POETRY
Masha Marchev NEW
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Silence
You can not write silence onto a page. You can not send a blank letter. I wish you were here so I could be quiet with you. *** Prehistoric poets You use words like crude tools, their legato stifled, stuck in the back of your throat: the guttural warble of a broken spade sunk into rich and fruitful soil or a hand-fashioned sandstone axe flung wildly at sleek metaphors. *** Fishin' Methinks the fisherman has caught himself a shark - A fish his nets can't keep and boat cannot support. Yet he he maintains the line. Hooked firmly to his bark, The beast is tethered tightly and the line is taut. What use has he for her? A stew, a steak, a dish With spice and wonder or is she but testament To skill and courage of his crew, meant to distinguish Men from boys as women brim with wonderment? A shark! The whispers gather on the deck like smoke, A haze of fear and pride, they savour their reward While their night's catch fights vainly 'gainst unyielding yoke - The sun picks out staccato splashes overboard. Beneath a full white sail, the plunderers of the sea Debate their options: cut it loose or keep it snared? Under their captain's caustic eye, they all agree: The line cannot be hewed, it holds a catch too rare. So they return to port, the wearied beast in tow, Dragged by determined boat t'ward hungry waiting lips, Ready to feast and praise and drink and sing 'bravo,' A crowd collects to watch and greet the ship... But wait awhile - the story isn't done just yet, For all but one had yielded to the captain's wish. One conscience compromised, one heart filled with regret Had waited until backs were turned and loosed the fish. And thus, she lives today, indebted to his name, His tender mercy greater than his lust for fame. |
Intellect in iambic pentameter
For countless thinkers in this mortal plane, Both great and small, remembered or forgot, Though some may fear their minds have toiled in vain, I craft this verse, assuring you they've not. With ignorance our foremost foe, we sought Great truths as nourishment for hungry minds, And yet our hunger grew with each fresh thought. "O, unjust paradox!" wept humankind. And some, disheartened thus, forsook the quest, And turned to simple and immediate joys: Once hungry minds now lay in idle rest, Once powerful wits now withered, unemployed. I hail brave scholars, who, in times of doubt Turned not on knowledge frightened backs. Instead, Armed with a step determined and devout, Sought knowledge out and ne'er from darkness fled. In gratitude extends this modest rhyme To those whom I give audience and ear, And those forever lost in folds of time And distance - those, whose work I'll never hear. Like me, you lent your audience to great, Now timeless, bards, philosophers and men Of science - those, whose talent was innate. To you they owe that they are read again. So hearken, agile minds and fearless hearts: Unless, of course, your motives selfish prove, Take comfort in that you have played your part In keeping living that which I now love. *** Frustration lent my mortal loins, this song. I fear I've left it short - or far too long. |
Andre Breton
Freedom of Love
During a Mar 2004 shoot for Vanity Fair, Nick Knight created a number of on-set scenarios for intriguing visual and aural actions for subject Brad Pitt to perform, so as to engage the actor in 'pique' performance. 'Freedom of Love' is a short film which captures Pitt in action during the shoot, energetically painting onto a huge blow up of his own face, and adding caption, and contemplatively reading surrealist poetry. Pitt reads from André Breton's poem 'Freedom of Love', a one stanza, sixty-line homage to his wife. The poem cites a beautiful litany of comparisons for her physical attributes, deftly playing with language that eludes any commonplace romantic imaging, instead presenting uncanny metaphors. Breton was the provocative, passionate leader of the avant-garde literary and artistic movement Surrealism, who believed in 'revolution of the mind', and in the 'marvellous' - dazzling combinations of words or visual images, spontaneously created by automatic processes of the mind.
FREEDOM OF LOVE- Andre Breton
My wife with the hair of a wood fire
With the thoughts of heat lightning
With the waist of an hourglass
With the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger
My wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of the last magnitude
With the teeth of tracks of white mice on the white earth
With the tongue of rubbed amber and glass
My wife with the tongue of a stabbed host
With the tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes
With the tongue of an unbelievable stone
My wife with the eyelashes of strokes of a child's writing
With brows of the edge of a swallow's nest
My wife with the brow of slates of a hothouse roof
And of steam on the panes
My wife with shoulders of champagne
And of a fountain with dolphin-heads beneath the ice
My wife with wrists of matches
My wife with fingers of luck and ace of hearts
With fingers of mown hay
My wife with armpits of marten and of beechnut
And of Midsummer Night
Of privet and of an angelfish nest
With arms of seafoam and of riverlocks
And of a mingling of the wheat and the mill
My wife with legs of flares
With the movements of clockwork and despair
My wife with calves of eldertree pith
My wife with feet of initials
With feet of rings of keys and Java sparrows drinking
My wife with a neck of unpearled barley
My wife with a throat of the valley of gold
Of a tryst in the very bed of the torrent
With breasts of night
My wife with breasts of a marine molehill
My wife with breasts of the ruby's crucible
With breasts of the rose's spectre beneath the dew
My wife with the belly of an unfolding of the fan of days
With the belly of a gigantic claw
My wife with the back of a bird fleeing vertically
With a back of quicksilver
With a back of light
With a nape of rolled stone and wet chalk
And of the drop of a glass where one has just been drinking
My wife with hips of a skiff
With hips of a chandelier and of arrow-feathers
And of shafts of white peacock plumes
Of an insensible pendulum
My wife with buttocks of sandstone and asbestos
My wife with buttocks of swans' backs
My wife with buttocks of spring
With the sex of an iris
My wife with the sex of a mining-placer and of a platypus
My wife with a sex of seaweed and ancient sweetmeat
My wife with a sex of mirror
My wife with eyes full of tears
With eyes of purple panoply and of a magnetic needle
My wife with savanna eyes
My wife with eyes of water to he drunk in prison
My wife with eyes of wood always under the axe
My wife with eyes of water-level of level of air earth and fire
Freedom of Love
During a Mar 2004 shoot for Vanity Fair, Nick Knight created a number of on-set scenarios for intriguing visual and aural actions for subject Brad Pitt to perform, so as to engage the actor in 'pique' performance. 'Freedom of Love' is a short film which captures Pitt in action during the shoot, energetically painting onto a huge blow up of his own face, and adding caption, and contemplatively reading surrealist poetry. Pitt reads from André Breton's poem 'Freedom of Love', a one stanza, sixty-line homage to his wife. The poem cites a beautiful litany of comparisons for her physical attributes, deftly playing with language that eludes any commonplace romantic imaging, instead presenting uncanny metaphors. Breton was the provocative, passionate leader of the avant-garde literary and artistic movement Surrealism, who believed in 'revolution of the mind', and in the 'marvellous' - dazzling combinations of words or visual images, spontaneously created by automatic processes of the mind.
FREEDOM OF LOVE- Andre Breton
My wife with the hair of a wood fire
With the thoughts of heat lightning
With the waist of an hourglass
With the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger
My wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of the last magnitude
With the teeth of tracks of white mice on the white earth
With the tongue of rubbed amber and glass
My wife with the tongue of a stabbed host
With the tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes
With the tongue of an unbelievable stone
My wife with the eyelashes of strokes of a child's writing
With brows of the edge of a swallow's nest
My wife with the brow of slates of a hothouse roof
And of steam on the panes
My wife with shoulders of champagne
And of a fountain with dolphin-heads beneath the ice
My wife with wrists of matches
My wife with fingers of luck and ace of hearts
With fingers of mown hay
My wife with armpits of marten and of beechnut
And of Midsummer Night
Of privet and of an angelfish nest
With arms of seafoam and of riverlocks
And of a mingling of the wheat and the mill
My wife with legs of flares
With the movements of clockwork and despair
My wife with calves of eldertree pith
My wife with feet of initials
With feet of rings of keys and Java sparrows drinking
My wife with a neck of unpearled barley
My wife with a throat of the valley of gold
Of a tryst in the very bed of the torrent
With breasts of night
My wife with breasts of a marine molehill
My wife with breasts of the ruby's crucible
With breasts of the rose's spectre beneath the dew
My wife with the belly of an unfolding of the fan of days
With the belly of a gigantic claw
My wife with the back of a bird fleeing vertically
With a back of quicksilver
With a back of light
With a nape of rolled stone and wet chalk
And of the drop of a glass where one has just been drinking
My wife with hips of a skiff
With hips of a chandelier and of arrow-feathers
And of shafts of white peacock plumes
Of an insensible pendulum
My wife with buttocks of sandstone and asbestos
My wife with buttocks of swans' backs
My wife with buttocks of spring
With the sex of an iris
My wife with the sex of a mining-placer and of a platypus
My wife with a sex of seaweed and ancient sweetmeat
My wife with a sex of mirror
My wife with eyes full of tears
With eyes of purple panoply and of a magnetic needle
My wife with savanna eyes
My wife with eyes of water to he drunk in prison
My wife with eyes of wood always under the axe
My wife with eyes of water-level of level of air earth and fire
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
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The Invitation by Oriah
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive. It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon... I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful to be realistic to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. |
I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.” It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments. By Oriah © Mountain Dreaming, from the book The Invitation published by HarperONE, San Francisco, 1999 All rights reserved |
A Poet's Voice XV
The power of charity sows deep in my heart, and I reap and gather the wheat in bundles and give them to the hungry.
My soul gives life to the grapevine and I press its bunches and give the juice to the thirsty.
Heaven fills my lamp with oil and I place it at my window to direct the stranger through the dark.
I do all these things because I live in them; and if destiny should tie my hands and prevent me from so doing, then death would be my only desire. For I am a poet, and if I cannot give, I shall refuse to receive.
Humanity rages like a tempest, but I sigh in silence for I know the storm must pass away while a sigh goes to God.
Human kinds cling to earthly things, but I seek ever to embrace the torch of love so it will purify me by its fire and sear inhumanity from my heart.
Substantial things deaden a man without suffering; love awakens him with enlivening pains.
Humans are divided into different clans and tribes, and belong to countries and towns. But I find myself a stranger to all communities and belong to no settlement. The universe is my country and the human family is my tribe.
Men are weak, and it is sad that they divide amongst themselves. The world is narrow and it is unwise to cleave it into kingdoms, empires, and provinces.
Human kinds unite themselves one to destroy the temples of the soul, and they join hands to build edifices for earthly bodies. I stand alone listening to the voice of hope in my deep self saying, "As love enlivens a man's heart with pain, so ignorance teaches him the way of knowledge." Pain and ignorance lead to great joy and knowledge because the Supreme Being has created nothing vain under the sun.
The power of charity sows deep in my heart, and I reap and gather the wheat in bundles and give them to the hungry.
My soul gives life to the grapevine and I press its bunches and give the juice to the thirsty.
Heaven fills my lamp with oil and I place it at my window to direct the stranger through the dark.
I do all these things because I live in them; and if destiny should tie my hands and prevent me from so doing, then death would be my only desire. For I am a poet, and if I cannot give, I shall refuse to receive.
Humanity rages like a tempest, but I sigh in silence for I know the storm must pass away while a sigh goes to God.
Human kinds cling to earthly things, but I seek ever to embrace the torch of love so it will purify me by its fire and sear inhumanity from my heart.
Substantial things deaden a man without suffering; love awakens him with enlivening pains.
Humans are divided into different clans and tribes, and belong to countries and towns. But I find myself a stranger to all communities and belong to no settlement. The universe is my country and the human family is my tribe.
Men are weak, and it is sad that they divide amongst themselves. The world is narrow and it is unwise to cleave it into kingdoms, empires, and provinces.
Human kinds unite themselves one to destroy the temples of the soul, and they join hands to build edifices for earthly bodies. I stand alone listening to the voice of hope in my deep self saying, "As love enlivens a man's heart with pain, so ignorance teaches him the way of knowledge." Pain and ignorance lead to great joy and knowledge because the Supreme Being has created nothing vain under the sun.
Gabriel García Márquez
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The Puppet
If for a moment God would forget that I am a rag doll and give me a scrap of life, possibly I would not say everything that I think, but I would definitely think everything that I say. I would value things not for how much they are worth but rather for what they mean. I would sleep little, dream more. I know that for each minute that we close our eyes we lose sixty seconds of light. I would walk when the others loiter; I would awaken when the others sleep. I would listen when the others speak, and how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream. If God would bestow on me a scrap of life, I would dress simply, I would throw myself flat under the sun, exposing not only my body but also my soul. My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hatred on ice and wait for the sun to come out. With a dream of Van Gogh I would paint on the stars a poem by Benedetti, and a song by Serrat would be my serenade to the moon. |
With my tears I would water the roses, to feel the pain of their thorns and the incarnated kiss of their petals...My God, if I only had a scrap of life... I wouldn't let a single day go by without saying to people I love, that I love them. I would convince each woman or man that they are my favourites and I would live in love with love. I would prove to the men how mistaken they are in thinking that they no longer fall in love when they grow old--not knowing that they grow old when they stop falling in love. To a child I would give wings, but I would let him learn how to fly by himself. To the old I would teach that death comes not with old age but with forgetting. I have learned so much from you men.... I have learned that everybody wants to live at the top of the mountain without realizing that true happiness lies in the way we climb the slope. I have learned that when a newborn first squeezes his father's finger in his tiny fist, he has caught him forever. I have learned that a man only has the right to look down on another man when it is to help him to stand up. I have learned so many things from you, but in the end most of it will be no use because when they put me inside that suitcase, unfortunately I will be dying. translated by Matthew Taylor and Rosa Arelis Taylor |
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The Faithless Wife
So I took her to the river believing she was a maiden, but she already had a husband. It was on St. James night and almost as if I was obliged to. The lanterns went out and the crickets lighted up. In the farthest street corners I touched her sleeping breasts and they opened to me suddenly like spikes of hyacinth. The starch of her petticoat sounded in my ears like a piece of silk rent by ten knives. Without silver light on their foliage the trees had grown larger and a horizon of dogs barked very far from the river. Past the blackberries, the reeds and the hawthorne underneath her cluster of hair I made a hollow in the earth I took off my tie, she too off her dress. I, my belt with the revolver, She, her four bodices. |
Nor nard nor mother-o’-pearl have skin so fine, nor does glass with silver shine with such brilliance. Her thighs slipped away from me like startled fish, half full of fire, half full of cold. That night I ran on the best of roads mounted on a nacre mare without bridle stirrups. As a man, I won’t repeat the things she said to me. The light of understanding has made me more discreet. Smeared with sand and kisses I took her away from the river. The swords of the lilies battled with the air. I behaved like what I am, like a proper gypsy. I gave her a large sewing basket, of straw-colored satin, but I did not fall in love for although she had a husband she told me she was a maiden when I took her to the river. |
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"Map Shower"
For Marcia I want your hair to cover me with maps of new places, so everywhere I go will be as beautiful as your hair. "I Live in the Twentieth Century" For Marcia I live in the Twentieth Century and you lie here beside me. You were unhappy when you fell asleep. There was nothing I could do about it. I felt helpless. Your face is so beautiful that I cannot stop to describe it, and there's nothing I can do to make you happy while you sleep. "December 24" She's mending the rain with her hair. She's turning the darkness on. Glue / switch! That's all I have to report. "November 3" I'm sitting in a cafe, drinking a Coke. A fly is sleeping on a paper napkin. I have to wake him up, so I can wipe my glasses. There's a pretty girl I want to look at. |
"Your Necklace is Leaking" For Marcia Your necklace is leaking and blue light drips from your beads to cover your beautiful breasts with a clear African dawn. "Gee, You're So Beautiful That It's Starting to Rain" Oh, Marcia, I want your long blonde beauty to be taught in high school, so kids will learn that God lives like music in the skin and sounds like a sunshine harpsichord. I want high school report cards to look like this: Playing with Gentle Glass Things A Computer Magic A Writing Letters to Those You Love A Finding out about Fish A Marcia’s Long Blonde Beauty A+! |
Mary Elizabeth Frye
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep,
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle Autumn rain
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quite birds in circled flight
I am the soft stars that shine at night
Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there, I did not die
I am not there, I do not sleep,
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle Autumn rain
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quite birds in circled flight
I am the soft stars that shine at night
Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there, I did not die
Karen Djangirov
Karen Djangirov, an Armenian immigrant and head of a Russian poetry society in Moscow who has lived in Canada since 1995. He graduated from Moscow State University with a degree in Mathematics and Economics. Since 1978 worked on systematizing Russian verlibr. Has been published in periodicals and anthologies of Russian poetry.
Более всего
меня настораживают простые вещи:
фиалки в руках одиноко бегущей девочки,
зеленая шляпа на голове прохожего,
обрывок афиши в объятиях безлюдного ветра,
... поползновения чайной ложки на краю стола,
ужимки графина в малиновых сумерках комнаты...
Я в ужасе от
непостижимости происходящего
и, как рыцарь, признавший свое поражение,
я укрываюсь от жутких подробностей мира
хрустальным щитом безумия
Read more: http://www.karendjangirov.com/
меня настораживают простые вещи:
фиалки в руках одиноко бегущей девочки,
зеленая шляпа на голове прохожего,
обрывок афиши в объятиях безлюдного ветра,
... поползновения чайной ложки на краю стола,
ужимки графина в малиновых сумерках комнаты...
Я в ужасе от
непостижимости происходящего
и, как рыцарь, признавший свое поражение,
я укрываюсь от жутких подробностей мира
хрустальным щитом безумия
Read more: http://www.karendjangirov.com/
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