Dante Alighieri: Sestina of the Lady Pietra degli Scrovigni
Yet shall the streams turn back and climb the hills
Before Love’s flame in this damp wood and green
Burn, as it burns within a youthful lady,
For my sake, who would sleep away in stone
My life, or feed like beasts upon the grass,
Only to see her garments cast a shade.
Rose Mary Boehm: “Leisure” by Hans Magnus Enzensberg
lawn mower, sunday
decapitating the seconds
and the grass.
Federico García Lorca: New York (Office and Denunciation)
I know there are mountains and eyeglasses
And wisdom. But I didn’t come to see the sky.
I’m here to see the clouded blood,
the blood that sweeps machines over waterfalls
and the soul toward the cobra’s tongue.
John Samuel Tieman: After Jorge Guillén
You slept and your arms stretched and almost caressed
my insomnia.
Yehuda Amichai: A Child is Something Else Again
A child is something else again. Wakes up
in the afternoon and in an instant he’s full of words,
in an instant he’s humming, in an instant warm,
instant light, instant darkness.
Edna St. Vincent Millay: “Parisian Dream” by Charles Baudelaire
And, proud of what my art had done,
I viewed my painting, knew the great
Intoxicating monotone
Of marble, water, steel and slate.
Eva-Maria Simms: Muzot in Winter
A scholar and translator makes a pilgrimage to the Swiss castle where Rainer Maria Rilke finished the Duino Elegies and received the gift of all 55 Sonnets to Orpheus.
Eva-Maria Simms, Michael Simms: Translating Rilke
Every thing is protected
by a grace ready for flight,
every stone and flower
every child at night.
Deborah Bogen: Introducing Kuno Raeber and BE QUIET
. The Scholar, as Artist, Clears the Table Take the plate from the table carry it through the chambers. Don’t be confused by the dust, the spider webs, the sawdust. … Continue reading
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