The Neighbor
Strange violin, why do you follow me?
In how many foreign cities did you
speak of your lonely nights and those of mine.
Are you being played by hundreds? Or by one?
Do in all great cities men exist
who tormented and in deep despair
would have sought the river but for you?
And why does your playing always reach me?
Why is it that I am always neighbor
to those lost ones who are forced to sing
and to say: Life is infinitely heavier
than the heaviness of all things.
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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The Song Of The Beggar
I am always going from door to door,
whether in rain or heat,
and sometimes I will lay my right ear in
the palm of my right hand.
And as I speak my voice seems strange as if
it were alien to me,
for I'm not certain whose voice is crying:
mine or someone else's.
I cry for a pittance to sustain me.
The poets cry for more.
In the end I conceal my entire face
and cover both my eyes;
there it lies in my hands with all its weight
and looks as if at rest,
so no one may think I had no place where-
upon to lay my head.
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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Rememberance
And you wait, keep waiting for that one thing
which would infinitely enrich your life:
the powerful, uniquely uncommon,
the awakening of dormant stones,
depths that would reveal you to yourself.
In the dusk you notice the book shelves
with their volumes in gold and in brown;
and you think of far lands you journeyed,
of pictures and of shimmering gowns
worn by women you conquered and lost.
And it comes to you all of a sudden:
That was it! And you arise, for you are
aware of a year in your distant past
with its fears and events and prayers.
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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The Absence
I speak to you across cities
I speak to you across plains
My mouth is upon your pillow
Both faces of the walls come meeting
My voice discovering you
I speak to you of eternity
O cities memories of cities
Cities wrapped in our desires
Cities come early cities come lately
Cities strong and cities secret
Plundered of their master's builders
All their thinkers all their ghosts
Fields pattern of emerald
Bright living surviving
The harvest of the sky over our earth
Feeds my voice I dream and weep
I laugh and dream among the flames
Among the clusters of the sun
And over my body your body spreads
The sheet of it's bright mirror.
poem by Paul Eluard
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Song
(From the diaries of Malte Laurids Brigge)
You, whom I do not tell that all night long
I lie weeping,
whose very being makes me feel wanting
like a cradle.
You, who do not tell me, that you lie awake
thinking of me:--
what, if we carried all these longings within us
without ever being overwhelmed by them,
letting them pass?
Look at these lovers, tormented by love,
when first they begin confessing,
how soon they lie!
You make me feel alone. I try imagining:
one moment it is you, then it's the soaring wind;
a fragrance comes and goes but never lasts.
Oh, within my arms I lost all whom I loved!
Only you remain, always reborn again.
For since I never held you, I hold you fast.
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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Absence
I speak to you over cities
I speak to you over plains
My mouth is against your ear
The two sides of the walls face
my voice which acknowledges you.
I speak to you of eternity.
O cities memories of cities
cities draped with our desires
cities early and late
cities strong cities intimate
stripped of all their makers
their thinkers their phantoms
Landscape ruled by emerald
live living ever-living
the wheat of the sky on our earth
nourishes my voice I dream and cry
I laugh and dream between the flames
between the clusters of sunlight
And over my body your body extends
the layer of its clear mirror.
poem by Paul Eluard
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Lament (O how all things are far removed)
O how all things are far removed
and long have passed away.
I do believe the star,
whose light my face reflects,
is dead and has been so
for many thousand years.
I had a vision of a passing boat
and heard some voices saying disquieting things.
I heard a clock strike in some distant house...
but in which house?...
I long to quiet my anxious heart
and stand beneath the sky's immensity.
I long to pray...
And one of all the stars
must still exist.
I do believe that I would know
which one alone
endured,
and which like a white city stands
at the ray's end shining in the heavens.
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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In The Beginning
Ever since those wondrous days of Creation
our Lord God sleeps: we are His sleep.
And He accepted this in His indulgence,
resigned to rest among the distant stars.
Our actions stopped Him from reacting,
for His fist-tight hand is numbed by sleep,
and the times brought in the age of heroes
during which our dark hearts plundered Him.
Sometimes He appears as if tormented,
and His body jerks as if plagued by pain;
but these spells are always outweighed by the
number of His countless other worlds.
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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Heartbeat
Only mouths are we. Who sings the distant heart
which safely exists in the center of all things?
His giant heartbeat is diverted in us
into little pulses. And his giant grief
is, like his giant jubilation, far too
great for us. And so we tear ourselves away
from him time after time, remaining only
mouths. But unexepectedly and secretly
the giant heartbeat enters our being,
so that we scream ----,
and are transformed in being and in countenance.
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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Cities
(Justin Hayward)
Neon the city's sun
Taxis like beetles run, and I see
Pavements with yellow lines
Grey walls and big bold signs with darkness
Up above, all around
In the sky, on the ground
This is what, I have found
Cities, cities
Here the flowers don't grow
Here the river's just a sewer
People who move below
Buildings with smells and noise and darkness
Up above, all around
In the sky, on the ground
This is what, I have found
Cities, cities
Not for me
No, no I don't believe you
It's not the place to be
No, no I won't believe you
Here the flowers don't grow
Here the river's just a sewer
People who move below
Buildings with smells and noise and darkness
Up above, all around
In the sky, on the ground
This is what I have found
Cities, cities, cities
*************************************************************
song performed by by Moody Blues
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Song Of The Widow
In the beginning life was good to me;
it held me warm and gave me courage.
That this is granted all while in their youth,
how could I then have known of this.
I never knew what living was----.
But suddenly it was just year on year,
no more good, no more new, no more wonderful.
Life had been torn in two right down the middle.
That was not his fault nor mine
since both of us had nothing but patience;
but death has none.
I saw him coming (how rotten he looked),
and I watched him as he took and took:
and nothing was mine.
What, then, belonged to me; was mine, my own?
Was not even this utter wretchedness
on loan to me by fate?
Fate does not only claim your happiness,
it also wants your pain back and your tears
and buys the ruin as something useless, old.
Fate was present and acquired for a nothing
every expression my face is capable of,
even to the way I walk.
The daily diminishing of me went on
and after I was emptied fate gave me up
and left me standing there, abandoned.
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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The Voices
The rich and fortunate do well to keep silent,
for no one cares to know who and what they are.
But those in need must reveal themselves,
must say: I am blind,
or: I'm on the verge of going blind,
or: nothing goes well with me on earth,
or: I have a sickly child,
or: I have little to hold me together...
And chances are this is not nearly enough.
And because people try to ignore them as they
pass by them: these unfortunate ones have to sing!
And at times one hears some excellent singing!
Of course, people differ in their tastes: some would
prefer to listen to choirs of boy-castrati.
But God himself comes often and stays long,
when the castrati's singing disturbs Him.
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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Lonely Cities Of The Heart
As the midnight fades in boys town
And the hustle stops to glow
This urban landscape sprawls before me
And the hunger starts to grow
But something more than my daddy showed to me
How he wanted to make a man of me
Living in the lonely cities of the heart
Hiding in the shadows and searching in the dark
My mama reads me like an open book
She knows when Im up or down
But every night I stay longer
In the creole part of town
Something more than what the good lord gave to me
Something more, much more than this
Living in the lonely cities of the heart
Hiding in the shadows, searching in the dark
And it never stops, no it never stops, no one defends you now
Living in the lonely cities of the heart
(instrumental)
I can take a little pain, but not tonight again
Outside my hotel window I hear the mardi gras
Keep the candle burning bright babe, Ive come too far
As daylight creeps through the curtains I start to slip away,
And everything that seems so certain is just another day
Living in the lonely cities of the heart
Hiding in the shadows searching in the dark
And it never stops, no it never stops, no one defends you now
Living in the lonely cities of the heart
Hiding in the shadows searching in the dark
And it never stops, no it never stops, no one defends you now
Living in the lonely cities of the heart
Living in the lonely cities of the heart...
song performed by by Ufo
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Song Of The Orphan
I am no one and never will be anyone,
for I am far too small to claim to be;
not even later.
Mothers and Fathers,
take pity on me.
I fear it will not pay to raise me:
I shall fall victim to the mower's scythe.
No one can find me useful now: I am too young,
and tomorrow will be too late.
I only have one dress,
worn thin and faded,
but it will last an eternity
even before God, perhaps.
I only have this whispy hair
(that always remained the same)
yet once was someone's dearest love.
Now he has nothing that he loves.
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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When We Speak Of Good And Evil
When we speak of good and evil we know not what we say
As we all have those traits in us or to me 'twould seem that way
Our so called honourable leaders who condemn crimes of hate
In truth only condemning what they've helped to create.
More bombings in Indonesia and Iraq and Afghanistan every day
And people dead and many left with horrific injuries does it have to be this way?
Where there is want, exclusion and discrimination only anger and mistrust to be found
And for violence of the extreme sort poverty can be a breeding ground.
When war men dropp their bombs of death on foreign cities it would be far better instead
If they dropped large parcels of food containing rice and milk and meat and bread
The results would be far better we receive what we sow
We cannot expect respect from others if respect to them we do not show.
When we speak of good and evil we only speak of how great we are
For to bomb foreign cities our Government's war planes travel far
And violence breeds more violence or so it would appear
And peace is suffocating in a World ruled by fear.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Slumber Song
Some day, if I should ever lose you,
will you be able then to go to sleep
without me softly whispering above you
like night air stirring in the linden tree?
Without my waking here and watching
and saying words as tender as eyelids
that come to rest weightlessly upon your breast,
upon your sleeping limbs, upon your lips?
Without my touching you and leaving you
alone with what is yours, like a summer garden
that is overflowing with masses
of melissa and star-anise?
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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What World Have I Sought In My Poems Deeper Than Me?
WHAT WORLD HAVE I SOUGHT IN MY POEMS DEEPER THAN ME?
What world have I sought in my poems deeper than me?
Beauty beyond Belief
Love’s Essence-
More music than my lines tell-
Lovely lonely life
Does not have Beauty enough
To sing the sound I sought-
More long and great
Than me
Divine Infinitely.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Despair Is Heavy
DESPAIR IS HEAVY
Despair is heavy
And I am heavier than I have been in a long time-
The cold and the dark and the damp
Also weigh me down.
I still can move
But more slowly now
And with much more aching.
When will the minor pain become paralysis?
And when will the weight kill me?
Perhaps I am done forever
And will never move again
And the weight will take me all the way down
So low I will not even be aware anymore of my despair.
It is a heavy day now
And I am too heavy a person
And Heaviness is in the air
And rules the Universe
And everything is sinking down
And falling into its own meaninglessness.
Life is heavy
I am heavy
Everything is heavy now and getting heavier.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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These Shoes
These shoes have walked a million miles
with the souls of men
who will never see
the sun rise again.
They walked beside great armies
as they rose to fight
in foreign far away lands.
These shoes saw the birth of nations
near and far
and the death of a child
that touch many hearts dear.
They watched great cities rise
and then crumble to dust.
These shoes that have walked a million miles
and then back again.
Though great have come and gone
these shoes still walk on
looking for life’s freedom be
within the soul of men.
They have observed many great things
on their journey
but the greatest treasure
that they sought
these shoes have yet to find..
12 October 2009
poem by David Harris
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Old World New World
Natives wearing turquoise and silver
Dirty dogs barking in the distance
People of a thousand tongues
Im learning the primitive rights
Im doing as the romans do
Mt. kalais to mt. everest
Then down to the river ganges
To follow your mighty past
Were learning the primitive rights
Were doing as the romans do
Old world
New world
I know nothing
But Ill keep listening
Cities tumble into the ocean
Cities getting built in the sky
Now were talking digital
Were learning the primitive rights
Were doing as the romans do
Millions playing at monopoly
Rolling the dice of their life
Im dancing and shaking hands
Were learning the primitive rights
Were doing as the romans do
I know nothing
Grow old look wise
Never knowing til I die
But Ill keep listening
Ill keep listening
Pan
Shambala
Judism
Hindu
Christianity
Masdic
Budism
Atman of vedies
Sun ra
Astrology
Voodoo
The great dream time
song performed by by INXS
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Falling Stars
Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes--do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.
Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming
poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
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