Sunday, July 31, 2011

Walking on the shore

"Sunrise- Sea of Cortez, Mexico", by Julie Hill (c)

walking on the shore
my eyes filled with heavy clouds
rain upon the sand
soon my tears merge with the sea
until  there's no horizon

Thou Art My Lute, by Paul Laurence Dunbar


Thou art my lute, by thee I sing,—
     My being is attuned to thee.
Thou settest all my words a-wing,
     And meltest me to melody.
 
Thou art my life, by thee I live,
     From thee proceed the joys I know;
Sweetheart, thy hand has power to give
     The meed of love—the cup of woe.
 
Thou art my love, by thee I lead
     My soul the paths of light along,
From vale to vale, from mead to mead,
     And home it in the hills of song.
 
My song, my soul, my life, my all,
     Why need I pray or make my plea,
Since my petition cannot fall;
     For I’m already one with thee!

Erotikos Logos - A Word of Love, George Seferis



Portrait of a Gingersnap Rose by Jane Seymour
Rose of fate, you looked for ways to wound us
yet you bent like the secret about to be released
and the command you chose to give us was beautiful
and your smile was like a ready sword.


The ascent of your cycle livened creation
from your thorn emerged the way’s thought
our impulse dawned naked to possess you
the world was easy: a simple pulsation.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Santorini - Giorgos Seferis "Gymnopaedia"


Stop if you can to the dark sea forgetting 
the sound of a flute to naked feet
that trod in your sleep in the other the sunken life
Write if you can on your last shell
The day the name the place
And cast it to sink in the sea.

Words stopped



words stopped
a rain of syllables falling -
now the dry land
of the unknown that comes
lingering still in darkness

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Hot summer night





hot summer night
almost impossible to breathe
the stars stand still
i start to write you a letter
my thoughts burn down the paper...         
  

I am...

I am a small green leaf
hidden under the palm of the sky
my days numbered by the song of the nightingale
and the passing of swallows

my hands like the waves of the sea
white and blue 
a forgotten small church on the shore
god lives in this island
in silence of days and nights
sleeping under a wooden roof top

purple dreams fly in the air like butterflies
the sun warms the blooms,
and life springs from them like a fountain
light plays among the leaves
making all sorrow settle down
like golden dust


So simple
the light falls in the evening
and the heart rests
reading the stars in syllables
and the meaning of life
on the galaxy, flowing....




Ode to the sea, Pablo Neruda



HERE
Surrounding the island
There's sea.
But what sea?
It's always overflowing.
Says yes,
Then no,
Then no again,
And no,
Says yes
In blue
In sea spray
Raging,
Says no
And no again.
It can't be still.
It stammers
My name is sea.


It slaps the rocks
And when they aren't convinced,
Strokes them
And soaks them
And smothers them with kisses.
With seven green tongues
Of seven green dogs
Or seven green tigers
Or seven green seas,
Beating its chest,
Stammering its name,


Oh Sea,
This is your name.
Oh comrade ocean,
Don't waste time
Or water
Getting so upset
Help us instead.
We are meager fishermen,
Men from the shore
Who are hungry and cold
And you're our foe.
Don't beat so hard,
Don't shout so loud,
Open your green coffers,
Place gifts of silver in our hands.
Give us this day
our daily fish.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Evening falls...



morpho wings
all my dreams on blue satin
evening falls
the night enfolds the mountains
silently, i count the stars...


morpho wings
all my dreams on blue satin
evening falls
the night enfolds the mountains
silently, i count the stars...

Reverie, from Mario Kaoru Mevy

Yugure, Kawa-ni, Hanabira , from Mario Kaoru Mevy

Video haiku n. 37, from Pierre-Jean Moreau



"Walking the tracks, my thoughts go nowhere" 

Moment of calm...

Haiku

Kigo

Video haiku

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Your name in silver



I don't have words

they are running down my eyes

meeting my lips

on the way to my heart they stop

forming your name in silver...

Distilled love...



imprisoned

inside a dusty bottle

your distilled love

i drink it slowly every time

your kisses dry upon my lips...

You live in my heart...

Day dreaming of love, from Scenic Reflections (c)


You live in my heart
nesting in my every thought
you lay in my dreams
your eyes sinking in my eyes
your every breath,my sighing

Night flowers



the end of the day
marking on walls your absence
hiden cicadas
their never ending love song
when the night flowers open... 

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Swimming into fires...

Swimming into fires
sweetly in drunken afternoons 
when you come behind me 
your arms swirling like cables around my breasts
electrified, sparkling
you want to get inside me quickly
you want to feel safe inside my flesh
like coming back to the womb
i feel you biting my neck, playing like a cat
purring small words with no meaning 
broken syllables between kisses, licks, 
my knees bend as i desire you in countless ways
you carry me to bed, 
your eyes glow 
your lips already telling me 
the things you will do to make me scream
I want you
you close my lips drinking my sighs 
when you finaly find your way deep into me
i think nothing, my eyes blur
i guide you to the end of your journey
feeling you
your thrusts, my thighs hungry for your deliverance
you drink me, taste me, eat me, 
a holy communion, a sacred union
i move to your rhythm
like the sea
like the ocean
and all the colors become a rainbow
as you arch over me telling me you love me
as i love you with my arms and legs and lips and eyes
i become you and you become me
and sounds and smells of love
make us smile in joy

complete




Saturday, July 16, 2011

Thinking afar in Moonlight - By Zhang Jiuling



A bright moon rising over the sea,
Shores apart, watching the same
Is someone dear to me.
I loath this endless night;
And could not sleep but think of thee.
In this full moon light,
Who cares for candlelight?
Stepping out I don my gown,
And feel dew on the ground.
I wish to offer you moonlight in a handful,
But, to my real shame, ‘tis impossible.
Retiring to my bed, it seems,
I might find happier days in dreams.

an ocean of clouds, by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro























An ocean of clouds
rolls in wave across the sky, 
carrying the moon
like a boat that disappears
into a thicket of stars 

The mind is all sky, by Saigyo


The mind is all sky,
the heart utterly empty, 
and the perfect moon
is completely stransparent
entering western mountains

I smile





i smile
my face a wooden mask
shiny colours
and from a crack on the side
sadness flows 
in misty waves
            

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Japanese Paintings, Museum of FIne Arts - Boston.


The Goddess of Music and Good Fortune May 21, 2011 - December 31, 2011, Museum of Fine Arts - Boston


Benzaiten, the goddess of music and good fortune, has been revered in Japan from ancient times to the present. This exhibition explores the long-lasting popularity of the goddess in Japanese culture and the iconographical transformations of her image over 500 years. See her orthodox depiction as a beautiful musician with a lute, her appearance as an eight-armed Esoteric deity providing protection from calamities, and finally her current personage as a friendly, folk-religious icon. “The Goddess of Music and Good Fortune” features striking representations of the deity that demonstrate her enduring appeal.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Summer in the South, Paul Laurence Dunbar (1903)


The oriole sings in the greening grove
As if he were half-way waiting, 
The rosebuds peep from their hoods of green,
Timid, and hesitating.
The rain comes down in a torrent sweep
And the nights smell warm and pinety,
The garden thrives, but the tender shoots
Are yellow-green and tiny.
Then a flash of sun on a waiting hill, 
Streams laugh that erst were quiet, 
The sky smiles down with a dazzling blue
And the woods run mad with riot.

Monday, July 4, 2011

The Brave Tin Soldier, by Hans Christian Andersen.


There were once five-and-twenty tin soldiers. They were all brothers, born of the same old tin spoon. They shouldered their muskets and looked straight ahead of them, splendid in their uniforms, all red and blue.
The very first thing in the world that they heard was, "Tin soldiers!" A small boy shouted it and clapped his hands as the lid was lifted off their box on his birthday. He immediately set them up on the table.
All the soldiers looked exactly alike except one. He looked a little different as he had been cast last of all. The tin was short, so he had only one leg. But there he stood, as steady on one leg as any of the other soldiers on their two. But just you see, he'll be the remarkable one.
On the table with the soldiers were many other playthings, and one that no eye could miss was a marvelous castle of cardboard. It had little windows through which you could look right inside it. And in front of the castle were miniature trees around a little mirror supposed to represent a lake. The wax swans that swam on its surface were reflected in the mirror. All this was very pretty but prettiest of all was the little lady who stood in the open doorway of the castle. Though she was a paper doll, she wore a dress of the fluffiest gauze. A tiny blue ribbon went over her shoulder for a scarf, and in the middle of it shone a spangle that was as big as her face. The little lady held out both her arms, as a ballet dancer does, and one leg was lifted so high behind her that the tin soldier couldn't see it at all, and he supposed she must have only one leg, as he did.
"That would be a wife for me," he thought. "But maybe she's too grand. She lives in a castle. I have only a box, with four-and-twenty roommates to share it. That's no place for her. But I must try to make her acquaintance." Still as stiff as when he stood at attention, he lay down on the table behind a snuffbox, where he could admire the dainty little dancer who kept standing on one leg without ever losing her balance.
When the evening came the other tin soldiers were put away in their box, and the people of the house went to bed. Now the toys began to play among themselves at visits, and battles, and at giving balls. The tin soldiers rattled about in their box, for they wanted to play too, but they could not get the lid open. The nutcracker turned somersaults, and the slate pencil squeaked out jokes on the slate. The toys made such a noise that they woke up the canary bird, who made them a speech, all in verse. The only two who stayed still were the tin soldier and the little dancer. Without ever swerving from the tip of one toe, she held out her arms to him, and the tin soldier was just as steadfast on his one leg. Not once did he take his eyes off her.
Then the clock struck twelve and - clack! - up popped the lid of the snuffbox. But there was no snuff in it, no-out bounced a little black bogey, a jack-in-the-box.
"Tin soldier," he said. "Will you please keep your eyes to yourself?" The tin soldier pretended not to hear.
The bogey said, "Just you wait till tomorrow."
But when morning came, and the children got up, the soldier was set on the window ledge. And whether the bogey did it, or there was a gust of wind, all of a sudden the window flew open and the soldier pitched out headlong from the third floor. He fell at breathtaking speed and landed cap first, with his bayonet buried between the paving stones and his one leg stuck straight in the air. The housemaid and the little boy ran down to look for him and, though they nearly stepped on the tin soldier, they walked right past without seeing him. If the soldier had called, "Here I am!" they would surely have found him, but he thought it contemptible to raise an uproar while he was wearing his uniform.
Soon it began to rain. The drops fell faster and faster, until they came down by the bucketful. As soon as the rain let up, along came two young rapscallions.
"Hi, look!" one of them said, "there's a tin soldier. Let's send him sailing."
They made a boat out of newspaper, put the tin soldier in the middle of it, and away he went down the gutter with the two young rapscallions running beside him and clapping their hands. High heavens! How the waves splashed, and how fast the water ran down the gutter. Don't forget that it had just been raining by the bucketful. The paper boat pitched, and tossed, and sometimes it whirled about so rapidly that it made the soldier's head spin. But he stood as steady as ever. Never once flinching, he kept his eyes front, and carried his gun shoulder-high. Suddenly the boat rushed under a long plank where the gutter was boarded over. It was as dark as the soldier's own box.
"Where can I be going?" the soldier wondered. "This must be that black bogey's revenge. Ah! if only I had the little lady with me, it could be twice as dark here for all that I would care."
Out popped a great water rat who lived under the gutter plank.
"Have you a passport?" said the rat. "Hand it over."
The soldier kept quiet and held his musket tighter. On rushed the boat, and the rat came right after it, gnashing his teeth as he called to the sticks and straws:
"Halt him! Stop him! He didn't pay his toll. He hasn't shown his passport. "But the current ran stronger and stronger. The soldier could see daylight ahead where the board ended, but he also heard a roar that would frighten the bravest of us. Hold on! Right at the end of that gutter plank the water poured into the great canal. It was as dangerous to him as a waterfall would be to us.
He was so near it he could not possibly stop. The boat plunged into the whirlpool. The poor tin soldier stood as staunch as he could, and no one can say that he so much as blinked an eye. Thrice and again the boat spun around. It filled to the top - and was bound to sink. The water was up to his neck and still the boat went down, deeper, deeper, deeper, and the paper got soft and limp. Then the water rushed over his head. He thought of the pretty little dancer whom he'd never see again, and in his ears rang an old, old song:
"Farewell, farewell, O warrior brave,
Nobody can from Death thee save."
And now the paper boat broke beneath him, and the soldier sank right through. And just at that moment he was swallowed by a most enormous fish.
My! how dark it was inside that fish. It was darker than under the gutter-plank and it was so cramped, but the tin soldier still was staunch. He lay there full length, soldier fashion, with musket to shoulder.
Then the fish flopped and floundered in a most unaccountable way. Finally it was perfectly still, and after a while something struck through him like a flash of lightning. The tin soldier saw daylight again, and he heard a voice say, "The Tin Soldier!" The fish had been caught, carried to market, bought, and brought to a kitchen where the cook cut him open with her big knife.
She picked the soldier up bodily between her two fingers, and carried him off upstairs. Everyone wanted to see this remarkable traveler who had traveled about in a fish's stomach, but the tin soldier took no pride in it. They put him on the table and-lo and behold, what curious things can happen in this world-there he was, back in the same room as before. He saw the same children, the same toys were on the table, and there was the same fine castle with the pretty little dancer. She still balanced on one leg, with the other raised high. She too was steadfast. That touched the soldier so deeply that he would have cried tin tears, only soldiers never cry. He looked at her, and she looked at him, and never a word was said. Just as things were going so nicely for them, one of the little boys snatched up the tin soldier and threw him into the stove. He did it for no reason at all. That black bogey in the snuffbox must have put him up to it.
The tin soldier stood there dressed in flames. He felt a terrible heat, but whether it came from the flames or from his love he didn't know. He'd lost his splendid colors, maybe from his hard journey, maybe from grief, nobody can say.
He looked at the little lady, and she looked at him, and he felt himself melting. But still he stood steadfast, with his musket held trim on his shoulder.
Then the door blew open. A puff of wind struck the dancer. She flew like a sylph, straight into the fire with the soldier, blazed up in a flash, and was gone. The tin soldier melted, all in a lump. The next day, when a servant took up the ashes she found him in the shape of a little tin heart. But of the pretty dancer nothing was left except her spangle, and it was burned as black as a coal...