Peter Handke - Song Of Being A Child

When the child was a child
It walked with arms hanging
Wanted the stream to be a river and the river a torrent
And this puddle, the sea
When the child was a child, it didn't know
It was a child
Everything for it was filled with life and all life was one
Saw the horizon without trying to reach it
Couldn't rush itself And think on command
Was often terribly bored
And couldn't wait
Passed up greeting the moments
And prayed only with it's lips
When the child was a child
It didn't have an opinion about a thing
Had no habits
Often sat crossed-legged, took off running
Had a cow lick in it's hair
And didn't put on a face when photographed

When the child was a child
It was the time of the following questions
Why am I me and why not you
Why am I here and why not there
Why did time begin and where does space end
Isn't what I see and hear and smell
Just the appearance of the world in front of the world
Isn't life under the sun just a dream
Does evil actually exist in people
Who really are evil
Why can't it be that I who am
Wasn't before I was
And that sometime I, the I, I am
No longer will be the I, I am

When the child was a child
It gagged on spinach, on peas, on rice pudding
And on steamed cauliflower
And now eats all of it and not just because it has to
When the child was a child
It woke up once in a strange bed
And now time and time again
Many people seem beautiful to it
And now not so many and now only if it's lucky
It had a precise picture of paradise
And now can only vaguely conceive of it at best
It couldn't imagine nothingness
And today shudders in the face of it
Go for the ball
Which today rolls between it's legs
With it's I'm here it came
Into the house which now is empty

When the child was a child
It played with enthusiasm
And now only with such former concentration
Where it's work is concerned
When the game, task, activity, subject happens to be it's work

When the child was a child
It was enough to live on apples and bread. And it's still that way
When the child was a child berries fell
Only like berries into it's hand. And still do
The fresh walnuts made it's tongue raw. And still do
Atop each mountain it craved
Yet a higher mountain. And in each city it craved
Yet a bigger city. And still does
Reach for the cherries in the treetop
As elated as it still is today
Was shy in front of strangers. And still is
It waited for the first snow. And still waits that way
When the child was a child
It waited restlessly each day for the return of the loved one
And still waits that way
When the child was a child
It hurled a stick like a lance into a tree
And it's still quivering there today

The child, the child was a child
Was a child, was a child, was a child, was a child
Child, child, child
When the child, when the child, when the child
When the child, when the child
The child, child, child, child, child

And on and on and on and on, etc. And onward
With a sense of wonder
Upon the highest hill. Upon the highest hill
When the child was a child
Are you there
Shassas, shassas
Up on a highest hill
When the child was a child, was a child, was a child
Was a child, was a child, was a child...


Words by Peter Handke, Van Morrison

Γ. Σεφέρης - Το ναυάγιο της Κίχλης

"Το ξύλο αυτό που δρόσιζε το μέτωπό μου
τις ώρες που το μεσημέρι πύρωνε τις φλέβες
σε ξένα χέρια θέλει ανθίσει. Πάρ' το, σου το χαρίζω•
δες, είναι ξύλο λεμονιάς ..." Άκουσα τη φωνή
καθώς εκοίταζα στη θάλασσα να ξεχωρίσω
ένα καράβι που το βούλιαξαν εδώ και χρόνια•
το 'λεγαν "Κίχλη"• ένα μικρό ναυάγιο• τα κατάρτια,
σπασμένα, κυματίζανε λοξά στο βάθος, σαν πλοκάμια
ή μνήμη ονείρων, δείχνοντας το σκαρί του
στόμα θαμπό κάποιου μεγάλου κήτους νεκρού
σβησμένο στο νερό. Μεγάλη απλώνουνταν γαλήνη.

Κι άλλες φωνές σιγά - σιγά με τη σειρά τους
ακολουθήσαν• ψίθυροι φτενοί και διψασμένοι
που βγαίναν από του ήλιου τ' άλλο μέρος, το σκοτεινό•
θα 'λεγες γύρευαν να πιουν αίμα μια στάλα•
ήτανε γνώριμες μα δεν μπορούσα να τις ξεχωρίσω.
Κι ήρθε η φωνή του γέρου, αυτή την ένιωσα
πέφτοντας στην καρδιά της μέρας
ήσυχη, σαν ακίνητη:
"Κι α με δικάσετε να πιω φαρμάκι, ευχαριστώ•
το δίκιο σας θα 'ναι το δίκιο μου• πού να πηγαίνω
γυρίζοντας σε ξένους τόπους, ένα στρογγυλό λιθάρι.
Το θάνατο τον προτιμώ•
ποιος πάει για το καλύτερο ο θεός το ξέρει".

Χώρες του ήλιου και δεν μπορείτε ν' αντικρίσετε τον ήλιο.
Χώρες του ανθρώπου και δεν μπορείτε ν' αντικρίσετε τον άνθρωπο.

George Seferis - The wreck “Thrush”

"This wood that cooled my foreheadat times when noon burned my veins

will flower in other hands. Take it, I'm giving it to you;
look, it's wood from a lemon-tree…"
I heard the voice
as I was gazing at the sea trying to make out
a ship they'd sunk there years ago;
it was called "Thrush," a small wreck; the masts,
broken, swayed at odd angles deep underwater, like
tentacles,
or the memory of dreams, marking the hull:
vague mouth of some huge dead sea-monster
extinguished in the water. Calm spread all around.

And gradually, in turn, other voices followed,*
whispers thin and thirsty
emerging from the other side of the sun, the dark side;
you might say they longed for a drop of blood to drink;*
familiar voices, but I couldn't distinguish one from the
other.
And then the voice of the old man reached me; I felt it
quietly falling into the heart of day,
as though motionless:
"And if you condemn me to drink poison, I thank you.
Your law will be my law; how can I go
wandering from one foreign country to another, a rolling
stone.
I prefer death.
Who'll come out best only God knows."

Countries of the sun yet you can't face the sun.
Countries of men yet you can't face man.


Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard

Carl Th. Dreyer - Gertrud

Κοίταξε με.
Είμαι όμορφη;
Όχι, αλλά έχω αγαπήσει.

Κοίταξε με.
Είμαι νέα;
Όχι, αλλά έχω αγαπήσει.

Κοίταξε με.
Ζω;
Όχι, αλλά έχω αγαπήσει.

Η Γερτρούδη βασανίζεται, λίγο, για τον επικείμενο θάνατο. Έχει ήδη αγοράσει ένα οικόπεδο κάτω από μια μουριά και μια επιτύμβια στήλη, η οποία θα εμφανίζει την ένδειξη, απλά, "Amor Omnia", που στα λατινικά έχει διττή σημασία: Σημαίνει "Ο έρωτας είναι όλα" ή "Όλα είναι έρωτας". Τελείως διαφορετικές έννοιες διατυπωμένες από την ίδια φράση που δίνουν μια ουσιαστική έννοια του "Όλου". Δε βάζει ούτε καν το όνομά της στην επιτύμβια στήλη. Με ένα τελικό νεύμα του χεριού, ο Άξελ βγαίνει μέσω μιας βαριάς, τρομαχτικής στην εμφάνιση πόρτας - ένα αδιαπέραστο όριο που φαίνεται να αντιπροσωπεύει το φράγμα μεταξύ ζωής και θανάτου ή το φράγμα που χωρίζει μια ψυχή από μιαν άλλη στον υπαρξιακό χώρο.

***

Just look at me.
Am I beautiful?
No, but I have loved.

Just look at me.
Am I young?
No, but I have loved.

Just look at me.
Do I live?
No, but I have loved.

Gertrud obsesses, a bit, about impending death. She has already purchased a plot beneath a mulberry tree and a headstone, which will read, simply, “Amor Omnia”, which means “Love is All.” Not even her name. With a final wave of the hand, Axel exits via a heavy, formidable-looking door – an impenetrable boundary that seems to represent either the barrier between life and death or the barrier separating one soul from another across existential space.

Jacques Prévert - Picasso's Promenade

Jacques Prevert (1900-1977)

On a very round plate of real porcelain
an apple poses
face to face with it
a painter of reality
vainly tries to paint
the apple as it is
but
the apple won't allow it
the apple
it has its word to say about it
and several tricks in its bag of apples
and there it is turning
on its real plate
artfully on itself
blandly without budging
and like a Duc de Guise who disguises himself as a gas duct
because they want to draw his portrait against his will
the apple disguises itself as a beautiful fruit in disguise
and it's then
that the painter of reality
begins to realize
that all the appearances of the apple are against him
and
like the unfortunate pauper
like the poor pauper who finds himself suddenly at the mercy
of no matter what benevolent and charitable and redoubtable
association of benevolence charity and redoubtability
the unfortunate painter of reality
then suddenly finds himself the sad prey
of a numberless crowd of associations of ideas
And the apple turning evokes the apple tree
the earthly Paradise and Eve and then Adam
a watering-can a trellis Parmentier a stairway
Canadian Hesperidian Norman apples Reinette apples and Appian apples
the serpent of the Tennis Court and the Oath of Apple Juice
and original sin
and the origins of art
and Switzerland with William Tell
and even Isaac Newton
several times prizewinner at the Exhibition of Universal Gravitation
and the dazed painter loses sight of his model
and falls asleep
It's just then that Picasso
who's going by there as he goes by everywhere
every day as if at home
sees the apple and the plate and the painter fallen asleep
What an idea to paint an apple
says Picasso
and Picasso eats the apple
and the apple tells him Thanks
and Picasso breaks the plate
and goes off smiling
and the painter drawn from his dreams
like a tooth
finds himself all alone again before his unfinished canvas
with right in the midst of his shattered china
the terrifying pips of reality.

Το ποίημα στα Ελληνικά: Ζακ Πρεβέρ - Ο περίπατος του Πικάσσο

Walt Whitman - Poem of Women

UNFOLDED only out of the folds of the
woman, man comes unfolded, and is always
to come unfolded,
Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the
earth is to come the superbest man of the
earth,
Unfolded out of the friendliest woman is to come
the friendliest man,
Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a
woman, can a man be formed of perfect body,
Unfolded only out of the inimitable poem of
the woman can come the poems of man —
only thence have my poems come,
Unfolded out of the strong and arrogant woman I love,

only thence can appear the strong
and arrogant man I love,
Unfolded by brawny embraces from
the well-muscled woman I love,
only thence come the brawny embraces of the man,
Unfolded out of the folds of the woman's brain,
come all the folds of the man's brain, duly
obedient,
Unfolded out of the justice of the woman, all justice is unfolded,
Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all
sympathy;
A man is a great thing upon the earth, and
through eternity—but every jot of the greatness of man
is unfolded out of woman,
First the man is shaped in the woman, he can
then be shaped in himself.

THE GUEVARA CONVENTION