Wish for nothing lest you mar
The perfection in these eyes
Whose entire devotion lies
At the mercy of your will;
Tempt not your sworn comrade, – only
As I am can I love you as you are –
or my company be lonely
For my health be ill:
I will sing if you will cry
…I
Never hope to say farewell,
For our lethargy is such
Heaven’s kindness cannot touch
Nor earth’s frankly brutal drum;
This was long ago decided,
Both of us know why,
Can, alas, foretell,
When our falsehoods are divided,
What we shall become,
One evaporating sigh
…I
W. H. Auden, Postscript, an excerpt from “The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest”, from Collected Poems of W. H. Auden, trans. Edward Mendelson
The perfection in these eyes
Whose entire devotion lies
At the mercy of your will;
Tempt not your sworn comrade, – only
As I am can I love you as you are –
or my company be lonely
For my health be ill:
I will sing if you will cry
…I
Never hope to say farewell,
For our lethargy is such
Heaven’s kindness cannot touch
Nor earth’s frankly brutal drum;
This was long ago decided,
Both of us know why,
Can, alas, foretell,
When our falsehoods are divided,
What we shall become,
One evaporating sigh
…I
W. H. Auden, Postscript, an excerpt from “The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest”, from Collected Poems of W. H. Auden, trans. Edward Mendelson
❤1
*
Forget that Ramadan is here — today
Autumn has come: "Bring wine," the meadows say.
Our ancient sage's fatwa's in agreement:
"Drink goblets filled with flowing wine, and pay
No heed to sermons' cant." Come, pour the wine
That fills my soul with wonder and dismay —
The man who doesn't drink in autumn's not
A man but some ferocious beast of prey
I'd give the world's wealth for a drop of wine —
I'd give both worlds, and throw in Judgment Day.
Mastureh Kurdi, Untitled, from The Mirror of My Heart: A Thousand Years of Persian Poetry by Women, ed. Dick Davis
Forget that Ramadan is here — today
Autumn has come: "Bring wine," the meadows say.
Our ancient sage's fatwa's in agreement:
"Drink goblets filled with flowing wine, and pay
No heed to sermons' cant." Come, pour the wine
That fills my soul with wonder and dismay —
The man who doesn't drink in autumn's not
A man but some ferocious beast of prey
I'd give the world's wealth for a drop of wine —
I'd give both worlds, and throw in Judgment Day.
Mastureh Kurdi, Untitled, from The Mirror of My Heart: A Thousand Years of Persian Poetry by Women, ed. Dick Davis
❤6🥰2
Carlos Amorales & Klangforum Wien
Erased Symphony
2013
“Erased Symphony is based on the idea that existing cultural narratives are subject to erasure, whereby the focus is not only on evident extinction but also processes of disappearance, revaluation, densification, corrosion, etc. in the telling of national, continental, in this case Western, and hegemonial (hi)stories. In Erased Symphony the Emperor Waltz by Strauss undergoes a gradual process of erasure, albeit not the original version is modified but Arnold Schönberg’s transcription of the waltz from 1925 for flute, clarinet, string quartet, and piano. This, in turn, leads to a densification in the complexity and an overlap of historical and contemporary (cultural, political, social) narratives.”
[x]
Erased Symphony
2013
“Erased Symphony is based on the idea that existing cultural narratives are subject to erasure, whereby the focus is not only on evident extinction but also processes of disappearance, revaluation, densification, corrosion, etc. in the telling of national, continental, in this case Western, and hegemonial (hi)stories. In Erased Symphony the Emperor Waltz by Strauss undergoes a gradual process of erasure, albeit not the original version is modified but Arnold Schönberg’s transcription of the waltz from 1925 for flute, clarinet, string quartet, and piano. This, in turn, leads to a densification in the complexity and an overlap of historical and contemporary (cultural, political, social) narratives.”
[x]
❤2
Today there is deep in you a not long dried-up spring, though how quickly it fills with tears.
Today there is deep in you a not long abandoned airfield, though how quickly it's overgrown.
You'll have to go on foot now, your spring of grief within.
But you stand frozen while in front of you cockroaches cross the street moving from butcher to baker.
Vladimír Holan, Today There Is…, from Selected poems by Vladimír Holan, Penguin modern European poetry, trans. Jarmila and Ian Milner
Today there is deep in you a not long abandoned airfield, though how quickly it's overgrown.
You'll have to go on foot now, your spring of grief within.
But you stand frozen while in front of you cockroaches cross the street moving from butcher to baker.
Vladimír Holan, Today There Is…, from Selected poems by Vladimír Holan, Penguin modern European poetry, trans. Jarmila and Ian Milner
👍2