Fleurs du Mal Magazine
Or see the index
Les Yeux de Berthe
Vous pouvez mépriser les yeux les plus célèbres,
Beaux yeux de mon enfant, par où filtre et s’enfuit
Je ne sais quoi de bon, de doux comme la Nuit!
Beaux yeux, versez sur moi vos charmantes ténèbres!
Grands yeux de mon enfant, arcanes adorés,
Vous ressemblez beaucoup à ces grottes magiques
Où, derrière l’amas des ombres léthargiques,
Scintillent vaguement des trésors ignorés!
Mon enfant a des yeux obscurs, profonds et vastes,
Comme toi, Nuit immense, éclairés comme toi!
Leurs feux sont ces pensers d’Amour, mêlés de Foi,
Qui pétillent au fond, voluptueux ou chastes.
Charles Baudelaire
(1821-1867)
Les Yeux de Berthe
(poème)
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive A-B, Archive A-B, Baudelaire, Baudelaire, Charles
Paul Verlaine drinkt absint in een Café.
(Foto van Paul François Arnold Cardon a.k.a. Dornac, 1892)
Blue in Green
Je vindt uiteindelijk je vrouw
en in het coloriet van wouw
en wede stuit je op verdriet.
De insecten vliegen af en aan,
in goud, smaragd en malachiet,
hun schaduw rillend van cyaan.
En in de luister van de vliet,
in het gefluister van het riet,
dient nieuwe poëzie zich aan.
Paul Bezembinder
Paul Bezembinder studeerde theoretische natuurkunde in Nijmegen. In zijn poëzie zoekt hij in vooral klassieke versvormen en thema’s naar de balans tussen serieuze poëzie, pastiche en smartlap. Zijn gedichten (Nederlands) en vertalingen (Russisch-Nederlands) verschenen in verschillende (online) literaire tijdschriften. Voorbeelden van zijn werk zijn te vinden op zijn website: www.paulbezembinder.nl
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive A-B, Archive U-V, Bezembinder, Paul, Opium-Eaters, Verlaine, Paul
Morphina
Im Traume fand ich dich,
Mädchen, in mondener Nacht
Kamst du mir zögernd entgegen.
Auf deiner Stirne träumte ein Stern,
Deine kleinen Schritte klangen wie Glas,
Um deinen Mund ein überweltliches Lächeln.
Deine schmalen Schultern froren im Wind.
Ich umschlang dich, deinen eisigen Körper.
Schwester! wie lange bist du gestorben …
Wir sanken, wir fielen.
Mohn umblühte unser Sterben.
Francisca Stoecklin
(1894-1931)
Morphina
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive S-T, Archive S-T, Opium-Eaters, Stoecklin, Francisca
The first and most complete narrative biography of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, by acclaimed music journalist and Rolling Stone senior writer David Browne.
Even in the larger-than-life world of rock and roll, it was hard to imagine four more different men.
David Crosby, the opinionated hippie guru. Stephen Stills, the perpetually driven musician. Graham Nash, the tactful pop craftsman. Neil Young, the creatively restless loner.
But together, few groups were as in sync with their times as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Starting with the original trio’s landmark 1969 debut album, the group embodied much about its era: communal musicmaking, protest songs that took on the establishment and Richard Nixon, and liberal attitudes toward partners and lifestyles. Their group or individual songs–“Wooden Ships,” “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” “After the Gold Rush,” “For What It’s Worth” (with Stills and Young’s Buffalo Springfield), “Love the One You’re With,” “Long Time Gone,” “Just a Song Before I Go,” “Southern Cross”–became the soundtrack of a generation.
But their story would rarely be as harmonious as their legendary and influential vocal blend. In the years that followed, these four volatile men would continually break up, reunite, and disband again–all against a backdrop of social and musical change, recurring disagreements and jealousies, and self-destructive tendencies that threatened to cripple them both as a group and as individuals.
In Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young: The Wild, Definitive Saga of Rock’s Greatest Supergroup, longtime music journalist and Rolling Stone writer David Browne presents the ultimate deep dive into rock and roll’s most musical and turbulent brotherhood on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. Featuring exclusive interviews with David Crosby and Graham Nash along with band members, colleagues, fellow superstars, former managers, employees, and lovers-and with access to unreleased music and documents–Browne takes readers backstage and onstage, into the musicians’ homes, recording studios, and psyches, to chronicle the creative and psychological ties that have bound these men together–and sometimes torn them apart.
This is the sweeping story of rock’s longest-running, most dysfunctional, yet pre-eminent musical family, delivered with the epic feel their story rightly deserves.
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young:
The Wild, Definitive Saga of Rock’s Greatest Supergroup
by David Browne (Author)
Hardcover: 480 pages
Publisher: Da Capo Press;
1st Edition edition April 2, 2019
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0306903288
ISBN-13: 978-0306903281
April 2, 2019
Hardcover
$20.23
# more books
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young:
The Wild, Definitive Saga of Rock’s Greatest Supergroup
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: # Music Archive, #Biography Archives, - Book News, - Book Stories, Archive A-B, AUDIO, CINEMA, RADIO & TV, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Opium-Eaters
Quelle force de vérité accorder à la poésie? Apparemment aucune selon Baudelaire.
C’est pourtant lui qui assure le passage décisif vers une poésie qui remet en question ses fondements, son devenir, sa nécessité, une poésie qui exige d’être sans cesse perception à valeur existentielle.
La réflexivité poétique qui s’exerce entre apparence et tréfonds de l’homme exacerbe le poétique et le menace. Où, quand, comment et vers quoi se joue le vrai du poème ?
Pourquoi cette oeuvre pose-t-elle les enjeux de la modernité ?
Se débattant contre tout Idéal absolu, la poétique baudelairienne désire la liberté incarnée et douloureuse de l’artiste, de l’humain.
Régine Foloppe, est l’auteur de plusieurs recueils poétiques, notamment : Tributaires du vent (Le Castor Astral, prix Max-Pol Fouchet) et Famines (Belin). Elle a publié des articles et des poèmes dans des revues (PO&SIE, Eidôlon, Friches, Diérèse…). Agrégée de lettres modernes, docteure en littérature française, elle enseigne à l’Université de Montpellier.
Baudelaire et la vérité poétique
Auteur: Régine Foloppe
Editeur : Editions L’Harmattan
Collection : La philosophie en commun
19 février 2019
Format : 15,5 x 24 cm
Broché
464 pages
Langue : Français
ISBN-10: 2343157642
ISBN-13: 978-2343157641
EUR 42,00
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: - Book News, - Bookstores, Archive A-B, Archive A-B, Archive E-F, Art & Literature News, Baudelaire, Baudelaire, Charles
Mort d’une surdose d’opium en 1919 à l’âge de vingt-trois ans, alors qu’il est encore sous l’uniforme, Jacques Vaché est reconnu comme celui par qui le surréalisme est arrivé.
Du premier Manifeste à ses derniers Entretiens, André Breton aura toujours célébré celui qu’il appelait «l’homme que j’ai le plus aimé au monde».
Et quinze Lettres de guerre, envoyées depuis le front à son ami poète ainsi qu’à Théodore Fraenkel et Louis Aragon, auront suffi pour que Vaché devienne l’arme secrète de plusieurs générations.
Breton révélait en 1919 son «Umour» sans H, surgi au milieu des combats, l’expression poétique la plus pure de l’humour noir et de la «désertion intérieure».
Présenter pour la première fois l’intégralité des lettres écrites par Jacques Vaché à sa famille et à ses amis pendant la guerre (158 dont 23 totalement inédites) permet de marquer le point de départ d’une aventure moderne et de mettre en lumière le soldat en action, la vocation prometteuse du dessinateur et la singularité du «dandy des tranchées».
Jacques Vaché:
Lettres de guerre (1914-1918)
Édition de Patrice Allain et Thomas Guillemin.
Préface de Patrice Allain
Collection Blanche, Gallimard
Parution: 08-11-2018
480 pages,
ill.,
140 x 205 mm
Achevé d’imprimer: 01-10-2018
Genre : Correspondances
Prix: 24,00 €
# new books
Jacques Vaché:
Lettres de guerre (1914-1918)
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: #Biography Archives, *War Poetry Archive, - Book News, - Bookstores, Archive U-V, Archive U-V, Art & Literature News, Jacques Vaché, Opium-Eaters, Vaché, Jacques
Auch hundert Jahre nach seinem Tod ein Geheimnis: Georg Trakl. Rüdiger Görner geht dem Mythos nach.
Kurz nach Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkriegs starb Georg Trakl in einem Militärspital an einer Überdosis Kokain. Ob der im Krieg traumatisierte Dichter Selbstmord beging, ist eines der Rätsel, die sein Leben und Werk umgeben.
Rüdiger Görner gelingt es, sich den biographischen Brüchen und Details über das Werk anzunähern. Er geht in der Auseinandersetzung mit den Gedichten der Todessehnsucht Trakls, der mehr als innigen Beziehung zu Schwester Margarethe und dem Aufwachsen in Salzburg nach. Und kommt zu faszinierenden Schlüssen: Dass sich die Extreme der Zeit – die Beschleunigung der Lebensverhältnisse, ihre rücksichtslose Technisierung – im Werk des Dichters nur bedingt spiegeln. Und dass die Gedichte – Trakls Ruhelosigkeit zum Trotz – oft geradezu ausgeruht klingen.
Rüdiger Görner, geboren 1957 in Rottweil, ist Professor für Neuere Deutsche und vergleichende Literatur an der Queen Mary University of London. Gründer des Ingeborg Bachmann Centre for Austrian Literature und Gründungsdirektor des Centre for Anglo-German Cultural Relations. Träger des Deutschen Sprachpreises, des Reimar Lüstpreises der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung und des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Bei Zsolnay erschienen Rainer Maria Rilke. Im Herzwerk der Sprache (2004), Georg Trakl. Dichter im Jahrzehnt der Extreme (2014) und Oskar Kokoschka. Jahrhundertkünstler (2018).
Rüdiger Görner:
Georg Trakl.
Dichter im Jahrzehnt der Extreme
Deutscher Sprache
Fester Einband
352 Seiten
Zsolnay / Deuticke
Carl Hanser Verlag, München
ISBN 978-3-552-05697-8
2014
€ 24,90
# new books
Georg Trakl
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: - Book News, - Book Stories, Archive G-H, Archive S-T, Art & Literature News, Opium-Eaters, Trakl, Georg, Trakl, Georg
Old Angel Midnight is a treasure trove of Kerouac’s experiments with automatic writing, a method he practiced constantly to sharpen his imaginative reflexes.
Recorded in a series of notebooks between 1956-1959, what Kerouac called his “endless automatic writing piece” began while he shared a cabin with poet Gary Snyder. Kerouac tried to emulate Snyder’s daily Buddhist meditation discipline, using the technique of “letting go” to free his mind for pure spontaneous writing, annotating the stream of words flowing through his consciousness in response to auditory stimuli and his own mental images.
Kerouac continued his exercise in spontaneous composition over the next three years, including a period spent with William Burroughs in Tangiers. He made no revisions to the automatic writing entries in his notebooks, which were collected and transcribed for publication as originally written.
Old Angel Midnight attests to the success of Kerouac’s experiment and bears witness to his commitment to his craft, and to the pleasure he takes in writing: “I like the bliss of mind.”
Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) was a principal actor in the Beat Generation, a companion of Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady in that great adventure. His books include On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Mexico City Blues, Lonesome Traveler, Visions of Cody, Pomes All Sizes (City Lights), Scattered Poems (City Lights), and Scripture of the Golden Eternity (City Lights).
Title Old Angel Midnight
Author Jack Kerouac
Preface by Ann Charters, Michael McClure
Collection City Lights/Grey Fox
Publisher City Lights Publishers
Poetry
Published 2016
Format Paperback
ISBN-10 087286703X
ISBN-13 9780872867031
94 pages
List Price $13.95
Books That Everyone Should Read
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: #Beat Generation Archives, *Archive Les Poètes Maudits, - Book Stories, Archive K-L, DRUGS & MEDICINE & LITERATURE, Kerouac, Jack, Opium-Eaters
A Latina feminist State of the Union address at the intersection of pop culture and interiority.
Cruel Futures is a witchy confessional and wildly imagistic volume that examines subjects as divergent as Alzheimers, Medusa, mumblecore, and mental illness in sharp-witted, taut poems dense with song. Chronicling life on an endangered planet, in a country on the precipice of profound change compelled by a media machine that produces our realities, the book is a high-energy analysis of popular culture, as well as an exploration of the many social roles that women occupy as mother, daughter, lover, and the resulting struggle to maintain personhood—all in a late capitalist America.
Born in New York, poet Carmen Giménez Smith earned a BA in English from San Jose State University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa. She writes lyric essays as well as poetry, and is the author of the poetry chapbook Casanova Variations (2009); the memoir Bring Down the Little Birds: On Mothering, Art, Work, and Everything Else (2010); and the full-length collections Odalisque in Pieces (2009), Milk and Filth (2013), finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Cruel Futures: City Lights Spotlight No. 17 (City Lights Publishers, 2018).
Giménez Smith’s work explores issues affecting the lives of females, including Latina identity, and frequently references myth and memory. With the publication of Odalisque in Pieces, Giménez Smith was featured as a New American Poet on the Poetry Society of America’s website. Her poems have been included in the anthologies Floricanto Si! U.S. Latina Poets (1998) and Contextos: Poemas (1994).
Giménez Smith is the editor-in-chief of Puerto del Sol and publisher of Noemi Press. She was appointed as poetry co-editor (along with Steph Burt) at The Nation in 2017 and teaches at Virginia Tech University.
Title Cruel Futures
Author Carmen Giménez Smith
Collection City Lights Spotlight
Publisher City Lights Publishers
Format Paperback
ISBN-10 0872867587
ISBN-13 9780872867581
Publication Date 15 April 2018
Main content page count 88
List Price $15.95
new books
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: - Book News, - Book Stories, Archive G-H, Art & Literature News, Opium-Eaters, Psychiatric hospitals
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Part I
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?
The bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
Mayst hear the merry din.’
He holds him with his skinny hand,
“There was a ship,” quoth he.
‘Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!’
Eftsoons his hand dropped he.
He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years’ child:
The Mariner hath his will.
The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.
“The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the lighthouse top.
The sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.
Higher and higher every day,
Till over the mast at noon—”
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.
The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.
The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.
“And now the storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o’ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.
With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And foward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.
And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.
And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
The ice was all between.
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!
At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God’s name.
It ate the food it ne’er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!
And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner’s hollo!
In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moonshine.”
‘God save thee, ancient Mariner,
From the fiends that plague thee thus!—
Why look’st thou so?’—”With my crossbow
I shot the Albatross.”
Part II
“The sun now rose upon the right:
Out of the sea came he,
Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.
And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariners’ hollo!
And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work ’em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!
Nor dim nor red, like God’s own head,
The glorious sun uprist:
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.
‘Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
Down dropped the breeze, the sails dropped down,
‘Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!
All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the moon.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.
About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch’s oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white.
And some in dreams assured were
Of the Spirit that plagued us so;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.
And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root;
We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.
Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.”
Part III
“There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time!
How glazed each weary eye—
When looking westward, I beheld
A something in the sky.
At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist;
It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.
A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared:
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged and tacked and veered.
With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could nor laugh nor wail;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail!
With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
Agape they heard me call:
Gramercy! they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.
See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal;
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel!
The western wave was all a-flame,
The day was well nigh done!
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright sun;
When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the sun.
And straight the sun was flecked with bars,
(Heaven’s Mother send us grace!)
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered
With broad and burning face.
Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!
Are those her sails that glance in the sun,
Like restless gossameres?
Are those her ribs through which the sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a Death? and are there two?
Is Death that Woman’s mate?
Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man’s blood with cold.
The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice;
‘The game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won!’
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.
The sun’s rim dips; the stars rush out:
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper o’er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.
We listened and looked sideways up!
Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
My life-blood seemed to sip!
The stars were dim, and thick the night,
The steersman’s face by his lamp gleamed white;
From the sails the dew did drip—
Till clomb above the eastern bar
The horned moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.
One after one, by the star-dogged moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.
Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.
The souls did from their bodies fly,—
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my crossbow!”
Part IV
‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
I fear thy skinny hand!
And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.
I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand, so brown.’— Poem:
“Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!
This body dropped not down.
Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie;
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.
I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.
I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came and made
My heart as dry as dust.
I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat;
Forthe sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky,
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.
The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they:
The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.
An orphan’s curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.
The moving moon went up the sky,
And no where did abide:
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside—
Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread;
But where the ship’s huge shadow lay,
The charmed water burnt alway
A still and awful red.
Beyond the shadow of the ship
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.
O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.
The selfsame moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.”
Part V
“Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from heaven,
That slid into my soul.
The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.
My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.
I moved, and could not feel my limbs:
I was so light—almost
I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed ghost.
And soon I heard a roaring wind:
It did not come anear;
But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.
The upper air burst into life!
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out,
The wan stars danced between.
And the coming wind did roar more loud,
And the sails did sigh like sedge;
And the rain poured down from one black cloud;
The moon was at its edge.
The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
The moon was at its side:
Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a jag,
A river steep and wide.
The loud wind never reached the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the moon
The dead men gave a groan.
They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.
The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze up blew;
The mariners all ‘gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do;
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—
We were a ghastly crew.
The body of my brother’s son
Stood by me, knee to knee:
The body and I pulled at one rope,
But he said nought to me.”
‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner!’
“Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!
‘Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
Which to their corses came again,
But a troop of spirits blest:
For when it dawned—they dropped their arms,
And clustered round the mast;
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And from their bodies passed.
Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
Then darted to the sun;
Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mixed, now one by one.
Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the skylark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!
And now ’twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute;
And now it is an angel’s song,
That makes the heavens be mute.
It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.
Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe;
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath.
Under the keel nine fathom deep,
From the land of mist and snow,
The spirit slid: and it was he
That made the ship to go.
The sails at noon left off their tune,
And the ship stood still also.
The sun, right up above the mast,
Had fixed her to the ocean:
But in a minute she ‘gan stir,
With a short uneasy motion—
Backwards and forwards half her length
With a short uneasy motion.
Then like a pawing horse let go,
She made a sudden bound:
It flung the blood into my head,
And I fell down in a swound.
How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare;
But ere my living life returned,
I heard and in my soul discerned
Two voices in the air.
‘Is it he?’ quoth one, ‘Is this the man?
By him who died on cross,
With his cruel bow he laid full low
The harmless Albatross.
The spirit who bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,
He loved the bird that loved the man
Who shot him with his bow.’
The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honey-dew:
Quoth he, ‘The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do.’
Part VI
First Voice
But tell me, tell me! speak again,
Thy soft response renewing—
What makes that ship drive on so fast?
What is the ocean doing?
Second Voice
Still as a slave before his lord,
The ocean hath no blast;
His great bright eye most silently
Up to the moon is cast—
If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see! how graciously
She looketh down on him.
First Voice
But why drives on that ship so fast,
Without or wave or wind?
Second Voice
The air is cut away before,
And closes from behind.
Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!
Or we shall be belated:
For slow and slow that ship will go,
When the Mariner’s trance is abated.
“I woke, and we were sailing on
As in a gentle weather:
‘Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;
The dead men stood together.
All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
All fixed on me their stony eyes,
That in the moon did glitter.
The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never passed away:
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.
And now this spell was snapped: once more
I viewed the ocean green,
And looked far forth, yet little saw
Of what had else been seen—
Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
But soon there breathed a wind on me,
Nor sound nor motion made:
Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.
It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring—
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.
Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sailed softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze—
On me alone it blew.
Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
The lighthouse top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own country?
We drifted o’er the harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray—
O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.
The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn!
And on the bay the moonlight lay,
And the shadow of the moon.
The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,
That stands above the rock:
The moonlight steeped in silentness
The steady weathercock.
And the bay was white with silent light,
Till rising from the same,
Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colours came.
A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:
I turned my eyes upon the deck—
Oh, Christ! what saw I there!
Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
And, by the holy rood!
A man all light, a seraph-man,
On every corse there stood.
This seraph-band, each waved his hand:
It was a heavenly sight!
They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light;
This seraph-band, each waved his hand,
No voice did they impart—
No voice; but oh! the silence sank
Like music on my heart.
But soon I heard the dash of oars,
I heard the Pilot’s cheer;
My head was turned perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear.
The Pilot and the Pilot’s boy,
I heard them coming fast:
Dear Lord in heaven! it was a joy
The dead men could not blast.
I saw a third—I heard his voice:
It is the Hermit good!
He singeth loud his godly hymns
That he makes in the wood.
He’ll shrieve my soul, he’ll wash away
The Albatross’s blood.”
Part VII
“This Hermit good lives in that wood
Which slopes down to the sea.
How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
He loves to talk with marineers
That come from a far country.
He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve—
He hath a cushion plump:
It is the moss that wholly hides
The rotted old oak-stump.
The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk,
‘Why, this is strange, I trow!
Where are those lights so many and fair,
That signal made but now?’
‘Strange, by my faith!’ the Hermit said—
‘And they answered not our cheer!
The planks looked warped! and see those sails,
How thin they are and sere!
I never saw aught like to them,
Unless perchance it were
Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
My forest-brook along;
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
That eats the she-wolf’s young.’
‘Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look—
(The Pilot made reply)
I am afeared’—’Push on, push on!’
Said the Hermit cheerily.
The boat came closer to the ship,
But I nor spake nor stirred;
The boat came close beneath the ship,
And straight a sound was heard.
Under the water it rumbled on,
Still louder and more dread:
It reached the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.
Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote,
Like one that hath been seven days drowned
My body lay afloat;
But swift as dreams, myself I found
Within the Pilot’s boat.
Upon the whirl where sank the ship
The boat spun round and round;
And all was still, save that the hill
Was telling of the sound.
I moved my lips—the Pilot shrieked
And fell down in a fit;
The holy Hermit raised his eyes,
And prayed where he did sit.
I took the oars: the Pilot’s boy,
Who now doth crazy go,
Laughed loud and long, and all the while
His eyes went to and fro.
‘Ha! ha!’ quoth he, ‘full plain I see,
The Devil knows how to row.’
And now, all in my own country,
I stood on the firm land!
The Hermit stepped forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.
O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!
The Hermit crossed his brow.
‘Say quick,’ quoth he ‘I bid thee say—
What manner of man art thou?’
Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
With a woeful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.
Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns;
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.
I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.
What loud uproar bursts from that door!
The wedding-guests are there:
But in the garden-bower the bride
And bride-maids singing are;
And hark the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer!
O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea:
So lonely ’twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.
O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
‘Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!—
To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!
Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”
The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone; and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom’s door.
He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man
He rose the morrow morn.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834)
Poem: Rime of the Ancient Mariner
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Coleridge, Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
The Tables Turned
(An Evening Scene on the Same Subject)
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you’ll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
The sun, above the mountain’s head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There’s more of wisdom in it.
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your Teacher.
She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:
We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.
William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850)
Poem: The Tables Turned
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive W-X, Wordsworth, Wordsworth, William
In The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way, Charles Bukowski considers the art of writing, and the art of living as writer.
Bringing together a variety of previously uncollected stories, columns, reviews, introductions, and interviews, Mathematics finds him approaching the dynamics of his chosen profession with cynical aplomb, deflating pretentions and tearing down idols armed with only a typewriter and a bottle of beer.
Beginning with the title piece—a serious manifesto disguised as off-handed remarks en route to the racetrack—Mathematics runs through numerous tales following the author’s adventures at poetry readings, parties, film sets, and bars, and also features an unprecedented gathering of Bukowski’s singular literary criticism.
From classic authors like Hemingway to underground legends like d.a. levy to his own stable of obscure favorites, Bukowski uses each occasion to expound on the larger issues around literary production.
The book closes with a handful of interviews in which he discusses his writing practices and his influences, making Mathematics a perfect guide to the man behind the myth and the disciplined artist behind the boozing brawler.
The method behind the madness, revealing the critical acumen of everyone’s favorite Dirty Old Man.
“Genius could be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way, or even to say a simple thing in a simpler way.”—Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany on August 16, 1920, the only child of an American soldier and a German mother. At the age of three, he came with his family to the United States and grew up in Los Angeles. He attended Los Angeles City College from 1939 to 1941, then left school and moved to New York City to become a writer. His lack of publishing success at this time caused him to give up writing in 1946 and spurred a ten-year stint of heavy drinking. After he developed a bleeding ulcer, he decided to take up writing again. He worked a wide range of jobs to support his writing, including dishwasher, truck driver and loader, mail carrier, guard, gas station attendant, stock boy, warehouse worker, shipping clerk, post office clerk, parking lot attendant, Red Cross orderly, and elevator operator. He also worked in a dog biscuit factory, a slaughterhouse, a cake and cookie factory, and he hung posters in New York City subways.
Bukowski published his first story when he was twenty-four and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. His first book of poetry was published in 1959; he went on to publish more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including Pulp (Black Sparrow, 1994), Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters 1960-1970 (1993), and The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992), and the following books with City Lights Publishers: Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1981), The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories (1983), Tales of Ordinary Madness (1984), Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook: Uncollected Stories and Essays, 1944-1990 (2008), Absence of the Hero: Uncollected Stories and Essays, Vol. 2: 1946-1992 (2010), More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns (2011), and The Bell Tolls for No One (2015). He died of leukemia in San Pedro on March 9, 1994.
Title: The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way
Subtitle: On Writers and Writing
Author: Charles Bukowski
Introduction by David Stephen Calonne
Edited by David Stephen Calonne
Publisher: City Lights Publishers
Format Paperback
ISBN-10 0872867595
ISBN-13 9780872867598
250 Pages
List Price $16.95
Publication Date 15 May 2018
new books
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: - Book News, Archive A-B, Archive A-B, Art & Literature News, Bukowski, Charles, Opium-Eaters
Thank you for reading Fleurs du Mal - magazine for art & literature