Poetry
Poetry is always celebration
or its opposite. Making blackness
the word for everything:
A symbol, a sound,
To fill us
and to fill the tombs in our midst.
Poetry
Reading: St. Sava’s Journey by Vasko Popa
The following poem by Serbian poet Vasko Popa (1922-1991) in the translation of Anne Paddington, did impress me. St. Sava's Journey He journeys over the dark land With his staff he cuts The dark beyond him into four He flings thick gloves Changed into immense cats At the grey army of mice Amid the storm ...
Reading: Meeting by Marina Tsvetsaeva
Marina Tsvetsaeva (1892-1941) I read Meeting in an English translation by Ilya Shambat who prepared it for the 110th anniversary of her birth in 2002. Meeting Evening dimmed, like ourselves charmed With this first warmth of the spring. Stirring alive, Arbat was alarmed; With sympathetic tenderness, the kind Gale touched us with a tired wing. ...
Reading: Verwandlung by Georg Trakl
Today I read a poem by my famous German expressionist, Georg Trakl (1887-1914). I couldn't find a translation of die Verwandlung online, so I created one myself. There is a website where you can contribute poetry translations, and I added this one. This is what the great German, who died at 27 (sounds familiar) from ...
A GARDEN
In my mind I have created a garden populated with insects who don't bite and birds who don't shit on my paper when I write there is a lily pond, with frogs who know Bach However, they keep quiet. This is my refuge where nothing pierces through the surface every ripple is merely the smile ...
Reading: Kinaxixi by Augostinho Neto
Today, I wanted to read a poem by Hugo von Hofmannthal or Wisława Szymborska, but I couldn't find (the time to make) a good translation of the German genius and I'm not fond of the Polish Nobel Prize winner. So I read a poet by former Angolan president Augustinho Neto (1922-1979) instead. Here it is, in ...
Reading: Enigma with Flower by Pablo Neruda
The great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973, born as Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto) deserves a place in our anthology as well. I browsed his poetry and found this item, 'Enigma with Flower' suitable for today's short reading. Victory. It has come late, I had not learnt how to arrive, like the lily, at will, the white figure, that pierces ...
EIFFEL TOWER
In Vegas and Macau they have fake Eiffel towers. Smaller of course than the original in Paris. They are there to invoke Paris. The Eiffel tower is 324 meters high I learned that number in school. One day someone will build a taller one in Shanghai or Dubai or Doha or such place Years will amplify ...
You and Me
Would you come over and steal everything? that would be great. There are enough words but there must be light I cannot usurp alone all the words who write. Come stealthily, come at night I'll leave some papers on my desk take all you need and run with it Use them up! You are not ...