kind of blue

At home I have a blue piano.

But I can’t play a note.

It’s been in the shadow of the cellar door

Ever since the world went rotten.

Four starry hands play harmonies.

The Woman in the Moon sang in her boat.

Now only rats dance to the clanks.

The keyboard is in bits.

I weep for what is blue. Is dead.

Sweet angels, I have eaten

Such bitter bread. Push open

The door of heaven. For me, for now---

Although I am still alive---

Although it is not allowed.

Else Lasker-Schuler

My Blue Piano, tr. Edward Hirsch

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midnight reveries

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watching the rain, longing for colour

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the 1st of march

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orchid against the storm (or is it: with the storm?)

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to life's full measure

May it please the One who perchance is to expand the human heart to life’s full measure.

Marguerite Yourcenar


(for erin)



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those forgotten stories (2)

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snow drop dream

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the prayer of the rose

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still life with curtain and fading flowers

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and water underneath

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gray

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venice windows, matter-of-factly

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...

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the story

she was standing there, naked. she wouldn't look at me, but concentrate on the flowers. she had tulips, almost dead, their petals scattered all around. she also had lilies of the valley, and we would look at them for hours (their shadows would climb on the wall, trembling delicately in that filtered light, and to us it seemed as if we could almost see and touch their souls, while they were dissipating into that late spring afternoon). 

she would keep covering herself with her arms, she would hide behind them, she would wrap them around her belly, as she was not happy and not free inside her body. yet she didn't say no to me, when i took the photos, she just stood there, in the hazy light, playing with the petals. when the curtain suddenly fluttered and one petal fell on the ground, unexpectedly, she startled - it seemed to me that i could almost touch her soul, touch what made her to be herself, that wonder, that mystery (it was, of course, an illusion, no one can touch another soul, not even when the light-filled curtains are lulling us into believing we might be exempt from this rule, we might just be allowed a moment of grace, because we are special, because no one has ever loved and desired as we have).

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old window, yet the light in the curtains is still the same

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last mornings in may

I brought summer curtains with me.

I never knew when to hang them in windows.

In the sunlit room I stepped back lightly

-- the sketches of shadow over my ankles

I hoped would be a road or a well traveled guest.

Then it seemed already night, and I asleep at an inn,

dreaming how the flowers were shaking by my shoulder.

--I could hardly see between bouquets of lilac and peonies,

could hardly see through wisteria and roses.

poem by Cerasela, tr. by James Owens 

Ultimele dimineți din mai

Am luat lângă mine perdelele pentru vară

n-am știut niciodată când să le așez la ferestre.

În camera plină de soare m-am dat ușor înapoi

- desenele umbrei peste gleznele mele

speram să fie un drum sau un oaspete foarte umblat.

Mi s-a părut atunci că e deja noapte, că dorm într-un han

și visez cum se scutură lângă umărul meu florile

- nu vedeam limpede între buchete de liliac și bujori,

nu vedeam limpede între trandafiri și glicine. 

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even the rain was lilac

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pink above the town

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red mornings, despite the fog

and the dark one:

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