Exhausto, al fin encuentro

alojamiento

¡y flores de glicina!

Matsuo Bashô

 The Player Who Takes No Chances

There is a greater blackness

And many would wish to see

There is a greater blackness

Than most would care to contemplate

There is a greater blackness

Those who have tried to tell of the blackness

Has always found their words turned into nonsense

Those who have tried to tell of the blackness

Has always found their memories, lost or transformed

Into doctrines and philosophies

They never intended

Or possibly their bodies and minds as they conceive such things

Lost forever in the blackness

That few would wish to see, and most do not dare to contemplate

There is a greater blackness

Perhaps in their final moments they may realize

Or be shown, that they were, after all

Only unknowing players in a nameless

endless game

Only unknowing players

And after these souls have been thrown screaming into oblivion

No voice remains to tell the score

Save the howling voice of the blackness

There is a greater blackness

There is a greater blackness

No voice remains

No voice remains

No voice remains

Thomas Ligotti

In a station of the metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:

Petals on a wet, black, bough.

Ezra Pound

Ode on Indolence

‘They toil not, neither do they spin.’

One morn before me were three figures seen,

    With bowèd necks, and joinèd hands, side-faced;

And one behind the other stepp’d serene,

    In placid sandals, and in white robes graced;

        They pass’d, like figures on a marble urn,

    When shifted round to see the other side;

They came again; as when the urn once more

        Is shifted round, the first seen shades return;

    And they were strange to me, as may betide

With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.

How is it, Shadows! that I knew ye not?

    How came ye muffled in so hush a mask?

Was it a silent deep-disguisèd plot

    To steal away, and leave without a task

        My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour;

    The blissful cloud of summer-indolence

Benumb’d my eyes; my pulse grew less and less;

        Pain had no sting, and pleasure’s wreath no flower:

    O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense

Unhaunted quite of all but—nothingness?

A third time pass’d they by, and, passing, turn’d

    Each one the face a moment whiles to me;

Then faded, and to follow them I burn’d

    And ached for wings, because I knew the three;

        The first was a fair Maid, and Love her name;

    The second was Ambition, pale of cheek,

And ever watchful with fatiguèd eye;

        The last, whom I love more, the more of blame

    Is heap’d upon her, maiden most unmeek,—

I knew to be my demon Poesy.

They faded, and, forsooth! I wanted wings:

    O folly! What is Love? and where is it?

And for that poor Ambition! it springs

    From a man’s little heart’s short fever-fit;

        For Poesy!—no,—she has not a joy,—

    At least for me,—so sweet as drowsy noons,

And evenings steep’d in honey’d indolence;

        O, for an age so shelter’d from annoy,

    That I may never know how change the moons,

Or hear the voice of busy common-sense!

And once more came they by:—alas! wherefore?

    My sleep had been embroider’d with dim dreams;

My soul had been a lawn besprinkled o’er

    With flowers, and stirring shades, and baffled beams:

        The morn was clouded, but no shower fell,

    Tho’ in her lids hung the sweet tears of May;

The open casement press’d a new-leaved vine,

    Let in the budding warmth and throstle’s lay;

        O Shadows! ’twas a time to bid farewell!

Upon your skirts had fallen no tears of mine.

So, ye three Ghosts, adieu! Ye cannot raise

    My head cool-bedded in the flowery grass;

For I would not be dieted with praise,

    A pet-lamb in a sentimental farce!

        Fade softly from my eyes, and be once more

    In masque-like figures on the dreamy urn;

Farewell! I yet have visions for the night,

    And for the day faint visions there is store;

Vanish, ye Phantoms! from my idle spright,

    Into the clouds, and never more return!

John Keats

                                 [Yo]

[...]

Yo
¿Qué quieres de mí
que no me dejas, Sueño?

Sueño
Doce cisnes de oro
y doce lunas negras.

Yo
Quiero días y noches
claros y sin secretos.

Sueño

[...]

Federico García Lorca

Ich will meine Seele tauchen

Ich will meine Seele tauchen

In den Kelch der Lilie hinein;

Die Lilie soll klingend hauchen

Ein Lied von der Liebsten mein.

Das Lied soll schauern und beben,

Wie der Kuss von ihrem Mund,

Den sie mir einst gegeben

In wunderbar süsser Stund’.

Poema de Heinrich Heine

Música de Robert Schumann

En Dichterliebe (Amor de poeta)

Let me bathe my soul

Let me bathe my soul

In the lily’s chalice;

The lily shall resound

With a song of my beloved.

The songs shall tremble and quiver

Like the kiss that her lips

Once gave me

In a wondrously sweet hour.

Traducción de Richard Strokes

Quiero sumergir mi alma

Quiero sumergir mi alma
en el cáliz del lirio

que va a exhalar sonoro

el canto de mi amada.

El canto se estremecería y temblaría
como el beso que de su boca
una vez me dio, en la hora 

maravillosamente dulce.

La versión de la traducción es mía

 Pérdida

El día en que él se mudó fue terrible -

A la noche ella pasó un infierno.

Su ausencia no fue problema.

Pero también había desaparecido el sacacorchos.

Wendy Cope

La traducción es mía