Art is a journey into the most unknown thing of all - oneself. Nobody knows his own frontiers… I don’t think I’d ever want to take a road if I knew where it led.

Louis Kahan
Sad love song

Only my life will die for me, in truth,
sometime.
Only the grass knows the taste of the earth.
In truth, only my blood misses
my heart when it leaves.
The air is tall, you are tall,
my sadness is tall.
There comes a time when horses die.
There comes a time when machines grow old.
There comes a time when cold rains fall,
and every woman wears your head-
and clothes.
There also comes a huge white bird
and lays the moon in the sky.

Nichita Stanescu

Silence

Such a deep silence surrounds me, that I think I hear
moonbeams striking on the windows.

In my chest,
a strange voice is awakens
and a song plays inside me
a longing that is not mine.

They say that ancestors, dead before their time,
with young blood still in their veins,
with great passion in their blood,
with the sun still burning in their blood
come,
come to continue to live
within us
their unfinished lives.

Such a deep silence surrounds me, that I think I hear
moonbeams striking on the windows.

O, who knows, soul of mine, in which chest you will sing
you also, after centuries,
in soft ropes of silence,
on harps of obscurity - the drowned longing
and the pleasure of living torn? Who knows?
Who knows?
By Lucian Blaga
via

    In dreams, through longings, we can see—
All latent in the dust of gold
These forests that perhaps could be—
But that will never, ever, grow.
On horseback at dawn

By Nichita Stanescu

Silence strikes the tree trunks, upon itself retracing,
turns to distance, turns to sand.
I have turned my only face toward the sun,
my shoulders scatter leaves in this racing.
Cutting through the field - up on two shoes
my horse leaps, steaming, from the clay.
Ave, I am turning to you, I, Ave!
The sun has burst across the heavens, crying.

Stone drums are sounding, the sun grows,
the vault of heaven, alive with eagles, before him,
collapses into steps of air, and glows.
Silence turns to blue wind,
the spur of my shadow grows
in the ribs of the field.

The sun snaps the horizon in two.
The vault of heaven pulls down its dying prison cells.
Blue spears, with no returning,
I discard my visions, both of them -
they meet him, sweet and grave.
My horse rises on two shoes.
Ave, tide of light, ave!

The sun ascends from objects, crying,
shakes the borders, voiceless and grave.
My soul meets Him, Ave!
My horse rises on two shoes.
My pale mane burns on the wind.

From the book “Bas-Relief with Heroes”
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.

chagalov: Italian poet Alda Merini, 1996 -by Ferdinando Scianna La mia poesia è alacre come il fuoco,trascorre tra le mie dita come un rosario.Non prego perché sono un poeta della sventurache tace, a volte, le doglie di un parto dentro le ore,sono il poeta che grida e che gioca con le sue grida,sono il poeta che canta e non trova parole,sono la paglia arida sopra cui batte il suono,sono la ninnanànna che fa piangere i figli,sono la vanagloria che si lascia cadere,il manto di metallo di una lunga preghieradel passato cordoglio che non vede la luce. Ma poésie est vive comme le feu,elle glisse entre mes doigts comme un rosaire.Je ne prie pas, car je suis un poète de la disgrâcequi tait parfois le travail d’une naissance d’entre les heures,je suis le poète qui crie et joue avec ses cris,je suis le poète qui chante et ne trouve pas ses mots,je suis la paille sèche où vient battre le son,je suis la berceuse qui fait pleurer les enfants,je suis la vanité qui se laisse chuter,le manteau de métal d’une longue prièred’un vieux deuil du passé et qui est sans lumière. — Alda Merini, in ‘Alda Merini, La volpe e il sipario’, Girardi, 1997, in ‘Poésie 109, 30 ans de poésie italienne’, 1, Éditions Belin, 2004, p. 229 photo from magnum
    

Unwords


He offered me a leaf like a hand with fingers.
I offered him a hand like a leaf with teeth.
He offered me a branch like an arm.
I offered him my arm like a branch.
He tipped his trunk towards me
like a shoulder.
I tipped my shoulder to him
like a knotted trunk.
I could hear his sap quicken, beating
like blood.
He could hear my blood slacken like rising sap.
I passed through him.
He passed through me.
I remained a solitary tree.
He
a solitary man.
    Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth,
Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.
    

Ts'ai Chi'h


The petals fall in the fountain,
the orange-coloured rose-leaves,
Their ochre clings to the stone.
    

Fan-Piece, for Her Imperial Lord


O Fan of white silk,
clear as frost on the grass-blade,
You also are laid aside.
    

De Ægypto

I even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.

I have beheld the Lady of Life,
I, even I, who fly with the swallows.

Green and gray is her raiment,
Trailing along the wind.

I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.

Manus animam pinxit,
My pen is in my hand

To write the acceptable word… .
My mouth to chant the pure singing!

Who hath the mouth to receive it,
The song of the Lotus of Kumi?

I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.

I am flame that riseth in the sun,
I, even I, who fly with the swallows.

The moon is upon my forehead,
The winds are under my lips.

The moon is a great pearl in the waters of sapphire,
Cool to my fingers the flowing waters.

I, even I, am he who knoweth the roads
Through the sky, and the wind thereof is my body.
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