Shadows all around

"Most people think that shadows follow, precede, or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories."

Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1928)

Eric Satie & Gunnar Ekelöf

Scars

"There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with."

Harry Crews, novelist and playwright (b. 1935)

My heart is cold

My heart is cold, and it is weary.

It used to be warm and merry

Now it has grown old, and it is broken.

The shards still lay where it stood.

Long it desired to do good.

Yet it seems dead and cannot awaken.

My heart still rejoices, oft,

When I see nature unimpeded

When I see love kindled and granted

When I hear sweet music, and soft.

Yet my heart is frozen.

Yet my heart feels broken.

Yet not all is ash and dust in my chest.

Embers remain. Dwell in dream-like sleep.

Sadness dampens it. Feeds its unrest.

Loneliness like ivy coiling creeps.

My heart needs the fire of love to wake.

A fiery hand that might the shards take.

Yet I fear my heart is now too cold

To feel life in its veins again

It that was ever before so bold.

It that shunned from no pain.

It that now seems to be too old

For either love or hate to contain.

Although it may laugh and entertain

It feels like a handful of ice in the cold.

Timelessly

"Words are timeless. You should utter them or write them with a knowledge of their timelessness."

Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)

Forever

"And the fox said to the little prince: men have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author and aviator (1900-1945)

Caritas...

"We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don't care for."

Marie Ebner von Eschenbach, writer (1830-1916)

Finding Gunnar Ekelöf

I have "discovered" this Swedish poet thanks to my Swedish friends who have highly recommended my reading his oeuvre. I looked up for translations of his poems. First thing which struck me was his voice: I immediately heard it. I have been told he was a niche, a special poet in the pantheon. Yet, sadly, I couldn't lay my hands on any book by him in English. There was only one edition available in French, found in only one bookshop in Stockholm. How disappointing not to be able to read in Swedish.

Then I scoured the Internet and a few things have turned up.

Poetik

Det är till tystnaden du skall lyssna

tystnaden bakom apostroferingar, allusioner

tystnaden i retoriken

eller i det så kallade formellt fulländade

Detta är sökandet efter ett meningslöst

i det meningsfulla

och omvänt

Och allt vad jag så konstfullt söker dikta

är kontrastvis någonting konstlöst

och hela fyllnaden tom

Vad jag har skrivit

är skrivet mellan raderna

Poetics

It is the silence you’re to listen to

the silence behind quotation marks, allusions

the silence in the rhetoric

or in the so-called formally accomplished

This is the search for what’s meaningless

in the meaningful

and vice versa

And all that I artfully seek to compose

is by way of contrast something artless

and the whole fullness empty

What I have written

is written between the lines

Kinesisk broderi

En eldfågels bo är hjärtat

byggt med kvistar av ådror

fodrat med lågor. Men fågeln

ruvar där i en ännu högre

värme. Från dess bröst och sidor

tycks lågorna vika. Orörd

vilar den på det osynliga ägget

med vingarna fläktande, stjärtens fjädrar

hängande ut över bokanten. Eller den fladdrar

ett ögonblick upp som för att hämta

tankars och bilders insekt, försvinnande

i luftens siden så snart den lyftat

åter synlig först då den åter vilar

i lågorna, slätande sina fjädrar med näbbet.

Chinese embroidery

A firebird’s nest is the heart

built with twigs of veins

nourished with flames. But the bird

broods there in an even greater

heat. From its breast and sides

the flames seem to fall back. Untouched

it rests on the invisible egg

its wings fanning, its tail-feathers

hanging over the nest’s edge. Or it flutters

up for an instant as if to fetch

an insect of thoughts and images, disappearing

into the silk of the air as soon as it has lifted

only visible again when it once more rests

in the flames, smoothing its feathers with its beak.

Both are re-blogged from this site. Then there's also this video of "I do best alone at night":

And finally these two poems:

Yes, I long for home,
Homeless I long for home,
Home to where love is, the one, the good,
Home to my real home!
That home is bright -
In my mind I open the door,
See everything awaiting me there. 

(from 'One after one')

A desolate wind from the city
and nearer, further
the bell's burden, swinging fifths
- it's burning! it's burning! -
of the dread march:
We lived - just then!
We live now not at all,
we shall live - for the firs time!
(from 'Marche funèbre' in Mölna Elegy, 1960)

Both taken from his biography. It's quite long, but worth it. These two poems are fantastic ones - he did put his finger right on the spot.

This last link will direct you to nine poems translated into various languages, taken from various collections spanning 35 years. Simply wonderful.

Problem is: I couldn't find anything else! Now I have to appeal to anyone who knows where copies of his poems can be gotten...please contact me!

Shame scrapes, but doesn't kill

"To be capable of embarrassment is the beginning of moral consciousness. Honor grows from qualms."

John Leonard, critic (1939-2008)

The individuals

"My own experience and development deepen every day my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy."

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), novelist (1819-1880)