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fantasmagorie - Mindaugas Gabrenas

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 04:07:25 -0700

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Sonnet XLII" ~

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Sat, 21 Feb 2009 21:21:42 -0800

And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.

And if, as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon
my spirit darkens and goes out, and soft strange gloom
pervades my movements and my thoughts and words
then I shall know that I am walking still
with God, we are close together now the moon's in shadow.

And if, as autumn deepens and darkens
I feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems that break in storms
and trouble and dissolution and distress
and then the softness of deep shadows folding,
folding around my soul and spirit, around my lips
so sweet, like a swoon, or more like the drowse of a low, sad song
singing darker than the nightingale, on, on to the solstice
and the silence of short days, the silence of the year, the shadow,
then I shall know that my life is moving still
with the dark earth, and drenched
with the deep oblivion of earth's lapse and renewal.

And if, in the changing phases of man's life
I fall in sickness and in misery
my wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead
and strength is gone, and my life
is only the leavings of a life:

and still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches
of renewal
odd, wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers
such as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me

then I must know that still
I am in the hands of the unknown God,
he is breaking me down to his own oblivion
to send me forth on a new morning, a new man.

-- D.H. Lawrence, "Shadows" ~

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Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:55:44 -0800

Parted by death, we'd strangle on our tears;
parting in life, we've memories to cling to.

There is pestilence south of the river,
you are exiled, and I have not a word.

Old friend, I see you only in dreams,
but you know my heart is with you.

It's not the same as having your living spirit;
that road's too long to be measured.

Your spirit is in the heart of green maple,
your spirit returns to the dark frontier.

Tangled in the nets of law, tell me,
how can the spirit soar?

Moonlight fills my room. Your poor face
shines, reflected in the rafters.

The waters are deep, the waves wide.
May peaceful serpents pass you by.

-- Tu Fu (712-770) "Dreaming of Li Po" (Part 1)
translated by Sam Hamill, from "Crossing the Yellow River:
Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese." ~

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Sun, 19 Oct 2008 09:36:22 -0700

I took it easy and forgot the reasons.
Found a casual smile among my travel stuff
And put it on. I'm through.

I walk and whistle, joined to the sparrow
Fluttering over grave stones in the church yard -
Each one resembles a farewell postcard from someone
Who has been forgotten a lifetime ago.
Two lovers lie in young amateurish grass.
We, the sparrow, and me are singing for them.
We are minor fragments of divine comedy.
They play the main part and do not reply to us,
Because of their mouths indulged
In a mutual song of love composed in present tense.
They are in the middle of the stage. The sparrow, alongside,
Plays the future, the one who is looking for love.
I have lost it. I am the past part. But

The play goes on, and the graves are blooming.

--Sergey Mikhaylov, "In A Mood" ~

JPG: Photos: &whimsical& by Arielynn Cheng

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:52:42 -0700

Try as you might, you can't leave it. Even during this reign of witches, among the stubble and ruins they leave in their wake, on the scorched ground, the scarred watersheds, the gasping fish, you can't leave it.

Their reign is one of imagining. They imagine the world and break it into the fragments of their shame. Destructors every one.

But you can't leave it. You occupy ground so thin it is transparent, so thin you can read the letters of their name in the abyss directly under you. This is what they allow you, but you can't leave.

So you watch the spectacle from within--a vortex of image, of screens and projections, shadows and light, the longest running cartoon ever produced, the deepest cave ever discovered. This is what they have for us. And this is what we live in, always at a remove.

--Brian Strang, excerpt from "swimming" ~

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Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:40:20 -0700

τ ϒ

And even in our sleep
Pain which cannot forget
Falls drop by drop
Upon the heart
Until in our own despair
Against our will
Comes wisdom through
the awful grace of God.

--Aeschylus, as quoted by Robert F. Kennedy ~

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Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:00:25 -0800

I say Live, Live because of the sun,
the dream, the excitable gift.

--Anne Sexton, from "Live" ~

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Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:00:07 -0800

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Sun, 13 Jan 2008 09:44:03 -0800

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves ... Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

--Rainer Maria Rilke, excerpt from "Letters to a Young Poet" ~

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Sat, 12 Jan 2008 17:23:12 -0800

She said:
If you cling to me you will cling to life,
you will travel and you will not meet
the rhinoceros or the tiger;
you will go without arms and without a shield
into the midst of the combantants.
The rhinoceros will have nowhere to put its horn,
nor the tiger its claws, nor the blade its edge.
Death will find no place.

--Carlos Barbarito, excerpt from "Bestiarium of love" ~