|
|
Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.
Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.
Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,
because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?
~Pablo Neruda
 by Robert Lowell (1917-77)
What was is ... since 1930;
the boys in my old gang
are senior partners. They start up
bald like baby birds
to embrace retirement.
At the altar of surrender,
I met you
in the hour of credulity.
How your misfortune came out clearly
to us at twenty.
At the gingerbread casino,
how innocent the nights we made it
on our Vesuvio martinis
with no vermouth but vodka
to sweeten the dry gin--
the lash across my face
that night we adored . . .
soon every night and all,
when your sweet, amorous
repetition changed.
Fertility is not to the forward,
or beauty to the precipitous--
things gone wrong
clothe summer
with gold leaf.
Sometimes
I catch my mind
circling for you with glazed eye--
my lost love hunting
your lost face.
Summer to summer,
the poplars sere
in the glare--
it's a town for the young,
they break themselves against the surf.
No dog knows my smell. 
Nanjing, Nanjing, how powerfully your dreams evolve,
With storied past of imperial glory and unspeakable horror,
Your Six Dynasties heritage shifts over centuries like creeping icebergs
Making way for fresh change, new pathways, modern vistas.
Waxing slowly in a once sacred garden where royalty strolled,
The same moon now casts its shadows on steel reinforcement, and
Plastic covered walls surrounding what soon will be a luxurious complex
Compete for attention with an ancient wall of raw and timeless splendor.
Xinjiekou, can you ever forgive my empty shopping bag?
Fuzimiao, will your snack-hungry crowds make a mere mall of the great sage’s legacy?
Nanjing, Nanjing, your time has come, yet please
Tread softly, shovel, and honor the golden dreams of emperors. ~Richard
 Cold and sunny, then cloudy
Rain threatens, the sky darkens, the cold
Releases its grip for a day or two.
Then returns with redoubled fury. Gusty winds.
The heart rises and falls like a piston.
Hydraulics has never been my strong suit.
The travel craving soon to be curbed, though never vanquished.
Another piston, warmer hydraulics? Or more cold and sunny, then cloudy. 
To Christ our Lord I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.  This is a favorite poem of mine, and apparently was the poet's favorite, too. The imagery is so bold and powerful, and the syntax so original and memorable. "The Windhover" is written in a meter Hopkins called "sprung" rhythm, which is rarely used in poetry these days or in his day. Sprung rhythm is based upon the natural stresses of normal speech and has close links to Old English. Hopkins does not want readers as much as he wants listeners. He wanted us to listen to his poetry with our ear, understand it with our ear. So, for the true effect of "The Windhover" you need to turn off the music and read the poem out loud! Listen to the sounds the first time, and then once more listen to the meaning. Pay attention to punctuation...
This is indeed a masterpiece, and makes me want to read the new biography of Hopkins by Paul Mariani. 
張 九 齡 Zhang Jiuling (673–740)
Looking at the Moon and Thinking of One Far Away  The moon, grown full now over the sea,
Brightening the whole of heaven,
Brings to separated hearts
The long thoughtfulness of night....
It is no darker though I blow out my candle.
It is no warmer though I put on my coat.
So I leave my message with the moon
And turn to my bed, hoping for dreams. Tr. by Bynner By Cleopatra Mathis That year we hardly slept, walking like inmates
who beat the walls. Every night
another refusal, the silent work
of tightening the heart.
Exhausted, we gave up; escaped
to the apartment pool, swimming those laps
until the first light relieved us.
Days were different: FM and full-blast
blues, hours of guitar "you gonna miss me
when I'm gone." Think how you tried
to pack up and go, for weeks stumbling
over piles of clothing, the unstrung tennis rackets.
Finally locked into blame, we paced
that short hall, heaving words like furniture.
I have the last unshredded pictures
of our matching eyes and hair. We've kept
to separate sides of the map,
still I'm startled by men who look like you.
And in the yearly letter, you're sure to say
you're happy now. Yet I think of the lawyer's bewilderment
when we cried, the last day. Taking hands
we walked apart, until our arms stretched
between us. We held on tight, and let go.
 Afterthought
Written on 20 November 2005, Sunday
Today is my 33rd birthday and our 8th Wedding Anniversary (ROM). Nothing much, no birthday cake, no exchanging of gifts, just a simple meal in a Thai restaurant near our house.
Eight years ago on this day, we decided to get married. Legally, we became husband and wife. However we waited for another four years to hold our Chinese custom marriage. We've been together for more than twelve years. When I first met her it was in July 1993. That was such a long time ago.
Believe it or not we were pen-pals.
Believe it or not our first date was a blind date.
Believe it or not it was love at first sight.
We were young, she was 18 years old and I was 20.
Unfortunately we are from two different worlds; we have different goals in life, different beliefs, different characters, different hobbies, we have nothing in common. But for some reasons we are comfortable with each other, but maybe too comfortable. The fire that sustains our love flickers in the storm threatening to extinguish itself.
Our marriage is in a mess. We quarrel so often that we’ve lost count. “Divorce” is a word commonly used during our quarrels. We even calmly discussed our future after the divorce, for example what we are going to do next, will we remarried, should we continue to be friends, etc. Funny thing is we both agree that we will surely become best of friends. But each time just as we were about to give up, something holds us back - a touch of the hand, an apology, a smile, a kiss on the forehead, a hug, and we decided to give each other another chance.
For some reasons whenever it is close to some important dates in our lives, we start quarreling. Maybe during these periods we tend to have higher expectations of each other. It is like a curse. To be honest the last time we quarreled was on my 33rd birthday, our 8th Wedding Anniversary, 20 November 2005. Yes today. This time our marriage narrowly escaped death. It was too close, really too close. Although somehow we managed to reconcile again, next time we might not be so lucky.
Analysis:
No matter what the eyes see, the heart is blind. “Getting Out” by Cleopatra Mathis is a poem about the trials and tribulations of a failed marriage. The language and the tone used by the poet describe the range of emotion at the same time the ex-wife is reliving the experience. This poem’s transition occurs when the woman recollects the anger and sadness of her doomed relationship with a man she misses and once loved. The language of the poem paints a very clear picture in the readers mind when attempting to understand the poet's grief. The first two stanzas of the poem are a form of flashback so that the reader may understand the intensity of the disgust between the couple before the divorce. “Waking like inmates who beat the walls,” is a simile used by the poet to display the frustration the couple experiences. Using this literary device the poet gives the reader a mental picture of the couple trying to escape each other because they can no longer cope with being in each other's presence.
The poet mentions this because it displays the husband's remaining love, and therefore, she ridicules him for it. The husband’s efforts to leave are partly to add pain to the already suffering woman. The woman lets the reader know that the divorce was successful and she now leads an individual life from her ex who now lives on a “separate side of the map” from her. “Getting Out” is cleverly chosen as the title because it tells the reader that the main purpose of the divorce was to “get out” of a terrible situation. Husband and wife would ignore and avoid each other even though in their hearts they knew divorce was the best solution to remedy their problem. Here the reader is introduced to the woman, who has recently been savoring the “last unshredded pictures” of herself and her ex-husband. This statement alone tells the reader that, along with destroying the marriage, they also damaged the memories of their life together. She states finally, ”We held on tight, and let go." The first two stanzas are embellished upon with similes so that the reader can easily understand the animosity in the couple’s life. The poet writes, “we cried, the last day” indicating that even though both people knew in their minds that marriage had failed, their hearts were not so quick to follow. However, she remembers the pain it caused her to end her marriage, horrendous as the union was. Love was present in the marriage, just not enough to maintain a stable relationship. They also serve to create visual images, so that the reader can conceptualize the couple's constant bickering and quarreling. When the reader reaches the last stanza the change occurs. 
by Jalal al-Din Rumi
Persian Sufi Sage and Poet
(1207 - 1273)
From the beginning of my life
I have been looking for your face
but today I have seen it
Today I have seen
the charm, the beauty,
the unfathomable grace
of the face
that I was looking for Today I have found you
and those who laughed
and scorned me yesterday
are sorry that they were not looking
as I did I am bewildered by the magnificence
of your beauty
and wish to see you
with a hundred eyes My heart has burned with passion
and has searched forever
for this wondrous beauty
that I now behold I am ashamed
to call this love human
and afraid of God
to call it divine Your fragrant breath
like the morning breeze
has come to the stillness of the garden
You have breathed new life into me
I have become your sunshine
and also your shadow My soul is screaming in ecstasy
Every fiber of my being
is in love with you Your effulgence
has lit a fire in my heart
for me
the earth and sky My arrow of love
has arrived at the target
I am in the house of mercy
and my heart
is a place of prayer
 I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear the water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core. 1892 This has always been a favorite poem of mine, by probably my favorite poet. I will never forget the wide range of emotions I felt at discovering this man's work when I took a semester-long seminar on Yeats as an undergraduate. The phrase "live alone in the bee-loud glade" just makes me quiver with rapturous feeling for its sheer, simplistic beauty and sonorous, imagistic power. Then again, maybe I am insane... it would not surprise me at all. 
True love is a sacred flame
That burns eternally,
And none can dim its special glow
Or change its destiny.
True love speaks in tender tones
And hears with gentle ear,
True love gives with open heart
And true love conquers fear.
True love makes no harsh demands
It neither rules nor binds,
And true love holds with gentle hands
The hearts that it entwines.
~ Anonymous
P.S. The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.
~ Alfred Hitchcock
After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
And company doesn't mean security.
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,
And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After a while you learn...
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure...
That you really are strong
And you really do have worth...
And you learn and learn...
With every good-bye you learn.
~Jorge Luis Borges
Translation by Veronica A. Shoffstall
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
~William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying tonight or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be towards what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
~W.B. Yeats
Ja Jai Taje Jaina Ja Pai Ta Thakena
Whatever appears to leave us
Actually does not leave.
Whatever appears to stay with us
Actually does not stay.
Nothing remains.
Everything is a mystery
Of constant gain and loss.
By: Sri Chinmoy
From: Supreme Teach Me how to cry – 100 Bengali Songs
Songs translated from Bengali into English since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis -- e e cummings
GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying :
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer ;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry :
For having lost but once your prime
You may for ever tarry.
~Robert Herrick, mid-1600s
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
"Happiness."
By Edith Wharton.THIS perfect love can find no words to say.
What words are left, still sacred for our use,
That have not suffered the sad world's abuse,
And figure forth a gladness dimmed and gray?
Let us be silent still, since words convey
But shadowed images, wherein we lose
The fulness of love's light; our lips refuse
The fluent commonplace of yesterday.
Then shall we hear beneath the brooding wing
Of silence what abiding voices sleep,
The primal notes of nature, that outring
Man's little noises, warble he or weep,
The song the morning stars together sing,
The sound of deep that calleth unto deep.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
~Robert Frost
|
Tools 
Help
