Der Herbsttag by Johann Heinrich Voss

The greatest weight.-- What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!”
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?.. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?

from Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, s.341, Walter Kaufmann transl.

My genial spirits fail;
And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?
It were a vain endeavour,
Though I should gaze for ever
On that green light that lingers in the west:
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

Coleridge

The following poem by14th century poet and mystic, Hafiz, sums all this up quite beautifully:

Absolutely Clear
Don’t surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.
Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.
Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,
My need of God
Absolutely
Clear.

Jalaluddin Rumi
Rumi was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic. His poems have been widely translated into many of the world’s languages, and he has been described as the most popular poet and the best-selling poet in the United States.

“There is a loneliness more precious than life. There is a freedom more precious than the world. Infinitely more precious than life and the world is that moment when one is alone with God.”

A holocaust poem

Miklos Radnoti

HOW OTHERS SEE…

How others see this region, I cannot understand:
to me, this little country is menaced motherland
engulfed by flames, the world of my childhood swaying far,
and I am grown from this land as tender branches are
from trees. And may my body sink into this soil in the end.
When plants reach out towards me, I greet them as a friend
and know their names and flowers. I am at home here, knowing
the people on the road and why and where they are going –
and how I know the meaning when, by a summer lane,
the sunset paints the walls with a liquid flame of pain!
The pilot cannot help seeing a war map from the sky,
he can’t tell below the home of Vörösmarty Mihály;*
what can he identify there? grim barracks and factories,
but I see steeples, oxen, farms, grasshoppers and bees;
his lens spies out the vital production plants, the fields,
but I can see the worker, afraid below, who shields
his labour, a singing orchard, a vineyard and a wood,
among the graves a granny mourning her widowhood;
and what may seem a plant or a rail line that must be wrecked
is just a signal-house with the keeper standing erect
and waving his red flag, lots of children around the guard;
and a shepherd dog might roll in the dust in a factory yard;
and there’s the park with the footprints of past loves and the flavour
of childhood kisses – the honey, the cranberry I still savour,
and on my way to school, by the kerbside, to postpone
a spot-test one certain morning, I stepped upon a stone:
look! There’s the stone whose magic the pilot cannot see
for no instrument would merge it in his topography.

True, guilty are we all here, our people as the rest,
we know our faults, we know how and when we have transgressed,
but there are blameless lives too of toil and poetry and passion,
and infants also, with infinite capacity for compassion –
they will protect its glow while in gloomy shelters until
once more our land is marked out by the finger of peace, then they will
respond to our muffled words with new voices fresh and bright.
Spread your vast wings above us, protective cloud of night.

(Jan. 17, 1944)

  • Mihály Vörösmarty (1800-1855), poet

Rattle: Poetry

… WITHOUT PRETENSION SINCE 1995.

“Ask” by Thomas Mann

ASK

ask for forgiveness again the man with the dark skin

sat in the crevasse of the building and asked for spare

change and you lied again his dry face turned open like

a palm and smacked you with shame and you should feel

ashamed you saw on his face distorted features you still

recognized as human he was no animal other than the

animal each of us is despite the lie we tell that we are not

that lie is a cruelty which you hope dissolves with the wave

of a forgiving god a god who must face you as you faced

the man there but your god appearing within you will also turn

away and will leave you speechless won’t he just as this man

in his rags is speechless to you.

Caresse Crosby:

believe my ardour for invention springs from his loins. I can’t say that the brassiere will ever take as great a place in history as the steamboat, but I did invent it.
Caresse Crosby

Harry Crosby

Harry Crosby

Harry Crosby (-) was an American heir, bon vivant, minor poet, and for some, an exemplar of the Lost Generation in American literature.

The Black Sun Press

I exchange eyes with the Mad Queen
the mirror crashes against my face
and bursts into a thousand suns
all over the city flags crackle and bang
fog horns scream in the harbor
the wind hurricanes through the window
and I begin to dance the dance of the
Kurd Shepherds

I stamp upon the floor
I whirl like dervishes

colors revolve dressing and undressing
I lash them with my fury
stark white with iron black
harsh red with blue
marble green with bright orange
and only gold remains naked

columns of steel rise and plunge
emerge and disappear
pistoning in the river of my soul
thrusting upwards
thrusting downwards
thrusting inwards
thrusting outwards
penetrating

I roar with pain

black-footed ferrets disappear into holes

the sun tattooed on my back
begins to spin
faster and faster
whirring whirling
throwing out a glory of sparks
sparks shoot off into space
sparks into shooting stars
shooting stars collide with comets

Explosions
Naked Colors Explode
Into
Red Disaster

I crash out through the
window naked, widespread
upon a
Heliosaurus
I uproot an obelisk and plunge
it into the ink-pot of the
Black Sea
I write the word
SUN

What is your feeling about the revolutionary spirit of your age, as expressed, for instance, in such movements as communism, surrealism, anarchism?
The revolutionary spirit of our age (as expressed by communism, surrealism, anarchism, madness) is a hot firebrand thrust into the dark lantern of the world.
In Nine Decades
a Mad Queen shall be born.

Mad Queen Aeronautical CorporationCyclone 3030Mad Queen Chemical CorporationGunpowder 3328Mad Queen Company for the Manufacture of Hand GrenadesGunpowder 8878Mad Queen Drug Store of Tonics and StimulantsDetonator 8808Mad Queen Dynamiting and Blasting CompanyRackarock 4196Mad Queen Express ElevatorsSpeedway 7898Mad Queen Fireworks CorporationHurricane 1144Mad Queen Garage for Vandals of the RoadSpeedway 3984Mad Queen Hospital for Electrifying the HeartCyclone 5679Mad Queen Jazz BandDetonator 8814Mad Queen Laboratory for the Manufacture of AphrodisiacsGunpowder 0090Mad Queen Lighting and Fuel CorporationGunpowder 4301Mad Queen Manufacturers of High ExplosivesThunderbolt 4414Mad Queen Racing AutomobilesSpeedway 6655Mad Queen Rum DistilleryExplosion 1152Mad Queen SkyscrapersHurricane 7444Mad Queen Society for the Vivisection of the PhilistinesThunderbolt 8778Mad Queen Society of IncendiariesRackarock 2254Mad Queen Steam Locomotive CompanySpeedway 1010Mad Queen Steam Roller ManufacturersDetonator 1234Mad Queen Windmills and WeathervanesHurricane 0164

Like mutilated skulls they roll
Across the soul’s white sand
And only she can make a wall
And only she can understand
Let my experience be a lamp displayed
To light the untried lover to his maid.

the colors have begun to form
silvergray with cramoisy and gold
into an arrow carved by storm
beyond the fear of new and old
and where the arrow fits the bow
the untroubled darkness of her eyes
watches the red-gold target grow
strong is the sun that purifies

but I have sought in vain to find
the riddle of the bow and archer
there were no shadows left behind
after the heart’s departure.

An Arab beats upon a kettle drum,
And tuneless is the wailing of the flutes
As on the sands a slavegirl executes
Her dance of wantonwild delirium;
Her body swaying like a pendulum
Backwards and forwards, while in evolutes
She weaves and weaves before fierce pagan brutes
Who gaze at her in wonder that is dumb.
I look upon her limbs bronzed by the sun,
And see within her eyes strange caravans,
Marching all day across blank desert lands,
Until they come at night to where in rings
The Nomad fires glimmer, one by one,
around the tombs of longforgotten kings.

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

BY THOMAS GRAY

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

     The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

     And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimm’ring landscape on the sight,

     And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,

     And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow’r

     The moping owl does to the moon complain

Of such, as wand’ring near her secret bow’r,

     Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade,

     Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

     The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,

     The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,

The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

     No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,

     Or busy housewife ply her evening care:

No children run to lisp their sire’s return,

     Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

     Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;

How jocund did they drive their team afield!

     How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

     Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;

Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile

     The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,

     And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,

Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour.

     The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,

     If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise,

Where thro’ the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault

     The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust

     Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?

Can Honour’s voice provoke the silent dust,

     Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

     Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;

Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway’d,

     Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page

     Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;

Chill Penury repress’d their noble rage,

     And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

     The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:

Full many a flow’r is born to blush unseen,

     And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast

     The little tyrant of his fields withstood;

Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,

     Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

Th’ applause of list’ning senates to command,

     The threats of pain and ruin to despise,

To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,

     And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib’d alone

     Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,

     And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,

     To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,

Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride

     With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,

     Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;

Along the cool sequester’d vale of life

     They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev’n these bones from insult to protect,

     Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck’d,

     Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th’ unletter’d muse,

     The place of fame and elegy supply:

And many a holy text around she strews,

     That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,

     This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,

     Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,

     Some pious drops the closing eye requires;

Ev’n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,

     Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who mindful of th’ unhonour’d Dead

     Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;

If chance, by lonely contemplation led,

     Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,

     "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn

Brushing with hasty steps the dews away

     To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech

     That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,

His listless length at noontide would he stretch,

     And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,

     Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove,

Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,

     Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

"One morn I miss’d him on the custom’d hill,

     Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree;

Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

     Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

"The next with dirges due in sad array

     Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne.

Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay,

     Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

THE EPITAPH

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth

   A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.

Fair Science frown’d not on his humble birth,

   And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,

   Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:

He gave to Mis’ry all he had, a tear,

   He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

   Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,

(There they alike in trembling hope repose)

   The bosom of his Father and his God.

BY THOMAS GRAY

© 2020 Poetry Foundation

Gary SnyderMid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout

Down valley a smoke hazeThree days heat, after five days rainPitch glows on the fir-cones Across rocks and meadowsSwarms of new flies.I cannot remember things I once read A few friends, but they are in cities.Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cupLooking down for milesThrough high still air.

m.poemhunter.com/poem/vision-3/

Harry Crosby

I wouldn’t want to be faster or greener than now if you were with me you were the best of all my days

Frank O’hara

Theories of evolution must provide for the creative acts which brought such theories into existence.”
— Michael Polanyi

There is a gentle thought that often springs
to life in me, because it speaks of you.
Its reasoning about love’s so sweet and true,
the heart is conquered, and accepts these things.
‘Who is this’ the mind enquires of the heart,
‘who comes here to seduce our intellect?
Is his power so great we must reject
every other intellectual art?
The heart replies ‘O, meditative mind
this is love’s messenger and newly sent
to bring me all Love’s words and desires.
His life, and all the strength that he can find,
from her sweet eyes are mercifully lent,
who feels compassion for our inner fires.’

by Dante Alighieri

Black Death poem anynomous

{ up to 200 million people died from it, }

Black death
Black death

“Death lives, tangled in the forest of darkness.
The black bloodhound stalks
the beasts in your dreaming.
The sun will be sucked from your sight
to blind you…”

… “was late in December, the sky turned to snow
All round the day was going down slow
Night like a river beginning to flow
I felt the beat of my mind go
Drifting into time passages
Years go falling in the fading light
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight
Well I’m not the kind to live in the past
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on are the things that don’t last
Well it’s just now and then my line gets cast into these
Time passages
There’s something back here that you left behind
Oh time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight
Hear the echoes and feel yourself starting to turn
Don’t know why you should feel
That there’s something to learn
It’s just a game that you play
Well the picture is changing
Now you’re part of a crowd
They’re laughing at something
And the music’s loud
A girl comes towards you
You once used to know
You reach out your hand
But you’re all alone, in those
Time passages
I know you’re in there, you’re just out of sight
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight”.

was late in December, the sky turned to snow
All round the day was going down slow
Night like a river beginning to flow
I felt the beat of my mind go
Drifting into time passages
Years go falling in the fading light
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight
Well I’m not the kind to live in the past
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on are the things that don’t last
Well it’s just now and then my line gets cast into these
Time passages
There’s something back here that you left behind
Oh time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight
Hear the echoes and feel yourself starting to turn
Don’t know why you should feel
That there’s something to learn
It’s just a game that you play
Well the picture is changing
Now you’re part of a crowd
They’re laughing at something
And the music’s loud
A girl comes towards you
You once used to know
You reach out your hand
But you’re all alone, in those
Time passages
I know you’re in there, you’re just out of sight
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

youtu.be/Hh6V_BqEUjo

was late in December, the sky turned to snow
All round the day was going down slow
Night like a river beginning to flow
I felt the beat of my mind go
Drifting into time passages
Years go falling in the fading light
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight
Well I’m not the kind to live in the past
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on are the things that don’t last
Well it’s just now and then my line gets cast into these
Time passages
There’s something back here that you left behind
Oh time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight
Hear the echoes and feel yourself starting to turn
Don’t know why you should feel
That there’s something to learn
It’s just a game that you play
Well the picture is changing
Now you’re part of a crowd
They’re laughing at something
And the music’s loud
A girl comes towards you
You once used to know
You reach out your hand
But you’re all alone, in those
Time passages
I know you’re in there, you’re just out of sight
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

However apparently insignificant the event, whether it be the ring of tobacco ash surrounding the table, the direction from which the wild geese first appeared, or a series of seemingly meaningless human movements, he couldn’t afford to take his eyes off it and must note it all down, since only by doing so could he hope not to vanish one day and fall a silent captive to the infernal arrangement whereby the world decomposes but is at the same time constantly in the process of self-construction.” ― Satantango

Krasznahorkai Laszlo

It was amazing, astounding, this loss of communication with the world. It was exactly as if the world had ceased, been blotted out." ~ The Scarlet Plague by Jack London

Anguish

Is it possible that She will have me forgiven for ambitions continually crushed,–
that an affluent end will make up for the ages of indigence,–
that a day of success will lull us to sleep on the shame of our fatal incompetence?
(O palms! diamond!-- Love! strength!-- higher than all joys and all fame!–
in any case, everywhere-- demon, god,-- Youth of this being: myself!)
That the accidents of scientific wonders and the movements of social brotherhood
will be cherished as the progressive restitution of our original freedom?..
But the Vampire who makes us behave orders us to enjoy ourselves
with what she leaves us, or in other words to be more amusing.
Rolled in our wounds through the wearing air and the sea;
in torments through the silence of the murderous waters and air;
in tortures that laugh in the terrible surge of their silence.

by Arthur Rimbaud

The Vampire
You who, like the stab of a knife,
Entered my plaintive heart;
You who, strong as a herd
Of demons, came, ardent and adorned,
To make your bed and your domain
Of my humiliated mind
— Infamous bitch to whom I’m bound
Like the convict to his chain,
Like the stubborn gambler to the game,
Like the drunkard to his wine,
Like the maggots to the corpse,
— Accurst, accurst be you!
I begged the swift poniard
To gain for me my liberty,
I asked perfidious poison
To give aid to my cowardice.
Alas! both poison and the knife
Contemptuously said to me:
“You do not deserve to be freed
From your accursed slavery,
Fool! — if from her domination
Our efforts could deliver you,
Your kisses would resuscitate
The cadaver of your vampire!”

Charles Baudelaire

Hymns To The Night : 1

Before all the wondrous shows of the widespread space around him, what living,
sentient thing loves not the all-joyous light – with its colors, its rays and
undulations, its gentle omnipresence in the form of the wakening Day? The giant-
world of the unresting constellations inhales it as the innermost soul of life, and
floats dancing in its blue flood – the sparkling, ever-tranquil stone, the
thoughtful, imbibing plant, and the wild, burning multiform beast inhales it – but
more than all, the lordly stranger with the sense-filled eyes, the swaying walk,
and the sweetly closed, melodious lips. Like a king over earthly nature, it rouses
every force to countless transformations, binds and unbinds innumerable
alliances, hangs its heavenly form around every earthly substance. – Its
presence alone reveals the marvelous splendor of the kingdoms of the world.
Aside I turn to the holy, unspeakable, mysterious Night. Afar lies the world –
sunk in a deep grave – waste and lonely is its place. In the chords of the bosom
blows a deep sadness. I am ready to sink away in drops of dew, and mingle with
the ashes. – The distances of memory, the wishes of youth, the dreams of
childhood, the brief joys and vain hopes of a whole long life, arise in gray
garments, like an evening vapor after the sunset. In other regions the light has
pitched its joyous tents. What if it should never return to its children, who wait
for it with the faith of innocence?
What springs up all at once so sweetly boding in my heart, and stills the soft air
of sadness? Dost thou also take a pleasure in us, dark Night? What holdest thou
under thy mantle, that with hidden power affects my soul? Precious balm drips
from thy hand out of its bundle of poppies. Thou upliftest the heavy-laden wings
of the soul. Darkly and inexpressibly are we moved – joy-startled, I see a grave
face that, tender and worshipful, inclines toward me, and, amid manifold
entangled locks, reveals the youthful loveliness of the Mother. How poor and
childish a thing seems to me now the Light – how joyous and welcome the
departure of the day – because the Night turns away from thee thy servants,
you now strew in the gulfs of space those flashing globes, to proclaim thy
omnipotence – thy return – in seasons of thy absence. More heavenly than
those glittering stars we hold the eternal eyes which the Night hath opened
within us. Farther they see than the palest of those countless hosts – needing no
aid from the light, they penetrate the depths of a loving soul – that fills a loftier
region with bliss ineffable. Glory to the queen of the world, to the great prophet
of the holier worlds, to the guardian of blissful love – she sends thee to me –
thou tenderly beloved – the gracious sun of the Night, – now am I awake – for
now am I thine and mine – thou hast made me know the Night

Novalis

It is not right that everyone should read the pages which follow; only a few will be able to savour this bitter fruit with impunity. Consequently, shrinking soul, turn on your heels and go back before penetrating further into such uncharted, perilous wastelands. Listen well to what I say: turn on your heels and go back, not forward,[…]
Comte de Lautréamont