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The last of the Borges sonnets. Incubus and Edgar Allan Poe.
Poet's Corner: three more by Borges
Sep. 23rd, 2021 08:12 amThis is the penultimate post of sonnets by Jorge Luis Borges. These are To a Mirror, Music Box, and A Key in East Lansing. I had to scan them from the book because I couldn't find cut-and-paste versions.
Poet's Corner: more sonnets by Borges
Sep. 21st, 2021 01:05 pmMore sonnets by Jorge Luis Borges.
I by Jorge Luis Borges [from La Rosa Profunda, trans. Alastair Reid]
The skull within, the secret, shuttered heart,
the byways of the blood I never see,
the underworld of dreaming, that Proteus,
the nape, the viscera, the skeleton.
I am all those things. Amazingly,
I am too the memory of a sword
and of a solitary, falling sun,
turning itself to gold, then gray, then nothing.
I am the one who sees the approaching ships
from harbor. And I am the dwindled books,
the rare engravings worn away by time;
the one who envies those already dead.
Stranger to be the man who interlaces
such words as these, in some room, in a house.
( Nightmare )
I by Jorge Luis Borges [from La Rosa Profunda, trans. Alastair Reid]
The skull within, the secret, shuttered heart,
the byways of the blood I never see,
the underworld of dreaming, that Proteus,
the nape, the viscera, the skeleton.
I am all those things. Amazingly,
I am too the memory of a sword
and of a solitary, falling sun,
turning itself to gold, then gray, then nothing.
I am the one who sees the approaching ships
from harbor. And I am the dwindled books,
the rare engravings worn away by time;
the one who envies those already dead.
Stranger to be the man who interlaces
such words as these, in some room, in a house.
( Nightmare )
Poet's Corner: Sonnets by Borges
Sep. 18th, 2021 01:31 pmI am going through a Penguin Classics collection of sonnets by Jorge Luis Borges.
To a Cat by Jorge Luis Borges [trans. Alastair Reid]
Mirrors are not more wrapt in silences
nor the arriving dawn more secretive;
you, in the moonlight, are that panther figure
which we can only spy at from a distance.
By the mysterious functioning of some
divine decree, we seek you out in vain;
remoter than the Ganges or the sunset,
yours is the solitude, yours is the secret.
Your back allows the tentative caress
my hand extends. And you have condescended
since that forever, now oblivion,
to take love from a flattering human hand.
You live in other time, lord of your realm —
a world as closed and separate as dream.
Labyrinth by Jorge Luis Borges [trans. Stephen Kessler]
There’ll never be a door. You are inside
and the fortress contains the universe
and has no other side nor any back
nor any outer wall nor secret core.
Do not expect the rigor of your path,
which stubbornly splits into another one,
which stubbornly splits into another one,
to have an end. Your fate is ironclad
like your judge. Do not expect the charge
of the bull that is a man and whose strange
plural form fills the thicket of endless
interwoven stone with your own horror.
It does not exist. Expect nothing. Not
even the beast obscured by the black dusk.
( The Sea )
To a Cat by Jorge Luis Borges [trans. Alastair Reid]
Mirrors are not more wrapt in silences
nor the arriving dawn more secretive;
you, in the moonlight, are that panther figure
which we can only spy at from a distance.
By the mysterious functioning of some
divine decree, we seek you out in vain;
remoter than the Ganges or the sunset,
yours is the solitude, yours is the secret.
Your back allows the tentative caress
my hand extends. And you have condescended
since that forever, now oblivion,
to take love from a flattering human hand.
You live in other time, lord of your realm —
a world as closed and separate as dream.
Labyrinth by Jorge Luis Borges [trans. Stephen Kessler]
There’ll never be a door. You are inside
and the fortress contains the universe
and has no other side nor any back
nor any outer wall nor secret core.
Do not expect the rigor of your path,
which stubbornly splits into another one,
which stubbornly splits into another one,
to have an end. Your fate is ironclad
like your judge. Do not expect the charge
of the bull that is a man and whose strange
plural form fills the thicket of endless
interwoven stone with your own horror.
It does not exist. Expect nothing. Not
even the beast obscured by the black dusk.
( The Sea )
Poet's Corner: two more by Borges
Sep. 3rd, 2021 01:44 pmA Saturday by Jorge Luis Borges [trans. Eric McHenry]
The Forging by Jorge Luis Borges [trans. Christopher Maurer]
The Forging by Jorge Luis Borges [trans. Christopher Maurer]
Poet's Corner: two by Jorge Luis Borges
Sep. 2nd, 2021 10:17 pmTwo poems by Jorge Luis Borges from the Poems of the Night collection by Penguin Classics. There are four more I like from this collection. I will scan them and post tomorrow.
Saint John's Eve by Jorge Luis Borges [trans. Christopher Maurer]
The setting sun, with implacable splendor,
parted the distances on its blade.
And night is here, tender as a willow.
Whorls of burlesque bonfires
Splutter into red:
wood offered in sacrifice
bleeds into the high flames:
living flag, blind mischief.
The darkness is as gentle as someplace far away.
Today the streets remember
that they were fields one day.
And through the holy night,
Solitude says its rosary of far flung stars.
( Break of Day )
Saint John's Eve by Jorge Luis Borges [trans. Christopher Maurer]
The setting sun, with implacable splendor,
parted the distances on its blade.
And night is here, tender as a willow.
Whorls of burlesque bonfires
Splutter into red:
wood offered in sacrifice
bleeds into the high flames:
living flag, blind mischief.
The darkness is as gentle as someplace far away.
Today the streets remember
that they were fields one day.
And through the holy night,
Solitude says its rosary of far flung stars.
( Break of Day )
