This weekend we are singing in victory, so we invoke the Cid. Listen to the precise clashing of swords in the Poem of the Cid as transcribed at UT-Austin. Here we have a much cuter version of the Cid — perhaps the very cutest ever. The best kind of background music for the Cid’s activities … More Dios, que buen vassallo, si oviese buen señore!
Light breaks where no sun shines; Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart Push in their tides; And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads, The things of light File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones. A candle in the thighs Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of … More Reading for Pleasure Wednesday: Light Breaks
Il n’est pas donné à chacun de prendre un bain de multitude: jouir de la foule est un art; et celui-là seul peut faire, aux dépens du genre humain, une ribote de vitalité, à qui une fée a insufflé dans son berceau le goût du travestissement et du masque, la haine du domicile et la … More Reading for Pleasure Wednesday: “Les foules”
I never know when modernity starts: 1492? 1637? 1789? This article says it is with Baudelaire, and we are quoting from it. Consider Flaubert’s smooth and instantaneous leap from “moral history” into “feelings.” This elision offers an unintended but eloquent verdict on what is great and strange about Baudelaire’s poetry: its unmatched capacity to transmute … More Reading for Pleasure Wednesday: “No Ideas but in Crowds”
POEM at 82 I find everything erotic– that’s the stomping ground of all intelligence– the intellect picks it up from the ground xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxand gives language as a kind of music to dance around See also Michael McClure on Blaser. Axé.
I am flying today from Amsterdam to Madrid, where I have not been in thirty years. Longer ago than that, I studied at the Liceo Serrano. It was on Serrano then but has now changed as an institution and moved out of town. I lived on a street whose name was changed after Franco died. … More Puerta de Acalá
I dedicate this May Day to the workers of course, to Janequin, to Flora, and to children. It is the weekend, and I am singing that our camping trip is tomorrow. I am so excited, I can hardly wait! Axé.
Regin Dahl died in Copenhagen on this day in 2007. His life marked several. Tín er degningur handan líkdampsins flókar. Dit er morgengryet hinsides ligdunstens tåger. Yours is the daybreak beyond the corpse-reek’s mists. His father is on a stamp and I would be curious to know more about this man than is known. When … More Regin Dahl
The ocean is large and full of currents. You wade in slowly and then strike out swimming as the sea floor falls beyond your depth. You tread water, breaking through waves to open water where you can steer your course. The first island stands on the horizon, partly shielded from view by spray and rocking … More Starting to Write is Like Swimming
I am slow, so I am late to St. Patrick’s Day. Consider this, on Leonardo da Vinci and slowness. Faster than me and sometimes premature, the Emeritus Professor sent me the poem that follows after one of my exams, I do not remember now whether it was the M.A. or the Ph.D. Only now has … More William Butler Yeats
coldhearted scientist وداد 