THE LAUGHING HEART
by Charles Bukowski

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

Un vis ce cade in infinit
Si se destrama in tacere,
N-are cuvant pentru tacere,
Decat eternul lui zenit.

Mihai Sava

Zi de toamnă, Rainer Maria Rilke

E vremea, Doamne! Vara a fost lungă.
Aruncă-ţi umbra peste cadranele solare
şi vânturile pe câmpii le-alungă.

De-acum cel fără casă mereu pribeag va fi.
Cel singur va fi singur vreme lungă,
va sta de veghe, lungi scrisori va scri
şi prin alei mereu va rătăci, neliniştit,
când frunzele s-alungă.

(traducerea Al. Philippide)

Multumiri, Don Quixote, pentru aceasta revenire la poezie. Adaug “Toamna”, in traducerea aceluiasi Alexandru Philippide. Minunate versuri, cita frumusete sub semnul dumnezeirii!

Rainer Maria Rilke – Toamna

Cad frunzele, cad de departe, parcă
s-ar veşteji în ceruri grădini îndepărtate;
cu gesturi de negare cad mereu.

Dar este Unul care ţine-n mînă
căderea asta, nesfirşit de blînd.

(traducerea Alexandru Philippide)

Sensation

Par les soirs bleus d’été, j’irai dans les sentiers,
Picoté par les blés, fouler l’herbe menue :
Rêveur, j’en sentirai la fraîcheur à mes pieds.
Je laisserai le vent baigner ma tête nue.

Je ne parlerai pas, je ne penserai rien,
Mais l’amour infini me montera dans l’âme ;
Et j’irai loin, bien loin, comme un bohémien,
Par la Nature, heureux- comme avec une femme.

Arthur RIMBAUD

by Arseny Tarkovsky

1

I don’t believe in omens or fear
Forebodings. I flee from neither slander
Nor from poison. Death does not exist.
Everyone’s immortal. Everything is too.
No point in fearing death at seventeen,
Or seventy. There’s only here and now, and light;
Neither death, nor darkness, exists.
We’re all already on the seashore;
I’m one of those who’ll be hauling in the nets
When a shoal of immortality swims by.

2

If you live in a house – the house will not fall.
I’ll summon any of the centuries,
Then enter one and build a house in it.
That’s why your children and your wives
Sit with me at one table, –
The same for ancestor and grandson:
The future is being accomplished now,
If I raise my hand a little,
All five beams of light will stay with you.
Each day I used my collar bones
For shoring up the past, as though with timber,
I measured time with geodetic chains
And marched across it, as though it were the Urals.

3

I tailored the age to fit me.
We walked to the south, raising dust above the steppe;
The tall weeds fumed; the grasshopper danced,
Touching its antenna to the horse-shoes – and it prophesied,
Threatening me with destruction, like a monk.
I strapped my fate to the saddle;
And even now, in these coming times,
I stand up in the stirrups like a child.

I’m satisfied with deathlessness,
For my blood to flow from age to age.
Yet for a corner whose warmth I could rely on
I’d willingly have given all my life,
Whenever her flying needle
Tugged me, like a thread, around the globe.

by Arseny Tarkovsky

We made each moment of our trysts
A sacred epiphany.
We were alone in all the world.
Like a feather, but bolder,
You tripped down the staircase, leading
Me dizzy through the lilac
To your estates, through the mirror.

When night came I received a gift;
The altar gates did open,
And in dark, slowly aglow,
Your nakedness arched upwards.
And on awakening? “Be thou blessed”
I said, aware that my blessing
Was impertinent. While you slept,
From its stand the lilac stretched
To touch you with its universe
Of blue; and your eyelids touched,
Became calm, and your hand was warm.

Rivers pulsed within the crystal,
Mountains loomed and rivers roared.
And in your palm you held the orb
Of glass, and slept on a throne
And — God’s my witness — you were mine!

You awoke, and made such changes
To man’s common turn of phrase;
Speech gained such harmonious force
As throats allow, the word ‘thou’
Acquired the new meaning: ‘King.’

Everything on earth was touched.
Even simple things — bowls, jugs –
When hard strata of water
Stood between us, as on guard.

we were taken who knows where:
Cities built by miracles
Would melt like mirages,
Mint was crushed beneath our feet
And birds accompanied us,
And fish leaped in the river,
The skies parted as we watched . . . .

When fate followed our footsteps
Like a madman with a knife.
 

Vo doua batranesti, sa ne mai unga la suflit.

Canto LXV

With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that delight might cover their face,

with usura

hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall
harpes et luthes
or where virgin receiveth message
and halo projects from incision,

with usura

seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly

with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour

with usura the line grows thick

with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling
Stone cutter is kept from his stone
weaver is kept from his loom

WITH USURA

wool comes not to market
sheep bringeth no gain with usura
Usura is a murrain, usura
blunteth the needle in the the maid’s hand
and stoppeth the spinner’s cunning. Pietro Lombardo
came not by usura
Duccio came not by usura
nor Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin’ not by usura
nor was "La Callunia" painted.
Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,
No church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit.
Not by usura St. Trophime

Not by usura St. Hilaire,

Usura rusteth the chisel
It rusteth the craft and the craftsman
It gnaweth the thread in the loom
None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;
Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered
Emerald findeth no Memling

Usura slayeth the child in the womb
It stayeth the young man’s courting
It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth
between the young bride and her bridegroom

     CONTRA NATURAM

They have brought whores for Eleusis
Corpses are set to banquet

at behest of usura.

Ezra Pound