Saturday, July 31, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Iblis... 14th century Devil..Kitab al-Bulhan ....part 1
From one of my favourite books
aptly named 'Kitab al-Bulhan' (Book of Wonders)
A composite manuscript in Arabic of divinatory works, dating principally
from the late 14th century A.D., containing astrological, astronomical
and geomantic texts compiled by Abd al-Hasan Al-Isfahani, with
illustrations.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
A Season in Hell...Arthur Rimbaud & Robert Mapplethorpe
....
A Rimbaud
A SEASON IN HELL [Une Saison en Enfer] (1873)
SECOND DELIRIUM: THE ALCHEMY OF THE WORD
I only find within my bones
A taste for eating earth and stones.
When I feed, I feed on air,
Rocks and coals and iron ore.
My hunger, turn. Hunger, feed:
A field of bran.
Gather as you can the bright
Poison weed.
Eat the rocks a beggar breaks,
The stones of ancient churches' walls,
Pebbles, children of the flood,
Loaves left lying in the mud.
* * *
Beneath the bush a wolf will howl,
Spitting bright feathers
From his feast of fowl:
Like him, I devour myself.
Waiting to be gathered
Fruits and grasses spend their hours;
The spider spinning in the hedge
Eats only flowers.
Let me sleep! Let me boil
On the altars of Solomon;
Let me soak the rusty soil
And flow into Kendron.
It is recovered.
What? - Eternity.
In the whirling light
Of the sun in the sea.
O my eternal soul,
Hold fast to desire
In spite of the night
And the day on fire.
You must set yourself free
From the striving of Man
And the applause of the World
You must fly as you can...
- No hope forever
No orietur.
Science and patience,
The torment is sure.
The fire within you,
Soft silken embers,
Is our whole duty
But no one remembers.
It is recovered.
What? Eternity.
In the whirling light
Of the sun in the sea.
from LIMITED EDITIONS CLUB- A. RIMBAUD & R. Maplethorpe A Season in Hell. 1986
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Abdellatif Laâbi... poetry
Abdellatif Laâbi: from Fragments of a Forgotten Genesis
Translation from French by Gordon Hadfield & Nancy Hadfield
FRAGMENT 1
In the beginning was the cry
and already discord
Which tore
the marriage of fire
Confused
violation
sordid struggles of separation
and staggering blows of solitude
Sky drew back from fire
water drew back from sky
earth drew back from water
idea drew back from clay
and the form surged
cut in two
One half was retained
the other thrown in the abyss
No one thought of good
or evil
Who could have done otherwise?
It was necessary to pile
embers against embers
to awaken this unshakeable
fire in the eyes
The prey softens and submits
offers its hairy neck
to the belly’s
voracious germination
Everything devours everything
each cunningly takes its turn
the gluttonous sounds of swallowing
Vast was the destruction
The tadpole
in its stagnant pool
could not fathom
If only he had an antenna
with a small lens attached to the end
he could have …
But what would that accomplish?
Destruction
sole witness to destruction
With this indictment the water returns
cloaking the unsavory spectacle
Amplifying the disorder
These purposeless waves
For a lapse in eternity
there was nothing but waves
A wineskin
its contents shaken
as if something begrudged its roots
With somber jaws
the waves cut to the quick
stifling these stammers
mixing and remixing
For which fleeting idea did they seek revenge?
The waves mixed primal decline
excess of matter
meagerness of memory
This upheaval spawns Hybrid
arch menace
cauldron of pure insanity
Hybrid frolicked
proliferated
color is invented
by a simple rustle of light
free from its form
the gaze rises from the offal
mouths adorned
by either a retractable vulva
or an edible penis
Organs mirthfully
exchanged
One even hears snatches
of clear music
Being sculpts Being
Limbless life
examines itself
Like a vital flowering
with a sprig of intelligence
and immediate love
There were only dreaming leaps
in the dance of origins
Body of all bodies
Hybrid
the possible denying the impossible
progress from the horizon to the whole
genesis in love with genesis
But a darkening
from flashes of rage
and a flood of meteorites
What endures great trials
will last
Then the waves ebbed
abandoning the earth
that overturned cauldron
with its bloodless population
Why this confusion?
from the wonderful collection at >
POEMS AND POETICS
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