I became Gauleiter in 1927.
quote by Fritz Sauckel
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
Aldous Huxley in Proper Studies, 1927
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The 1927 Wimbledon finals were almost put off because of the rain, which threatened every moment.
quote by Helen Wills Moody
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When I graduated from Santa Monica High in 1927, I was voted the girl most likely to succeed. I didn't realize it would take so long.
quote by Gloria Stuart
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Following the rise of the Labour Party it seemed reasonable, in 1927, to expect, or at least hope, that co-operation for the common good might gradually replace the competitiveness of capitalism.
quote by Dora Russell
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The Man I Love
Someday hell come along, the man I love
And hell be big and strong, the man I love
And when he comes my way
Ill do my best to make him stay
Hell look at me and smile,
Ill understand
And in a little while hell take my hand
And though it seems absurd
I know we both wont say a word
Maybe I shall meet him sunday
Maybe monday, maybe not
Still Im sure to meet him one day
Maybe tuesday will be my good news day
Hell build a little home, just meant for two
From which well never roam; who would, would you?
And so all else above Im waiting for the man I love
The man I love had the odd distinction of becoming a recognized standard despite its having been (1)
Thrown out of the musical for which it had been written
(lady, be good! in 1924); (2) sung in a show that flopped on the road (the 1927 strike up the
Band); (3) added to and then cut from a third musical
(rosalie); (4) rejected when strike up the band was successfully revised in 1929. the reason for
The last situation was ironic: the song had become too well
Known!
song performed by by Ella Fitzgerald
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Trouble In Mind
(1927) Richard Jones
Trouble in mind, I'm blue
But I won't be blue always,
'Cause the sun's gonna shine
In my backdoor some day.
I'm all alone at midnight
And my lamp is burnin' low
Ain't never had so much
Trouble in my life before.
Trouble in mind, that's true
I have almost lost my mind,
Life ain't worth livin,
Sometimes I feel like dyin'.
Goin' down to the river
Gonna take my ol' rockin' chair
And if the blues don't leave me
I'll rock away from there.
You been a hard-hearted mama
Great God! You been unkind
Gonna be a cold, cold papa
Cause you to lose your mind.
I'm gonna lay my head down
On some lonesome railroad line
And let the two nineteen
Pacify my mind.
Well it's trouble, oh trouble
Trouble on my worried mind,
When you see me laughin'
I'm laughin' just to keep from cryin'.
song performed by by Nina Simone
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Trouble In The Mind
(1927) richard jones
Trouble in mind, Im blue
But I wont be blue always,
cause the suns gonna shine
In my backdoor some day.
Im all alone at midnight
And my lamp is burnin low
Aint never had so much
Trouble in my life before.
Trouble in mind, thats true
I have almost lost my mind,
Life aint worth livin,
Sometimes I feel like dyin.
Goin down to the river
Gonna take my ol rockin chair
And if the blues dont leave me
Ill rock away from there.
You been a hard-hearted mama
Great god! you been unkind
Gonna be a cold, cold papa
Cause you to lose your mind.
Im gonna lay my head down
On some lonesome railroad line
And let the two nineteen
Pacify my mind.
Well its trouble, oh trouble
Trouble on my worried mind,
When you see me laughin
Im laughin just to keep from cryin.
song performed by by Nina Simone
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Oysters And Pearls
Lindbergh left Long Island in 1927
Thumbed his nose at gravity
And climbed into the heavens.
When he returned to earth that night everything changed,
For the pilot and the planet, everything was rearranged.
We're a pretty mixed up bunch
Of crazy human beans
It's written on our rocket ships
And in early cave wall scenes.
How does it happen,
How do we know,
Who sits and watches
Who does the show?
[Chorus:]
Some people love to lead
And some refuse to dance.
Some play it safely, other take a chance.
Still it's all a mystery
This place we call the world
Where most live as oysters
While some become pearls.
Elvis was the only man from Northeast Mississippi
Who could shake his hips and still be loved by rednecks, cops and hippies.
It's something more than DNA that tells us who we are
It's method and it's magic, we are of the stars.
[Chorus]
Some never fade away, some crash and burn
Some make the world go round, other watch it turn.
Still it's all a mystery
This place we call the world.
Most are fine as oysters
While some become pearls.
song performed by by Jimmy Buffett
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Oysters & Pearls
By: jimmy buffett, mac mcanally
Lindbergh left long island in 1927
He thumbed his nose at gravity
And climbed into the heavens.
When he returned to earth that night
Everything had changed
For the pilot and the planet
Everything was rearranged
Were a pretty mixed up bunch
Of crazy human beings
Its written on our rocketships
And in early cave wall scenes
How does it happen?
How do we know?
Who sits and watches?
Who does the show?
Some people love to lead
Some refuse to dance
Some people play it safely
Others take a chance
Still, its all a mystery
This place we call the world
Where most live as oysters
While some become pearls
Now elvis was the only man
From north east mississippi
Who could shake his hips
And still be loved by
Rednecks, cops and hippies
Its something more than dna
That tells us who we are
Its method and magic
We are of the stars
Some never fade away
Some crash and burn
Some make the world go round
Others watch it turn
Still, its all a mystery,
This place we call the world
Most are fine as oysters
While some become pearls
song performed by by Jimmy Buffett
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ol' Man River
Written by - Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein II
Ol' man river, that ol' man river
He must know something, but he don't say nothing
That ol' man river, he just keep rollin' along
He don't plant 'taters
He don't plant cotton
Cause them that plants them is soon forgotten
And ol' man river, he just keeps rollin' along
Cause you and me, we sweat and strain
Body all achin' and wracked with pain
Tote that barge, lift that bale
Get a little drunk and you land in jail
But I get weary and sick of tryin'
Cause I'm tired of livin'
That ol' man river, he just keeps rollin' along
You and me, we sweat and strain
Body all achin' and wracked with pain
Tote that barge, lift that bale
Get a little drunk and you land in jail
But I get weary and sick of tryin'
Cause I'm tired of livin'
But I'm scared of dyin'
That ol' man river, he just keeps rollin' along
1927 T.B. Harms Company
song performed by by Jim Croce
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RESEARCH ON RECURSIVE FUNCTIONS, LOGIC AND THEORY OF DEMONSTRATION - In 1927, the Romanian mathematician Gabriel Sudan (1899-1977), with his doctorate at David Hilbert, gave the first example of a recursive function that is not primitive recursive, before Wilhelm Ackermann ( 1928). Between 1934-1942, at the University of Iași, the mathematician Grigore C. Moisil (1906-1973) dealt with "Logic and the theory of demonstration" and aiming to "learn mathematics from the beginning", he studied at the "wonderful library" of the Mathematical Seminar in Iași, the book by Hilbert and Ackermann, but also the 3 volumes “Principia Mathematica” by Russel and Whitehead. Professor Moisil learned about Lukasiewicz's multi-valued logics in the spring of 1935, when T. Kotarbinski, a professor at the University of Warsaw, gave 3 public lectures and a short lecture at the Mathematical Seminar on Lukasiewicz's writing without parentheses. .
Marin Vlada in ROINFO Romanian Informatics 2018-2022
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Two Sonnets In Memory
(Nicola Sacco -- Bartolomeo Vanzetti)
Executed August 23, 1927
I
As men have loved their lovers in times past
And sung their wit, their virtue and their grace,
So have we loved sweet Justice to the last,
That now lies here in an unseemly place.
The child will quit the cradle and grow wise
And stare on beauty till his senses drown;
Yet shall be seen no more by mortal eyes
Such beauty as here walked and here went down.
Like birds that hear the winter crying plain
Her courtiers leave to seek the clement south;
Many have praised her, we alone remain
To break a fist against the lying mouth
Of any man who says this was not so:
Though she be dead now, as indeed we know.
II
Where can the heart be hidden in the ground
And be at peace, and be at peace forever,
Under the world, untroubled by the sound
Of mortal tears, that cease from pouring never?
Well for the heart, by stern compassion harried,
If death be deeper than the churchmen say, --
Gone from this world indeed what's graveward carried,
And laid to rest indeed what's laid away.
Anguish enough while yet the indignant breather
Have blood to spurt upon the oppressor's hand;
Who would eternal be, and hang in ether
A stuffless ghost above his struggling land,
Retching in vain to render up the groan
That is not there, being aching dust's alone?
poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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If life goes from bad to worst?
*Günter Wilhelm Grass (born 16 October 1927) is a Nobel Prize-winning German author, poet, playwright, sculptor and artist.
He was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdań sk, Poland) . In 1945, he came as a refugee to West Germany, but in his fiction he frequently returns to the Danzig of his childhood.
He is best known for his first novel, The Tin Drum, a key text in European magic realism and the first part of his Danzig Trilogy. His works frequently have a left wing political dimension and Grass has been an active supporter of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
If life goes from bad to worst?
Picked him by an Ambulance
And taken to the Hospital
The old Blacksmith
Who collapsed on the modern concrete road.
Hard to recognize
Either Hispanic, Asian or African
From another planet?
Anyway a Man with a coma!
Heart beat and the pulse abnormal
And much perspiration?
In his hidden pocket
Found a chit
And this was written;
'In case of emergency please contact
My next of Kin pet dog 'Zoro'
Perhaps in the Heaven who knows?
Remember once I found tears in its eye
And then I asked; 'Zoro are you not well? '
'No Master I am O.K.
Happy tears of your progress.'
Wagging his tail Zoro replied.
*for Günter Wilhelm Grass!
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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My Kool-Aid Made
Some prefer ice tea.
A Pepsi or their Coke.
Or maybe just Spring water,
To minimize their thirsts.
Some pray for a breeze,
When sweat drips from their brows.
But with Kool-Aid made I make,
I don't mind these 'dog days' few allow.
My Kool-Aid made,
Tastes more like fresh lemonaide.
With concentrated lemon to add flavor.
The Summer August heat,
Spiced with humidity depletes and beats...
But a pick up with my Kool-Aid saves,
The ones who labor.
My Kool-Aid made tastes more like fresh lemonaide.
Here,
Try a sip.
With concentrated lemon to add flavor.
Oh.Oh.
And the Summer August heat,
Yeah!
Spiced with humidity isn't sweet.
And my Kool-Aid made,
Picks up those who labor.
Oh.Oh.
The Summer August heat,
Yeah!
Spiced with humidity isn't sweet.
And my Kool-Aid made,
Picks up those who labor.
My Kool-Aid made tastes more like fresh lemonaide.
With a 'fruit smack'.
And adding my own lemon to the flavor.
Oh.Oh.
The Summer August heat,
Yeah!
Spiced with humidity isn't sweet.
And my Kool-Aid made,
Picks up those who labor.
Note:
My gratitude extended to Edward Perkins and wife Kitty...
Who, in 1927, invented Kool-Aid in Hastings, Nebraska.
Those six original flavors then were strawberry, cherry, lemon-lime, grape
orange and raspberry.
The predecessor was a liquid concentrate
called Fruit Smack!
'Thank you Ed and Kitty'
~LSP~
Source: Wikipedia.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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At Pleasure Bay
In the willows along the river at Pleasure Bay
A catbird singing, never the same phrase twice.
Here under the pines a little off the road
In 1927 the Chief of Police
And Mrs. W. killed themselves together,
Sitting in a roadster. Ancient unshaken pilings
And underwater chunks of still-mortared brick
In shapes like bits of puzzle strew the bottom
Where the landing was for Price's Hotel and Theater.
And here's where boats blew two blasts for the keeper
To shunt the iron swing-bridge. He leaned on the gears
Like a skipper in the hut that housed the works
And the bridge moaned and turned on its middle pier
To let them through. In the middle of the summer
Two or three cars might wait for the iron trusswork
Winching aside, with maybe a child to notice
A name on the stern in black-and-gold on white,
Sandpiper, Patsy Ann, Do Not Disturb,
The Idler. If a boat was running whiskey,
The bridge clanged shut behind it as it passed
And opened up again for the Coast Guard cutter
Slowly as a sundial, and always jammed halfway.
The roadbed whole, but opened like a switch,
The river pulling and coursing between the piers.
Never the same phrase twice, the catbird filling
The humid August evening near the inlet
With borrowed music that he melds and changes.
Dragonflies and sandflies, frogs in the rushes, two bodies
Not moving in the open car among the pines,
A sliver of story. The tenor at Price's Hotel,
In clown costume, unfurls the sorrow gathered
In ruffles at his throat and cuffs, high quavers
That hold like splashes of light on the dark water,
The aria's closing phrases, changed and fading.
And after a gap of quiet, cheers and applause
Audible in the houses across the river,
Some in the audience weeping as if they had melted
Inside the music. Never the same. In Berlin
The daughter of an English lord, in love
With Adolf Hitler, whom she has met. She is taking
Possession of the apartment of a couple,
Elderly well-off Jews. They survive the war
To settle here in the Bay, the old lady
Teaches piano, but the whole world swivels
And gapes at their feet as the girl and a high-up Nazi
Examine the furniture, the glass, the pictures,
The elegant story that was theirs and now
Is part of hers. A few months later the English
Enter the war and she shoots herself in a park,
An addled, upper-class girl, her life that passes
Into the lives of others or into a place.
The taking of lives--the Chief and Mrs. W.
Took theirs to stay together, as local ghosts.
Last flurries of kisses, the revolver's barrel,
Shivers of a story that a child might hear
And half remember, voices in the rushes,
A singing in the willows. From across the river,
Faint quavers of music, the same phrase twice and again,
Ranging and building. Over the high new bridge
The flashing of traffic homeward from the racetrack,
With one boat chugging under the arches, outward
Unnoticed through Pleasure Bay to the open sea.
Here's where the people stood to watch the theater
Burn on the water. All that night the fireboats
Kept playing their spouts of water into the blaze.
In the morning, smoking pilasters and beams.
Black smell of char for weeks, the ruin already
Soaking back into the river. After you die
You hover near the ceiling above your body
And watch the mourners awhile. A few days more
You float above the heads of the ones you knew
And watch them through a twilight. As it grows darker
You wander off and find your way to the river
And wade across. On the other side, night air,
Willows, the smell of the river, and a mass
Of sleeping bodies all along the bank,
A kind of singing from among the rushes
Calling you further forward in the dark.
You lie down and embrace one body, the limbs
Heavy with sleep reach eagerly up around you
And you make love until your soul brims up
And burns free out of you and shifts and spills
Down over into that other body, and you
Forget the life you had and begin again
On the same crossing--maybe as a child who passes
Through the same place. But never the same way twice.
Here in the daylight, the catbird in the willows,
The new café, with a terrace and a landing,
Frogs in the cattails where the swing-bridge was--
Here's where you might have slipped across the water
When you were only a presence, at Pleasure Bay.
poem by Robert Pinsky
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Origin Of The Universe -ten Questions Answered
1.How did the UNIVERSE originate?
It was from the bang, bang and the bang,
It was through the big bang
And you know it for certain.
Yes, the universe originated through the Big Bang.
2.What was the Big Bang?
An explosion of a particle was it
And the particle was smaller than an atom.
It was first explosion for our cause.
Yes, it was a causeless act of explosion of a small particle that resulted in the evolution of an ever expanding universe. Before the Big Bang the universe was smaller than an atom! There was only a point of time then and not a place! The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that describes the early development of the Universe.According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly.
3.What followed the act of expansion of the universe?
Then began the expansion,
An expansion that is still going on
And then and thus began the life of our universe.
The rapid expansion caused the Universe to cool and resulted in its present continuously expanding state. According to the most recent measurements and observations, the Big Bang occurred approximately 13.75 billion years ago, which is thus considered the age of the Universe.
4.What happened in the next stage?
There came the phases of energy
And the wonder of electrons, protons and neutrons.
We learnt about from the sweet mouth of our teacher first.
After its initial expansion from a singularity, the Universe cooled sufficiently to allow energy to be converted into various subatomic particles, including protons, neutrons, and electrons.While protons and neutrons combined to form the first atomic nuclei only a few minutes after the Big Bang, it would take thousands of years for electrons to combine with them and create electrically neutral atoms.The first element produced was hydrogen, along with traces of helium and lithium. Giant clouds of these primordial elements would coalesce through gravity to form stars and galaxies, and the heavier elements would be synthesized either within stars orduring supernovae.
5.What is the scientific theory/relevance of the Big Bang?
Truth is that matters much to us
And the core ideas have to lead us.
Or else we might go back to life darker still.
The Big Bang is a well-tested scientific theory and is widely accepted within the scientific community. It offers a comprehensive explanation for a broad range of observed phenomena. Since its conception, abundant evidence has been uncovered in support of the model. The core ideas of the Big Bang—the expansion, the early hot state, the formation of helium, and the formation of galaxies—are derived from many observations that are independent from any cosmological model; these include the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background, large scale structure, and the Hubble diagram for Type I - a supernovae.
6.What will be the phases of the expansion of the universe?
An ever expanding mystery it is
Closer it was then and now it will be farther and farther.
And once begun it can`t go back ever.
As the distance between galaxy clusters is increasing today, it can be inferred that everything was closer together in the past. This idea has been considered in detail back in time to extreme densities and temperatures, and large particle accelerators have been built to experiment in such conditions, resulting in further development of the model. On the other hand, these accelerators have limited capabilities to probe into such high energy regimes.
7.Does the Big Bang theory explain everything?
Perfection, thou art not there
Reason, thou triumph on here.
And we choose with no pinch salt everything.
The Big Bang theory cannot and does not provide any explanation for the initial condition as to why the small particle exploded; rather, it describes and explains the general evolution of the universe going forward from that point on.Georges Lemaître first proposed what would become the Big Bang theory in what he called his 'hypothesis of the primeval atom.' Over time, scientists would build on his initial ideas to form the modern synthesis. The framework for the Big Bang model relies on Albert Einstein's general relativity and on simplifying assumptions such as homogeneity and isotropy of space.
8.Who did formulate the Big Bang theory?
Alexy and Edwin found it first,
Stephen Hawkins has founded it well and
Today it is a foregone conclusion to most of us.
The governing equations of the Big Bang had been formulated by Alexander Friedmann. In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that the distances to far away galaxies were generally proportionalto their redshifts—an idea originally suggested by Lemaître in 1927. Hubble's observation was taken to indicate that all very distant galaxies and clusters have an apparent velocity directly away from our vantage point: the farther away, the higher the apparent velocity. Stephen Hawkins, the author of A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME has added now an absolute touch to the theory of the Big Bang.
9.To what extent is the Big Bang theory acceptable to the community of scientists?
When you have to choose from among many
You have to choose the best of all
As you are man but not an animal.
While the scientific community was once divided between supporters of the Big Bang and those of alternative cosmological models, most scientists became convinced that some version of the Big Bang scenario best fit observations after the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964, and especially when its spectrum (i.e., the amount of radiation measured at each wavelength) was found to match that of thermal radiation from a black body. Since then, astrophysicists have formulated further hypotheses to account for some discrepancies that have arisen within the model.
10.Why is the Big Bang theory more sensible than the theory of creation by God/ a supernatural element?
Here thou should not like accepting lies
And still not look upward, oh men and women!
Weep not thou, my pals and seers.
Though we don`t know what caused the initial formation of a particle smaller than an atom that resulted in the Big Bang, it is scientific and the most transparent theory. The present universe and its systems point to the accuracy of the Big Bang theory.
When you say God or any supernatural element was behind the creation of this universe, you have to confront more questions that cannot be answered other than by referring to the manipulations of probabilities not within the reason. Those questions are:
1. Why God/the super natural existed before the creation and what was it doing till the moment of creation?
2. Why did God/it create at all?
3. Why could he/it not create mostly the planets like our earth with life alone as most of the known universe is full of material and not life?
4. What makes him/it let the scientists go and prove the more acceptable theory of the Big Bang and why he/it allows man to have an intelligence level that can reason and wonder?
Again most of the religions have scriptures referring to a very young universe or earth. In Hinduism the Brahma the creator God created everything before the ‘krithayug/satyayug' barely 1,96000 years ago. In Islam the Koran refers to no specific time of creation but has vague references to a creation that might be 5 thousands years or less than that. In Christianity the easiest calculations were made based on the book of genesis of human beings starting with the creation of Adam and Eve the first man and woman on the Earth. Its bishops assume the creation might have started six days before the breathing of life into Adam and Eve and thus God created everything in B.C 4003, that is just 6,010 years ago!
The scriptures of the religion were written, many versions refer to them, assuming the entire world to be within a radius of a few thousands of kilometers set on a flat land with the sun and the moon planted on a sky which was presumably a ceiling within a height of a few yards! Islam and Christianity scriptured their theory of creation by God/Allah as believed and propogated by semi-literate fisher men and their contemporaries.
We have to know that it took millions of years for earth to develop life on the earth and man originated thousands of years later after undergoing gradual evolution of the monkey, the predecessor animal.
Now accepting the Big Bang theory or the theory of creation by God/a supernatural element is your choice........................
And a solace can never be a blockhead`s illusion however conveniently manipulated it is or however soft its angles are.
'We are amazed at a small particle turning into the universe,
We stand stranded at the crossroads of fact and fiction
And we go after the sweet fiction for we like to be
In a fool`s paradise and not in an intellectual`s hell! '
poem by M.d Dinesh Nair
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Gioconda And Si-Ya-U
to the memory of my friend SI-YA-U,
whose head was cut off in Shanghai
A CLAIM
Renowned Leonardo's
world-famous
"La Gioconda"
has disappeared.
And in the space
vacated by the fugitive
a copy has been placed.
The poet inscribing
the present treatise
knows more than a little
about the fate
of the real Gioconda.
She fell in love
with a seductive
graceful youth:
a honey-tongued
almond-eyed Chinese
named SI-YA-U.
Gioconda ran off
after her lover;
Gioconda was burned
in a Chinese city.
I, Nazim Hikmet,
authority
on this matter,
thumbing my nose at friend and foe
five times a day,
undaunted,
claim
I can prove it;
if I can't,
I'll be ruined and banished
forever from the realm of poesy.
1928
Part One
Excerpts from Gioconda's Diary
15 March 1924: Paris, Louvre Museum
At last I am bored with the Louvre Museum.
You can get fed up with boredom very fast.
I am fed up with my boredom.
And from the devastation inside me
I drew this lesson;
to visit
a museum is fine,
to be a museum piece is terrible!
In this palace that imprisons the past
I am placed under such a heavy sentence
that as the paint on my face cracks out of boredom
I'm forced to keep grinning without letting up.
Because
I am the Gioconda from Florence
whose smile is more famous than Florence.
I am bored with the Louvre Museum.
And since you get sick soon enough
of conversing with the past,
I decided
from now on
to keep a diary.
Writing of today may be of some help
in forgetting yesterday...
However, the Louvre is a strange place.
Here you might find
Alexander the Great's
Longines watch complete with chronometer,
but
not a single sheet of clean notebook paper
or a pencil worth a piaster.
Damn your Louvre, your Paris.
I'll write these entries
on the back of my canvas.
And so
when I picked a pen from the pocket
of a nearsighted American
sticking his red nose into my skirts
--his hair stinking of wine--
I started my memoirs.
I'm writing on my back
the sorrow of having a famous smile...
18 March: Night
The Louvre has fallen asleep.
In the dark, the armless Venus
looks like a veteran of the Great War.
The gold helmet of a knight gleams
as the light from the night watchman's lantern
strikes a dark picture.
Here
in the Louvre
my days are all the same
like the six sides of a wood cube.
My head is full of sharp smells
like the shelf of a medicine cabinet.
20 March
I admire those Flemish painters:
is it easy to give the air of a naked goddess
to the plump ladies
of milk and sausage merchants?
But
even if you wear silk panties,
cow + silk panties = cow.
Last night
a window
was left open.
The naked Flemish goddesses caught cold.
All day
today,
turning their bare
mountain-like pink behinds to the public,
they coughed and sneezed...
I caught cold, too.
So as not to look silly smiling with a cold,
I tried to hide my sniffles
from the visitors.
1 April
Today I saw a Chinese:
he was nothing like those Chinese with their topknots.
How long
he gazed at me!
I'm well aware
the favor of Chinese
who work ivory like silk
is not to be taken lightly...
11 April
I caught the name of the Chinese who comes every day:
SI-YA-U.
16 April
Today we spoke
in the language of eyes.
He works as a weaver days
and studies nights.
Now it's a long time since the night
came on like a pack of black-shirted Fascists.
The cry of a man out of work
who jumped into the Seine
rose from the dark water.
And ah! you on whose fist-size head
mountain-like winds descend,
at this very minute you're probably busy
building towers of thick, leather-bound books
to get answers to the questions you asked of the stars.
READ
SI-YA-U
READ...
And when your eyes find in the lines what they desire,
when your eyes tire,
rest your tired head
like a black-and-yellow Japanese chrysanthemum
on the books..
SLEEP
SI-YA-U
SLEEP...
18 April
I've begun to forget
the names of those Renaissance masters.
I want to see
the black bird-and-flower
watercolors
that slant-eyed Chinese painters
drip
from their long thin bamboo brushes.
NEWS FROM THE PARIS WIRELESS
HALLO
HALLO
HALLO
PARIS
PARIS
PARIS...
Voices race through the air
like the fiery greyhounds.
The wireless in the Eiffel Tower calls out:
HALLO
HALLO
HALLO
PARIS
PARIS
PARIS...
"I, TOO, am Oriental -- this voice is for me.
My ears are receivers, too.
I, too, must listen to Eiffel."
News from China
News from China
News from China:
The dragon that came down from the Kaf mountains
has spread his wings
across the golden skies of the Chinese homeland.
But
in this business it's not only the British lord's
gullet shaved
like the thick neck
of a plucked hen
that will be cut
but also
the long
thin
beard of Confucius!
FROM GIOCONDA'S DIARY
21 April
Today my Chinese
looked my straight
in the eye
and asked:
"Those who crush our rice fields
with the caterpillar treads of their tanks
and who swagger through our cities
like emperors of hell,
are they of YOUR race,
the race of him who CREATED you?"
I almost raised my hand
and cried "No!"
27 April
Tonight at the blare of an American trumpet
--the horn of a 12-horsepower Ford--
I awoke from a dream,
and what I glimpsed for an instant
instantly vanished.
What I'd seen was a still blue lake.
In this lake the slant-eyed light of my life
had wrapped his fingers around the neck of a gilded fish.
I tried to reach him,
my boat a Chinese teacup
and my sail
the embroidered silk
of a Japanese
bamboo umbrella...
NEWS FROM THE PARIS WIRELESS
HALLO
HALLO
HALLO
PARIS
PARIS
PARIS
The radio station signs off.
Once more
blue-shirted Parisians
fill Paris with red voices
and red colors...
FROM GIOCONDA'S DIARY
2 May
Today my Chinese failed to show up.
5 May
Still no sign of him...
8 May
My days
are like the waiting room
of a station:
eyes glued
to the tracks...
10 May
Sculptors of Greece,
painters of Seljuk china,
weavers of fiery rugs in Persia,
chanters of hymns to dromedaries in deserts,
dancer whose body undulates like a breeze,
craftsman who cuts thirty-six facets from a one-carat stone,
and YOU
who have five talents on your five fingers,
master MICHELANGELO!
Call out and announce to both friends and foe:
because he made too much noise in Paris,
because he smashed in the window
of the Mandarin ambassador,
Gioconda's lover
has been thrown out
of France...
My lover from China has gone back to China...
And now I'd like to know
who's Romeo and Juliet!
If he isn't Juliet in pants
and I'm not Romeo in skirts...
Ah, if I could cry--
if only I could cry...
12 May
Today
when I caught a glimpse of myself
in the mirror of some mother's daughter
touching up the paint
on her bloody mouth
in front of me,
the tin crown of my fame shattered on my head.
While the desire to cry writhes inside me
I smile demurely;
like a stuffed pig's head
my ugly face grins on...
Leonardo da Vinci,
may your bones
become the brush of a Cubist painter
for grabbing me by the throat -- your hands dripping with paint --
and sticking in my mouth like a gold-plated tooth
this cursed smile...
Part Two
The Flight
FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK
Ah, friends, Gioconda is in a bad way...
Take it from me,
if she didn't have hopes
of getting word from afar,
she'd steal a guard's pistol,
and aiming to give the color of death
to her lips' cursed smile,
she'd empty it into her canvas breast...
FROM GIOCONDA'S DIARY
O that Leonardo da Vinci's brush
had conceived me
under the gilded sun of China!
That the painted mountain behind me
had been a sugar-loaf Chinese mountain,
that the pink-white color of my long face
could fade,
that my eyes were almond-shaped!
And if only my smile
could show what I feel in my heart!
Then in the arms of him who is far away
I could have roamed through China...
FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK
I had a heart-to-heart talk with Gioconda today.
The hours flew by
one after another
like the pages of a spell-binding book.
And the decision we reached
will cut like a knife
Gioconda's life
in two.
Tomorrow night you'll see us carry it out...
FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK
The clock of Notre Dame
strikes midnight.
Midnight
midnight.
Who knows at this very moment
which drunk is killing his wife?
Who know at this very moment
which ghost
is haunting the halls
of a castle?
Who knows at this very moment
which thief
is surmounting
the most unsurmountable wall?
Midnight... Midnight...
Who knows at this very moment...
I know very well that in every novel
this is the darkest hour.
Midnight
strikes fear into the heart of every reader...
But what could I do?
When my monoplane landed
on the roof of the Louvre,
the clock of Notre Dame
struck midnight.
And, strangely enough, I wasn't afraid
as I patted the aluminum rump of my plane
and stepped down on the roof...
Uncoiling the fifty-fathom-long rope wound around my waist,
I lowered it outside Gioconda's window
like a vertical bridge between heaven and hell.
I blew my shrill whistle three times.
And I got an immediate response
to those three shrill whistles.
Gioconda threw open her window.
This poor farmer's daughter
done up as the Virgin Mary
chucked her gilded frame
and, grabbing hold of the rope, pulled herself up...
SI-YA-U, my friend,
you were truly lucky to fall
to a lion-hearted woman like her...
FROM GIOCONDA'S DIARY
This thing called an airplane
is a winged iron horse.
Below us is Paris
with its Eiffel Tower--
a sharp-nosed, pock-marked, moon-like face.
We're climbing,
climbing higher.
Like an arrow of fire
we pierce
the darkness.
The heavens rise overhead,
looming closer;
the sky is like a meadow full of flowers.
We're climbing,
climbing higher.
.................................. .................
................................................. ..
........................................... ........
I must have dozed off --
I opened my eyes.
Dawn's moment of glory.
The sky a calm ocean,
our plane a ship.
I call this smooth sailing, smooth as butter.
Behind us a wake of smoke floats.
Our eyes survey blue vacancies
full of glittering discs...
Below us the earth looks
like a Jaffa orange
turning gold in the sun...
By what magic have I
climbed off the ground
hundreds of minarets high,
and yet to gaze down at the earth
my mouth still waters...
FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK
Now our plane swims
within the hot winds
swarming over Africa.
Seen from above,
Africa looks like a huge violin.
I swear
they're playing Tchaikovsky on a cello
on the angry dark island
of Africa.
And waiving his long hairy arms,
a gorilla is sobbing...
FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK
We're crossing the Indian Ocean.
We're drinking in the air
like a heavy, faint-smelling syrup.
An keeping our eyes on the yellow beacon of Singapore
-- leaving Australia on the right,
Madagascar on the left --
and putting our faith in the fuel in the tank,
we're heading for the China Sea...
From the journal of a deckhand named John aboard a
British vessel in the China Sea
One night
a typhoon blows up out of the blue.
Man,
what a hurricane!
Mounted on the back of yellow devil, the Mother of God
whirls around and around, churning up the air.
And as luck would have it,
I've got the watch on the foretop.
The huge ship under me
looks about this big!
The wind is roaring
blast
after blast,
blast
after blast...
The mast quivers like a strung bow.(*)
*[What business do you have being way up there?
Christ, man, what do you think you are-a stork?
N.H.]
Oops, now we're shooting sky-high --
my head splits the clouds.
Oops, now we're sinking to the bottom --
my fingers comb the ocean floor.
We're learning to the left, we're leaning to the right --
that is, we're leaning larboard and starboard.
My God, we just sank!
Oh no! This time we're sure to go under!
The waves
leap over my head
like Bengal tigers.
Fear
leads me on
like a coffee-colored Javanese whore.
This is no joke -- this is the China Sea... (*)
*[The deckhand has every right to be afraid.
The rage of the China Sea is not to be taken lightly.
N.H.]
Okay, let's keep it short.
PLOP...
What's that?
A rectangular piece of canvas dropped from the air
into the crows nest.
The canvas
was some kind of woman!
It struck me this madame who came from the sky
would never understand
our seamen's talk and ways.
I got right down and kissed her hand,
and making like a poet, I cried:
"O you canvas woman who fell from the sky!
Tell me, which goddess should I compare you to?
Why did you descend here? What is your large purpose?"
She replied:
"I fell
from a 550-horsepower plane.
My name is Gioconda,
I come from Florence.
I must get to Shanghai
as soon as possible."
FROM GIOCONDA'S DIARY
The wind died down,
the sea calmed down.
The ship makes strides toward Shanghai.
The sailors dream,
rocking in their sailcloth hammocks.
A song of the Indian Ocean plays
on their thick fleshy lips:
"The fire of the Indochina sun
warms the blood
like Malacca wine.
They lure sailors to gilded stars,
those Indochina nights,
those Indochina nights.
Slant-eyed yellow Bornese cabin boys
knifed in Sigapore bars
paint the iron-belted barrels blood-red.
Those Indochina nights, those Indochina nights.
A ship plunges on
to Canton,
55,000 tons.
Those Indochina nights...
As the moon swims in the heavens
like the corpse of a blue-eyed sailor
tossed overboard,
Bombay watches, leaning on its elbow...
Bombay moon,
Arabian Sea.
The fire of the Indochina sun
warms the blood
lie Malacca wine.
They lure sailors to gilded stars,
those Indochina nights,
those Indochina nights..."
Part Three
Gioconda's End
THE CITY OF SHANGHAI
Shanghai is a big port,
an excellent port,
It's ships are taller than
horned mandarin mansions.
My, my!
What a strange place, this Shanghai...
In the blue river boats
with straw sails float.
In the straw-sailed boats
naked coolies sort rice,
raving of rice...
My, my!
What a strange place, this Shanghai...
Shanghai is a big port,
The whites' ships are tall,
the yellows' boats are small.
Shanghai is pregnant with a red-headed child.
My, my!
FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK
Last night
when the ship entered the harbor
Gioconda's foot kissed the land.
Shanghai the soup, she the ladle,
she searched high and low for her SI-YA-U.
FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK
"Chinese work! Japanese work!
Only two people make this --
a man and a woman.
Chinese work! Japanese work!
Just look at the art
in this latest work of LI-LI-FU."
Screaming at the tip of his voice,
the Chinese magician
LI.
His shriveled yellow spider of a hand
tossed long thin knives into the air:
one
one more
one
one more
five
one more.
Tracing lightning-like circles in the air,
his knives flew up in a steady stream.
Gioconda looked,
she kept looking,
she'd still be looking
but, like a large-colored Chinese lantern,
the crowd swayed and became confused:
"Stand back! Gang way!
Chiang Kai-shek's executioner
is hunting down a new head.
Stand back! Make way!"
One in front and one close behind,
two Chinese shot around the corner.
The one in front ran toward Gioconda.
The one racing toward her, it was him, it was him -- yes, him!
Her SI-YA-U,
her dove,
SI-YA-U...
A dull hollow stadium sound surrounded them.
And in the cruel English language
stained red with the blood
of yellow Asia
the crown yelled:
"He's catching up,
he's catching up,
he caught-
catch him!"
Just three steps away from Gioconda's arms
Chiang Kai-shek's executioner caught up.
His sword
flashed...
Thud of cut flesh and bone.
Like a yellow sun drenched in blood
SI-YA-U's head
rolled at her feet...
And this on a death day
Gioconda of Florence lost in Shanghai
her smile more famous than Florence.
FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK
A Chinese bamboo frame.
In the frame is a painting.
Under the painting, a name:
"La Gioconda"...
In the frame is a painting:
the eyes of the painting are burning, burning.
In the frame is painting:
the painting in the frame comes alive, alive.
And suddenly
the painting jumped out of the frame
as if from a window;
her feet hit the ground.
And just as I shouted her name
she stood up straight before me:
the giant woman of a colossal struggle.
She walked ahead.
I trailed behind.
From the blazing red Tibetan sun
to the China Sea
we went and came,
we came and went.
I saw
Gioconda
sneak out under the cover of darkness
through the gates of a city in enemy hands;
I saw her
in a skirmish of drawn bayonets
strangle a British officer;
I saw her
at the head of a blue stream swimming with stars
wash the lice from her dirty shirt...
Huffling and puffling, a wood-burning engine
dragged behind it
forty red cars seating forty people each.
The cars passed one by one.
In the last car I saw her
standing watch:
a frayed lambskin hat on her head,
boots on her feet,
a leather jacket on her back...
FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK
Ah, my patient reader!
Now we find ourselves in the French
military court in Shanghai.
The bench:
four generals, fourteen colonels,
and an armed black Congolese regiment.
The accused:
Gioconda.
The attorney for the defense:
an overly razed
--that is, overly artistic--
French painter.
The scene is set.
We're starting.
The defense attorney presents his case:
"Gentlemen,
this masterpiece
that stands in your presence as the accused
is the most accomplished daughter of a great artist.
Gentlemen,
this masterpiece...
Gentlemen...
my mind is on fire...
Gentlemen...
Renaissance...
Gentlemen,
this masterpiece--
twice this masterpiece...
Gentlemen, uniformed gentlemen..."
"C-U-U-U-T!
Enough.
stop sputtering like a jammed machine gun!
Bailiff,
read the verdict."
The bailiff reads the verdict:
"The laws of France
have been violated in China
by the above-named Gioconda, daughter of one Leonardo.
Accordingly,
we sentence the accused
to death
by burning.
And tomorrow night at moonrise,
a Senegalese regiment
will execute said decision
of this military court..."
THE BURNING
Shanghai is a big port.
The whites have tall ships,
the yellows' boats are small.
A thick whistle.
A thin Chinese scream.
A ship steaming into the harbor
capsized a straw-sailed boat...
Moonlight.
Night.
Handcuffed,
Gioconda waits.
Blow, wind, blow...
A voice:
"All right, the lighter.
Burn, Gioconda, burn..."
A silhouette advances,
a flash...
They lit the lighter
and set Gioconda on fire.
The flames painted Gioconda red.
She laughed with a smile that came from her heart.
Gioconda burned laughing...
Art, Shmart, Masterpiece, Shmasterpiece, And So On,
And So Forth,
Immortality, Eternity-
H-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-Y...
"HERE ENDS MY TALE'S CONTENDING,
THE REST IS LIES UNENDING..."
THE END
Nazim Hikmet - 1929
Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk 1993
FOOTNOTE:
GIOCONDA AND SI-YA-U: Si-Ya-U, Hsiao San (b. 1896), Chinese
revolutionary and man of letters. Hikmet met him in Moscow in 1922
and believed he had been executed in the bloody 1927 crackdown on
Shanghai radicals after returning to China via Paris in 1924, when the
Mona Lisa did in fact disappear from the Louvre. The two friends were
reunited in Vienna in 1951 and traveled to Peking together in 1952.
Translated into Chinese, this poem was later burned-along with Hsiao's
works- in the Cultural Revolution.
poem by Nazim Hikmet
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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