A late sonnet

One more sonnet from Rilke  :)  with exquisite short (trimeter and dimeter) lines, also with the relatively rare Sicilian octave.  From his last book of poems:
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Sonette an Orpheus, I/9

Von Rainer Maria Rilke

Nur wer die Leier schon hob

auch unter Schatten,

darf das unendliche Lob

ahnend erstatten.

Nur wer mit Toten vom Mohn

aß, von dem ihren,

wird nicht der leisesten Ton

wieder verlieren.

Mag auch die Spieglung im Teich

oft uns verschwimmen:

Wisse das Bild.

Erst in dem Doppelbereich

werden die Stimmen

ewig und mild.

No sonnet

Okay, just to prove that Rilke didn't only write sonnets, today's poem is not a sonnet  :)  even though the rhyme scheme of the first dozen lines do agree with that of (one possible version of) a sonnet.  

This poem's about a merry-go-round, and this merry-go-round used to be in Jardin du Luxembourg back when Rilke wrote this poem in 1907.  And what's more:  Now I know what "Jardin" means:  It's French for "garden"  :)

Here's the poem---
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Das Karussell

Jardin du Luxembourg

Von Rainer Maria Rilke

Mit einem Dach und seinem Schatten dreht

sich eine kleine Weile der Bestand

von bunten Pferden, alle aus dem Land,

das lange zögert, eh es untergeht.

Zwar manche sind an Wagen angespannt,

doch alle haben Mut in ihren Mienen;

ein böser roter Löwe geht mit ihnen

und dann und wann ein weißer Elefant.

Sogar ein Hirsch ist da, ganz wie im Wald,

nur dass er einen Sattel trägt und drüber

ein kleines blaues Mädchen aufgeschnallt.

Und auf dem Löwen reitet weiß ein Junge

und hält sich mit der kleinen heißen Hand,

dieweil der Löwe Zähne zeigt und Zunge.

Und dann und wann ein weißer Elefant.

Und auf den Pferden kommen sie vorüber,

auch Mädchen, helle, diesem Pferdesprunge

fast schon entwachsen; mitten in dem Schwunge

schauen sie auf, irgendwohin, herüber –

Und dann und wann ein weißer Elefant.

Und das geht hin und eilt sich, dass es endet,

und kreist und dreht sich nur und hat kein Ziel.

Ein Rot, ein Grün, ein Grau vorbeigesendet,

ein kleines kaum begonnenes Profil –.

Und manches Mal ein Lächeln, hergewendet,

ein seliges, das blendet und verschwendet

an dieses atemlose blinde Spiel …

The headless trunk is watching

Another sonnet from Rilke (and this is a famous one):
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Archaischer Torso Apollos

Von Rainer Maria Rilke

Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt,

darin die Augenäpfel reiften.  Aber

sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber,

in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt,

sich hält und glänzt.  Sonst könnte nicht der Bug

der Brust dich blenden und im leisen Drehen

der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen

zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug.

Sonst stünde dieser Stein entstellt und kurz

unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz

und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle;

und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern

aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle,

die dich nicht sieht.  Du musst dein Leben ändern.

Die Farbenlehre nach Rilke, Kapitel 2

A sonnet in which Rilke leans even more heavily on colours than he did yesterday when he was cavorting with the flamingoes:
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Blaue Hortensie

Von Rainer Maria Rilke

So wie das letzte Gruen in Farbentiegeln
sind diese Blaetter, trocken, stumpf und rau,
hinter den Bluetendolden, die ein Blau
nicht auf sich tragen, nur von ferne spiegeln.

Sie spiegeln es verweint und ungenau,
als wollten sie es wiederum verlieren,
und wie in alten blauen Briefpapieren
ist Gelb in ihnen, Violett und Grau;

Verwaschnes wie an einer Kinderschuerze,
Nichtmehrgetragnes, dem nichts mehr geschieht:
wie fuehlt man eines kleinen Lebens Kuerze.

Doch ploetzlich scheint das Blau sich zu verneuen
in einer von den Dolden, und man sieht
ein ruehrend Blaues sich vor Gruenem freuen.

A different animal

Okay, more stuff that was news to me:  "Jardin des Plantes" is a garden in Paris (apparently "Jardin"'s French for "garden"), and there's a zoo in it.  Yesterday's Rilke poem had "Im Jardin des Plantes, Paris" inscribed under the title, and today's poem, too, has a similar inscription ("Jardin des Plantes, Paris"), so I looked it up.  I guess this is the sort of thing about which, because of my zero-one approach to things, I never have a clue (unless I'm trying to learn everything about Paris, I'll know nothing about Paris).

And it isn't as though Rilke went to the zoo one time and wrote several poems out of that.  "Der Panther" was written in 1903, and today's poem is a sonnet from 1908:
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Die Flamingos

Jardin des Plantes, Paris

Von Rainer Maria Rilke

In Spiegelbildern wie von Fragonard

ist doch von ihrem Weiß und ihrer Röte

nicht mehr gegeben, als dir einer böte,

wenn er von seiner Freundin sagt:  sie war

noch sanft von Schlaf.  Denn steigen sie ins Grüne

und stehn, auf rosa Stielen leicht gedreht,

beisammen, blühend, wie in einem Beet,

verführen sie verführender als Phryne

sich selber; bis sie ihres Auges Bleiche

hinhalsend bergen in der eignen Weiche,

in welcher Schwarz und Fruchtrot sich versteckt.

Auf einmal kreischt ein Neid durch die Voliere;

Sie aber haben sich erstaunt gestreckt

Und schreiten einzeln ins Imaginäre. 

You're still getting eaten alive

No cannibalism on my part today, but I'm posting a poem about a panther  :)  This is one of Rilke's most famous poems:
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Der Panther

Im Jardin des Plantes, Paris

Von Rainer Maria Rilke

Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehen der Stäbe

So müd geworden, dass er nichts mehr hält.

Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe

Und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,

der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,

ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,

in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.

Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille

sich lautlos auf –.  Dann geht ein Bild hinein,

geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille –

und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.

Beware of cannibal

One drawback of generally avoiding translated texts is that I miss out on a lot of cool stuff just because it's written in a language I don't speak.  It's only today that I came to know this gem by Oswald de Andrade ...  So now I'm going to post this one beautiful piece by Rilke, and then I'm going to go eat  :)  because---come to think about it---tupi, or not tupi---there's no question in my mind  :)
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Abend

Von Rainer Maria Rilke

Der Abend wechselt langsam die Gewänder,

die ihm ein Rand von alten Bäumen hält;

du schaust: und von dir scheiden sich die Länder,

ein himmelfahrendes und eins, das fällt;

und lassen dich, zu keinem ganz gehörend,

nicht ganz so dunkel wie das Haus, das schweigt,

nicht ganz so sicher Ewiges beschwörend

wie das, was Stern wird jede Nacht und steigt –

und lassen dir (unsäglich zu entwirrn)

dein Leben bang und riesenhaft und reifend,

so dass es, bald begrenzt und bald begreifend,

abwechselnd Stein in dir wird und Gestirn.

Why Rilke

My class didn't get a new reading assignment today (instead, we are going to take an exam next week), so no more reading logs for some time, I'll just post random stuff on random days to the blog.

My teacher Herr Prof. Dr. Franz Langhammer died.  I had had three classes with him:  German poetry in summer 2009, German short prose in summer 2010, and Goethe's Faust I in summer 2011.  Rilke was one of his favorite poets, so I'm posting Rilke today.  This one is from the 1907 volume "Neue Gedichte":
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Liebes-Lied

Von Rainer Maria Rilke

Wie soll ich meine Seele halten, daß
sie nicht an deine rührt? Wie soll ich sie
hinheben über dich zu andern Dingen?
Ach gerne möcht ich sie bei irgendwas
Verlorenem im Dunkel unterbringen
an einer fremden stillen Stelle, die
nicht weiterschwingt, wenn deine Tiefen schwingen.
Doch alles, was uns anrührt, dich und mich,
nimmt uns zusammen wie ein Bogenstrich,
der aus zwei Saiten eine Stimme zieht.
Auf welches Instrument sind wir gespannt?
Und welcher Geiger hat uns in der Hand?
O süßes Lied. 

The second story

My workshop group got cancelled because of the winter storm for tonight  :(  Okay, reading log time:
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8:31 p.m.  "What's Important Is Feeling," by Adam Wilson and from the famous "Paris Review," is 16 pages long.

8:37 p.m.  Briefly researched the "Paris Review."  Read here about its connection with the CIA!

8:41 p.m.  First section (1.5 pages) done.  This one's also reading well.

8:47 p.m.  First 3 sections (2.5 pages) were setting, and were successful.  Now Conflict's entered  :)

8:59 p.m.  On the tenth page.  Still reading great  :)  but I need a cigarette break.

9:07 p.m.  Back.  Let's get this done!

9:09 p.m.  "... the cat will dance through that house like he's Mikhail fucking Baryshnikov?"  I'm liking this text more and more  :)

9:17 p.m.  Who's Geppetto?

9:18 p.m.  Oh (found out).

9:24 p.m.  Wow!  And yes, I'm done  :)  More later---

Is it getting warmer? :)

It isn't really, but I'm enjoying a warm feeling today because we got not one, but two stories to read this time  :)  so, in addition to today, there will be a reading log either tomorrow or on Wednesday!
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8:48 p.m.  8:48 p.m.?  I wanted to get done early and get some sleep today ... Okay, let's do this.  "Anything Helps," by Jess Walter, from "McSweeney's", is 13 pages long.

8:54 p.m.  First section done.  Wondering who "Julie" should be.  This is reading well so far.

8:57 p.m.  Finished the second section.  So Julie was Bit's girlfriend, and she died.  This is still reading well.

9:01 p.m.  Third section done.  I'm making good time today  :)

9:12 p.m.  Done.  Beautiful story  :)  Not only did I not get up for a cigarette break, I didn't even pause to sip the coffee I had brewed myself before I started reading.

More later  :)

Andrew Marvell

Relax, there won't be another reading log before Monday  :)  I just wanted to post an old favorite:
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To His Coy Mistress

By Andrew Marvell

Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the flood,

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires and more slow;

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found;

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long-preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust;

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Thorough the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Alive

That's the title of the story I'm reading-logging today.  Later this evening:  a free showing of the computer-animated action-comedy superhero film "The Incomprehensibles," a.k.a. my 4-page essay for the translation class on stuff like Schleiermacher and Walter Benjamin.  Because that essay is due tomorrow.  My cup runneth over  :(  But let's get this done:
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5:48 p.m.  "Alive", by Sharon Solwitz, from "Fifth Wednesday Journal."  13 pages long.

5:50 p.m.  Looked at this year's calendar:  January had a fifth Wednesday, and that day was my birthday  :)  The next fifth Wednesday will be in May, and I'm really hoping that I'll be in Iowa City on that day  :))  and after that, July will have a fifth Wednesday, and---with any luck---I'll be in Portland, Ore. on that day  :)))  The next fifth Wednesday will be in October, and I still don't have plans for that ...  Okay, I'll start reading now.

5:58 p.m.  Okay, that brief mystery about who Ethan is was probably unnecessary?

6:01 p.m.  A small box right under the skin?  For what was Nate in hospital anyway?

6:05 p.m.  Pizza!  :)  I'll return after eating and a cigarette break.

6:16 p.m.  Back.  Seriously hoping to finish the story by 7 p.m.  I'm suspecting Nate might have cancer, which would be such a cheap cop-out, but it's---sadly---really common in stories.  Plus I'm suspecting something bad will happen to Nate on the ski trip, which would be another cheap cop-out, etc.

6:39 p.m.  Done.  The author went for every cheap cop-out in the book, and then some  :(  but at least I'm done on time.

Even longer

Today's story, "Beautiful Monsters" by Eric Puchner, is, I kid you not, 16 pages long  :(
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9:22 p.m.  This is from "Tin House", so first order of business:  What is "Tin House"?

9:23 p.m.  Okay, Tin House have their weeklong Writer's Workshop at Reed College, Portland, Ore., in July, which is when I attend German summer school in Portland, Ore.  :)  But I really don't go for such extreme short-term stuff ...  Let's see what this story is like.

9:44 p.m.  10 pages down.  Dystopic, etc.  Cigarette break.

9:56 p.m.  Back.  Does the author's powers of imagination---what I have seen of it so far---even justify the futuristic setting?  Or should I just read it as allegory?

9:59 p.m.  Four in seven men become bald?  :((

10:07 p.m.  Done.  Should you even be writing  at all if and/or when you are this bitter?  Someone once told me that one should never write out of spite.

More on Thursday (I think)---

Tiring of routine

I'm beginning to get bored with the current twice-a-week nature of the (reading log, and therefore also the) blog - langsam wird es langweilig - daher wollte ich heute - zur Abwechslung - mal wieder ein Gedicht posten.  Hier ein Text von meinem Meister  :)
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Dear Miss Emily

By James Galvin

I knew the end would be gone before I got there.
After all, all rainbows lie for a living.
And as you have insisted, repeatedly,
The difference between death and the Eternal
Present is about as far as one
Eyelash from the next, not wished upon.
Rainbows are not forms or stories, are they?
They are not doors ajar so much as far-
Flung situations without true beginnings
Or any ends---why bother---unless, as you
Suggest---repeatedly---there's nothing wrong
With this life, and we should all stop whining.
So I shift my focus now on how to end
A letter.  In XOXOXO,
For example, Miss, which are the hugs
And which the kisses?  Does anybody know?
I could argue either way: the O's
Are circles of embrace, the X is someone
Else's star burning inside your mouth;
Unless the O is a mouth that cannot speak,
Because, you know, it's busy.
X is the crucifixion all embraces
Are, here at the nowhere of the rainbow's end,
Where even light has failed its situation,
Slant the only life it ever had,
Where even the most gallant sunset can't
Hold back for more than a nonce the rain-laden
Eastern sky of night.  It's clear.  It's clear.
X's are both hugs and kisses, O's
Where the stars that died gave out, gave up, gave in---
Where no one meant the promises they made.
Oh, and one more thing.  I send my love
However long and far it takes---through light,
Through time, through all the faithlessness of men,

James Augustin Galvin,

               X,

His mark.

Snow afternoon :)

So we finally caught a break  :)  Here's hoping we get a whole snow day some day ... Actually, if it happened tomorrow, that would be a long weekend  :)

Well, now let me get this reading log done:
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7:07 p.m.  "Miracle Polish" by Steven Millhauser got printed in "The New Yorker"!  But it's 14 pages long  :(

7:11 p.m.  Briefly researched (on the internet) the burning question:  Is there such a thing as a "long story"?  Because this one is 14 pages ... And I learnt that "Encyclopedia of literature in Canada" (ed. William H. New, U of Toronto, 2000) might have something about that.  At any rate ... I'll start reading now.

7:20 p.m.  What kind of people have time "early in the morning" to polish their mirror?  "Before leaving for work"?  I'd have thought it more normal to make a mental note to myself to the effect that I should polish my mirror some day (some day when I have time) and left for work

7:24 p.m.  Okay, I anticipate magic realism

7:25 p.m.  So you weren't "the kind of man who looked at himself in mirrors," but still you were the kind om man who would stop on a work morning to polish your mirror?

7:32 p.m.  So is it Tuesday, or is it Friday?

7:50 p.m.  Okay, done.  Great story, but a little creepy ... and it wasn't even magic realism.  More next week  :)

Monday evening.  Still running low on sleep.  Hoping to read this story fast, so I can sleep early and well tonight ...  I need it, too---tomorrow I must work all night in the darkroom again.  The winter isn't letting up either, plus there's still no word on how bad it needs to get before the College calls a snow day  :(
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7:51 p.m.  Language reset to English with Shantel on YouTube.

7:55 p.m.  "Navigator," by Mike Meginnis, 11 pp.

7:56 p.m.  "In games, where it was so often so easy to lose perspective, but also in life."  Thanks for the hint, I wouldn't have known it was a monkey if you only showed me the picture and not told me what it was that you had drawn.

8:03 p.m.  Apart from the moment of bluntness in the 7:56 p.m. entry above, this story is reading really well so far  :)

8:08 p.m.  Two other small things up to now  :(  "Two in the morning" is unimpressive, in case I was supposed to be impressed by how late the characters are staying up.  And "His skin was waxy like the stalactites" is too blunt again.

8:22 p.m.  Game over  :)  Beautiful exercise in extended metaphor.  More on Thursday, I hope.  If not Thursday, then Saturday ...

Wake up on a Saturday night

It's late in the afternoon on Saturday, and I have not slept yet this weekend, and work has piled up higher than the two feet of snow we have on the ground today, and I'm falling behind in spite of having worked all night yesterday.  Life is like an empty box of chocolates right now (in several other ways as well)  :(

Oh well.  Let me at least get the reading (along with its log) done:
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5:44 p.m.  "Paramour", by Jennifer Haigh, 10 pp.

5:45 p.m.  Probably because I'm tired, the first sentence, "The tribute was held downtown, far away from the theater district," reminded me of Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery," so I looked it up, but it doesn't start "The lottery was held in the village square."

5:50 p.m.  Okay, so Ivan the Terrible?

5:51 p.m.  From Christine crossing the street "gingerly" to the skin of Beth's cleavage having "spent forty or fifty summers in the sun," the first page has an irritating faux-poetic diction.

5:55 p.m.  Pages two through two-and-a-half of this story are, in modern parlance, TMI ...

5:58 p.m.  Martin's South African?  Ivan's from the Ukraine, and the story's taking place in New York (so far) ...  Could it be possible that this short story was the author's homework paper when the assignment was "Write a short story involving every continent on the planet"---?

5:59 p.m.  Okay, so samba music's playing in the restaurant "Paramour."  South America is in the house  :)  How much longer now before a penguin, a kangaroo, and a panda bear, all three wearing tuxes, walk into a bar?

Taking a break to watch Tony Holiday's "Tanze Samba mit mir" on YouTube and smoke a cigarette.

6:23 p.m.  Back.  Must read fast.

6:26 p.m.  "Waiters circulated, precariously wielding trays of appetizers."  The unappetizing diction's not gonna let up anytime soon.

6:28 p.m.  Going the extra mile beyond a cliche and a mixed metaphor:  the mixed cliche of strangers standing "back to back, elbow to elbow"  :(

6:30 p.m.  A master class in the art of overusing adjectives and misusing otherwise powerful verbs  :(

6:31 p.m.  What's an Equity card?  On another day, in the middle of another story, I would've looked it up.

6:36 p.m.  At last a light moment:  His eyes had "seemed to be all pupil."  Pupil?  Pupil  :)

6:43 p.m.  Done.  Now to drive back---through the two feet of snow---to the apartment, where I can simultaneously do laundry and the Grammar homework.