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ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS
[ASCENSEUR POUR L'ÉCHAFAUD]
____________________
Louis Malle
France, 1958
Saturday, April 30, 2022
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HELENA KAMINSKI
"Face"
____________________
Eye is late.
Got stopped in the a.m.
Got roughed up.
Had its camera smashed.
Rumored shot.
Rumored released.
Ear taped downtown, today.
But it’s due back.
Just press “jungle” rewind and play.
Lip lies back on its unmade bed.
Don’t shrug at me.
Where are they?
Eye took much shit.
Often, reporting back,
Got cut off before getting to the
Crux of what it saw.
Ear talented. Talented. Maybe bionic.
Dogs lined up for lessons.
The day eye played it its video
Of mouth yapping about “Life”
As a School for the
Deaf, ear burst, and underwent
A slow, shocked healing.
Neighbours say
Things went on
That can’t go on
Within a skull.
Why the waste
God why?
Mouth won
Because eye watched
Ear watch mouth
Bulldoze them both.
A writer wrote,
“This is where war turned civil.”
Did the bush, grey with road dust
Kneel in near-defeat?
Did the sky mutter
Its crisis?
Don’t remember.
Was mouth good or pretty
Bad? Was it
Don’t remember.
Mouth, like Fidel
Spoke for five hours.
It’s late.
It’s very late.
Damn it.
Who’s in charge?
Lip lies back
Along the face,
Dazed body at the beach
On its pale towel.
Why aren’t they
Where could
Ask mouth.
Mouth is boss.
Friday, April 29, 2022
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LANGSTON HUGHES
"Democracy"
____________________
Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.
I have as much right
As the other fellow has
To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.
I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.
Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.
I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you.
FENTON JOHNSON
"Revery"
____________________
1.
I was the starlight
I was the moonlight
I was the sunset,
Before the dawning
Of my life;
I was the river
Forever winding
To purple dreaming,
I was the glowing
Of youthful Springtime,
I was the singing
Of golden songbirds,—
I was love.
2.
I was the sunlight,
I was the twilight,
I was the humming
Of winged creatures
Ere my birth;
I was the blushing
Of lily maiden,
I was the vision
Of youthful striving,
I was the summer,
I was the autumn,
I was the All-time—
I was love.
Thursday, April 28, 2022
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TOMAS TRANSTRÖMER
"The Half-Finished Heaven"
____________________
Despondency breaks off its course.
Anguish breaks off its course.
The vulture breaks off its flight.
The eager light streams out,
even the ghosts take a draught.
And our paintings see daylight,
our red beasts of the ice-age studios.
Everything begins to look around.
We walk in the sun in hundreds.
Each man is a half-open door
leading to a room for everyone.
The endless ground under us.
The water is shining among the trees.
The lake is a window into the earth.
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
PAUL CELAN
"Love Crown"
____________________
Now autumn nibbles its leaf from my hand: we are friends.
We take time out of a nutshell and teach it how to go:
time turns and goes back into its shell.
Now in the mirror it is Sunday,
in the dream there is a place for the calm of sleep,
in the mouth, the taste of truth.
My eye moves down the belly of my love:
we see one another,
we speak the darkness to ourselves,
we love one another like poppy and remembrance,
we sleep like the liquor in seashells,
like the ocean in the bloodbeams of the moon.
We stand at the window embracing, they see us from the street,
it is time they knew!
It is time that the stone let itself break into flower,
that the unresting heart beat.
It is time there was time.
It is time.
Translated by Robert Pinsky
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
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Monday, April 25, 2022
KNUT HAMSUN
Hunger
____________________
She came quickly over to me and held out her hand. I looked at her full of distrust. Was she doing this freely, with a light heart? Or was she doing it just to get rid of me? She put her arm around my neck, tears in her eyes. I just stood and looked at her. She offered me her mouth but I couldn't believe her, it was bound to be a sacrifice on her part, a means of getting it over with.
She said something, it sounded to me like "I love you anyway!" She said it very softly and indistinctly, I may not have heard it correctly, perhaps she didn't say exactly those words. But she threw herself passionately on my neck, held both arms around my neck a little while, even raised herself on tiptoe to reach well up, and stood thus.
Afraid that she was forcing herself to show me this tenderness, I merely said "How beautiful you are now!"
That was all I said. I stepped back, bumped against the door, and walked out backward. She was left standing inside.
I'm pretty sure if Jesus were able to come back - he's been dead for 2000 years, so it's not happening - he'd refuse to do so purely because of American christians' abhorrent behavior and the pure evil at their core.
The Jesus of the Gospels would never do anything but spit on American christians and send every last one to burn in hell for eternity.
E. E. CUMMINGS
[since feeling is first]
____________________
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
Sunday, April 24, 2022
THOMAS HARDY
“Between Us Now”
____________________
Between us now and here -
Two thrown together
Who are not wont to wear
Life's flushest feather -
Who see the scenes slide past,
The daytimes dimming fast,
Let there be truth at last,
Even if despair.
So thoroughly and long
Have you now known me,
So real in faith and strong
Have I now shown me,
That nothing needs disguise
Further in any wise,
Or asks or justifies
A guarded tongue.
Face unto face, then, say,
Eyes mine own meeting,
Is your heart far away,
Or with mine beating?
When false things are brought low,
And swift things have grown slow,
Feigning like froth shall go,
Faith be for aye.
Saturday, April 23, 2022
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"Variation On The Word Sleep"
____________________
I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head
and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear
I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and as you enter
it as easily as breathing in
I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
"To Say For Going To Sleep"
____________________
I would like to sing someone to sleep,
by someone to sit and be,
I would like to rock you and croon you to sleep
and attend you in slumber and out.
I would like to be the only one in the house
who would know: The night was cold.
And you would like to hearken within and without
to you, to the world, to the woods,—
The clocks call striking to each other,
and one sees to the bottom of time.
And below a strange man passes yet
and rouses a strange dog.
Behind that comes stillness. I have laid
my eyes upon you wide;
they hold you gently and let you go
when something stirs in the dark.
Translated by M.D. Hester Norton
Friday, April 22, 2022
ADAM FLYNN
____________________
Solarpunk is about finding ways to make life more wonderful for us right now, and more importantly for the generations that follow us – i.e., extending human life at the species level, rather than individually. Our future must involve repurposing and creating new things from what we already have (instead of 20th century “destroy it all and build something completely different” modernism). Our futurism is not nihilistic like cyberpunk and it avoids steampunk’s potentially quasi-reactionary tendencies: it is about ingenuity, generativity, independence, and community.
Thursday, April 21, 2022
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"Verse For a Certain Dog"
____________________
Such glorious faith as fills your limpid eyes,
Dear little friend of mine, I never knew.
All-innocent are you, and yet all-wise.
(For Heaven's sake, stop worrying that shoe!)
You look about, and all you see is fair;
This mighty globe was made for you alone.
Of all the thunderous ages, you're the heir.
(Get off the pillow with that dirty bone!)
A skeptic world you face with steady gaze;
High in young pride you hold your noble head,
Gayly you meet the rush of roaring days.
(Must you eat puppy biscuit on the bed?)
Lancelike your courage, gleaming swift and strong,
Yours the white rapture of a winged soul,
Yours is a spirit like a Mayday song.
(God help you, if you break the goldfish bowl!)
"Whatever is, is good"; your gracious creed.
You wear your joy of living like a crown.
Love lights your simplest act, your every deed.
(Drop it, I tell you- put that kitten down!)
You are God's kindliest gift of all; a friend.
Your shining loyalty unflecked by doubt,
You ask but leave to follow to the end.
(Couldn't you wait until I took you out?)
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
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JOHN ASHBERY
"O Fortuna"
____________________
Good luck! Best wishes! The best of luck!
The very best! Godspeed! God bless you!
Peace be with you!
May your shadow never be less!
We can see through to the other side,
you see. It’s your problem, we know,
but I can’t help feeling a little envious.
What if darkness became unhinged right now?
Boomingly, swimmingly one remounts the current.
Here is where the shade was, the suggestion of flowers,
and peace, in another place.
Our competition is like tools of a certain order.
No one would have found them useful at first.
It wasn’t until a real emergency arose, that someone
had the sense to recognize for what it was.
All hell didn’t break loose, it was like a rising psalm
materializing like snow on an unseen mountain.
All that was underfoot was good, but lost.
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
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"On Ascending the Sin-Ping Tower"
____________________
An exile, I ascend this tower.
Thinking of home, and with the anguish of the waning year
The sun has set far beyond heaven's immensity;
The unsullied waters flow on in bleak undulation.
I see a stray cloud of Chin above the mountain trees,
And the wild geese of Tartary flying over the river dunes.
Alas! for ten thousand miles under the dark blue sky
As far as my eyes can reach, there is but one vast gloom for me.
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