Beethoven ante el televisor

Beethoven ante el televisor

Hace cierto tiempo, adquirí un libro de José Hierro conteniendo una colección de poemas dedicados a la música. Entre ellos, quedé prendado del que hoy reproduzco aquí; no me canso de recitarlo en voz alta y no me canso de "oír" en mi interior la música a la que se refiere cada vez que lo leo. El poema lleva el título BEETHOVEN ANTE EL TELEVISOR y suena así:

El alemán de Bonn identificaba
todos los sones de la naturaleza:
el del mar, el del río, el del viento y la lluvia,
el canto del ruiseñor, el de la oropéndola, el del cuco.
Un día, cantó un ave, y él no oía su canto:
fue la primera señal de alarma.
Luego avanzó implacable la sordera
hasta desembocar en la noche de los sonidos.
Compuso, desde entonces, imaginándolos.
Nunca pudo escuchar su misa en Re,
sus últimos cuartetos, su última sinfonía.

Luis van Beethoven murió en mil ochocientos veintisiete
(es lo que piensan los desinformados),
pero yo lo he visto en el Lincoln Center.
Fue en los años noventa. Ocupábamos
asientos contiguos. Yo lo reconocí
por su expresión huraña y tierna y feroz.
Y también por el desaliño de que nos hablan sus biógrafos.
Escribí en mi programa estas palabras:
«Excelente concierto». Y él asintió:
«No se moleste en escribir, oigo perfectamente».

Después, en el descanso, hablamos de su música,
(sin duda se dio cuenta
de que acababa de reconocerlo).
Avisaron que había que volver
a la sala para escuchar el plato fuerte:
la Novena. Pero él, van Beethoven,
dio media vuelta y se marchaba.
«Pero, ¿precisamente ahora?» le pregunté.
«Yo regreso al hotel. Voy a escuchar
la Novena Sinfonía en el televisor,
la transmiten en directo», contestó.
«¿Me permite que le acompañe?», dije.
Y se encogió de hombros.

Pues aquí acaba todo.
Nos sentamos ante el televisor.
Escuchamos el golpe de la batuta
sobre el atril. Silencio. Y la orquesta rugió.
Entonces, Ludwig van Beethoven
se levantó y apagó el sonido.
Ahora si que el silencio era absoluto.

Canturreaba a veces, levantaba la mano
para indicar la entrada a los timbales
en el scherzo. Lloró con el adagio,
enardeció cuando cantaba el coro
las palabras de Schiller.
Yo nunca podré oír, nadie podrá
lo que él oía. Finalizó el concierto.
Fue entonces cuando se levantó,
y se acercó al televisor,
recuperó el sonido.
las cámaras enfocaban ahora
al público enardecido.
Van Beethoven oía, en mil novecientos noventa,
los aplausos que no podía oír en Viena,
en mil ochocientos veinticuatro.

José Hierro [Cuaderno de Nueva York (1998)]

Mnemosyne, by Friedrich Hölderlin

Mesocosm

History, Philosophy, Religion, Art, Science

Mnemosyne, by Friedrich Hölderlin

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Castle Near the River, K. F. Schinkel
Image (C) Barnaby Thieme

Completed around 1803, Hölderlin’s “Mnemosyne” anticipates many of the themes of Modernism by over a century. I’ve given my translation below, but as with all translations of great poems, much is lost. Hölderlin possessed an acute sensitivity to nuance, and many of his wonderful devices can’t be duplicated in English.
For example, the key line “Zweifellos / Ist aber Einer,” literally means “Undoubtedly / Though, there is one”. Zwei, the root of Zweifellos, means two, and the contrast between multiplicity and unity echoes the movement of the mind from a condition of primordial unity into the diversity of the phenomenal world, which constitutes one of the primary themes of the poem.
Also lost is the repetition of nemlich, which highlights various images in the poem in the sense of “that is” or “for example.” But it literally means “namely,” and carries the suggestion of naming or reference, enhancing the sense that objects of experience are signs or names of a sort, meaningful in themselves, and our world is saturated with an intertextual significance.
The title of the poem refers to the Greek goddess of memory, mother of the Nine Muses who inspire and exemplify the great arts of music, history, tragic poetry, astronomy, and so forth. Mnemosyne was an important figure in the mystical traditions of Orpheus, in which she stood as a counterpart to Lethe, goddess of forgetfulness. In this esoteric sense, the memory exemplified by Mnemosyne is the act of bringing forth eternal truths.
This idea is closely related to Plato’s theory of anamnesis or recollection, discussed in his dialogs Meno and Phaedo. Plato argued that our knowledge of subjects such as math and metaphysics is a kind of remembering. The soul can relate the particular objects that it perceives to universal truths, and in so doing the soul makes contact with the timeless realm of abstract relationships from which it came.
The Orphic mystics believed that the soul’s condition in life is one of forgetting its divine origins. Through mystical practice or contemplation, it is possible to recollect and reconnect with the timeless realm.
Hölderlin represents the world in an Orphic light – as a flux made sensible by the mind’s power to relate objects of experience to ideas, memories, or stories. This process is symbolically depicted as the actions of the gods. Memory serves as an image of mystical union with an object out of reach, a vanished memory or lost age.
Perhaps he had the story of Orpheus and Euridyce in mind when he wrote “…mortals almost / Reach into the abyss. Thus it turns, the echo, / With them.” Orpheus, you may recall, pursued his dead love into the underworld, and tried to bring her back into the light of day. But when he reached the mouth of Hades, he turned around to look at her, and she vanished. Perhaps with memory, in a similar fashion, the sought-after object disappears in the dark underworld when we try to grasp it.
Depending on your perspective, Hölderlin’s immortals are metaphors for workings of the mind, or vice versa. The poem is filled with images of signs and reference, but the sign and its object stand in an ambiguous relationship. The poet wavers between two reference points; either the mind knows its object, or the mind and its object are one.
Which is primary – the myth of the flower, or the narcissus that I see? The history or the land? The word or the flesh? Is there a Greece without Achilles? Is the world brought forth by mind, as Buddha taught in The Sutra of the Ten Grounds? Are we ourselves ideas in the Universal Mind?
Now the poem.

Mnemosyne
We are a sign, meaningless
We are painless and have almost
Forgotten speech in exile.
But if there is strife in heaven over mankind
And the moon travels in force, so the sea
Will speak and the rivers must
Find their way. Undoubtedly, though,
There is one, who
Can bring forth change daily. He scarcely needs
The law. And it sounds the leaves and rings the oak trees
By the glaciers. As not everything is possible for
The heavenly ones. That is, mortals almost
Reach into the abyss. Thus it turns, the echo,
With them. Time is
Long, but the truth
Will come to pass.
But what of love? We see
Sunshine on the ground and burnished dust.
And deep with the forest shadow and it blooms
Smoke from the rooftops, in the old crowns
Of towers, peaceful – the signs of day are good, that is,
If an immortal wounds
The soul in answer.
For snow, the abundant,
like flowers, stands signified where
It may, glistening off the green
Alpine meadow, half
There, speaking of crosses, the
Law is the dead at one stage
Along the way, on higher paths
A wanderer moves in wrath,
Knowing from a distance with
The other one, but what is this?
At the fig tree my
Achilles died to me,
And Ajax lies
In the grottoes of the sea,
At the brooks bordering Skamander.
Following the fixed, constant tradition of
Salamis, Ajax died of the temple’s fury
in strange lands.
Yet Patroclus in the king’s armor. And
Many others also died. At Kithairon
Lay Eleutherae, the city of Mnemosyne. There, too, when
God’s mantel was cast off, the one like night then parted
Her locks. Celestials, that is, are
Unwilling, if one had not gathered
His soul together in healing, but he must; in the same way
Suffers the mourner.

Heym!

2014 / AGO / 04

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Cuatro poemas | Georg Heym

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Ver­sión y nota de Montser­rat Armas

Georg Heym muere el 16 de enero de 1912. A pesar de su corta vida, su atrac­ción por la poesía fue muy pre­coz. Dicha pre­co­ci­dad nos ha per­mi­tido dis­fru­tar de varias colec­ciones de poe­mas que le han con­ver­tido en uno de los poetas más rep­re­sen­ta­tivos del Expre­sion­ismo alemán.
Si pre­sen­ta­mos, como suele hac­erse, a Georg Trakl y a Got­tfried Benn como las voces par­a­dig­máti­cas de la lírica expre­sion­ista, esta­mos come­tiendo una injus­ti­cia al igno­rar a dos grandes poetas, a mi enten­der, no menos impor­tantes: Ernst Stadler (1883–1914) y Georg Heym. Los lec­tores españoles que descono­cen otras lenguas tienen que con­tentarse con la selec­ción de poe­mas que la edi­to­r­ial Hiper­ión pub­licó en 1981 bajo el título Stadler-Heym-Trakl. Poesía expre­sion­ista ale­m­ana para hac­erse una idea, evi­den­te­mente muy lim­i­tada, de la poesía de Georg Heym.
Heym sin­tió desde muy pronto un fuerte rec­hazo por las con­ven­ciones sociales. Ese sen­timiento se rad­i­cal­izó cuando en 1910, al entrar a for­mar parte de Der Neue Club, conoce en Berlín a una serie de escritores que fre­cuenta­ban sus mis­mos cír­cu­los como, por ejem­plo, a Karl Kraus. Siendo miem­bro desta­cado de este club, Heym escribe poe­mas tan impor­tantes como Der Gott der Stadt (El dios de la ciu­dad) o sus colec­ciones de poe­mas: una pub­li­cada en 1911, Der ewige Tag (El día eterno) y la otra en el año de su muerte, Umbrae vitae.
Para el lec­tor en lengua española, Heym es todavía un enigma porque se desconoce de él no sólo la mayor parte de su poesía, sino además su fac­eta como nar­rador y su escasa pro­duc­ción teatral. 
Desde hace años he acari­ci­ado la idea de tra­ducir a estos dos poetas, Stadler y Heym, con el fin de rev­e­lar al lec­tor his­panoh­ab­lante de poesía la mag­ni­tud de sus crea­ciones. Ahora pre­sento una pequeña selec­ción de poe­mas de Heym, descono­ci­dos hasta hoy. Ninguno de los poe­mas que he elegido han dado título a los poe­mar­ios que Heym pub­licó en vida o que se pub­li­caron pós­tu­ma­mente, pero están igual­mente impreg­na­dos de la extraña e inqui­etante belleza que car­ac­ter­iza al con­junto de su escrit­ura. Los poe­mas los he selec­cionado a par­tir de Georg Heym, Gedichte und Prosa, Fis­cher Bücherei, Frank­furt am Main und Ham­burg, 1962, y de Georg Heym, Dich­tun­gen. Auswahl, Reclam, Ham­burgo, 1964. Dicha selec­ción responde úni­ca­mente a una pref­er­en­cia per­sonal.
Tra­ducir sus poe­mas es un con­stante des­cubrim­iento de ver­sos pre­mon­i­to­rios. Heym alude a: hom­bres que pre­sien­ten su muerte, sueños que predi­cen, nat­u­ralezas muer­tas, cie­los que envían sus sig­nos, mul­ti­tudes que vagan por las calles, per­di­das, tem­pes­tades y mares de fuego, dioses que cas­ti­gan, crá­neos que cuel­gan, ros­tros páli­dos, muer­tos que flotan y lla­mas que devo­ran los bosques. He inten­tado, en mi labor de tra­duc­ción, respetar el ritmo interno de sus poe­mas, aunque he sido infiel a su rima, tan impor­tante en Heym, con la que el poeta quiere retener unos ver­sos que pare­cen estal­larle entre sus manos.
Su crítica a la falta de espir­i­tu­al­i­dad en el hom­bre ren­dido ante los pro­gre­sos téc­ni­cos que con­vierten a las ciu­dades en lugares inhab­it­a­bles e infer­nales parece aten­uarse a veces en poe­mas que describen la nat­u­raleza, donde el lenguaje suaviza su carác­ter vio­lento. Algunos de estos poe­mas son los que pre­sento aquí para el dis­frute de aque­l­los que, como yo, sien­ten sin­cera admiración por el Expre­sion­ismo alemán, y se lamen­tan de que el helado Havel con­ge­lara los futuros ver­sos de Georg Heym.

EL ANOCHECER

Ha naufra­gado el día en el rojo púr­pura,
con inmensa calma el río fluye blanco.
Llega una vela. Alta, desde la barca se eleva
al timón la silueta del barquero.

En las islas crece el bosque otoñal
con rojas cabezas en el espa­cio claro.
Y de lo pro­fundo de oscuros abis­mos resuena
el sonido de los bosques, como susurros de cítaras.

La oscuri­dad se ha der­ra­mado al ori­ente,
como vino azul de urnas vol­cadas.
Y lejos se alza, rodeada de un negro manto,
la noche sub­lime sobre coturnos de som­bra.

DER ABEND // Ver­sunken ist der Tag in Pur­purrot, / Der Strom schwimmt weiss in unge­heurer Glätte. / Ein Segel kommt. Es hebt sich aus dem Boot / Am Steuer gross des Schif­fers Sil­hou­ette. // Auf allen Inseln steigt des Herb­stes Wald / Mit roten Häuptern in den Raum, den klaren. / Und aus der Schluchten dun­kler Tiefe hallt / Der Wal­dung Ton, wie Rauschen der Kitharen. // Das Dunkel ist im Osten aus­gegossen, / Wie blauer Wein kommt aus gestürzter Urne. / Und ferne steht, vom Man­tel schwarz umflossen, / Die hohe Nacht auf schat­tigem Kothurne.

AZUL-BLANCO-VERDE

En verdes praderas se alza un bosque­cillo
de blan­cos abed­ules que a la luz se ele­van.
Primer verde tierno en ramas que se mecen
como una nube, como un cabello tan fino.

Nubes blan­cas que cre­cen hacia el aire
como montes sus­pendi­dos, del azul del mar,
dis­ueltas en la luz, se alzan las oril­las boscosas.
Cre­pus­cu­lar, reposa el aroma azul de la som­bra.

BLAU-WEISS-GRÜN // In grü­nen Wiesen steht ein kleiner Hain / Von weis­sen Birken, die zum Lichte steigen. / Das erste Hell­grün auf den schwanken Zweigen / Wie eine Wolke, wie ein Haar so fein. // Die weis­sen Wolken wach­sen in die Luft / Wie Berge grund­los, aus dem Blau der Seen / In Licht gelöst, die wald­gen Ufer ste­hen. / Wo dämm­rig ruht des Schat­tens blauer Duft.

EL OTOÑO

Muchas cometas se ele­van al viento,
dan­zando en el reino de los aires lejanos.
Niños en el campo con ropas lig­eras.
Pecosos, y con pál­i­das frentes.

En el mar de ras­tro­jos dora­dos nave­gan
pequeños bar­cos, blan­cos y ligeros;
y en los sueños de su leve inmen­si­dad
dec­lina, inun­dado azul de nubes, el cielo.

A lo lejos, en la calma inmóvil,
se alza el bosque como una ciu­dad roja.
Y las ban­deras doradas del otoño cuel­gan,
pesadas y abati­das, de las tor­res más altas.

DER HERBST // Viele Drachen ste­hen in dem Winde, / Tanzend in der weiten Lüfte Reich. / Kinder stehn im Feld in dün­nen Klei­dern, / Som­mer­sprossig, und mit Stir­nen ble­ich. // In dem Meer der gold­nen Stop­peln segeln / Kleine Schiffe, weiss und leicht erbaut; / Und in Träu­men seiner leichten Weite / Sinkt der Him­mel wolkenüberblaut. // Weit gerückt in unbe­wegter Ruhe / Steht der Wald wie eine rote Stadt. / Und des Herb­stes goldne Flaggen hän­gen / Von den höch­sten Tür­men schwer und matt.

EL JARDÍN

La boca, húmeda. Y ancha como en los peces,
brilla roja en el jardín inerte.
Su pie es plano y ancho sobre el camino.
Nacen vien­tos del vestido plisado.

Él abraza al dios, que como de plata, débil,
bajo él se quiebra. Y en la espalda los dedos
le coloca, negros, como gar­ras pelu­das.
Lla­mas que caen oblicuas de los ojos.

Avan­zan som­bras y luces, a veces una luna.
Un mur­mullo de hojas. De la noche cál­ida
tur­bias gotas. Y abajo lla­man los cuer­nos
de guardianes que vagan por la ciu­dad dorada.

DER GARTEN // Der Mund ist feucht. Und wie bei Fis­chen breit. / Und leuchtet rot in dem toten Garten. / Sein Fuss ist glatt und über den Wegen breit. / Winde gehen her­vor aus dem falti­gen Kleid. // Er umarmet den Gott, der dünn wie aus Sil­ber / Unter ihm knickt. Und im Rücken die Fin­ger / Legt er ihm schwarz wie haarige Krallen. / Quere Feuer, die aus den Augen fallen. // Schat­ten gehen und Lichter, manch­mal ein Mond. / Ein Gesause der Blät­ter. Aus warmer Nacht / Trübes Tropfen. Und unten rufen die Hörner / Wan­del­nder Wächter über der gel­ben Stadt.

COM­PAR­TIR:

Zbigniew Herbert

18 Translations by Oriana Ivy



Oriana Ivy on Translating Zbigniew Herbert

Zbigniew Herbert was the first "live" poet I got to hear — not in Warsaw where I was born, but in Los Angeles, when I was an undergraduate at UCLA. My first poetry reading ever! It was thanks to Herbert that I discovered modern Polish poetry.

I fell in love with his poems, and I had to see what they looked like in English, what they sounded like. I wanted to see if I could pour his magic into English. Every translator knows how difficult that can be.

About Oriana

Oriana was born in Poland and came to the United States when she was 17. Her poems, essays, book reviews, and translations from modern Polish poetry have been published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Best American Poetry 1992, Nimrod, New Letters, The Iowa Review, American Poetry Review, Black Warrior, Wisconsin Review, Prairie Schooner, Spoon River Review, Southern Poetry Review, and many other journals and anthologies. A former journalist and community college instructor, she teaches poetry workshops. She lives in San Diego.

Link: Her blog about poetry and art and culture.

Poetry by Zbigniew Herbert

She Was Setting Her Hair

She was setting her hair before sleep
and before the mirror it lasted infinitely long
epochs passed between one bending of the arm
and another

from her hair quietly slipped out
the soldiers of the Second Legion
named after Augustus Antoninus
the comrades of Rolland artillerists from Verdun

with strong fingers
she secured the glory above her head

it lasted so long
that when she finally
began her rocking
march toward me
my heart obedient so far
stopped
and thick grains of salt
appeared on my skin





The Elegy of Fortinbras

My prince now that we are alone we can talk man to man
though you are lying on the steps and can see as much as a dead ant
a black sun with broken rays
I could never think about your hands without smiling
now they lie on the stone pavement like a toppled star
as helpless as before This is really the end
The hands lie separately The sword lies separately The head separately
and the feet of a knight in soft slippers

You will have a soldier's funeral though you were not a soldier
it's the only ritual on which I'm something of an expert
There'll be no tall candles or singing there'll be guns and noise
a black shroud dragging on the ground hard-heeled boots
artillery horses the beat of the drum I don't know anything beautiful
these will be my maneuvers before taking power
one has to seize the city by the throat and shake it a bit

You had to die anyway Hamlet you were not fit for life
you believed in crystal ideas and not in human clay
you lived in constant spasms as if in a dream
you hunted chimeras
you bit greedily into the air and vomited it at once
you didn't know any human thing you couldn't even breathe

Now you are at peace Hamlet you have done your duty
and are at peace the rest is not silence but belongs to me
you chose the easier part the dramatic play
but what is a hero's death next to the eternal vigilance
on a tall chair a cold orb in hand
looking out on an anthill and the face of the clock

Farewell prince I must get busy with the projects of canals
and a decree concerning prostitutes and beggars
I must also improve the penal system
since as you correctly noted Denmark is a prison
I must be off to business Tonight a star called Hamlet
will be born We will never meet
what will remain of me won't become the subject of a tragedy

Neither to greet nor to part we live on archipelagoes
and this water these words what can they do what can they do my prince





Mother

I thought:
she will never change

will always be waiting
in a white dress
and blue eyes
at the threshold of all doors

will always be smiling
and putting on her necklace

suddenly
the string broke
now the pearls winter
in the cracks of the floor

mother likes coffee
quiet
a warm stove

she sits
adjusts the glasses
on her pointed nose

reads my poem
contradicts with her gray head
the poem that fell down from her lap

she purses her lips keeps silent
it’s not a cheerful talk
under the lamp the source of sweetness

an unexalted sorrow
from what wells does he drink
on what roads does he walk
this son so unlike the dream

I nourished him with gentle milk
unrest is burning him
I washed him with warm blood
his hands are rough and cold

far away from your eyes
pierced with blind love
loneliness is easier to bear

a week later
in a cold room
with a choked throat
I read her letter

each word stands separate
like a loving heart





Thinking About My Father

His severe face in a cloud over the waters of childhood
he rarely held my warm head
inclined to the presumption of guilt unforgiving
he uprooted forests straightened paths
carried the lantern high when we entered the night

I thought I would be sitting at his right hand
we would be dividing darkness from light
and judging the living
what really happened was different

a peddler of second-hand goods carted off his throne
and the mortgage record the map of our domain

he was born a second time slight very frail
with a transparent skin almost non-existent bones
he kept diminishing his body that I might receive it

in an unimportant place in the shadow of a stone

he grows within me we eat our defeats
we burst out laughing
when they say how little
it takes to be reconciled





Stone 
A stone is
a perfect being

equal to itself
staying within its limits

precisely filled
with stone sense

its smell
does not resemble anything
does not frighten
does not awaken desire

its ardor and aloofness
are just and dignified

I feel a severe reproach
as I hold it in my hand
and false heat penetrates
its noble body

Stones do not tame
to the end they will look at us
with a bright and very calm eye





Report From Paradise

In paradise the work week is thirty hours
salaries are higher prices always dropping
physical labor is not tiring (because of lower gravity)
chopping wood is like typing
the social system is stable the government moderate
it's certainly better in paradise than in any country

At first it was supposed to be different
luminous circles choirs and rungs of abstraction
but one couldn't separate body from soul
precisely enough and the soul would arrive
with a drop of blubber a thread of muscle
one had to compromise
mix the grain of the absolute with the grain of clay
still another falling away from the doctrine the ultimate one
only John foresaw it: the resurrection of the body

God is seen by few
exists only for those made of pure pneuma
the rest listen to communiqués about floods and miracles
in time all will see God
when this is to take place nobody knows

In the meantime Saturday at noon
the sirens roar sweetly
and heavenly proletarians come out of the factories
carrying their wings awkwardly like violins





Mr. Cogito Laments the Pettiness of Dreams

Even dreams have grown smaller
where are the dream pageants of our grandmothers and grandfathers
when colorful as birds carefree as birds they ascended
the imperial staircase lit with a thousand chandeliers
and grandfather already tamed to the walking stick pressed to his side
a silver sword and unloved grandmother who out of courtesy
put on for him the face of first love

Isiah spoke to them
from clouds like swirls of tobacco smoke
they saw Saint Teresa pale as a wafer
carrying a genuine basket of firewood

their terror was immense as a Tatar horde
their happiness like golden rain

my dream – the doorbell rings I am shaving in the bathroom I open the door
the bill collector hands me my gas and electricity bill
I have no money I return to the bathroom brooding
over the figure 63.50
I raise my eyes and see in the mirror
my face so life-like that I wake up screaming

if at least once a hangman's red tunic appeared in my dream
or a queen’s necklace I would be grateful to dreams





Last Will And Testament

I will to the four elements
that over which I’ve held a brief domain

to fire – thought
let the fire blossom

to the earth which I loved too much
my body a barren seed

to the air – my words and hands
and longings that is to say superfluous things

and that which shall remain
a drop of water
let it move between
the heaven and the earth

let it be transparent rain
a fern of frost a snowflake

never having reached heaven
let it return to that vale of tears my earth

as pure faithful dew
patiently crumbling hard soil

soon I will give back to the four elements
that over which I’ve held a brief domain

I will not return
to the source of peace





Sequoia

Gothic towers of needles in a stream-cut valley
nearby Mount Tamalpais in thick fog like the ocean's
fury and ecstasy

in this preserve of giants they display a cross-section of a tree
a copper-colored stump of the west
with regular rings like circles on water
someone perverse marked here the dates of human history
an inch from the center Rome is burning during the reign of Nero
midway the battle of Hastings the night-time expedition of the drakkars
Anglo-Saxons in panic the death of the unfortunate Harold
described with a compass
finally near the shoreline of bark the Normandy invasion

the Tacitus of this tree was a geometrician he knew no adjectives
he didn't know the syntax of terror he didn't know any words
so he counted added years and centuries as though to say
there is nothing
except birth and death only birth and death
and inside the sequoia's bloody marrrow





Mr. Cogito Tells About the Temptations of Spinoza

Baruch Spinoza of Amsterdam
desired to reach God

in the attic once
while grinding lenses
he suddenly pierced the veil
and stood face to face

he spoke a long time
(and as he spoke
his mind waxed great
and his soul)
he asked questions
about the nature of man

— God absent-mindedly stroked his beard

he asked about the First Cause

— God stared into infinity

he asked about the Ultimate Cause

— God cracked his knuckles
cleared his throat

when Spinoza finished
God spoke thus

you discourse very well Baruch
I like your geometrical Latin
its precise syntax
the symmetry of your argument

however let us talk
about Really Great Things

look at your hands
bruised and trembling

you are ruining your eyes
in the dark

you eat poorly
dress poorly

buy a new house
forgive the venetian mirrors
for repeating the surface

forgive the flowers in the hair
forgive the drunken song

look to your income
like your colleague Descartes

be cunning
like Erasmus

dedicate a treatise
to Louis XIV
he won't read it anyway

calm down rational fury
it is going to fell thrones
and blacken the stars

think about a woman
who will give you a child

see Baruch
now we are talking about Great Things

I want to be loved
by the ignorant and the violent
they are the only ones
who really crave me

now the veil descends
Spinoza remains alone

he sees no golden cloud
no light on the heights

he sees darkness

hears creaking of the stairs
going down





Mr. Cogito Encounters in the Louvre
the Statue of the Great Mother

This small cosmology in fired clay
slightly larger than the human palm
comes from Boetia
head like the sacred Mount Neru
hair flowing like the great rivers of the earth
neck a sky pulsing with heat
a necklace of clouds
sleepless constellations

send us the holy water of fertility
you whose fingers burst into leaves
we born of clay
like the ibis the snake and the grass
want you to hold us
in your strong hands

on the belly a square earth
guarded by double sun

we do not want other gods
our fragile house of air
will suffice stone tree
simple names of things
carry us carefully from night to night
then blow out our senses
at the threshold of the question

abandoned in a glass case Mother
stares with the surprised
eye of a star





Mr. Cogito Meditates on Redemption

He shouldn’t have sent his son

too many saw
the son’s pierced palms
his ordinary death

we were doomed
to be reconciled
through the worst of reconciliations

too many nostrils
drew in with pleasure
the smell of his fear

one mustn’t
stoop
fraternize with blood

he shouldn’t have sent his son

it was better to reign
in a palace of marble clouds
on the throne of terror
holding the scepter of death





Thorns and Roses

Saint Ignatius
flaming and white
threw himself upon a rosebush
to mortify the flesh

with the bell of his black habit
he wanted to drown out
the beauty of the world
gushing from the earth as from a wound

but lying at the bottom
of the cradle of thorns he saw
that the blood flowing down his forehead
congealed on his eyelashes
in the shape of a rose

and his blind hand
seeking thorns
had been pierced
with the sweet touch of petals

the deceived saint wept
amid the mockery of blossoms

thorns and roses
roses and thorns
we pursue happiness





Mr. Cogito in Upright Posture

1.
In Utica the citizens
don't want to defend themselves

an epidemic of self-preservation
is sweeping through the town

the temple of liberty
has been turned into a flea market

the senate is debating
on how not to be a senate

the citizens don't want to defend themselves
they take accelerated courses
in falling on their knees

they passively await the enemy
write loyal-subject speeches
hide their gold

they sew new flags
innocent and white
they teach children to lie

they have opened their gates
through which now enters
a column of sand

outside of that things as usual
commerce and copulation


2.
Mr. Cogito would like to rise
to the occasion

to look fate
straight in the eye

like Cato the Younger
see Lives

however he has neither
a sword or the means
to send his family overseas

thus he waits like the others
paces about the sleepless room

against the advice of the stoics
he'd like to have a diamond body
and wings

he watches through the window
the setting sun of the republic

he has little left
actually only
the choice of the posture
in which he wishes to die

this is why
he doesn't go to bed
to avoid suffocation
while asleep

to the end he would like to stay
equal to the occasion

fate looks him in the eye
at the spot where his head
used to be





Song About the Drum

The pastoral flutes are gone
the gold of Sunday trumpets
green echoes of the horns
violins too are gone

only the drum has stayed
the drum plays on
a solemn march funeral march

simple emotions on stiff legs
walk to the beat
the drummer plays
one thought one word
when the drum calls forth a steep precipice

we carry ears of grain or tombstones
whatever the wise drum foretells
when the step beats the skin of the pavement
the hard step that will transform the world
into one parade and one shout

finally all humanity is marching
finally everyone is in step
calf skin two batons
have broken the tower of loneliness
silence is trampled on
and death not terrible when in a crowd

the column of dust over the parade
will part like obedient sea
we will descend low into the abyss
of empty hell also higher
we will examine the unreality of heaven
and freed from fear
the whole procession will turn into sand
carried by the mocking wind

and so the last echo will pass
over the insubordinate mold of the earth
only the drum the drum will stay
dictator of conquered music





The Seventh Angel

The seventh angel
is completely different
even his name is different
Shemkel

not like Gabriel
golden
support of the throne
and its canopy

nor like Raphael
tuner of the choirs

nor like Azrael
director of the planets
geometrician of infinity
eminent expert in theoretical physics

Shemkel
is dark and nervous
has been punished many times
for smuggling in sinners

between heaven and the abyss
the constant rumble of his feet

he does not maintain his dignity
and they keep him
only because of the number seven

but he's not like the others

not like the leader of the hosts
Michael
all coat of mail and feathered helmet

nor like Azrafael
decorator of the world
protector of luxuriant vegetation
with wings like two great oaks

not even like
Dedrael
apologist and kabalist

When they paint the seven
Byzantine painters
make Shemkel
look like the others

afraid
they'd fall into heresy
if they painted him
as he is
dark nervous
in a faded old halo





Caligula Speaks

Among all the citizens of Rome
I loved only one
Incitatus--a horse

when he entered the Senate
the unstainable toga of his coat
gleamed in the midst
of purple-lined assassins

Incitatus possessed many merits
he never made speeches
had a stoic temperament
I think at night in the stable he read the philosophers

I loved him so much that one day I decided to crucify him
but his noble anatomy made it impossible

he accepted the honor of consulship with indifference
exercised authority in the best manner
that is not at all

he would not be persuaded toward a lasting liason
with my second wife Caesonia
thus unfortunately the lineage of centaur ceasars
was not engendered

that's why Rome fell

I determined to have him declared a god
but on the ninth day before the February calends
Cherea Cornelius Sabinus and the other fools
interfered with my pious plans

he accepted the news of my death with calm
was thrown out of the palace and condemned to exile
he bore this blow with dignity

he died without descendants
slaughtered by a thick-skinned butcher from Ancium

Tacitus is silent
about the posthumous fate of his meat





The Clock

On the surface a miller's calm face, round-cheeked and shiny like an apple. A single dark hair moves across it. But look inside: a nest of worms, the interior of an anthill. And this is supposed to lead us to eternity.


Chairs

Who would think a warm neck could grow immobile, limbs eager for flight and joy stiffen into four straight stilts. Long ago chairs were beautiful flower-eating animals. But they let themselves be tamed too easily, and now they are the lowest species of quadrupeds. They have lost steadfastness and courage. They have only patience left. They have never trampled anyone, never bucked under anyone. Surely they suffer from a sense of wasted life.

The despair of chairs manifests itself in creaking.


Fish

It’s impossible to imagine the sleep of fish. Even in the darkest corner of the pond, deep in the reeds, their sleep is a constant wakefulness: always the same posture and the absolute impossibility of saying about them: they laid down their heads.

Their tears are like a scream in a vacuum – uncounted.

Fish cannot gesture their despair. This justifies the dull knife skipping along the spine, ripping off the sequins of scales.


~ Zbigniew Herbert, translated by Oriana Ivy

BACK

Heym!!!

Von Klaus Bellin

29.11.2011

Feuilleton

Schrecken, Tod, Verfall

Gunnar Decker schreibt das fehlende Buch über den Dichter Georg Heym

Zeichnung Heyms im Tagebuch vom 29. 11. 1910

Es sollte ein langer Tag auf Schlittschuhen werden. Er endete gegen 15 Uhr mit einer Tragödie. Ernst Balcke, der Freund, brach ein, und Georg Heym versuchte, ihn zu retten. Beide starben an jenem bitterkalten 16. Januar 1912 unter der Eisdecke des Wannsees. Heym war 24 Jahre alt, seit kurzem Referendar und Verfasser des im Vorjahr bei Rowohlt erschienenen Gedichtbandes »Der Ewige Tag«, von dem Balcke in der Zeitschrift »Aktion« gesagt hat, es seien »wilde, harte, erbarmungslose Töne« in vielen Verszeilen, »Schilderungen des Todes und der Verwesung«. Das »Berliner Tageblatt«, das am 19. Januar über das Unglück berichtete, nannte Heym eine »schöne Begabung«.

Viel später, ein halbes Jahrhundert danach, wenn endlich ernsthaft nach der verstreuten, unterdrückten Hinterlassenschaft des Dichters und seiner expressionistischen Gefährten gefahndet wird, für die Nazis nichts anderes als »entartete Kunst«, wird der junge Paul Raabe in Berlin und Neuruppin nach Spuren Heyms suchen. Er ist für ihn »ein genialer Dichter, der das kommende Unheil des Krieges in seinen Gedichten und Prosastücken auf eine unheimliche Weise voraussah und dessen früher Tod das Schicksal einer jungen Dichtergeneration auf tragische Weise vorwegnahm«. Raabe, seit 1958 im Marbacher Literaturarchiv beschäftigt, ein für Literatur, für Dichtung glühender Mann, machte die Leistungen dieser Poeten erstmals 1960 in seiner großen und legendären Expressionismus-Ausstellung sichtbar. Zur selben Zeit, zwischen 1960 und 1968, edierte sein Kollege Karl Ludwig Schneider bei Heinrich Ellermann in Hamburg eine umfassende kritische Heym-Ausgabe, die einzige, die wir haben, die erste zugleich, die die vorhandenen Lücken schloss, vier Dünndruckbände, die den Blick freigaben auf ein ungeheures, vehement hingeworfenes Werk, in dem vieles Skizze blieb, Fragment, Entwurf. (Der Verlag Zweitausendeins hat diese Bände 2005 noch einmal in einer dicken, einbändigen und erstaunlich preiswerten Broschur zusammengefasst.)
Seit jenen Tagen ist Georg Heym ein Begriff. Seine Strophen stehen in Anthologien und Auswahlbänden, gedruckt einst auch bei Aufbau und Reclam in Leipzig (mit dem schönen Nachwort von Stephan Hermlin), aber zu einer Biografie hat es dieser außerordentliche Dichter seltsamerweise nicht gebracht. Liegt's daran, dass sein Leben so kurz und ereignisarm war? Vielleicht. Auch Gunnar Decker, der zum bevorstehenden hundertsten Todestag im Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg ein Büchlein über Heym vorlegt, verspricht keine Lebensbeschreibung, sondern einen »biographischen Essay«. Es ist die erste Heym-Publikation nach langer Zeit und die bislang einzige Studie, die eingehend die Voraussetzungen dieser Dichtung erzählt, ohne dem Ehrgeiz zu verfallen, die letzten Dinge im Leben Heyms klären zu wollen.
Er kam aus der Provinz, geboren 1887 im schlesischen Hirschberg. Der Vater Staatsanwalt, ein hysterischer, autoritärer, schließlich depressiver Mann, der einige Zeit über die Vollstreckung von Todesurteilen zu wachen hatte, ein Schuft und Patriarch, der totale Unterordnung verlangte. Der Sohn, schwankend zwischen Mitleid, Furcht, Verachtung und Hass, rebellierte früh, verweigerte sich bürgerlichen Zwängen, revoltierte wie viele seiner Generationsgefährten, wie Becher, Hesse oder Bronnen (der Abscheu und Verzweiflung schon im Titel eines Dramas ausdrückte: »Vatermord«). In Berlin kam Heym aufs Gymnasium. Fiel auch dort durch Renitenz auf. Der Deutschlehrer ein »hölzerner Kerl von Pauker«, »ganz nach dem Sinne meines Vaters«. Ins Tagebuch schrieb Heym 1905: »Wenn ich konsequent wäre, müßte ich mir eigentlich unter diesen Umständen das Leben nehmen. Aber ich glaube an mich. Ich werde auch allein meinen Weg gehen können.« Aber erst einmal musste der widerspenstige Sohn, vom strafenden Vater diktiert, nach Neuruppin. Er nannte es sein »Exil« und nahm sich vor, »als ganz krasser Pessimist aufzutreten«. Die Schule empfand er als »Verderb jeden Genies«.
Gunnar Decker, vertieft in die Tagebücher, Gedichte und Novellen, zeichnet das Bild einer krisengeschüttelten, taumelnden Jugend, ihres Elends, ihrer Qualen, ihrer Wut. In Neuruppin lief Heym dauernd mit missmutiger Miene herum und erklärte der Zimmerwirtin, die seinen Ausdruck monierte, fröhlich könne nur sein, wer in diese Atmosphäre passe. Er, nun ganz ohne ein Wesen, mit dem er sich verständigen konnte, war der Fremde, der einsame Bursche mit dem Aufruhr im Kopf und den Träumen voller Todeswünsche. Später, als er in Würzburg die Universität besuchte, konnte er sich nur als Danton sehen, als »Mann auf der Barrikade«, nie ohne Jakobinermütze. Jetzt hoffte er »wenigstens auf Krieg«. Ein höchst widersprüchlicher Bursche, verwegen, verschlossen, eine »grobe Klotznatur«, wie Decker sagt, wild und rau, süchtig nach Liebe, süchtig nach Ruhm, mal in übersteigerter Stimmung, mal depressiv, ein Rasender, der seine wüsten Katastrophenvisionen in grandiose Gedichte und Prosatexte packte, der Tod und Verwesung beschwor, wieder und wieder, ein Dichter, der im Grauen zu Hause war, in den Finsternissen dieser spießigen, versteinerten Gesellschaft, die ohnmächtig dem Krieg entgegendämmerte. Heym, zeigt uns dieses Buch, hatte Verwandte, nahe und sehr ferne, Männer wie Andreas Gryphius, der dem Horror des Dreißigjährigen Krieges Ausdruck gab, oder van Gogh, Baudelaire und Rimbaud. Decker, der immer wieder ganze Gedichte zitiert, öffnet, während er Heyms Lebensgeschichte erzählt, den Blick für die Dimension dieser Dichtung, für den Geist, aus dem sie kommt, für die Fäden, die sie mit Ideen und Anschauungen früherer Jahrhunderte verbindet, mit der Mystik Jakob Böhmes, dem Sprachmagiker Novalis oder den Surrealisten. Heym, der 1908 nach Berlin zurückkehrte, hier weiter studierte, Referendar in Lichterfelde, dann in Wusterhausen an der Dosse wurde und an Pfempferts Zeitschrift »Die Aktion« mitarbeitete, ist in Deckers kluger, konzentrierter, essayistisch-erzählerischer Studie ein Poet und Prosaist der Endzeit, gezeichnet von Schrecken, Tod und Verfall, der Visionär, der im schmalen, epochalen Werk die nahende Apokalypse vorwegnimmt.
Am 2. Juli 1911 hatte Georg Heym einen Traum. Er stand an einem großen See, ging ein paar Schritte und versank, aber er gab sich nicht auf, schwamm und landete in einer sandigen, sonnigen Bucht. Im zugefrorenen Wannsee, anderthalb Jahre danach, war er verloren.

Gunnar Decker: Georg Heym. »Ich, ein zerrissenes Meer«, Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, 176 S., geb., 19,95 €.

---

Georg Heym: Die Morgue (Auszug)

Die Wärter schleichen auf den Sohlen leise,
Wo durch das Tuch es weiß von Schädeln blinkt.
Wir, Tote, sammeln uns zur letzten Reise
Durch Wüsten weit und Meer und Winterwind ...

Vorbei ist unsre Zeit. Es ist vollbracht.
Wir sind herunter. Seht, wir sind nun tot.
In weißen Augen wohnt uns schon die Nacht,
Wir schauen nimmermehr ein Morgenrot.

Tretet zurück von unserer Majestät.
Befaßt uns nicht, die schon das Land erschaun
Im Winter weit, davor ein Schatten steht,
Des schwarze Schulter ragt im Abendgraun.

Dream of the Death of Georg Heym

Traum vom Tod Georg Heyms
by Richard Anders


Von einer Sekunde
von einer Eisscholle
zur andern springend
während von einer Sekunde
zur anderen
eine Eisscholle von der anderen treibt
eine Sekunde von der anderen treibt
ein Himmelskörper vom anderen treibt
weiß er
daß zwischen Eisschollen
und Sekunden
und Himmelskörpern
der Abstand endlich
endlos wird
und er
wie weit er auch springt
über kurz oder lang
einmal zu kurz springt

© Edition Galrev
From: Richard Anders, Die Pendeluhren haben Ausgangssperre (Berlin: Edition Galrev, 1998)

Dream of the Death of Georg Heym

From one second
from one ice floe
jumping to the other
while from one second
to the other
one ice floe flows from the other
one second flows from the other
one heavenly body flows from the other
he knows
that between ice floes
and seconds
and heavenly bodies
the distance finally
becomes infinite
and he
no matter how far he jumps
whether short or long
finally falls short
[Translation mine]

February 07, 2007 at 02:47 PM | Permalink

this is my spanish tranlation of anders' poem:

desde un segundo

desde un tempano de hielo

saltando al otro

mientras desde un segundo

al otro

un témpano de hielo fluye desde el otro

un segundo fluye desde el otro

un cuerpo celestial fluye desde el otro

él sabe

que entre témpanos de hielo

y segundos

y cuerpos celestiales

la distancia finalmente

se torna infinita

y él

no importa cuán lejos salte

ya sea corto o largo

finalmente se queda corto

 

Posted by: gongora.jose | July 21, 2010 at 10:07 PM