slinging forth
From the rock, a roof. No surprise,
Then, that He
Invited Hercules to come as a guest,
Shining from afar, down there at the Olymp,
Since he who sought Shadow,
Came all the way from hot Isthmus,
For full Courage
They were there, but for Spirits' sake,
It also takes cooling off. So that one rather moved
To the Well Springs here, and to the Yellow Banks,
Highly fragrant up there, and black with
Spruce and Jackpine, where in the depths
A hunter likes to walk about
At Noon, when growth is audible
At the resinous trees of the Ister,

---

Who nearly goes
Backwards, and methinks
He must have come
From the East.
A lot would be worth
Saying of this. And why He hangs
So straight along the Mountains? The other,
The Rhine, flew off
Sideways. Without reason not run
Currents in the Dry. But how? It takes a sign,
Nothing else, ill or well, so that Sun
And Moon can be carried in spirit, indivisible;
That one can go on, Day and Night too, and
That the Celestial Ones can warmly feel one another.
That's why they are also
The Joy of the Highest. For how came He
Down? And like Hertha green,
They are the Children of the Sky. But overly patient
He doesn't seem to me, not
Suitor, and nearly mocking. Namely when

---

Unfold should the Day
In the Youth, where He begins
To grow, while another one already drives
High into splendor, and like a Colt,
Grinding on the bit, and the Airs
Hear the action from afar,
And He is content;
But the bedrock needs to be stabbed
And the Earth needs to be cleaved,
It would be inhospitable, without stay;
But what He does, the Stream,
No one knows.

(Mad Hun Translation)
----
(... Here's a better one:)

Now come, fire!
We are impatient
To look upon the Day,
And when the trial
Has passed through the knees
One may perceive the cries in the wood.
But, as for us, we sing from the Indus,
Arrived from afar, and
From the Alpheus, long we
Have sought what is fitting,
Not without wings may one
Reach out for that which is nearest
Like so
And get to the other side.
But here we wish to build.
For rivers make arable
The land. For when herbs are growing
And to the same in summer
The animals go to drink,
There too will human kind go.
This one, however, is called the Ister.
Beautifully he lives. The pillars’ foliage burns,
And stirs. Wildly they stand
Supporting one another; above,
A second measure, juts out
The roof of rocks. No wonder, therefore,
I say, this river
Invited Hercules,
Distantly gleaming, down by Olympus,
When he, to look for shadows,
Came up from the sultry isthmus,
For full of courage they were
In that place, but, because of the spirits,
There’s need of coolness too. That is why that hero
Preferred to come here to the wellsprings and yellow banks,
Highly fragrant on top, and black
With fir woods, in whose depths
A huntsman loves to amble
At noon, and growth is audible
In resinous trees of the Ister,
Yet it seems
To travel backwards and
I think it must come from
The East.
Much could
Be said about this. And why does
It cling to the mountains, straight? The other,
The Rhine, has gone away
Sideways. Not for nothing rivers flow
Through dry land. But how? A sign is needed,
Nothing else, plain and honest, so that
Sun and Moon it may bear in mind, inseparable,
And go away, day and night no less, and
The Heavenly feel warm one beside the other.
That also is why these are
The joy of the Highest. For how
Would he get down? And like Hertha green
They are the children of Heaven. But all too patient
He seems to me, not
More free, and nearly derisive. For when
Day is due to begin
In youth, where it starts
To grow, another already there
Drives high the splendour, and like foals
He grinds the bit, and far off the breezes
Can hear the commotion,
If he is contented;
But the rock needs incisions
And the earth needs furrows,
Would be desolate else, unabiding;
Yet what that one does, the river,
Nobody knows.

(Michael Hamburger Translation,
With A. Sol Invictus Emendation)

Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843)
"Der Ister" (an anthem)

Cf. http://www.theister.com/de-einleitung.html

"Ister" is the old word for the river Danube.
The word is Greek (Istros)
"Istros" derives from the Celtic.
It's also the root of the country "Austria".
Our word "Danube" is Latin.
It derives from the Roman river god (Danubius).
For Austrians and Germans, He is a She: die Donau.
"Donau" is the name of the Ister in German and Chinese.
The Do-Nau was China's border ca. 1280 CE

Shiki: raw fish

2007-11-07T21:08:00.005-05:00

.

A fishing village;
Dancing under the moon,
To the smell of raw fish.

Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902)
Translated by Dan Simmons
In Simmons, Rise of Endymion, 402

Whitman: myself & mine

2007-11-07T13:27:00.005-05:00

.

Myself and mine gymnastic ever,
To stand the cold or heat, to take good aim with a gun, to sail a
boat, to manage horses, to beget superb children,
To speak readily and clearly, to feel at home among common people,
And to hold our own in terrible positions on land and sea.

Not for an embroiderer,
(There will always be plenty of embroiderers, I welcome them also,)
But for the fibre of things and for inherent men and women.

Not to chisel ornaments,
But to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs of plenteous
supreme Gods, that the States may realize them walking and talking.

Let me have my own way,
Let others promulge the laws, I will make no account of the laws,
Let others praise eminent men and hold up peace, I hold up agitation
and conflict,
I praise no eminent man, I rebuke to his face the one that was
thought most worthy.

(Who are you? and what are you secretly guilty of all your life?
Will you turn aside all your life? will you grub and chatter all
your life?
And who are you, blabbing by rote, years, pages, languages, reminiscences,
Unwitting to-day that you do not know how to speak properly a single word?)

Let others finish specimens, I never finish specimens,
I start them by exhaustless laws as Nature does, fresh and modern
continually.

I give nothing as duties,
What others give as duties I give as living impulses,
(Shall I give the heart's action as a duty?)

Let others dispose of questions, I dispose of nothing, I arouse
unanswerable questions,
Who are they I see and touch, and what about them?
What about these likes of myself that draw me so close by tender
directions and indirections?

I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my friends, but
listen to my enemies, as I myself do,
I charge you forever reject those who would expound me, for I cannot
expound myself,
I charge that there be no theory or school founded out of me,
I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free.

After me, vista!
O I see life is not short, but immeasurably long,
I henceforth tread the world chaste, temperate, an early riser, a
steady grower,
Every hour the semen of centuries, and still of centuries.

I must follow up these continual lessons of the air, water, earth,
I perceive I have no time to lose.
___________________________________

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Published in Leaves of Grass [1856]

Feng: visitors

2007-11-02T00:40:00.005-04:00

.

Hanshan came specially to see me,
Shihte too, a rare visitor.
We spoke unaffectedly and with without reserve of the
Mind,
How vast and free the Great Emptinesss,
How boundless the universe,
Each thing containing within itself all things.

- Feng
Translated by R. H. Blyth; Zen and Zen Classics, p 131 (1978, Vintage Books)

According to Blyth, Feng was head priest of Kuoch'ing Temple in Tient'ai (Tendia) Mountains.

Dederick: prayer in the pentagon

2007-10-25T20:03:00.005-04:00

.

Nine

planets, Sir, endlessly circle, Sir,
one yellow star among Sir's galaxies:
Pluto Neptune Venus Jupiter
Saturn Uranus Mercury Mars and this-
this watered and this aired this favored one
where all that crawl and swim and fly and run
that drove and swarm and herd and flock are in
with tooth and leg and lung and claw and fin
created clothed and colored are by Sir

Eight

colors (counting white) Sir's rainbow makes
when whiteness on Sir's broken waters breaks
arched over tidal blue and branching gray
and grazing green and foaling brown down and away
with gorsing yellow glow and honeyed hay
and petalled blush and mottled winging whir;
the limpid eyes each of Sir's colors wakes
dark-irised are and cleared and curved by Sir

Seven

tossing seas Sir's pent-up lands divide
where silver shoals in aching green-ness glide
turn suddenly and dart and flatly lie
break surface plunge and from each other hide
and stare as though by staring they aver
what sweet surprise had widened each wide eye
that once looked early on creating Sir

Six

senses there were then in us who were
salt-tasting all along the salt-scented shore
who felt crust cool and looked on shrinking sea
and heard gull-cry on draining estuary
and found back of these five a something more
a sense of self and back of self--Sir

Five

fingers though (counting a thumb) were what
we mostly were aware of as we fought
Sir's elements and cleared Sir's forests and sought
creation-wise new metalled ways to go
by spinning wheel and wing off runway. So?

Four

quarters of our world began to grow
too few and of Sir's yellow star we thought
equations scribbled bubbled in retort
distilled its hot explosive secrets. So?

Three

questions pose themselves now as we wait:
did Sir not know how to end what Sir began?
Or could we choose? Or did Sir always plan?

Two

hands of ours to bring us soon or late
bent to destroy what the hands of Sir had wrought

One

day when we and all our world are brought to

Nought?

Robert Dederick
A Prayer In The Pentagon
The Quest and Other Poems
Hear also: Dave Matthews Band: Typical Situation

Hölderlin: as when on a holiday

2007-10-24T17:31:00.004-04:00

.

As when on a holiday, to see the field
A countryman goes out, at morning, when
Out of the hot night the cooling lightning flashes had fallen
The whole time and the thunder still sounds in the distance,
The river enters its banks once more,
And the fresh ground becomes green
And with the gladdening rain from heaven
The grapevine drips, and gleaming
In quiet sunlight stands the trees of the grove:

So in favorable weather they stand
Whom no master alone, whome she, wonderfully
All-present, educates in a light embrace,
The powerful, divinely beautiful nature.
So when she seems to be sleeping at times of the year
Up in the heavens or among plants or the peoples,
The poets' faces also are mourning,
They seem to be alone, yet are always divining.
For divining too she herself is resting.

But now day breaks! I awaited and saw it come,
And what I saw, may the holy be my word,
For she, she herself, who is older than the ages
And above the gods of Occident and Orient,
Nature is now awakening with the clang of arms,
And from high Aether down to the abyss,
According to firm law, as once, begotten out of holy Chos,
Inspiration, the all-creative,
Agains feels herself anew.

And as a fire gleams in the eye of the man
Who has concieved a lofty design, so
Once more by the signs, the deeds of the world now
A fire has been kindled in the souls of the poets.
And what came to pass before, though scarcely felt,
Only now is manifest,
And they who smiling tended our feilds for us,
In the form of servants, they are known,
The all-living, the powers of the gods.

Do you ask about them? In the song their spirit blows,
When from the sun of day and warm earth
It awakens, and storms that are in the air, and others
That more prepared in the depths of time
And more full of meaning, and more perceptible to us,
Drift on between heaven and earth and among the peoples.
The thoughts of the communal spirit they are,
Quietly ending in the soul of the poet.

So that quickly struct, for a long time
Known to the infinite, it quakes
With recollection, and kindled by the holy ray,
Its fruit concieved in love, the work of gods and men,
The song, so that it may bear witness to both, succeeds.
So, as poets say, when she desired to see
The god, visible, his lightning flash fell on Semele's house
And ashes mortally struck gave birth to
The fruit of the thunderstorm, to holy Bacchus.

And hence the sons of the earth now drink
Heavenly fire without danger.
Yet us it behooves, you poets, to stand
Bare-headed beneath God's thunderstorms,
To grasp the father's ray, itself, with our own hands,
And to offer to the people
The heavenly gift wrapt in song,
For only if we are pure in heart,
Like children, are our hands innocent.

The father's ray, the pure, does not sear it
And deeply shaken, sharing a god's suffering,
The eternal heart yet remains firm.

Translation by Keith Hoeller
In Martin Heidegger, Elucidations of Hölderlin's Poetry
(New York: Humanity Books, 2000)

Dufu: summer night

2007-10-24T12:48:00.003-04:00

.

With a sun that never seems to set
The heavy heat saps one's life
How would I love
A stiff wind to rise, and
Lift my gown, playing around
My body! A sky still
And clear with the light of
The full moon throwing its beams
Over trees; in midsummer
Nights are too short; I fling
Open doors letting
Cool air come in and moonlight
Brighten empty rooms;
Everywhere insects are flying,
And I ponder on how all
Living creatures have feelings,
All trying to do their best for
Their own well-being; so do I
Go on to think of our soldiers
Standing under arms
Guarding our frontiers; no
Way for them to bathe in cool
Waters; always vigilant, yet ever
Grappling with desert heat;
Beating gongs as sentry
Duties change over throught the
Nights -- a sound familiar now
On all our frontiers;
Bright uniforms never compensating
For life in villages they
Have left; from northern cities
There comes sad border music;
Cranes fly overhead, calling
Each other; so here, I stop my
Worrying, just letting
My mind roam back over thoughts
Of happier days.

Du-Fu

"A Summer Night"
Translated by Rewi Alley
From Tu-Fu, Selected Poems, compiled by Feng Chih
Hongkong: Commercial Press, 1977, p. 73-74

Mad Hun's Questions:
1. How can you tell this is a pagan's poem?
2. What are verses that a monotheist would not make?
3. Think in matrix-terms: how many boundaries do you find?
4. What are verses that a warmonger would not make?
5. How does Dufu support troops as a pacifist?
6. What is an insect?
7. Who is sentient?
8. Why wind?

Li Bai: Q & A on the mountain

2007-10-21T23:42:00.002-04:00

.

You ask for what reason I stay on the green mountain,
I smile, but do not answer, my heart is at leisure.
Peach blossom is carried far off by flowing water,
Apart, I have heaven and earth in the human world.

Li Bai (701-762)
Translation by Mark Alexander

Li Bai: clear autumn air

2007-10-21T23:36:00.003-04:00

.

The autumn air is clear.
The autumn moon is bright.
Fallen leaves gather and scatter,
The jackdaw perches and starts anew.
We think of each other -- when will we meet?
This hour, this night, my feelings are hard.

Li Bai (701-762)
Translated by Mark Alexander

Dufu: night by the river

2007-10-11T18:29:00.005-04:00

.

Evening haze creeps up hill paths,
I lie in the pavilion overlooking
The river; light clouds envelop
Cliff sides, and the moon's reflection
Is twisted by the waters;
Cranes and storks rest after
Their flight; wild beasts howl
As they seek their prey; sleep
Does not come to me, for still
I worry about war, knowing I have
No way to set the world aright.

Du-Fu

"Night in the Pavilion by the River"
Translated by Rewi Alley
From Tu-Fu, Selected Poems, compiled by Feng Chih
Hongkong: Commercial Press, 1977, p. 145

Rilke: autumn

2007-10-09T19:53:00.004-04:00

.

O tall tree of sight, who is defoliating:
Now it's time to be grown for the overabundance
Of sky breaking through his branches.
Filled with summer, he seemed deep and dense,
Seemed nearly thinking, a familiar head.
Now his entire insides are turning into a street
Of the sky. And the sky doesn't know us.

An utmost: that we throw ourselves
Like bird-flight through the new gateway
That denies us with the right of space
Which only deals with worlds. The wave-feelings
Of our fringe are seeking reference
And console themselves in the open as a flag --
...................................
But homesickness means the head of the tree.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
Herbst
In Werke ed Rilke Archiv (Frankfurt: Insel 1984) vol. II.1 p. 180
Mad Hun translation
Here is the original:

Oh hoher Baum des Schauns, der sich entlaubt:
nun heissts gewachsen sein dem Uebermasse
von Himmel, das durch seine Aeste bricht.
Erfuellt von Sommer, schien er tief und dicht,
uns beinah denkend, ein vertrautes Haupt.
Nun wird sein ganzes Innere zur Strasse
des Himmels. Und der Himmel kennt uns nicht.

Ein Aeusserstes: dass wir wie Vogelflug
uns werfen durch das neue Aufgetane,
das uns verleugnet mit dem Recht des Raums,
der nur mit Welten umgeht. Unsres Saums
Wellen-Gefuehle suchen nach Bezug
und troesten sich im Offenen als Fahne --
..................................
Aber ein Heimweh meint das Haupt des Baums.

Laozi: 46

2007-10-09T16:45:00.004-04:00

.

When the Tao is present in the universe,
The horses haul manure.
When the Tao is absent from the universe,
War horses are bred outside the city.

There is no greater sin than desire,
No greater curse than discontent,
No greater misfortune than wanting something for oneself.
Therefore he who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

Laozi (either around 518 or 273 BCE), Dao De Jing 46
From Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching,
Translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English
New York: Vintage 1997, # 46

Rilke: requiem

2007-10-07T19:10:00.005-04:00

.

>> For a Friend <<

you who errs and comes,
You who changed more things than any other woman did.
That concerns us: that we startled when you died,
No, that your strong death interrupted us so bleakly,
That it ripped the Up-to-then from the Since-then.
Integrating this will be the work
That we will have to do in whatever we do.
But that you startled and even now
Still are terrified, where terror doesn't count no more;
That you are losing, from your eternity,
A bit, and enter, friend, now here:
Where everthing is not yet;
That you, dispersed, for the first time
In cosmos dispersed and halved, that you didn't take up
The dawn of infinite natures,
as you take up here any old thing;
That from the circle round which already welcomed you
The mute gravity of any old trouble
Is pulling you down to the counted-off time --:
This startles me often at night, like a thief breaking and entering
And may I say that it only pleases you?
That you arrive in magnanimity and overabundance?
Because you're so certain, so in your self,
That you go about like a kid, not afraid of
Places where things are done to one --:
But no; you're pleading. This cuts so
Into my bones, and seizes up like a saw.
A reproach worn like a spectral veil
Carried after me, when I withdraw at night
Into my lung, into the intestines,
Into the last and poorest chamber of my heart,
Such kind of reproach wouldn't be as cruel
As this pleading is. What do you plead?

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
Requiem: Fuer eine Freundin
Written 31 October 1908 in Paris
In Werke ed Rilke Archiv (Frankfurt: Insel 1984) vol I.2 p.403
Mad Hun Translation (only of the first part)
Here is the original (again, only of the beginning):

Ich habe Tote, und ich liess sie hin
und war erstaunt, sie so getrost zu sehn,
so rasch zuhaus im Totsein, so gerecht,
so anders als ihr Ruf. Nur du, du kehrst
zurueck; du streifst mich, du gehst um, du willst
an etwas stossen, dass es klingt von dir
und dich verraet. O nimm mir nicht, was ich
langsam erlern. Ich habe recht; du irrst
wenn du geruehrt zu irgend einem Ding
ein Heimweh hast. Wir wandeln dieses um;
es ist nicht hier, wir spiegeln es herein
aus unserm Sein, sobald wir es erkennen.

Ich glaubte dich viel weiter. Mich verwirrts,
dass du gerade irrst und kommst, die mehr
verwandelt hat als irgend eine Frau.
Dass wir erschraken, da du starbst, nein, dass
dein starker Tod uns dunkel unterbrach,
das Bisdahin abreissend vom Seither:
das geht uns an; das einzuordnen wird
die Arbeit sein, die wir mit allem tun.
Doch dass du selbst erschrakst und auch noch jetzt
den Schrecken hast, wo Schrecken nicht mehr gilt;
dass du von deiner Ewigkeit ein Stueck
verlierst und hier hereintrittst, Freundin, hier,
wo alles noch nicht ist; dass du zerstreut,
zum ersten Mal im All zerstreut und halb,
den Aufgang der unendlichen Naturen
nicht so ergriffst wie hier ein jedes Ding;
dass aus dem Kreislauf, der dich schon empfing,
die stumme Schwerkraft irgend einer Unruh
dich niederzieht zur abgezaehlten Zeit --:
dies weckt mich nachts oft wie ein Dieb, der einbricht.
Und duerft ich sagen, dass du nur geruhst,
dass du aus Grossmut kommst, aus Ueberfuelle,
weil du so sicher bist, so in dir selbst,
dass du herumgehst wie ein Kind, nicht bange
vor Oertern, wo man einem etwas tut --:
doch nein: du bittest. Dieses geht mir so
bis ins Gebein und querrt wie eine Saege.
Ein Vorwurf, den du truegest als Gespenst,
nachtruegest mir, wenn ich mich nachts zurueckzieh
in meine Lunge, in die Eingeweide,
in meines Herzens letzte aermste Kammer,
ein solcher Vorwurf waere nicht so grausam,
wie dieses Bitten ist. Was bittest du?

Laozi: 30

2007-10-03T13:03:00.004-04:00

Whenever you advise a ruler in the way of Tao,
Counsel him not to use force to conquer the universe.
For this would only cause resistance.
Thorn bushes spring up wherever the army has passed.
Lean years follow in the wake of a great war.
Just do what needs to be done.
Never take advantage of power.

Achieve results,
But never glory in them.
Achieve results,
But never boast.
Achieve results,
But never be proud.
Achieve resutls,
Because this is the natural way.
Achieve results,
But not through violence.

Force is followed by loss of strength.
This is not the way of Tao.
That which goes against the Tao comes to an early end.

Laozi (ca. 518 BCE, maybe 273 BCE), Dao De Jing 30
From: Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching,
Translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English
New York: Vintage 1997, # 31

Dufu: mud hills v. phoenix seat

2007-10-03T12:45:00.003-04:00

"The Mud Hills"

Sunrise, and we started to climb
Through the dark mud; sunset and
Still were we in the midst of mud;
Here, the old mud hardly gets a chance
To dry, before the new is made; hard
Work to bridge over the bad places
With planks and stamped dry earth;
One does not mind the everlasting
Journey, but fears falling into
Some hole of mud; my white horse
Has turned as black as iron; my
Little boys look like unsteady old men
As they plug along; monkeys
Are too weighed down with mud to move;
A deer, no strength left, has given up
And died; we ought to send word back
To the north, telling people not to hurry
Through here at this time.

Du-Fu

==

"Phoenix Seat"

I have heard there are
Two great rocks they call
The seat of the phoenixes
Lying to the south of Hsikangchou;
They say that in the times
Of Chou a phoenix came bringing
Glad news of peace; but now
The sound no longer rings
In our ears, so far away it is;
Here mountains are steep,
Roads are not easy to pass,
The rocks are high up in the hills
As though floating on air; how
I wonder, can I get a ladder
And climb up there? Maybe
On top of the Phoenix Seat
Is a motherless bird, each day calling
Miserably, cold and hungry;
I would then be able to take
Out my heart, give my blood
For the phoenix chicks, they taking
The heart instead of the bamboo
Berries they cannot find; then this
My final request, that they drink
My blood, for them better than
The best spring water; now the thing
That is important is the happiness
Of the Emperor; my own life is of
No consequence; we know how
The phoenix puts out its great wings
And flies high into the heavens
With wide open eyes seeing all below;
It can take a scroll in its beak
And carry it to the twelfth storey
Of the palace, presenting it
To the greatest Emperor,
Bringing good news of peace
And prosperity for his land;
Now I would that the rule of our court
Again spreads its sway, so that
All bitterness is cleared
From the lives of our people;
In this hope is all my heart!
Robbers, best now get out
Leaving us alone with peace!

Du-Fu

"The Mud Hills" and "Phoenix Seat"
Translated by Rewi Alley
From Tu-Fu, Selected Poems, compiled by Feng Chih
Hongkong: Commercial Press, 1977, pp. 88-90

Laozi: 31

2007-10-03T12:30:00.003-04:00

Good weapons are instruments of fear; all creatures hate them.
Therefore followers of Tao never use them.
The wise man prefers the left.
The man of war prefers the right.

Weapons are instruments of fear; they are not a wise man's tools.
He uses them only when he has no choice.
Peace and quiet are deer to his heart,
And victory no cause for rejoicing.
If you rejoice in victory, then you delight in killing;
If you delight in killing, you cannot fulfill yourself.

On happy occasions precedence is given to the left,
On sad occasions to the right.
In the army the general stands on the left,
The commander-in-chief on the right.
This means the war is conducted like a funeral.
When many people are being killed,
They should be mourned in heartfelt sorrow.
That is why a victory must be observed like a funeral.

Laozi (ca. 518 BCE), Dao De Jing 31
From: Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching,
Translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English
New York: Vintage 1997, # 31

Dufu: beyond the frontier

2007-10-02T12:06:00.004-04:00

>> Nine Poems <<

(1)
Full of bitterness,taken
From our homes to be sent past
Far western frontiers, knowing well
That with time limits set, all
Infringements will be punished;
Wondering why the Emperor who
Controls so vast a territory
Should want to extend it; cut off
From the love of home folk,
We hold back tears, and shouldering
Spears, are forced to march away.

(2)
Long since I left home, so
No more a raw recruit;
The warmth of family love
Still remains with me, though
I know that at any moment
I might die; bridle falling off,
Reins still in my hand,
Or when leaping down a hillside
To seize the enemy flag below.

(3)
Grinding weapons in the gurgling stream,
A sound comes through
The swishing water as it
Suddenly turns red from hands
Cut by the blade; the sharp pain
Joining up with my bitterness;
Yet we are picked men who have
Promised to serve the Emperor,
So why should one complain?
We Shall do much, gain fame, even
Though bones left on the battlefield
Quickly change to dust again.

(4)
You are in charge of conscription
And I must go to distant frontiers,
That is that; so shall I march on,
Live or die!
Needless for you to scowl
And bully more; perhaps too,
I shall meet
Someone I know, and give him a letter
To bring back; sad that I must leave
My home folk without even the hope
Of sharing our hardships together.

(5)
Away into the distance
They march us to join
Frontier armies, where
For some it is easier
Than for others; how can
A commander know all?
At one river we suddenly
See the tribesmen in
Their many units; so far
I have been thought little of;
When can I show how bravely
I fight for our land?

(6)
In picking bows
We prefer taut ones;
In choosing arrows we take
The longest; in killing
The enemy we go first
For their horses; in taking
Prisoners we first capture
Commanders; yet there comes
To be a limit to killing;
A country must have boundaries
And hold them; useless to slaughter
Many people to make a victory.

(7)
I urge my horse on through
The snow, as our troops enter
Mountain ravines, then leading it,
Frozen fingers hold on to rocks as we
Wind around precipices; how long
Since I left home, when shall I
Finish building this wall
And be able to return?
Evening, and the clouds go south,
I would that I could grasp then
In both hands, to go along with them.

(8) The tribesmen muster in strength,
Hurling themselves against our defences;
All around, as far as one can see, the wind
Is heavy with the dust of their cavalry;
But our strength is sufficient, and with ease
We rout them, bringing back one
Of their great leaders as prisoner,
Roped around the necek, and delivering him
Into the gates of our fort; but we
Are just soldiers and fighting our task --
No sense in taking one victory too seriously.

(9)
A soldier for ten years or more
I have some credit; honour forbids
Me to be as others seeking privilege;
Now wars are raging on Central Plains
As well as frontier struggles against
The tribesmen; at a time like this
A soldier must think of other things
Than rank and a life of ease; with
Fighting in every quarter, how can
Its bitterness be escaped?

Tu-Fu (Du-fu)
(712-770, Tang Dynasty)
"Beyond the Frontier (Nine Poems)"
Translated by Rewi Alley
Tu Fu, Selected Poems, compiled by Feng Chih
Hongkong: Commercial Press, 1977, pp. 7-11

Kerouac: 226th chorus

2007-09-25T19:00:00.002-04:00

There is no way to lose,
If there was a way,
then,
when sun is shining on pond,
and I go West, thou East,
which one does the true sun
follow?
which one does the true one
borrow?
since neither one is the true one,
there is no true one way.
And the sun is the delusion
Of a way multiplied by two
And multiplied millionfold.
Since there is no Way, no Buddhas,
No Dharmas, no Conceptions,
Only One Ecstasy--
And Right Mindfulness
Is mindfulness that the way is No-Way--
Anyhow Sameway--
Then what am I to do
Beyond writing this instructing
Poesy, ride a magic carpet
Of self ecstasy, or wait
For death like the children
In the Funeral Street after
The black bus has departed--
Or--what?

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)
from Mexico City Blues (1955)

Laozi: 21

2007-09-19T22:55:00.003-04:00

The greatest virtue you can have
comes from following only the Tao;
which takes a form that is intangible and evasive.

Even though the Tao is intangible and evasive,
we are able to know it exists.
Intangible and evasive, yet it has a manifestation.
Secluded and dark, yet there is a vitality within it.
Its vitality is very genuine.
Within it we can find order.

Since the beginning of time, the Tao has always existed.
It is beyond existing and not existing.
How do I know where creation comes from?
I look inside myself and see it.

Laozi: Tao Te Ching 21
Translated by J.H. McDonald

Proverb: rivers are rivers

2007-09-14T18:34:00.002-04:00

First mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.
Then mountains are no longer mountains
and rivers are no longer rivers.
In the end, mountains are again mountains
and rivers are again rivers.

Chinese Proverb
From Ch'an Master Sheng-Yen, Zen Wisdom (1993)

Hughes: speaking of rivers

2007-09-14T18:29:00.002-04:00

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've see its
muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
G. Benson, ed., New Poems on the Underground 2006

Revard: birch canoe

2007-09-14T18:26:00.002-04:00

Red men embraced
my body's whiteness,
cutting into me
carved it free,
sewed it tight
with sinews taken
from the lightfoot deer
who leaped this stream --
now in my ghost-skin
they glide over clouds
at home in the fish's
fallen heaven.

Carter Revard (b. 1931)
From G. Benson, ed., New Poems on the Underground 2006

Basho: autumn evening

2007-09-14T18:24:00.002-04:00

Autumn evening --
A crow on a bare branch.

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
Translation Kenneth Rexroth
From G. Benson, ed., New Poems on the Underground 2006

Brecht: worker's questions

2007-09-07T22:10:00.002-04:00

Who built Devin Castle with its seven gates?
The books list names of kings.
Did the kings haul the stones from the quarry?
And Babylon, ruined several times --
Who rebuilt it so many times? In which houses,
In Lima, radiant with gold, did the construction workers live?
And to where, in the evening when the Chinese Wall was done,
Did the masons go? Great Rome
Is full of victory arches. Who put them together? Over whom
Did the cesars triumph? Even in the fabled Atlantis,
In the night when the seas swallowed it up,
screamed the drowning ones for their slaves.

Young Alexander conquered India.
Oh, he alone?
Cesar defeated the Gauls.
Didn't he at least have a cook with him?
Philipp of Spain wept when his fleet
Had gone down. Wept there no one else?
Frederick the Second won the Seven Years War. Who
Else won?
Every side a victory.
Who cooked the victory dinner?
Every ten years a Great Man.
Who paid the bills?

So many reports.
So many questions.

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
Fragen eines lesenden Arbeiters (1938)
Mad Hun's translation
Here's the original:

Brecht: Fragen eines lesenden Arbeiters

Wer baute das siebentorige Theben?
In den Buechern stehen die Namen von Koenigen.
Haben die Koenige die Felsbrocken herbeigeschleppt?
Und das mehrmals zerstoerte Babylon --
Wer baute es so viele Male auf? In welchen Haeusern
Des goldstrahlenden Lima wohnten die Bauleute?
Wohin gingen an dem Abend, wo die Chinesische Mauer fertig war
Die Maurer? Das grosse Rom
Ist voll von Triumphboegen. Wer errichtete sie? Ueber wen
Triumphierten die Caesaren? Hatte das vielbesungene Byzanz
Nur Palaeste fuer seine Bewohner? Selbst in dem sagenhaften Atlantis
Bruellten in der Nacht, wo das Meer es verschlang
Die Ersaufenden nach ihren Sklaven.

Der junge Alexander eroberte Indien.
Er allein?
Caesar schlug die Gallier.
Hatte er nicht wenigstens einen Koch bei sich?
Philipp von Spanien weinte, als seine Flotte
Untergegangen war. Weinte sonst niemand?
Friedrich der Zweite siegte im Siebenjaehrigen Krieg. Wer
Siegte ausser ihm?
Jede Seite ein Sieg.
Wer kochte den Siegesschmaus?
Alle zehn Jahre ein grosser Mann.
Wer bezahlte die Spesen?

So viele Berichte.
So viele Fragen.

Brecht: evil strains

2007-09-07T22:01:00.003-04:00

There on my wall hangs a Japanese wood carving
Mask of an evil demon, painted with gold lacquer.
Full of pity I see
The veins swollen on the forehead, suggesting
How strenous it is to be evil

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
Die Maske des Bösen (1942)
Mad Hun's translation

Here's a (probably better) translation:

On my wall hangs a Japanese carving
The mask of an evil demon, decorated with gold lacquer
Sympathetically I observe --
The swollen veins of the forehead, indicating
What a strain it is to be evil

Translation by Reinhold Grimm & Caroline Molina Y Vedia
In Bertolt Brecht, Selections (New York: Continuum 2003)

Here's the original:

Brecht: die Maske des Bösen

An meiner Wand haengt ein japanisches Holzwerk
Maske eines boesen Daemons, bemalt mit Goldlack.
Mitfuehlend sehe ich
Die geschwollenen Stirnader, andeutend
Wie anstrengend es ist, boese zu sein.

Brecht: real pleasures

2007-09-07T21:50:00.003-04:00

The first look out of the window at dawn
The old book, found again
Joyful faces
Snow, the change of seasons
The newspaper
The dog
The dialectics
Taking a shower, going for a swim
Old music
Comfy shoes
Comprehension
New music
Writing, gardening
Traveling
Singing
Being friendly.

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
Vergnügungen (ca. 1954)
w. after Buckower Elegien
Mad Hun's translation
Here's the original:

Brecht: Vergnügungen

Der erste Blick aus dem Fenster am Morgen
Das wiedergefundene alte Buch
Begeisterte Gesichter
Schnee, der Wechsel der Jahreszeiten
Die Zeitung
Der Hund
Die Dialektik
Duschen, Schwimmen
Alte Musik
Bequeme Schuhe
Begreifen
Neue Musik
Schreiben, Pflanzen
Reisen
Singen
Freundlich sein.

Dufu: in a single glance

2007-09-04T01:19:00.004-04:00

With what can I compare the Great Peak?
Over the surrounding provinces, its blue-green hue
never
dwindles from sight.
Infused by the Shaper of Forms with the soaring power
of
divinity,
Shaded and sunlit, its slopes divide night from day.
Breast heaving as I climb toward the clouds,
Eyes straining to follow birds flying home,
Someday I shall reach its peerless summit,
And behold all mountains in a single glance.

Tu-Fu (Du-fu)
(712-110, Tang Dynasty)
Translation Dan Simmons
From Simmons' The Rise of Endymion

Heaney: bog queen

2007-09-03T19:06:00.002-04:00

I lay waiting
between turf-face and demesne wall
between heathery levels
and glass-toothed stone.

My body was braille
for the creeping influences:
dawn suns groped over my head
and cooled at my feet,

through my fabrics and skins
the seeps of winter
digested me,
the illiterate roots

pondered and died
in the cavings
of stomach and socket.
I lay waiting

on the gravel bottom,
my brain darkening,
a jar of spawn
fermenting underground

dreams of Baltic amber.
Bruised berries under my nails,
the vital hoard reducing
in the crock of the pelvis.

My diadem grew carious,
gemstones dropped
in the peat floe
like the bearings of history.

My sash was a black glacier
wrinkling, dyed weaves
and Phoenician stitchwork
retted on my breasts'

soft moraines.
I knew winter cold
like the nuzzle of fjords
at my thighs --

the soaked fledge, the heavy
swaddle of hides.
My skull hibernated
in the wet nest of my hair.

Which they robbed.
I was barbered
and stripped
by a turf-cutter's spade

who veiled me again
and packed coomb softly
between the stone jambs
at my head and my feet.

Till a peer's wife bribed him.
The plait of my hair,
a slimy birth-cord
of bog, had been cut

and I rose from the dark,
hacked bone, skull-ware,
frayed stitches, tufts,
small gleams on the bank.

Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)
Nobel Laureate 1995
"Bog Queen"
From North (1975)

Heaney: grauballe man

2007-09-03T18:53:00.002-04:00

As if he had been poured
in tar, he lies
on a pillow of turf
and seems to weep

the black river of himself.
The grain of his wrists
is like bog oak,
the ball of his heel

like a basalt egg.
His instep has shrunk
cold as a swan's foot
or a wet swamp root.

His hips are the ridge
and purse of a mussel,
his spine an eel arrested
under a glisten of mud.

The head lifts,
the chin is a visor
raised above the vent
of his slashed throat

that has tanned and toughened.
The cured wound
opens inward to a dark
elderberry place.

Who will say 'corpse'
to his vivid cast?
Who will say 'body'
to his opaque repose?

And his rusted hair,
a mat unlikely
as a foetus's.
I first saw his twisted face

in a photograph,
a head and shoulder
out of the peat,
bruised like a forceps baby,

but now he lies
perfected in my memory,
down to the red horn
of his nails,

hung in the scales
with beauty and atrocity:
with the Dying Gaul
too strictly compassed

on his shield,
with the actual weight
of each hooded victim,
slashed and dumped.

Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)
Literature Nobel Prize 1995
"The Grauballe Man"
From North (1975)

Okura: stray leaves

2007-08-31T12:21:00.002-04:00

What care I for the seven treasures people prize?
I loved my child Furuhi better than them all.
He would insist upon my playing with him as
I woke in bed,
nor let me slumber when I went to my repose,
and begged to let him sleep between my wife and me.
With great anticipation I looked forward to his future,
but smitten with an ague, ill he lay.
I prayed the gods for his recovery,
yet every day he languished, fell unconscious,
dying at last.
With desperation I appeal to heaven and earth
for the departed jewel,
but only echoes come back for my cries.

On the death of Furuhi, by Yamanoeno Okura

sky sound

2007-08-29T14:15:00.003-04:00

Knock on the sky and listen to the sound

Chinese Proverb

Basho: sound of water

2007-08-29T13:59:00.001-04:00

An old pond --
A frog leaps in
The sound of water

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
Wen-zhi (Wortdenk) translation
Here's the original:

Furuike ya
Kawazu tobikomu
Mizu no oto

Basho: sound of water jar

2007-08-29T13:56:00.001-04:00

The sound of a water jar
Cracking on this icy night
As I lie awake

Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
Wen-zhi (Wortdenk) translation
Here's the original:

Kame waruru
Yoru no kori no
Nezame kana

Rilke: buddha radiation

2007-08-29T13:40:00.002-04:00

Center of all centers, core of cores,
Almond that turns in and sweetens, --
This all, up to all the stars
Is your fruit flesh. Greetings!

Look, you feel how nothing hangs on you anymore;
Your shell is @ infinity,
And there the strong juice rises, urges.
And from the outside a radiation: this helps.

For way, way up your brimming, glowing
Suns are being turned.
In you, though, it's already started
What will outlast the suns.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
Der Neuen Gedichte anderer Teil (1908)
"Buddha Radiation"
Mad Hun's translation
Here's the original:

Rilke: Buddha in der Glorie

Mitte aller Mitten, Kern der Kerne
Mandel, die sich einschliesst und versuesst, --
dies Alles bis an alle Sterne
ist dein Fruchtfleisch: Sei gegruesst.

Sieh, du fuehlst, wie nichts mehr an dir haengt;
im Unendlichen ist deine Schale
und dort steht der starke Saft und draengt.
Und von aussen hilft ihm ein Gestrahle,

denn ganz oben werden deine Sonnen
voll und gluehend umgedreht.
Doch in dir ist schon begonnen,
was die Sonnen uebersteht.

Rilke: duino elegy 1

2007-08-29T13:24:00.002-04:00

Who, if I screamed, would hear me in the ranks of the angels?
And even if one of them took me suddenly to her heart:
I would wither away from her stronger being. For beauty
Is nothing but the onset of the terrible, which we barely endure
And we admire it so, because it cooly disdains
To destroy us. Every angel is terrible.

And so I hunker down and swallow the call
Of dark sobbing. O whom are we able to need?
Not angels
Not humans
And the witty beasts already know
That we are not very safely at home
In the interpreted world. Perhaps there remains to us
Some tree at the slope that we see again daily
There remains the street of yesterday
And the spoilt loyalty of a habit
That liked our company and so it stayed and didn't leave.

O and the night -- the night, when the wind full of space
Eats at our faces -- whom did it not remain,
The longed-for, the gently disappointing,
The night: a laborious task for an individual heart
But is it easier for the lovers?
Alas, they only cover up each other's lot.

Don't you know it yet? Toss out from your arms the void
Toward the spaces that we breathe; -- perhaps the birds
Will feel the thinned air with more intimate flight.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
Duineser Elegien (1912-1922)
The First Elegy, parts 1-4 (21 Jan 1912)
Mad Hun's translation
Here's the original:

Rilke: Die Erste Elegie

Wer, wenn ich schriee, hoerte mich denn aus der Engel
Ordnungen? und gesetzt selbst, es naehme
einer mich ploetzlich ans Herz: ich verginge von seinem
staerkeren Dasein. Denn das Schoene ist nichts
als des Schrecklichen Anfang, den wir noch grade ertragen,
und wir bewundern es so, weil es gelassen verschmaeht,
uns zu zerstoeren. Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich.

Und so verhalt ich mich denn und verschlucke den Lockruf
dunkelen Schluchzens. Ach, wen vermoegen
wir denn zu brauchen? Engel nicht, Menschen nicht,
und die findigen Tiere merken es schon,
dass wir nicht sehr verlaesslich zu Haus sind
in der gedeuteten Welt. Es bleibt uns vielleicht
irgend ein Baum an dem Abhang, dass wir ihn taeglich
wiedersaehen; es bleibt uns die Strasse von gestern
und das verzogene Treusein einer Gewohnheit,
der es bei uns gefiel, und so blieb sie und ging nicht.

O und die Nacht, die Nacht, wenn der Wind voller Weltraum
uns am Angesicht zehrt, -- wem bliebe sie nicht, die ersehnte,
sanft enttaeuschende, welche dem einzelnen Herzen
muehsam bevorsteht. Ist sie den Liebenden leichter?
Ach, sie verdecken sich nur mit einander ihr Los.

Weisst du's noch nicht? Wirf aus den Armen die Leere
zu den Raeumen hinzu, die wir atmen; vielleicht dass die Voegel
die erweiterte Luft fuehlen mit innigerm Flug.

Alan Ball: electricity in the air

2007-08-27T20:13:00.001-04:00

[Ricky Fitts talking to his girlfriend, showing home video]

You want to see the most beautiful thing I've ever filmed?

It was one of those days
Where it's a minute away from snowing
There was this electricity in the air
You can almost hear it

And this bag was just ...
Dancing with me
Like a little kid begging me to play with it
... for fifteen minutes

That's the day I realized
There's this entire life behind things
And this incredibly benevolent Force
That wanted me to know
There's no reason to be afraid, ever

Video is a poor excuse, I know
But it helps me to remember

I need to remember

Sometimes there's so much ... beauty in the world
I feel like I can't take it ... and my heart
Is just going to ... cave in

American Beauty (1999)
Directed: Sam Mendes
Written: Alan Ball
Acted: Wes Bentley (his listener: Thora Birch)

1492: in a leaf...a stone...a shell

2007-08-27T20:02:00.003-04:00

[Anno Domini 1492. At the court of Queen Isabella of Spain.
A banquet celebrating Columbus' return. Columbus brought tobacco.
Adrian de Moxica looks, curiously. Columbus lights up, inhales.]

Columbus:
Simply allow the palate
to enjoy the flavor of the tobacco.
[Adrian looks at smoking Columbus. Other guests chatting.]

Columbus:
Try it.
[Adrian takes cigar, inhales, coughs. Columbus, Queen laugh.]

Adrian:
You say this is an Indian vice?
I certainly don't see the pleasure
That would make this a sin.
[Adrian and Columbus exchange looks.]

Columbus [hesitates]:
The Indians have no such word.

Queen Isabella:
Have they such thoughts?

Columbus [pauses]:
They come and go
As naked as the day
God created them.

Queen Isabella:
God ... which god?

[Everyone quietens down and listens in. Columbus smiles.]

Columbus:
Nature is their god.
[Columbus pauses, thinks; considers, and nods.]

It's as if god and nature were One.

They see him in a leaf ... in a stone ... in a shell
[Exchange of puzzled glances. Columbus rises from the table, continues.]

The islands are covered with trees ...

Sanchez:
Forgive me, Don Cristobal -- what about GOLD?

1492: Conquest of Paradise (1993)
Directed: Ridley Scott
Written: Roselyne Bosch
Acted:
Gerard Depardieu (Columbus),
Michael Wincott (Adrian),
Armand Assante (Sanchez),
Sigorney Weaver (Isabella)

Alan Ball: dead man talking

2007-08-27T19:46:00.003-04:00

[Lester Burnham, dead, speaking off-camera
Floating over some dumbass anglo suburb]

I guess I could be pretty pissed off
At what happened to me.
But it's hard to stay mad
When there's so much beauty in the world

Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once
And it's too much
And my heart fills up like a balloon
That's about to burst

And then I remember to relax
And stop trying to hold on to it
And then it flows through me like rain
And I can't feel anything but gratitude

For every single moment
Of my stupid little life

You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure
Don't worry
You will someday.

American Beauty (1999)
Directed: Sam Mendes
Written: Alan Ball
Acted: Kevin Spacey