[Beyond Borders]

I found an interesting quote about poetry in an unlikely place - Felix Dennis' book, "How to Get Rich."

"Poetry forces a writer to condense and crystallise his thoughts and often represents a short cut to truths unsuspected by the author himself." - Felix Dennis

That's how I've always felt about it. Well said.

[Ringo]

I like to print short poems and put them on my fridge.

I usually pick poems that inspire me to kick ass - and they remind me to do so everyday. Plus they're great conversation pieces when girls come over.

The one below was written by Alan Seeger, who fought and died in World War I.

Quote:

I Have a Rendezvous with Death
by Alan Seeger, 1888 - 1916

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air —
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath —
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ‘twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

If you like the above, check out this podcast where they break it down and talk about WWI:

[Elster]

Its actually a collection of poems,but commonly known amongst us argies as "Avanti"






¡AVANTI!

Pedro B. Palacios - Almafuerte



¡AVANTI!

Si te postran diez veces, te levantas
otras diez, otras cien, otras quinientas:
no han de ser tus caídas tan violentas
ni tampoco, por ley, han de ser tantas.
Con el hambre genial con que las plantas
asimilan el humus avarientas,
deglutiendo el rencor de las afrentas
se formaron los santos y las santas.
Obsesión casi asnal, para ser fuerte,
nada más necesita la criatura,
y en cualquier infeliz se me figura
que se mellan los garfios de la suerte . . .
¡Todos los incurables tienen cura
cinco segundos antes de su muerte!

¡PIU AVANTI!

No te des por vencido, ni aun vencido,
no te sientas esclavo, ni aun esclavo;
trémulo de pavor, piénsate bravo,
y arremete feroz, ya mal herido.
Ten el tesón del clavo enmohecido
que ya viejo y ruin, vuelve a ser clavo;
no la cobarde estupidez del pavo
que amaina su plumaje al primer ruido.
Procede como Dios que nunca llora;
o como Lucifer, que nunca reza;
o como el robledal, cuya grandeza
necesita del agua y no la implora...
Que muerda y vocifere vengadora,
ya rodando en el polvo, tu cabeza!

¡MOLTO PIU AVANTI!

Los que vierten sus lágrimas amantes
sobre las penas que no son sus penas;
los que olvidan el son de sus cadenas
para limar las de los otros antes;
Los que van por el mundo delirantes
repartiendo su amor a manos llenas,
caen, bajo el peso de sus obras buenas,
sucios, enfermos, trágicos,... ¡sobrantes!
¡Ah! ¡Nunca quieras remediar entuertos!
¡nunca sigas impulsos compasivos!
¡ten los garfios del Odio siempre activos
los ojos del juez siempre despiertos!
¡Y al echarte en la caja de los muertos,
menosprecia los llantos de los vivos!

¡MOLTO PIU AVANTI ANCORA!

El mundo miserable es un estrado
donde todo es estólido y fingido,
donde cada anfitrión guarda escondido
su verdadero ser, tras el tocado:
No digas tu verdad ni al mas amado,
no demuestres temor ni al mas temido,
no creas que jamás te hayan querido
por mas besos de amor que te hayan dado.
Mira como la nieve se deslíe
sin que apostrofe al sol su labio yerto,
cómo ansía las nubes el desierto
sin que a ninguno su ansiedad confíe...
¡Trema como el infierno, pero rie!
¡Vive la vida plena, pero muerto!

¡MOLTISSIMO PIU AVANTI ANCORA!

Si en vez de las estúpidas panteras
y los férreos estúpidos leones,
encerrasen dos flacos mocetones
en esa frágil cárcel de las fieras,
No habrían de yacer noches enteras
en el blando pajar de sus colchones,
sin esperanzas ya, sin reacciones
lo mismo que dos plácidos horteras;
Cual Napoleones pensativos, graves,
no como el tigre sanguinario y maula,
escrutarían palmo a palmo su aula,
buscando las rendijas, no las llaves...
¡Seas el que tú seas, ya lo sabes:
a escrutar las rendijas de tu jaula!

VERA VIOLETA

En pos de su nivel se lanza el río
por el gran desnivel de los breñales;
el aire es vendaval, y hay vendavales
por la ley del no fin, del no vacío;
la más hermosa espiga del estío
ni sueña con el pan en los trigales;
el más dulce panal de los panales
no declaró jamás: yo no soy mío.
Y el sol, el padre sol, el raudo foco
que fomenta la vida en la Natura,
por calentar los polos no se apura,
ni se desvía un ápice tampoco:
¡Todo lo alcanzarás, solemne loco,
siempre que lo permita tu estatura!

LA YAPA

Como una sola estrella no es el cielo,
ni una gota que salta, el Océano,
ni una falange rígida, la mano,
ni una brizna de paja, el santo suelo:
tu gimnasia de cárcel, no es el vuelo,
el sublime tramonto soberano,
ni nunca podrá ser anhelo humano
tu miserable personal anhelo.
¿Qué saben de lo eterno las esferas;
de las borrascas de la mar, la gota;
de puñetazos, la falange rota;
de harina y pan, la paja de las eras?...
¡Detente, por piedad, pluma no quieras
que abandone sus armas el ilota!




Here is an english translation I found for the first part (avanti)


Don’t embrace defeat, even defeated,
don’t feel yourself a slave even enslaved
trembling in terror, think you fearless,
and charge with fury, even wounded, even hurt.

Have the tenacity of the rusted nail,
though old and ruined, a nail as ever.
Not the cowardly folly of the turkey
that folds its plumage at first tremor.

Go forth like God, who never cries,
or like Lucifer, who never prays;
or be like oakwood, whose grandour
has need of water and won’t beg…
May bites and yells of vengeance yield your head,
Even as it rolls on dust or clay!

[Kaligula]

(05-05-2014 01:27 PM)Onto Wrote:  

Poetry can be pretty powerful stuff. This poem, "If", by Rudyard Kipling is one of my favorites and I go back to it often when I need reminding.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son

Well, this Kipling's poem reminds me about Mr Cogito character of Zbigniew Herbert, one of those great writers who did not get the Noble prize and no one really knows why.... due to their political sympathies...?


https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-a...tail/48501

Due to its its heavy reliance on repetition the poem somehow retains its strenght in an English translation below.
Nevertheless, the English translation does not convey the strenght hidden in the dignified turn of phrase in Polish, e.g. why 'ludzkosc' is 'humanity' and not 'mankind'? Why 'grona zimnych czaszek' turns into 'the company of cold skulls'? 'Grono' is old Polish word, now used only in literary languge, and 'company' is just a common word.... Why not 'fellowship'...?

Go where those others went to the dark boundary
for the golden fleece of nothingness your last prize

go upright among those who are on their knees
among those with their backs turned and those toppled in the dust

you were saved not in order to live
you have little time you must give testimony

be courageous when the mind deceives you be courageous
in the final account only this is important

and let your helpless Anger be like the sea
whenever you hear the voice of the insulted and beaten

let your sister Scorn not leave you
for the informers executioners cowards—they will win
they will go to your funeral and with relief will throw a lump of earth
the woodborer will write your smoothed-over biography

and do not forgive truly it is not in your power
to forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn

beware however of unnecessary pride
keep looking at your clown’s face in the mirror
repeat: I was called—weren’t there better ones than I

beware of dryness of heart love the morning spring
the bird with an unknown name the winter oak

light on a wall the splendour of the sky
they don’t need your warm breath
they are there to say: no one will console you

be vigilant—when the light on the mountains gives the sign—arise and go
as long as blood turns in the breast your dark star

repeat old incantations of humanity fables and legends
because this is how you will attain the good you will not attain
repeat great words repeat them stubbornly
like those crossing the desert who perished in the sand

and they will reward you with what they have at hand
with the whip of laughter with murder on a garbage heap

go because only in this way will you be admitted to the company of cold skulls
to the company of your ancestors: Gilgamesh Hector Roland
the defenders of the kingdom without limit and the city of ashes

Be faithful Go


the last verse - be faithful go (badz wierny idz) - became so easily recognized that it is often quoted in Poland in all kinds of political speeches.

Herbert Zbigniew

Przesłanie Pana Cogito

Idź dokąd poszli tamci do ciemnego kresu
po złote runo nicości twoją ostatnią nagrodę

idź wyprostowany wśród tych co na kolanach
wśród odwróconych plecami i obalonych w proch

ocalałeś nie po to aby żyć
masz mało czasu trzeba dać świadectwo

bądź odważny gdy rozum zawodzi bądź odważny
w ostatecznym rachunku jedynie to się liczy

a Gniew twój bezsilny niech będzie jak morze
ilekroć usłyszysz głos poniżonych i bitych

niech nie opuszcza ciebie twoja siostra Pogarda
dla szpiclów katów tchórzy - oni wygrają
pójdą na twój pogrzeb i z ulgą rzucą grudę
a kornik napisze twój uładzony życiorys

i nie przebaczaj zaiste nie w twojej mocy
przebaczać w imieniu tych których zdradzono o świcie

strzeź się jednak dumy niepotrzebnej
oglądaj w lustrze swą błazeńską twarz
powtarzaj: zostałem powołany - czyż nie było lepszych

strzeż się oschłości serca kochaj źródło zaranne
ptaka o nieznanym imieniu dąb zimowy
światło na murze splendor nieba
one nie potrzebują twego ciepłego oddechu
są po to aby mówić: nikt cię nie pocieszy

czuwaj - kiedy światło na górach daje znak - wstań i idź
dopóki krew obraca w piersi twoją ciemną gwiazdę

powtarzaj stare zaklęcia ludzkości bajki i legendy
bo tak zdobędziesz dobro którego nie zdobędziesz
powtarzaj wielkie słowa powtarzaj je z uporem
jak ci co szli przez pustynię i ginęli w piasku

a nagrodzą cię za to tym co mają pod ręką
chłostą śmiechu zabójstwem na śmietniku

idź bo tylko tak będziesz przyjęty do grona zimnych czaszek
do grona twoich przodków: Gilgamesza Hektora Rolanda
obrońców królestwa bez kresu i miasta popiołów

Bądź wierny Idź

in the poet's own voice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogjCogTJVLU

[Space Cowboy]

The Young British Soldier by Rudyard Kipling

WHEN the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East
'E acts like a babe an' 'e drinks like a beast,
An' 'e wonders because 'e is frequent deceased
Ere 'e's fit for to serve as a soldier.
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!

Now all you recruities what's drafted to-day,
You shut up your rag-box an' 'ark to my lay,
An' I'll sing you a soldier as far as I may:
A soldier what's fit for a soldier.
Fit, fit, fit for a soldier . . .

First mind you steer clear o' the grog-sellers' huts,
For they sell you Fixed Bay'nets that rots out your guts -
Ay, drink that 'ud eat the live steel from your butts -
An' it's bad for the young British soldier.
Bad, bad, bad for the soldier . . .

When the cholera comes - as it will past a doubt -
Keep out of the wet and don't go on the shout,
For the sickness gets in as the liquor dies out,
An' it crumples the young British soldier.
Crum-, crum-, crumples the soldier . . .

But the worst o' your foes is the sun over'ead:
You must wear your 'elmet for all that is said:
If 'e finds you uncovered 'e'll knock you down dead,
An' you'll die like a fool of a soldier.
Fool, fool, fool of a soldier . . .

If you're cast for fatigue by a sergeant unkind,
Don't grouse like a woman nor crack on nor blind;
Be handy and civil, and then you will find
That it's beer for the young British soldier.
Beer, beer, beer for the soldier . . .

Now, if you must marry, take care she is old -
A troop-sergeant's widow's the nicest I'm told,
For beauty won't help if your rations is cold,
Nor love ain't enough for a soldier.
'Nough, 'nough, 'nough for a soldier . . .

If the wife should go wrong with a comrade, be loath
To shoot when you catch 'em - you'll swing, on my oath! -
Make 'im take 'er and keep 'er: that's Hell for them both,
An' you're shut o' the curse of a soldier.
Curse, curse, curse of a soldier . . .

When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck,
Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck,
Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck
And march to your front like a soldier.
Front, front, front like a soldier . . .

When 'arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch,
Don't call your Martini a cross-eyed old bitch;
She's human as you are - you treat her as sich,
An' she'll fight for the young British soldier.
Fight, fight, fight for the soldier . . .

When shakin' their bustles like ladies so fine,
The guns o' the enemy wheel into line,
Shoot low at the limbers an' don't mind the shine,
For noise never startles the soldier.
Start-, start-, startles the soldier . . .

If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white,
Remember it's ruin to run from a fight:
So take open order, lie down, and sit tight,
And wait for supports like a soldier.
Wait, wait, wait like a soldier . . .

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!

[Tokyo Joe]

[Sooth]

I remember this one from a nursery rhyme book as a kid. I don't know exactly why I liked it back then, but knowing me it would have been the one with the least words in it which I would have to hand write or read aloud.

I like it now because it's a simple witty example of how to answer silly questions/shit tests - by turning them back with equal nonsense.

"A man in the wilderness asked me,
How many strawberries grew in the sea.
I answered him, as I thought good,
As many red herrings as swim in the wood."

[Hercules]

The two most beautiful poems I've read written in English were Ode to a Grecian Urn and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Man, haven't come across many poems as exquisitely crafted as those two.

[Plus Oultre]

Anything by Oliverio Girondo. Why? Because it goes beyond the realm of reason and it allows for play play play. It can be play of words, play of places, play with rhymes; it is a breath of fresh air how with words creates another reality, opening doors in your brain that were never used.

[Plus Oultre]

8

I don't have a personality: I am a cocktail, a conglomerate, a riot of personalities. In me, personality is a species of inimical furunculosis in a chronic state of eruption; not a half hour can pass without my sprouting a new personality.

Whenever I think I am alone, the assembled host surrounds me, and my house looks like the consulting room of a fashionable astrologer. There are personalities everywhere: in the reception room, in the halls, in the kitche, even in the W.C....

It's impossible to strike a truce, or find a moment's rest! It's impossibel to know which one is the real me!

Although I see myself forced to live in the most abject promiscuity with them, I am not convinced that they have anything to do with me.

What connection can they possibly have — I ask myself — all these univited, unconfessed personalities, so bloddthirsty they could make a butcher blush with embarrassment? How can I allow myself to identify, for example, with this shrivelled-up pederast who didn't even have the courage to act it out, or with this cretinoid whose smile could freeze a speeding locomotive?

The fact that they inhabit my body is enough, however, to make me sick with indignation. Since I cannot ignore their existence, I want to make them hide in the inmost convolutions of my brain. For they have to do with a certain petulance...a certain selfishness...a certain absence of tact....

Even the most insignificant personalities arrogate to themselves certain cosmopolitan airs. All of them, without exception, consider themselves entitled to display an Olympian disdain for the others, and naturally there are quarrels of all sorts, inerminable disputes and disagreements. You'd think they might have some grounds for compromised, adopt some means of living together, but no, sir, each one claims the right to impose its will, without taking into account the opinions and tastes of the others. If one of them cracks a jake that makes me break out laughting, during the act another comes out to propose a little stroll through the cemetery. Nor is it good that the former wants me to go to bed with every woman in the city, while the latter attempts to show me the advantages of abstinence; and while one takes advantage of the night and does not let me sleep until down, the other wakes me at daybreak and insists that I get up with the chickens.


My life thus becomes a breeding of possibilities that are never realized, an explosion of opposing forces that confluct and collide in the process of mututal destruction. The attempt to make the least decision causes me such a mass of difficulties, before undertaking the most insignificant act I must put such personalities in accord, so that, frankly, I prefer to give up everything and wait from them to get tired of arguing over what they have to do with my person, in order to have, al least, the satisfaction of consigning one and all to the shitcan.

—Translated from the Spanish by Gilbert Alter-Gilert

Original Spanish Version

Yo no tengo una personalidad; yo soy un cocktail, un conglomerado, una manifestación de personalidades.

En mí, la personalidad es una especie de furunculosis anímica en estado crónico de erupción; no pasa media hora sin que me nazca una nueva personalidad.

Desde que estoy conmigo mismo, es tal la aglomeración de las que me rodean, que mi casa parece el consultorio de una quiromántica de moda. Hay personalidades en todas partes: en el vestíbulo, en el corredor, en la cocina, hasta en el W. C.

¡Imposible lograr un momento de tregua, de descanso!

¡Imposible saber cuál es la verdadera!

Aunque me veo forzado a convivir en la promiscuidad más absoluta con todas ellas, no me convenzo de que me pertenezcan.

¿Qué clase de contacto pueden tener conmigo —me pregunto— todas estas personalidades inconfesables, que harían ruborizar a un carnicero? ¿Habré de permitir que se me identifique, por ejemplo, con este pederasta marchito que no tuvo ni el coraje de realizarse, o con este cretinoide cuya sonrisa es capaz de congelar una locomotora?

El hecho de que se hospeden en mi cuerpo es suficiente, sin embargo, para enfermarse de indignación. Ya que no puedo ignorar su existencia, quisiera obligarlas a que se oculten en los repliegues más profundos de mi cerebro. Pero son de una petulancia... de un egoísmo... de una falta de tacto...

Hasta las personalidades más insignificantes se dan unos aires de trasatlántico. Todas, sin ninguna clase de excepción, se consideran con derecho a manifestar un desprecio olímpico por las otras, y naturalmente, hay peleas, conflictos de toda especie, discusiones que no terminan nunca. En vez de contemporizar, ya que tienen que vivir juntas, ¡pues no señor!, cada una pretende imponer su voluntad, sin tomar en cuenta las opiniones y los gustos de las demás. Si alguna tiene una ocurrencia, que me hace reír a carcajadas, en el acto sale cualquier otra, proponiéndome un paseíto al cementerio. Ni bien aquélla desea que me acueste con todas las mujeres de la ciudad, ésta se empeña en demostrarme las ventajas de la abstinencia, y mientras una abusa de la noche y no me deja dormir hasta la madrugada, la otra me despierta con el amanecer y exige que me levante junto con las gallinas.

Mi vida resulta así una preñez de posibilidades que no se realizan nunca, una explosión de fuerzas encontradas que se entrechocan y se destruyen mutuamente. El hecho de tomar la menor determinación me cuesta un tal cúmulo de dificultades, antes de cometer el acto más insignificante necesito poner tantas personalidades de acuerdo, que prefiero renunciar a cualquier cosa y esperar que se extenúen discutiendo lo que han de hacer con mi persona, para tener, al menos, la satisfacción de mandarlas a todas juntas a la mierda.

[Plus Oultre]

18

Weep living tears! Weep gushers! Weep your guts out! Weep dreams! Weep before portals and at ports of entry! Weep in fellowship! Weep in yellow!

Open the locks and calas of tears! Let us soak our shirts, our souls! Inundate the sidwalks and the boulevards, and bear us along safely on the flood!

Assist in anthropology courses, weeping! Celebrate realtives' birthdays, weeping! Walk across AFrica, weeping!

Weep like a caiman, like a crocodile...especially if it's true that caimans and crocodiles have no real tears in them.

Weep anything, but weep well! Weep with your nose, with your knees! Weep through your navel, through your mouth!

Weep of love, of hate, of happiness! Weep in your frock, from flatus, from frailty! WEep impromptu, weep from memory! Weep throughout the insomniac night and throughout the livelong day!


—Translated from the Spanish by Gilbert Alter-Gilbert

Llorar a lágrima viva
Llorar a chorros.
Llorar la digestión.
Llorar el sueño.
Llorar ante las puertas y los puertos.
Llorar de amabilidad y de amarillo.

Abrir las canillas,
las compuertas del llanto.
Empaparnos el alma,
la camiseta.
Inundar las veredas y los paseos,
y salvarnos, a nado, de nuestro llanto.

Asistir a los cursos de antropología,
llorando.
Festejar los cumpleaños familiares,
llorando.
Atravesar el África,
llorando.

Llorar como un cacuy,
como un cocodrilo…
si es verdad
que los cacuyes y los cocodrilos
no dejan nunca de llorar.

Llorarlo todo,
pero llorarlo bien.
Llorarlo con la nariz,
con las rodillas.
Llorarlo por el ombligo,
por la boca.

Llorar de amor,
de hastío,
de alegría.
Llorar de frac,
de flato, de flacura.
Llorar improvisando,
de memoria.
¡Llorar todo el insomnio y todo el día!

[Tokyo Joe]

Aubade
BY PHILIP LARKIN

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
—The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

[Orion]

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Card-Dealer

[/u]

Could you not drink her gaze like wine?
Yet though its splendour swoon
Into the silence languidly
As a tune into a tune,
Those eyes unravel the coiled night
And know the stars at noon.

The gold that’s heaped beside her hand,
In truth rich prize it were;
And rich the dreams that wreathe her brows
With magic stillness there;
And he were rich who should unwind
That woven golden hair.

Around her, where she sits, the dance
Now breathes its eager heat;
And not more lightly or more true
Fall there the dancers’ feet
Than fall her cards on the bright board
As ’twere an heart that beat.

Her fingers let them softly through,
Smooth polished silent things;
And each one as it falls reflects
In swift light-shadowings,
Blood-red and purple, green and blue,
The great eyes of her rings.

Whom plays she with? With thee, who lov’st
Those gems upon her hand;
With me, who search her secret brows;
With all men, bless’d or bann’d.
We play together, she and we,
Within a vain strange land:

A land without any order,
Day even as night, (one saith,)
Where who lieth down ariseth not
Nor the sleeper awakeneth;
A land of darkness as darkness itself
And of the shadow of death.

What be her cards, you ask? Even these:—
The heart, that doth but crave
More, having fed; the diamond,
Skilled to make base seem brave;
The club, for smiting in the dark;
The spade, to dig a grave.

And do you ask what game she plays?
With me ’tis lost or won;
With thee it is playing still; with him
It is not well begun;
But ’tis a game she plays with all
Beneath the sway o’ the sun.

Thou seest the card that falls,—she knows
The card that followeth:
Her game in thy tongue is called Life,
As ebbs thy daily breath:
When she shall speak, thou’lt learn her tongue
And know she calls it Death.

[Tokyo Joe]

Finally, It Is October...

Der Herbst

Die Sagen, die der Erde sich entfernen,
Vom Geiste, der gewesen ist und wiederkehret,
Sie kehren zu der Menschheit sich, und vieles lernen
Wir aus der Zeit, die eilends sich verzehret.

Die Bilder der Vergangenheit sind nicht verlassen
Von der Natur, als wie die Tag' verblassen
Im hohen Sommer, kehrt der Herbst zur Erde nieder,
Der Geist der Schauer findet sich am Himmel wieder.

In kurzer Zeit hat vieles sich geendet,
Der Landmann, der am Pfluge sich gezeiget,
Er siehet, wie das Jahr sich frohem Ende neiget,
In solchen Bildern ist des Menschen Tag vollendet.

Der Erde Rund mit Felsen ausgezieret
Ist wie die Wolke nicht, die Abends sich verlieret;
Es zeiget sich mit einem goldnen Tage,
Und die Vollkommenheit ist ohne Klage.

-- Friedrich Hölderlin

[Tokyo Joe]