N A U T H I Z .

by Paul Celan

Translation by John Felstiner

Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening we drink it at midday and morning we drink it at night we drink and we drink we shovel a grave in the air there you won’t lie too cramped A man lives in the house he plays with his vipers he writes he writes when it grows dark to Deutschland your golden hair Marguerite he writes it and steps out of doors and the stars are all sparkling he whistles his hounds to come close he whistles his Jews into rows has them shovel a grave in the ground he orders us strike up and play for the dance

  Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night we drink you at morning and midday we drink you at evening we drink and we drink A man lives in the house he plays with his vipers he writes he writes when it grows dark to Deutschland your golden hair Margeurite your ashen hair Shulamith we shovel a grave in the air there you won’t lie too cramped He shouts jab this earth deeper you lot there you others sing up and play he grabs for the rod in his belt he swings it his eyes are blue jab your spades deeper you lot there you others play on for the dancing

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night we drink you at midday and morning we drink you at evening we drink and we drink a man lives in the house your goldenes Haar Margeurite your aschenes Haar Shulamith he plays with his vipers

He shouts play death more sweetly Death is a master from Deutschland he shouts scrape your strings darker you’ll rise then in smoke to the sky you’ll have a grave then in the clouds there you won’t lie too cramped

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night we drink you at midday Death is a master aus Deutschland we drink you at evening and morning we drink and we drink this Death is ein Meister aus Deutschland his eye it is blue he shoots you with shot made of lead shoots you level and true a man lives in the house your goldenes Haar Margarete he looses his hounds on us grants us a grave in the air he plays with his vipers and daydreams der Tod is ein Meister aus Deutschland

Jack Gilbert, “Adults”

“BB: But you can never totally overcome the fear that that’s all it is. You can go home every night and watch a film that makes you feel like someone spent ten years to make a great film, and you can find it beautiful, but in the morning when you wake up and have to do something you don’t want to do, does that make it any better? Not really. Still, at the end of the day, the fact that those things do exist makes the act of sustaining your life and going forward at least have these roadside stops where you’re like, “Yes, there are beautiful things, and there are things that make me think.”

BLVR: I picture it like each beautiful thing is a wedge that keeps a lid from closing over you. If that lid ever fully closes, you suffocate.

BB: I used to think about it like each thing that’s created is one pixel in this face that we’ll never see. It does transcend just being a movie or just being a book. It develops a network that we may never know the worth of. There is something in the interweaving of all these things that makes human life more valuable, to me and hopefully to something beyond human life, because if everyone dies and there’s just all these movies left, then whatever. I think there’s a lot more to be conceived and a lot more space to create before we exit this area that we’ve sanctioned off as the only place we are.

BLVR: A great book or a great film may in the end only be a roadside stop, but making one is still enough for a lifetime to aspire to.

Saint George and the Dragon

by Gustave Moreau

Date painted: 1889-90

Oil on canvas, 141 x 96.5 cm

Poem written by an 11 year old Afghan girl 

This poem was recorded in a NYT magazine article about female underground poetry groups in Afghanistan. An amazing article about the ways in which women are using a traditional two line poetry form to express their resistance to male oppression, their feelings about love (considered blasphemous).

Here’s the link