The NeverEnding Story.
That is all.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Gérard de Nerval
El Desdichado (The Disinherited)
I am the darkness – the widower – the un-consoled,
The prince of Aquitaine in the ruined tower;
My sole star is dead – and my constellated lute
Bears the black sun of Melancholy.
You who consoled me in funereal night,
Bring me Posilipo, the sea of Italy,
The flower that pleased my grieving heart,
And the trellis where the vine entwines the rose.
Am I Phoebus or Love?...Biron or Lusignan?
My brow’s still red from the queen’s kiss;
I dreamed in the grotto where Sirens swim…
And twice victorious crossed Acheron:
Plucking from Orpheus’ lyre one by one
The saintly sighs and the faerie cries.
diff. trans.
I am the man of gloom - widowed - unconsoled
The prince of Aquitaine, his tower in ruin:
My sole star is dead - and my constellated lute
Bears the Black Sun of Melancholia.
In the night of the tomb, you, my consolation,
Give me back Posillipo and the Italian sea,
The flower that so eased my heart's desolation,
And the trellis that twines the rose into the vine.
Am I Eros or Phoebus? Lusignan or Biron?
My brow is still red with the kiss of the queen;
I have dreamt in the grotto where the siren swims. . .
And, twice victorious, I have crossed Acheron:
My Orphic lyre in turn modulating the strains
Of the sighs of the saint and the cries of the fay.
diff. trans.
I am the man of gloom - widowed - unconsoled
The prince of Aquitaine, his tower in ruin:
My sole star is dead - and my constellated lute
Bears the Black Sun of Melancholia.
In the night of the tomb, you, my consolation,
Give me back Posillipo and the Italian sea,
The flower that so eased my heart's desolation,
And the trellis that twines the rose into the vine.
Am I Eros or Phoebus? Lusignan or Biron?
My brow is still red with the kiss of the queen;
I have dreamt in the grotto where the siren swims. . .
And, twice victorious, I have crossed Acheron:
My Orphic lyre in turn modulating the strains
Of the sighs of the saint and the cries of the fay.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
René Char
SONG OF THE SORGUE
River which parts too early, in one go, without a companion,
Give to the children of my countryside the face of your passion,
River where the flash of lightning ends and where my home begins,
Which rolls all the way right up to the footsteps of oblivion, the rocky ground of my reason,
River, in you the earth shudders, there is sun, anxiety,
Would that every poor man in his night make his bread of your harvest,
River often punished, river abandoned to its course,
River of apprentices to a callused condition,
There is no wind that does not weaken at the crests of your furrows,
River of the empty spirit, of rags and suspicion,
Of an old misfortune unravelling itself, of the elm, of compassion,
River of eccentrics, of the feverish, of stone cutters,
Of the sun which lets go of its plow to sink to the level of liers
River of those who are better than oneself, river of blossoming fogs,
Of the lamp which quenches the anxiety around its hat,
River of consideration given to dreams, river which rusts iron,
Where the stars are of that shade that they refuse to the sea,
River of powers transmitted and of a scream that enters the water's mouth
Of the hurricane which bites the vine and announces the new wine
River of a heart never destroyed in this world mad for prison,
Keep us violent and friendly to the horizon's bees.
THE SORGUE (diff. translation)
River gone too soon, in a surge, without friend,
Give your passion's face to the youth of my native land.
River where lightning ends and my home begins,
That rolls my reason’s loose stones to oblivion's brink.
River, earth shudders, sun frets in your depths.
Let each poor man in his night make, of your harvest, his bread.
River often chastised, river disowned.
River of rags and suspicion, of hollowed souls,
Of elm trees, compassion, of old despair that unfolds.
River of those apprenticed to calloused states,
No wind stands up to the crests of your wake.
River of knackers, the fevered, and fools,
The sun dropping its plow to sink to the level of lies.
River of those who best us, river of fogs newly hatched,
Of the lamp quenching dread around its hat.
River that rusts iron, river revering dreams,
Where stars hold that umber they refuse to the sea.
River of transferred powers, of mouthed watery cries,
Of hurricanes tearing through vineyards, proclaiming new wines.
River with heart never wrecked in these prison-crazed days,
Keep us raging and friends to the stormed horizon's bees.
THE SHARK AND THE SEA GULL
At last I discover the sea in its triple accord: sea whose crescent beheads absurd grief's dynasty; sea as naïve as bindweed; great preserve of birds in the wild.
When I say: I've revoked the law, overcome morality, armored my heart, it's not to refute this scale of the void, whose rumbling, beyond my persuasion, extends its palm. But nothing of all that has seen me live and act bears witness now. My youth is free to come running, my shoulder to sleep. From that alone, effective and instant wealth must be drawn. Thus comes one pure day in the year, a day that mines its arcade of marvels in sea foam, a day that rises in eyes to crown noon. Yesterday, branch and buds stood apart and nobility withered. Shark and sea gull could not communicate.
O You, rainbow from this polishing shore, bring hope close to the ship. Make every assumed ending a new innocence—feverish push ahead—for those who stumble under morning's weight.
River which parts too early, in one go, without a companion,
Give to the children of my countryside the face of your passion,
River where the flash of lightning ends and where my home begins,
Which rolls all the way right up to the footsteps of oblivion, the rocky ground of my reason,
River, in you the earth shudders, there is sun, anxiety,
Would that every poor man in his night make his bread of your harvest,
River often punished, river abandoned to its course,
River of apprentices to a callused condition,
There is no wind that does not weaken at the crests of your furrows,
River of the empty spirit, of rags and suspicion,
Of an old misfortune unravelling itself, of the elm, of compassion,
River of eccentrics, of the feverish, of stone cutters,
Of the sun which lets go of its plow to sink to the level of liers
River of those who are better than oneself, river of blossoming fogs,
Of the lamp which quenches the anxiety around its hat,
River of consideration given to dreams, river which rusts iron,
Where the stars are of that shade that they refuse to the sea,
River of powers transmitted and of a scream that enters the water's mouth
Of the hurricane which bites the vine and announces the new wine
River of a heart never destroyed in this world mad for prison,
Keep us violent and friendly to the horizon's bees.
THE SORGUE (diff. translation)
River gone too soon, in a surge, without friend,
Give your passion's face to the youth of my native land.
River where lightning ends and my home begins,
That rolls my reason’s loose stones to oblivion's brink.
River, earth shudders, sun frets in your depths.
Let each poor man in his night make, of your harvest, his bread.
River often chastised, river disowned.
River of rags and suspicion, of hollowed souls,
Of elm trees, compassion, of old despair that unfolds.
River of those apprenticed to calloused states,
No wind stands up to the crests of your wake.
River of knackers, the fevered, and fools,
The sun dropping its plow to sink to the level of lies.
River of those who best us, river of fogs newly hatched,
Of the lamp quenching dread around its hat.
River that rusts iron, river revering dreams,
Where stars hold that umber they refuse to the sea.
River of transferred powers, of mouthed watery cries,
Of hurricanes tearing through vineyards, proclaiming new wines.
River with heart never wrecked in these prison-crazed days,
Keep us raging and friends to the stormed horizon's bees.
THE SHARK AND THE SEA GULL
At last I discover the sea in its triple accord: sea whose crescent beheads absurd grief's dynasty; sea as naïve as bindweed; great preserve of birds in the wild.
When I say: I've revoked the law, overcome morality, armored my heart, it's not to refute this scale of the void, whose rumbling, beyond my persuasion, extends its palm. But nothing of all that has seen me live and act bears witness now. My youth is free to come running, my shoulder to sleep. From that alone, effective and instant wealth must be drawn. Thus comes one pure day in the year, a day that mines its arcade of marvels in sea foam, a day that rises in eyes to crown noon. Yesterday, branch and buds stood apart and nobility withered. Shark and sea gull could not communicate.
O You, rainbow from this polishing shore, bring hope close to the ship. Make every assumed ending a new innocence—feverish push ahead—for those who stumble under morning's weight.
THE LIGHT OF THE PENITENTIARY
I wanted only the briefest night with you, so your silent stepmother would grow old in the background unable to marshal her powers.
My dream was to be beside you, a harmonious fugitive that few ever noticed, as we chanced along this sad but angelic route. Nothing would dare slow us down.
The daylight suddenly closes in. Losing all the dead I loved so much, I am casting off that dog rose, the last living thing left, a distracted summer.
I’m emptied out, yet full. Finish me, you melancholy beauty, your eyelids fluttering in drunken rapture. Every wound from you awakens the phoenixes whose eyes appear in my window. Something sings and sighs its satisfaction at being complete out there inside the wall’s gold.
This wind that is driving my yoke along.
Put On Guard
On our temperate side we have a series of songs in us, guarding us, wings of communication between our calm breath and our highest fevers. Rather trite pieces, mild in style and backward in form, yet wearing a small scar on their surface. Everyone has a right to establish a beginning and an end to this contestable glow.
At a time when death, docile to treacherous enchanters, defiles the loftiest chances, we don't hesitate to set free every moment at our command. Or better still, let us turn toward the morning-glory, that bindweed which night's final hour refines and opens but which noon condemns to be closed. It would be unusual if the quietude, on the other side of which it welcomes us precariously, were not what we had desired for a siesta.
On our temperate side we have a series of songs in us, guarding us, wings of communication between our calm breath and our highest fevers. Rather trite pieces, mild in style and backward in form, yet wearing a small scar on their surface. Everyone has a right to establish a beginning and an end to this contestable glow.
At a time when death, docile to treacherous enchanters, defiles the loftiest chances, we don't hesitate to set free every moment at our command. Or better still, let us turn toward the morning-glory, that bindweed which night's final hour refines and opens but which noon condemns to be closed. It would be unusual if the quietude, on the other side of which it welcomes us precariously, were not what we had desired for a siesta.
THE SWIFT
Swift spreading wings too wide as he wheels in the air, circling round the house, crying out for joy. Just like the heart.
He dries up thunder. He sows seeds in calm skies. Touching ground tears him apart.
The swallow is his response. The familiar that he detests. What is the use of lacing round towers?
His silence’s reach into the most somber depths. No one can inhabit a smaller space.
Through the lengths of summer’s brightness, he will weave amidst shadows, through midnight’s shutters.
There are no eyes to hold him. His whole being is his voice. A rifle is going to shoot him down. Just like the heart.
The Lords of Maussane
One after the other, they wished to predict a happy future for us,
With an eclipse in their image and all the anguish befitting us!
We disdained this equality,
Answered no to their assiduous words.
We followed the stony way the heart traced for us
Up to the plains of the air and the unique silence.
We made our demanding love bleed,
Our happiness wrestle each pebble.
They say at this moment that, beyond their vision,
The hail terrifies them, more than the snow of the dead!
With an eclipse in their image and all the anguish befitting us!
We disdained this equality,
Answered no to their assiduous words.
We followed the stony way the heart traced for us
Up to the plains of the air and the unique silence.
We made our demanding love bleed,
Our happiness wrestle each pebble.
They say at this moment that, beyond their vision,
The hail terrifies them, more than the snow of the dead!
The Slapped Adolescent
He was hurled to the ground by the same unjust blows that hurtled him far ahead in his life, toward future years when one person alone could no longer make him bleed. Like the small shrub that draws succor from roots, clasping bruised branches against its resolute core, he backed away mute into what he knew and into his innocence. Finally freed and filled with sovereign joy, he fled to the meadow and reached the trembling wall of dry reeds. He cajoled the mud to rise up. What was noblest and most enduring on earth seemed to adopt him, as if to make amends.
And so it would start again. He knew one day he would hold his ground, attentive and standing tall among men—more at risk, more resistant.
And so it would start again. He knew one day he would hold his ground, attentive and standing tall among men—more at risk, more resistant.
Mute Game
With my teeth
I have seized life
Upon the knife of my youth.
With my lips today,
With my lips alone…
I have seized life
Upon the knife of my youth.
With my lips today,
With my lips alone…
Briefly come,
Bloom of the slopes,
Orion’s spear
Has reappeared.
Bloom of the slopes,
Orion’s spear
Has reappeared.
BLACK STAGS
The waters spoke into the ear of the sky.
You stags have leapt across millennia
From darkness in the rocks to the air’s caresses.
The hunter driving you, the spirit watching you,
How I love their passion, viewed from my wide shore!
And what if, in a moment of hope, I had their eyes ?
You stags have leapt across millennia
From darkness in the rocks to the air’s caresses.
The hunter driving you, the spirit watching you,
How I love their passion, viewed from my wide shore!
And what if, in a moment of hope, I had their eyes ?
MAKE IT SO!
This land is a wish of the spirit, a counter-sepulchre.
In my land, the tender evidence of spring and meagrely clothed birds are preferred to far off goal.
Truth awaits the dawn by the candle.
The windowpane is ignored. To the watcher what does it matter.
In my land we don’t question someone who has been touched deeply.
Truth awaits the dawn by the candle.
The windowpane is ignored. To the watcher what does it matter.
In my land we don’t question someone who has been touched deeply.
There is no malign shadow over capsized boats.
A half-hearted greeting is unheard of in my land.
We only borrow what we can return with interest.
There are leaves, many leaves on the trees in my land.
The branches free not to bear fruit.
Nobody trusts the good faith of a conqueror.
In my land, we say thank you.
WATERSHED
Let’s yield to blessings of happy oblivion
Unperturbed
Let’s flee with the dust from those things we clung to
Let’s abandon those watery facades we call our fate
With the dignity of leaves
At the moment they shed all precedent
For whatever window appears through our tears
What are you waiting for
You partisan hearts?
Unperturbed
Let’s flee with the dust from those things we clung to
Let’s abandon those watery facades we call our fate
With the dignity of leaves
At the moment they shed all precedent
For whatever window appears through our tears
What are you waiting for
You partisan hearts?
Threshhold
When the barriers to people have been moved away, sucked up by that giant flaw, the abandonment of the divine, words in the distance, words which did not want to be lost, tried to resist the exorbitant pressure, there they decided upon the dynasty of their senses.
I ran up to where that diluvienne night issues forth, planted in the shaking dawn, my belt full of seasons, I wait for you, O my friends who are about to arrive. Already I can make you out in the darkness of the horizon. What I wish for your houses is not dried up by my hearth. And my staff of cypress laughs with all its heart for you.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Antonin Artaud
Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu (To Have Done with the Judgement of God), a radio play by Antonin Artaud
"I wanted a new work that catches certain organic points in life,
"I wanted a new work that catches certain organic points in life,
a work
in which we feel the whole nervous system
burning like an incandescent lamp
with vibrations,
consonance
which invite
TO GO OUT
WITH
his body
in pursuit of this new, strange and radiant Epiphany in the sky.
(…)
Anybody, down to the coal merchant, must understand being fed up with the filth-
-physical, as well as physiological,
and DESIRES an in-depth
CORPORAL
change."
-Artaud on Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu
-Artaud on Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu
The whole English transcript, translated from French. <3
from The Nerve Meter
"I have aspired no further than the clockwork of the soul, I have transcribed only the pain of an abortive adjustment.
I am a total abyss. Those who believed me capable of a whole pain, a beautiful pain, a dense and fleshy anguish, an anguish which is a mixture of objects, an effervescent grinding of forces rather than a suspended point
—and yet with restless, uprooting impulses which come from the confrontation of my forces with these abysses of offered finality
(from the confrontation of forces of powerful size),
and there is nothing left but the voluminous abysses, the immobility, the cold—
in short, those who attributed to me more life, who thought me at an earlier stage in the fall of the self, who believed me immersed in a tormented noise, in a violent darkness with which I struggled
—are lost in the shadows of man.
In sleep, nerves tensed the whole length of my legs.
Sleep came from a shifting of belief, the pressure eased, absurdity stepped on my toes.
It must be understood that all of intelligence is only a vast contingency, and that one can lose it, not like a lunatic who is dead, but like a living person who is in life and who feels working on himself its attraction and its inspiration (of intelligence, not of life).
The titillations of intelligence and this sudden reversal of contending parties.
Words halfway to intelligence.
This possibility of thinking in reverse and of suddenly reviling one’s thought.
This dialogue in thought.
The ingestion, the breaking off of everything.
And all at once this trickle of water on a volcano, the thin, slow falling of the mind.
To find oneself again in a state of extreme shock, clarified by unreality, with, in a corner of oneself, some fragments of the real world.
To think without the slightest breaking off, without pitfalls in my thought, without one of those sudden disappearances to which my marrow is accustomed as a transmitter of currents.
My marrow is sometimes amused by these games, sometimes takes pleasure in these games, takes pleasure in these furtive abductions over which the sense of my thought presides.
At times all I would need is a single word, a simple little word of no importance, to be great, to speak in the voice of the prophets: a word of witness, a precise word, a subtle word, a word well steeped in my marrow, gone out of me, which would stand at the outer limit of my being,
and which, for everyone else, would be nothing.
I am the witness, I am the only witness of myself. This crust of words, these imperceptible whispered transformations of my thought, of that small part of my thought which I claim has already been formulated, and which miscarries,
I am the only person who can measure its extent. "
from The Nerve Meter
"I have aspired no further than the clockwork of the soul, I have transcribed only the pain of an abortive adjustment.
I am a total abyss. Those who believed me capable of a whole pain, a beautiful pain, a dense and fleshy anguish, an anguish which is a mixture of objects, an effervescent grinding of forces rather than a suspended point
—and yet with restless, uprooting impulses which come from the confrontation of my forces with these abysses of offered finality
(from the confrontation of forces of powerful size),
and there is nothing left but the voluminous abysses, the immobility, the cold—
in short, those who attributed to me more life, who thought me at an earlier stage in the fall of the self, who believed me immersed in a tormented noise, in a violent darkness with which I struggled
—are lost in the shadows of man.
In sleep, nerves tensed the whole length of my legs.
Sleep came from a shifting of belief, the pressure eased, absurdity stepped on my toes.
It must be understood that all of intelligence is only a vast contingency, and that one can lose it, not like a lunatic who is dead, but like a living person who is in life and who feels working on himself its attraction and its inspiration (of intelligence, not of life).
The titillations of intelligence and this sudden reversal of contending parties.
Words halfway to intelligence.
This possibility of thinking in reverse and of suddenly reviling one’s thought.
This dialogue in thought.
The ingestion, the breaking off of everything.
And all at once this trickle of water on a volcano, the thin, slow falling of the mind.
To find oneself again in a state of extreme shock, clarified by unreality, with, in a corner of oneself, some fragments of the real world.
To think without the slightest breaking off, without pitfalls in my thought, without one of those sudden disappearances to which my marrow is accustomed as a transmitter of currents.
My marrow is sometimes amused by these games, sometimes takes pleasure in these games, takes pleasure in these furtive abductions over which the sense of my thought presides.
At times all I would need is a single word, a simple little word of no importance, to be great, to speak in the voice of the prophets: a word of witness, a precise word, a subtle word, a word well steeped in my marrow, gone out of me, which would stand at the outer limit of my being,
and which, for everyone else, would be nothing.
I am the witness, I am the only witness of myself. This crust of words, these imperceptible whispered transformations of my thought, of that small part of my thought which I claim has already been formulated, and which miscarries,
I am the only person who can measure its extent. "
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Hölderlin
When I was a boy ...
When I was a boyA god would often save me
From the scolding and switches of men,
And I would play safely and beautifully
With the flowers of the grove,
And heaven's soft breezes
Played with me.
And as you delight
The hearts of the flowers
When they extend
Their tender arms to you
You delighted my heart,
Father Helios! and, like Endymion,
I was your favorite,
Holy Luna!
O all you faithful
Friendly gods!
If only you knew
How my soul loved you!
Then I did not call you
By your names, and you
Did not call me as men do,
As if they knew each other.
But I knew you better
Than I've ever known mankind,
I understood the silence of the sky,
But never men's words.
I was raised by the melody
Of the murmurming grove
And to love I learned
Among flowers.
I grew up in the arms of the gods.
Then and now
In my youth I enjoyed the morningAnd wept at night; now that I'm older
My day begins with doubt but
Its end is sacred and serene.
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