Harbinger

Harbingers of spring.
Unfortunately none of peace.

 

Komm, großer schwarzer Vogel!

Ludwig Hirsch (28 Februar 1946 – 24 November 2011)

Komm großer schwarzer Vogel, komm jetzt!
Schau, das Fenster ist weit offen,
schau, i hab Dir Zucker aufs Fensterbrett g'strat.
Komm großer schwarzer Vogel, komm zu mir!
Spann' Deine weiten, sanften Flügel aus
und leg s' auf meine Fieberaugen!
Bitte, hol mi weg von da!
Und dann fliegen wir auf,
mitten in'n Himmel,
in a neuche Zeit, in a neuche Welt,
und i werd' singen, i werd' lachen,
ich werd' "es gibt's net" schrei'n,
weil i werd' auf einmal kapier'n,
worum sich alles dreht.

Komm großer schwarzer Vogel, hilf mir doch!
Preß' Deinen feuchten, kalten Schnabel
auf meine wunde, auf meine heiße Stirn!
Komm großer schwarzer Vogel,
jetzt wär's grad günstig!
Die anderen da im Zimmer schlafen fest
aber ganz leise san,
dann hört uns die Schwester net!

Bitte, hol mich weg von da!
Und dann fliegen wir auf,
mitten in'n Himmel,
in a neuche Zeit, in a neuche Welt,
und i werd' singen, i werd' lachen,
und i werd' "das gibt's net" schrei'n,
weil i werd' auf einmal kapier'n,
worum sich alles alles dreht.

Ja? Großer schwarzer Vogel? Endlich!
I hab' Dich gar nicht einikommen g'hört,
wie lautlos Du fliegst,
mein Gott, wie schön Du bist!
Auf geht's, großer schwarzer Vogel, auf geht's!
Bye bye, meine Lieben daham!
Du, mein Mäderl, Mama, Papa!
Bitte, vergeßt's mi net!
Auf geht's, mitten in'n Himmel,
net traurig sein, mm mm!
's ist kein Grund zum Traurigsein!
Weil i werd' singen, i werd' lachen,
i werd' "es gibt's net" schrei'n,
i werd' endlich kapier'n,
i werd' glücklich sein!

Ja, I werd' singen, und i werd' lachen,
und i werd' "Es gibt's net!" schrei'n,
i werd' endlich kapier'n,
i werd' endlich glücklich sein!

And here's a both quick and humble first attempt to translate from the Austrian. Suggestions for improvement are welcome.
Well, you will understand, anyway.


Come, big black bird, come now!
Look, the window is wide open,
look, I've spread sugar on the sill for you.
Come, big black bird, come to me!
Span your wide gentle wings,
and put them on my fevereyes!

Please, get me away from here!
And then we fly up
right into the middle of heaven,
into a new time, into a new world,
and I'll sing, I'll laugh,
I'll scream "Es gibt's net!"*,
'cause all of a sudden I'll get
what all is about.

Come, big black bird, so help me, please!
Put your wet cold beak
on my sore, on my hot brow!
Come, big black bird,
now there's the opportunity!
The others in the room are sleeping deeply,
but let's be very quiet,
so that the nurse won't hear us.

Please, get me away from here!
And then we fly up
right into the middle of heaven,
into a new time, into a new world,
and I'll sing, I'll laugh,
and I'll scream "Es gibt's net"*,
'cause all of a sudden I'll get
what all is about.

Yes? Big black bird? At last!
I didn't hear you come in,
how soundless you fly –
my God, how beautiful you are! 

C'mon, big black bird, c'mon!
Bye bye, my dear one's at home.
You, my girl, ... Mama ... Papa.
Please, don't forget me!

C'mon, into the middle of heaven.
[Ah] Don't be sad ... mm mm [no no no];
There's no reason for sadness,
'cause I'll sing, I'll laugh,
I'll scream "Es gibt's net!",
I shall at last understand,
I'll be happy.

Yes, I'll sing, and I'll laugh,
and I'll scream "Es gibt`s net",
At last I'll understand,
At last I'll ... be happy.

Dance me to the End of Love

 

 Leonard Cohen (21 September 1934 – 7 November 2016)

Take this Waltz

Leonard Cohen (21 September 1934 – 7 November 2016)
Federico García Lorca (5 Juni 1898 – 19 August 1936)

Nectarious Night

And I'll dance with you in Vienna
I'll be wearing a river's disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,
My mouth on the dew of your thighs . . .

In praise of ...

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbed
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rotted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.


My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy neat the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

Seamus Heaney

Laughing Lhursday*

The last visitor

* [For first time visitors]:

Typo in the title?
Nah. It's just that I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration.

 

Laughing Lhursday*

This is ...

... no fairy tale.

 

* [For first time visitors]:

Typo in the title?
Nah. It's just that I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration.

Just a daily phenomenon

The last potatoes digged up, the field rakened and green manure sowed, one morello tree shortened by about two metres, peppermint and sage picked and dried;
... that happened end of August. Ah! And the magic of all those flowers ...

Meanwhile almost four weeks have flown by; since, there has happened quite a lot on this planet quite a few of which you might even have come to "know" as it has been covered in (y)our media.
One daily news you will neither have read in your daily newspaper nor heard elsewhere, though, as being published / told day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, decade by decade that yesterday approximately 30 / 40,000 children have been dying of starvation would be bloody depressing ... well, at least damn boring, would you agree?

Life is difficult enough to thoroughly enjoy, isn't it? If only I think of that the other day a bit too much sea-salt in the tomato soup spoilt my dinner.

Who in our civilised world would be able to care about how many women have been raped in Congo or elsewhere, while I was kept busy with picking plums, for hours? I mean, it's not my or your business. I can't change anything, can I? And neither can you, hm?

Not that I would not feel pity, whenever I come to think of it for some seconds now and then; but that's life, isn't it?

One is getting raped, a second tortured, a third murdered, while I am busy with watching butterflies and (bumble-)bees enjoying their kind of milk and honey that is flowing in Seanhenge, and while you perhaps are struggling with what outfit to choose for tomorrow's dinner party.

Ah, I should not have started this. Did I write 30,000 children per day?
That means, 750,000 children within 25 days, doesn't it? Phew!

Coming to think of it: Isn't it wonderful, magic well-nigh, that despite of this marginal phenomenon not worth to daily make its way into the news, there are living more than eight billion human beings on this wonderful planet, thus about four times more than when I was born, about 20 years more than half a century ago?

Thinking positive - and aren't we told to always think positive?! - we are blessed that day by day 30- / 40,000 children are dying of starvation, aren't we?

Ah, no! Really! See? Such easily a post's content is being manipulated by thoughts about marginal daily phenomenons that are not worth mentioning.

Let alone, that I can be absolutely sure that those who are reading this are able to distinguish cynism from sarcasm, it's a great relief to know that most of those poor? nameless? anyway: unnamed creatures - and I am not talking about those 40,000 children who day by day are leaving this planet to enjoy life in this or that paradise, depending of the god their still somehow surviving parents are made to believe in - are analphabets.

In this sense.
A most joyous week to those
able to read.
May your god bless you,
and if it (read: your god) were the head of a dead sardine.

Enjoy
the peace of the night ...

in which - provided you are sleeping eight hours - approximately some more than 10,000 children are dying of starvation.

Walpurgis Night

It may sound unbelievable, but I must tell you what happened last night.

Somehow I could not sleep in Walpurgis Night. So I got up again, put on my clothes, took the car and drove into the night. After some miles I decided to try what I had not done since I was a little boy. In X - my birthplace - I left the car, looked around to make sure nobody watched me, and then ran as fast as I could and ... yes ... took off. And nobody running behind me, trying to reach my legs and pulling me down. How lovely flying over the roofs.
So why not making a little trip?

30 minutes later I could see fire shining on the Brocken. As I have no official flying-license, and to avoid the traffic jam over the top, I landed smoothly at the foot of the Brocken, and started to climb. It was raining now, but I didn´t mind. After one hour I arrived at a small clearing. Crossing it suddenly a fairy appeared in front of me, aside her a Leprechaun.

"What are you doing here, Sean?" the fairy asked.

"Climbing up to the top of the Brocken."

"Could be the shortest way to hell", snorted the Leprechaun. "Any milk in your pockets?"

Oh dear. Of course I had no milk in my pockets. That could become difficult. Leprechauns can get extremely naughty, if one has no milk for them, and if it´s deep in the night inmidst a clearing half way to the top of the Brocken.

Automatically I searched my pockets, and ... felt ... impossible ... something cool ... a bottle of milk.

Whilst reaching it to the Leprechaun my eyes thought to catch a smile from the fairy's lips.

"Thank you, mate", the Leprechaun said without any surprise in his voice, and immediately started to drink.

"Thank you", I thought in direction of the fairy.

"You are welcome", she said. "Have a wish?"

"Eh, you mean ...?"

"Indeed."

"Any rules?"

"He sounds like a damn clever Paddy", the Leprechaun giggled.

"Indeed", said the fairy. "Even fairies couldn´t fulfil the wish of making a peaceful paradise of this planet. Therefore your wish must be a very personal one."

"Hm. ... Allright then: I wish ..."

"Stop!" said the Leprechaun.

"Yes?"

"You must not speak out your wish, otherwise the magic is gone. Just think it."

"Thank you, friend. But why are you so kind?"

The Leprechaun took his pipe between his lips, blew some smoke-rings and said: "Lucky you had milk in your pockets, mate."

So I thought my wish, and just wanted to say bye, when the Leprechaun asked: "Not surprised we know your name?"

"Well, yes. But I have heard the little folk knows quite a lot."

"We have no cameras, though."

"Cameras?"

"Do you remember the rainbow you shot some years ago on Beara Peninsula?"

"Yes, I like this photo very much."

"So do we", laughed the Leprechaun. "You see, your photo helped us find the gold-pot at the end of the rainbow."

"But ... but ... but how and when did you see the photo? The film got developed in Germany."

"Hm, as you said: We do know quite a lot."

"Keep your secret, friends", I said. We shook hands, and I continued to climb upwards.

Somehow everything was easier. Only the din I thought to have heard from the top had calmed down. Nothing to hear. At last I reached the top. Incredible. Wherever I looked sleeping witches. Two or three seemed to have had an accident: Still sitting on their brooms they looked like being sticked against the trees. Slowly moving on I realized there was only one witch still being dancing. Never heard mystic music reached my ear. I moved on. The witch seemed not to have noticed me. She danced. Beautifully. Ten meters and I'd be able to see her face in the shine of the fire. Trying to make no noise I tiptoed.

Suddenly there was a big noise, as if a giant blew his breath. From one second to the other the fire went out. When my eyes got used to the darkness, I realized a last glowing, in front of where I had seen the witch dancing. At least the full moon sent his silvery shine to the clearing. I hesitated. Carefully I walked on, stumbled over a dead branch. At least I thought so. In the next moment my bottom got a hit, and it was as if a voice hissed: „Idiot." I turned round, bent forward and - it was a broom.

„Was it you who called me idiot?" I whispered.

„At least your ears are intact."

„Why at least?"

„Well, if your eyes were better, you wouldn´t have stumbled over me and disturbed my Peace of the Night."

„Excuse me, but that´s ..."

„Schscht. Not so loud. You could get in damn trouble, if you woke up the ladies. - So now, calm down, sir.: What did you want to ask?"

„Better not to ask anything. I thought it only surprising that you chose ... almost I had said : my phrase."

„Never mind. If you want to stay stupid, don´t ask."

„Well ... then ... How did you come to use it?"

„My boss once - about five years ago - began to wish me the Peace of the Night."

„Your boss?!"

„Well, correctly spoken: my Queen."

„Your Queen? What´s her name?"

„Can´t tell you. Not fancy to get a bloody nose."

„Please."

„No, but you can ask herself."

... and the broom turned around and lay as if sound asleep.

Asking herself? Oh dear! Heart bumping. Blood rushing. Slowly I turned round. There she was. Behind the glooming fire she had stopped dancing. Now she slowly moved in my direction. Passing the gloom I got a glimpse of her face. Unlike the other witches I had seen before, she had no long hair. I got excited. She came closer. Should I flee? No, I decided to stay. Decided? Anyway, soon I'd see her face. 13 meters, twelve, eleven, ten, nine ... three steps more and she would appear in the moon´s cone. ... One ... black brown hair ... two ... my heart jumped ... three ... I saw nothing. I turned round. Where there had been the moon now was a big dark cloud. My knees felt like pudding. My nose smelled a parfume it had never smelled before. What would happen in the next moment? Ah, at least I'd have asked. But only I had opened my mouth I heard her voice very very close to my ear: She said: ...

Z...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz .................

In the next moment I woke up. In front of our house the musicians of the local fire-brigade had intonated „The May has arrived." Later on I saw the car where it is usually parked. But for hours I had eight words echoeing in my head: „I told you, it´s not fate, ... it´s magic!"

That´s my story. And I wonder what will happen next.

Hope you had a lovely dance into the May, and that you didn´t feel too exhausted today.

Rather be it Shakespeare*

On Shakespeare's 459th birthday and

the 407th anniversary of either his death
and the death of Cervantes
just to wish a very special literary evening.

It's also the (International) Day of the book?

Well, yes. But isn't every day a day of the book?

Comparing the results of my recent attempts to write some sonnets myself with what I am rereading these days, I came to the conclusion, in order not to put anyone off the realm of poetry, to post rather one from the Master of Avondale.

Alack what poverty my muse brings forth,
That having such a scope to show her pride,
The argument all bare is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside.
O blame me not if I no more can write!
Look in your glass and there appears a face,
That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
Were it not sinful then striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?
For to no other my verses tend,
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell.
       And more, much more than in my verse can sit,
       Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.

 

* knowing I would be fighting with a deadline, I went back to April 23rd, 2014, copied and pasted, updated the years, and voilà.

 

Today ten years ago

Today ten years ago, "out of the blue" my friend Jams died, seven days before his 50th birthday.
I am still sad. And grateful.

Thanks for being, Jams.

Mo(o)nday Poetry

Cuando sale la luna
se pierden las campanas
y aparecen las sendas
impenetrables.*

* From Federico García Lorca's Canciones de luna

Mo(o)nday Poetry

Colmena
iVivimos en celdas
de cristal,
en colmena de aire!
Nos besamos a través
de cristal.
iMaravillosa cárcel,
cuya puerta
es la luna!
- - -
Beehive
We live in cells
of crystal
in a beehive of air!
We are kissing each other
through crystal.*
Wonderful prison,
the door of which
is the moon!

* cristal: glass, crystal, water (poetical)

Federico García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936)

Mo(o)nday Poetry

Dice la tarde:
"Tengo sed de sombra!"
Dice la luna: "Yo, sed de luceros."
[...]
Says the afternoon:
"I'm thirsty for shadow!"
Says the moon: "I want stars."

Yo tengo sed de aromas y de risas.
Sed de cantares nuevos
Sin lunas y sin lirios,
Y sin amores muertos.
*
I'm thirsty for scents and for laughter.
Thirsty for new songs
Without moons and without lilies,
And without dead loves.

 

Excerpt of Federico García Lorca's poem Cantos nuevo / New songs

Federico García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936)

Dans le port d' Amsterdam

Four days before I became 25 in 1978, Jacques Brel died. I was young, and sad. Not too sad, though. I was young. Today I realise, I have – so far – been allowed to live twenty years longer than this fascinating man. And I wonder [attention: rhetorical question]: Is life fair? Time to thank those who have been and still are kind to me, to those who love me and to her who only today said "I love you like mad". If I were a magician everyone reading these lines – and everyone not reading them – would feel her / his heart filled with serenety and love. With exception of those bastards I do wish an extraordinarily long life with but one tooth left – and 59 minutes toothache each hour – and slowly and painfully rotting testicles! To mention but a few contemporaries: . . . Uff! So many?! Oh dear!! Surely you will know some more. May lots of empathy be upon you . . . and me. :) I leave you with . . . Jacques Brel.

Jacques Brel (April 8th, 1929 – October 9th, 1978)

Ach, Croagh Patrick!

In a few minutes it will be August. And only a few minutes ago I became aware of it is the last Sunday in July. Phew. 37 years ago on such a Sunday I climbed Croagh Patrick on my bare feet, one week after this agnostic had "made" Station Island, and thus kept a second promise I had given to myself. Lovely remembrance.

Croagh Patrick

St. Patrick's Purgatory

Station Island

250th anniversary ...

... of him who stubbed virgin soil  and planted a blue flower.  

Born May 2nd, 1772 as Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg in Oberwiederstedt Manor / Harz mountains, when choosing his pseudonym he probably bethought himself of the name his ancestors in Großenrode had kept until the sons of Bernhard de Novalis decided to take Hardenberg as their family name. And 'stubbing virgin soil' (which is the meaning of Novalis) he intended to do, this Novalis who when in May 1789 meeting Gottfried August Bürger, felt taken with this ardent advocate of a folksy poetry, but distanced himself, after he had met the Bürger-critical Friedrich von Schiller. 'Everything must be poetic', henceforth is his maxim. Less romantic contemporaries shrug off his work as fustian, others (glorifying him) explain his desire for death (Hymns to the Night) with his not getting over the death of his great love (Sophie von Kühn); but Novalis arguably did more than inventing the symbol of romanticism – the Blue Flower dreamt up by the protagonist in his fragmental novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen: Studies of law and mining, arts, science, love: the 'dreamer' , who in view of an accelerating celerity commended his contemporaries to exercise slowness, was eager for knowledge, was concerned about many things. Often disputed. Self-critical, too. And he is not given as much time as Goethe. Death comes quickly. March 25th, 1801 Novalis dies, not even 29 years old. Probably he got infected, while tending his from phtisis suffering friend Friedrich. What remains from Novalis? Much more than Pollen (Blüthenstaub)

Monochrome Monday

My Walden ...

 

Dafydd ap Gwilym (XVI)

 It's St. David's Day again.

May the Welsh enjoy celebrating their Saint.

Omnium is celebrating their Poet.

Voilà.

It's a pity for me that the girl whose praises I am always singing, and who holds her court in the wood, does not know of the conversation I had about her with the grey friar today.

I went to the friar to confess my sins. I admitted to him that I have been without any doubt an idolatrous poet since I have always loved and adored a certain lovely girl with dark eyebrows, "And", I told him, "I have never had a single favour from my murdress, nor has my lady ever allowed me a moment of happiness: in spite of this I love her continually and am wasted with pining for my darling. I carry her praise through the whole land of Wales, and in spite of this I live without her, though I long to hear her in my bed between me and the wall."

The brother spoke this to me: "I will give you good advice: if you have loved this foamwhite girl (merely the colour of paper) for so long, it is time now to think of lessening your punishment on that dreadful day which comes to all of us, for all this is of no benefit to your soul. Cease from making rhymes and accustom yourself instead to saying your prayers, for God did not redeem the souls of men that they might make rhymes and elegiacs, and your minstrels' songs are nothing but flattery and idle bawling. This praise of the body is not good, and leads the soul to the devil."

Then I answered each word that the friar had spoken.

"God is not so cruel as old men tell us: nor will God cut off the gentle soul of a man for loving a woman or a girl. Three things are loved by the whole world.: women, fine weather, and good health, and girls are the fairest flowers in heaven next to God himself. Every man of all peoples is born of woman save these three: Adam, Eve, Melchizedek, and so it is not surprising that man loves girls and women. Gladness falls from Heaven, all misery comes from Hell.
Song makes glad old and young, sick and healthy, and I have an equal right to make poems as you have to pray, I have the same right to sing for my bread as you beg for it. Are not hymns and sequences but other kinds of odes and elegiacs? And are not the psalms of David poems to the good God?

God does not feed man with one food and one relish, he gives him time to eat and a time to worship, a time to pray and a time to make poems. Song springs up at every feast to give pleasure to the ladies, paters are said in church to seek the land of Paradise. Yscuthach drinking with his poets spoke the truth:
'A happy face, his house is full
A sad face, evil and bitterness.'

Though some love holiness, others love being glad together, and there are few men who can make a sweet verse though everyone can say a prayer. And so, my holy brother, I do not think that singing is the greatest sin. When men are as ready to hear paters as the harp, as ready as the girls of Gwynedd are to hear gay songs, then my right hand I'll say paters all day and for ever without ceasing. Till then shame on Dafydd if he sings paters instead of poems!"

Dafydd ap Gwilym c. 1320 – c. 1370