Odes by Hölderlin: Home

Cross the silent river the mariner sweeps,

   Glad to be home, with his haul, from far islands;

      If I were to return to my home,

         Heartbreak would be the bulk of my cargo.

You beloved shore, who raised me once, could you

   Slake all love’s sufferings, could you promise me,

      Forests of my youth, if I return,

         Serenity again, as once before?

At the cool brook, where I gamboled in the waves,

   On the riverbank, where I saw the ships glide,

      You familiar mountains; I am there,

         Home I adored, who once looked after me

Safe in the confines of my mother’s hearth, where

   Affectionate brothers and sisters embraced;

      I’d welcome you and you’d surround me,

         And in that bond, my heart would be mended,

You ever-faithful ones! But I know, I know,

   Love’s sufferings don’t heal for me so soon, no

      Bosom can console with lullabies,

         For they are only the songs mortals sing.

For the gods who lend us the heavenly fire,

   Bestow on us holy suffering as well,

      Thus this residence. I seem a son

         Of the earth; made to love, made to suffer.

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Die Heimat

Froh kehrt der Schiffer heim an den stillen Strom,

   Von Inseln fernher, wenn er geerntet hat;

      So käm' auch ich zur Heimat, hätt ich

         Güter so viele, wie Leid, geerntet.

Ihr teuern Ufer, die mich erzogen einst,

   Stillt ihr der Liebe Leiden, versprecht ihr mir,

      Ihr Wälder meiner Jugend, wenn ich

         Komme, die Ruhe noch einmal wieder?

Am kühlen Bache, wo ich der Wellen Spiel,

   Am Strome, wo ich gleiten die Schiffe sah,

      Dort bin ich bald; euch traute Berge,

         Die mich behüteten einst, der Heimat

Verehrte sichre Grenzen, der Mutter Haus

   Und liebender Geschwister Umarmungen

      Begrüß' ich bald und ihr umschließt mich,

         Daß, wie in Banden, das Herz mir heile,

Ihr treugebliebnen! aber ich weiß, ich weiß,

   Der Liebe Leid, dies heilet so bald mir nicht,

      Dies singt kein Wiegensang, den tröstend

         Sterbliche singen, mir aus dem Busen.

Denn sie, die uns das himmlische Feuer leihn,

   Die Götter schenken heiliges Leid uns auch,

      Drum bleibe dies. Ein Sohn der Erde

         Schein' ich; zu lieben gemacht, zu leiden.

Path

Birds should be heard and not seen

— Their voices become then so pure —

The sound of the trees

Breaking through

Walls that the sun just inflames:

Snail shine on the leaves,

Mesquite beans hanging down to be taken,

Cactus hide that seems to dissolve

And the ice plant that seems to glow from within.

It’s that time of the day when

Brown grasses are the emperors of the world,

When the boughs display angelic realms,

When the lowest are the most filled with light

And the dirt holds a promise

In the silence of the dust

Floating to meet
Our pith and vapor,

We stars.

Outside the Passport Office

You'd never know from looking at the line
What's in those many faces,
Words, of course, in many languages,
But the import is the same whether one
       understands them or not:

They are lost, as they fidget and tighten
       their clothes for effect.
They sit immobile, stranded inside their minds,
As if there's nothing they can do,
As if the wait is worse than dying.

And nothing comes out to speak
Of what this is, or who they are,
And what they wait for doesn't save them.

The palo verde trees nearby, however,
Ruffle their yellow leaves,
The branches sway like a plea to the Lord —
A consecrating voice reverberates
That no one seems to notice.

Odes by Hölderlin: The Neckar

In your valleys my heart awakened to life,

   Your waves they surrounded me swirling in play,

      All the lovely hills awoke to you

         Pilgrim, there’s not one that’s foreign to me.

On their peaks, where the airs of heaven released

   The pain of enslavement I felt; and the waves

      Poured happiness as if from a cup,

         Silver glittering blue along the vale.

The springs of the mountain hurried down to you,

   Along with my heart as you took us with you,

      To the silent lord the Rhine, to his

         Towns downstream and his frolicsome islands.

I still consider the world beautiful, and

   The eye flees, yearning for the lures of the earth,

      For golden Paktolos, for Smyrna’s

         Shore, for Ilion's forest. I want to

Land along the mute path at Sunium too,

   And ask for your pillars, O Olympian!

      There’s only the winds and the ages

         In the rubble of the Athenians

And your gods bury you too in these temples,

   For you have stood lonely for so long, O pride

      Of the world, that is no more. O fair

         Ionian islands, where the sea air

Cools the hot shores and whispers through the forests

   Of laurel, where the sun brings warmth to the vines,

      Oh, where in golden autumn the sighs

         Of the poor metamorphose into song,

When the pomegranate ripens, in green night

   The bitter orange glints, the resin drips from

      The mastic tree, and timpani and

         Cymbal sound out the labyrinthine dance.

That islands you might one day bring me to my

   Guardian god; but I must give faith to sense

      For even my Neckar was not there 

         With its lovely pastures and grassy shores.

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Der Neckar

In deinen Tälern wachte mein Herz mir auf

   Zum Leben, deine Wellen umspielten mich,

      Und all der holden Hügel, die dich

         Wanderer! kennen, ist keiner fremd mir.

Auf ihren Gipfeln löste des Himmels Luft

   Mir oft der Knechtschaft Schmerzen; und aus dem Tal,

      Wie Leben aus dem Freudebecher,

         Glänzte die bläuliche Silberwelle.

Der Berge Quellen eilten hinab zu dir,

   Mit ihnen auch mein Herz und du nahmst uns mit,

      Zum stillerhabnen Rhein, zu seinen

         Städten hinunter und lustgen Inseln.

Noch dünkt die Welt mir schön, und das Aug entflieht

   Verlangend nach den Reizen der Erde mir,

      Zum goldenen Paktol, zu Smyrnas

         Ufer, zu Ilions Wald. Auch möcht ich

Bei Sunium oft landen, den stummen Pfad

   Nach deinen Säulen fragen, Olympion!

      Noch eh der Sturmwind und das Alter

         Hin in den Schutt der Athenertempel

Und ihrer Gottesbilder auch dich begräbt,

   Denn lang schon einsam stehst du, o Stolz der Welt,

      Die nicht mehr ist. Und o ihr schönen

         Inseln Ioniens! wo die Meerluft

Die heißen Ufer kühlt und den Lorbeerwald

   Durchsäuselt, wenn die Sonne den Weinstock wärmt,

      Ach! wo ein goldner Herbst dem armen

         Volk in Gesänge die Seufzer wandelt,

Wenn sein Granatbaum reift, wenn aus grüner Nacht

   Die Pomeranze blinkt, und der Mastixbaum

      Von Harze träuft und Pauk und Cymbel

         Zum labyrinthischen Tanze klingen.

Zu euch, ihr Inseln! bringt mich vielleicht, zu euch

   Mein Schutzgott einst; doch weicht mir aus treuem Sinn

      Auch da mein Neckar nicht mit seinen

         Lieblichen Wiesen und Uferweiden.

Odes by Hölderlin: The Gods

Secret ethereal: You stay beautiful!

    The soul to me is in pain, and ennobled

       By its bravery before your rays,

          Helios! Chest often puffed in disgust,

You good gods! He who does not know you is poor.

    The strife never rests in him with the rough breast,

       And night is his world, where no joy thrives

          And there’s never any singing to him.

Only you, with your eternal youth, nourish,

    In the hearts that love you, the children’s spirit,

       And never let in the distress and

          Madness the genius spends his days nursing.

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Die Götter

Du stiller Aether! immer bewahrst du schön

   Die Seele mir im Schmerz, und es adelt sich

      Zur Tapferkeit vor deinen Strahlen,

         Helios! oft die empörte Brust mir.

Ihr guten Götter! arm ist, wer euch nicht kennt,

   Im rohen Busen ruhet der Zwist ihm nie,

      Und Nacht ist ihm die Welt und keine

         Freude gedeihet und kein Gesang ihm.

Nur ihr, mit eurer ewigen Jugend, nährt

   In Herzen, die euch lieben, den Kindersinn,

      Und laßt in Sorgen und in Irren

         Nimmer den Genius sich vertrauern.

Fathersday Poem

Fathers suffer for the impossible,
What can't be heard or said,
What can't be learned or taught,
What won't be held or held back ...

Just a straight line to be walked
With all that stuff on the side of the road
Given only a nod,

The truth reduced to direction
After all the advice has been allowed
To be a lie

For the sake of harmony,
In the cause of learning,
From the hope that all suffering in silence
Will never be revealed,
As the pain must end with someone

Although that end,
Like the stain left on the shore after
The pebbles have skittered away,
Like the notes that echo after
The music has stopped playing,
Like the summer light after
The giant sun has set,
Stays.

Odes by Hölderlin: Heidelberg

I’ve loved you for a long time, and would desire now

   To call you mother, and offer an artless song,

      Most beautiful town in the

         Fatherland, as far as I see,

As the bird of the forest flies over the peaks

   And swings across the glittering river past you.

     The bridge is strong and simple.

         The people and carriages whirr.

While I paused on the bridge, as if sent by the gods,

   The enchantment enthralled, because I passed over;

      All the way to the mountains

         The distance seemed to tantalize,

And the young man, the river, flowed to the lowlands,

   Sadly, like the heart, if too beautiful itself,

      Will disappear lovingly,

         Throw itself to the floods of time.

Wellsprings you had for him, had the evanescent

   Entrusted, the cool shadows and the creamy shores,

      All for him, and her figure

         Came trembling out of the ripples.

But heavy in the valley hung the gigantic

   Castle, well-versed in destiny, on the low ground

      And ground down by the weather;

         But the ever-present sun cast

Her rejuvenating light over this ancient

    Monument, and the ivy greened more vividly;

       And friendly forests whispered

         Past the ghost of its condition.

The shrubs stayed low, blooming peaceful in the valley

   Where, reclining over the hill, or along the

      Shore, your roads go lighthearted 

          Below the gardens redolent.

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Heidelberg

Lange lieb' ich dich schon, möchte dich, mir zur Lust,

   Mutter nennen, und dir schenken ein kunstlos Lied,

      Du, der Vaterlandsstädte

         Ländlichschönste, so viel ich sah.

Wie der Vogel des Walds über die Gipfel fliegt,

   Schwingt sich über den Strom, wo er vorbei dir glänzt,

      Leicht und kräftig die Brücke,

         Die von Wagen und Menschen tönt.

Wie von Göttern gesandt, fesselt' ein Zauber einst

   Auf die Brücke mich an, da ich vorüber ging,

      Und herein in die Berge

         Mir die reizende Ferne schien,

Und der Jüngling, der Strom, fort in die Ebne zog,

   Traurigfroh, wie das Herz, wenn es, sich selbst zu schön,

      Liebend unterzugehen,

         In die Fluten der Zeit sich wirft.

Quellen hattest du ihm, hattest dem Flüchtigen

   Kühle Schatten geschenkt, und die Gestade sahn

      All' ihm nach, und es bebte

         Aus den Wellen ihr lieblich Bild.

Aber schwer in das Tal hing die gigantische,

   Schicksalskundige Burg nieder bis auf den Grund,

      Von den Wettern zerrissen;

         Doch die ewige Sonne goß

Ihr verjüngendes Licht über das alternde

   Riesenbild, und umher grünte lebendiger

      Efeu; freundliche Wälder

         Rauschten über die Burg herab.

Sträuche blühten herab, bis wo im heitern Tal,

   An den Hügel gelehnt, oder dem Ufer hold,

      Deine fröhlichen Gassen
        Unter duftenden Gärten ruhn.

That Rare In-the-World Feeling

All this time I wanted to connect, but
       There was no connection, except
              What was already inside: silent.

I worked so hard to bolt myself on,
       But the threads kept on popping
               And I never seemed to notice.

Perhaps there should be a reckoning, for good intentions,
       For wanting what others appeared to have,
               For the gesture of trying to care,

But there was too much real in all that illusion,
       Falsity holds so little pull,
               Not like the eyes finding all I am

And making me feel, for the moment, loved,
       Even as the hollows of my own eyes, shining out,
               Have taken what love I'd had from my sight

As if it was something stolen, what I
       Failed to give, and could never know,
               The thing I desire the most.

Odes by Hölderlin: Rousseau

How finite it is, the day in which we live.

   You came and were astonished, and it’s evening

      Already, so sleep, where the distant

         Infinite drifts across the peoples' years.

And many men can oversee their own time,

   A god shows them to the open, but you stand

      Longingly on the shore, annoying,

         A shadow, never able to love them,

And that, that which you called for, what you promised,

   Where are the new ones, now you’re in a friend’s hand,

      Where are they, that you once heard approach

         And made, in a clear and lonely voice, be?

It is toneless, poor man, in that hall of yours,

   And you wander incoherently, like the

      Unentombed, and seek peace and no one

         Knows how to point out the way to the wise.

Be still, now, be satisfied! The tree grows out

   Of the local soil, but the branches will drop

      The loving ones, all the youthful ones,

         And he will hang in a vast grief his head.

The abundance of life, the infinite that

   Dawns around him, and he never takes hold of

      Warms in him, works in him, lives in him
         Until the fruit of him now is swollen.

You have lived! And also you, and also you.

   The distant sun delights your head, and as it

      Radiates from the more beautiful

         Age, the messengers will locate your heart.

Have you perceived them, understood the language

   Of the strangers, assayed her soul? To the one

       Who yearns, a sign is enough, and signs   

         Are from ancient times the language of gods.

And wonderful, as if from the beginning,

   The human spirit becoming and working,

      Having already learned the way of life,

He knows at the first sign, already finished,

   And flies, the keen spirit, like a thundering

      Eagle, prophesying his gods

         Coming forth up ahead,

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Rousseau

Wie eng begrenzt ist unsere Tageszeit.

   Du warst und sahst und stauntest, schon Abend ists,

      Nun schlafe, wo unendlich ferne

         Ziehen vorüber der Völker Jahre.

Und mancher siehet über die eigne Zeit,

   Ihm zeigt ein Gott ins Freie, doch sehnend stehst

      Am Ufer du, ein Ärgernis den

         Deinen, ein Schatten, und liebst sie nimmer,

Und jene, die du nennst, die Verheißenen,

   Wo sind die Neuen, daß du an Freundeshand

      Erwarmst, wo nahn sie, daß du einmal,

         Einsame Rede, vernehmlich seiest?

Klanglos ists, armer Mann, in der Halle dir,

   Und gleich den Unbegrabenen, irrest du

      Unstät und suchest Ruh und niemand

         Weiß den beschiedenen Weg zu weisen.

Sei denn zufrieden! der Baum entwächst

   Dem heimatlichen Boden, aber es sinken ihm

      Die liebenden, die jugendlichen

         Arme, und trauernd neigt er sein Haupt.

Des Lebens Überfluß, das Unendliche,

   Das um ihn und dämmert, er faßt es nie.

      Doch lebts in ihm und gegenwärtig,

         Wärmend und wirkend, die Frucht entquillt ihm.

Du hast gelebt! auch dir, auch dir

   Erfreuet die ferne Sonne dein Haupt,

      Und Strahlen aus der schönern Zeit. Es

         Haben die Boten dein Herz gefunden.

Vernommen hast du sie, verstanden die Sprache der Fremdlinge,

   Gedeutet ihre Seele! Dem Sehnenden war

      Der Wink genug, und Winke sind

         Von alters her die Sprache der Götter.

Und wunderbar, als hätte von Anbeginn

   Des Menschen Geist das Werden und Wirken all,

      Des Lebens Weise schon erfahren,

Kennt er im ersten Zeichen Vollendetes schon,

   Und fliegt, der kühne Geist, wie Adler den

      Gewittern, weissagend seinen

         Kommenden Göttern voraus,

Quandary

Here's a shiny black notebook
       for all your dreamtime thoughts
Of how you must subdue the world
       to be an equal,
Using the flames of the stars
       to cast your light.

In this corner, you, in the other, everything else,
       how you manage to parry and feint
Even if the images you box are shadows
       and the cheers are for someone else.
Still, you carve yourself in the book of heroes,
       though the face and name are not yours,

It is only the others, needing their mirrors
       of a fool trying to do in the sun,
The way we are the same without even knowing,
       cursed with having to be the only one.
The voice that comes to you now from a distance,
       instead of leading you home, sounds like

All the voices that throb in your head
      vying to be the one voice
That speaks for all humanity, safely asleep
      and alone. There is no other sound
Than one's breathing, though the wind
      and a beautiful sight always take it away.

Memories of an Empty Bed

There is no Help Wanted sign in this window
But I jaunt through the door, saying "where do I begin?"

I push the truth to prove me wrong on lucky citizens
Backed with yada yada data and names as talismans,

But no souls are harmed, in the being endured
And enduring, when hope leaves lips, and worse, returns,

And my life is lived, as if on stage,
Looks of pathos as replacement for applause.

To get closer to the vapor of another's eyes
Is the evasion, as shadows move away from trees.

How could I care? If it wasn't for loneliness
What would I do with my life?

Odes by Hölderlin: To The Germans

Don’t ridicule the child, if the still childish

    On a wooden horse fancies he’s resplendent,

       O you good ones! We too are

           Scant in action if not in thought.

But does it come, like a ray out of clouds,

    From thoughts, perhaps, the act, cerebral and ripe?

        Pursue the fruit, in thickets

           Dark sheet, is the writing silent?

And the silence in the people, is it the

    Fete before the feast? The fear, proclaiming God?

        O take me then, you dear ones,

          That I atone for blasphemy.

For too long, too long I’ve erred, like laity

     In the shaping spirit of the workshop here,

        I only see what blossoms,

           What he thinks, I do not perceive.

And to speculate is sweet, but also a

     Sorrow, I’ve lived long enough inside mortals

        Without understanding love,

           Disbelieving, but always moved,

The constant work to be ever more loving,

     To bring souls closer, smiling at the mortal,

        When I am afraid, of life

           Ripeness emerging from hollows.

Creation’s spark, O when, our people’s genius,

     When you come forth whole, soul of the Fatherland,

        That I will bend down more low,

           That the quietest string itself

Falls silent when I’m before you, that I am

     Ashamed, a flower of the night, before you

        Heavenly day, when you end

           With joy, where formerly I mourned,

Whenever our cities fill, bright and open

     And awake, with the immaculate fire

        And mountains, country mountains,

           To the German are the muses,

As once magnificent Pindos, Helicon

     And Parnassus shone, throughout the native land

        Golden heaven, the Open,

           Explicit metaphysical joy.

Well-being is confined by the limits of

     Our lifetimes, we can see and count our own years,

        But the years of the peoples,

           How can a mortal eye see them?

If the soul is also over your own time

     Where you linger, in longing, swaying with grief,

        Then you’ll be on the cold shores

           With what’s yours and never know them,

And the future too, where there are promised ones,

     Where do you see them, when you have a friend's hand?

         You hold something warm again

             And can’t discern a distinct soul?      

Soundless, it is in the hall, from long ago,

     Wretched prophet, with you, longing for your eye

        That is closed as you slumber

           Unlamented, without a name.

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An die Deutschen

Spottet nimmer des Kinds, wenn noch das alberne

   Auf dem Rosse von Holz herrlich und viel sich dünkt,

      O ihr Guten! auch wir sind

         Tatenarm und gedankenvoll!

Aber kommt, wie der Strahl aus dem Gewölke kommt,

   Aus Gedanken vielleicht, geistig und reif die Tat?

      Folgt die Frucht, wie des Haines

         Dunklem Blatte, der stillen Schrift?

Und das Schweigen im Volk, ist es die Feier schon

   Vor dem Feste? die Furcht, welche den Gott ansagt?

      O dann nimmt mich, ihr Lieben!

         Daß ich büße die Lästerung.

Schon zu lange, zu lang irr ich, dem Laien gleich,

   In des bildenden Geists werdender Werkstatt hier,

      Nur was blühet, erkenn ich,

         Was er sinnet, erkenn ich nicht.

Und zu ahnen ist süß, aber ein Leiden auch,

   Und schon Jahre genug leb ich in sterblicher

      Unverständiger Liebe

         Zweifelnd, immer bewegt vor ihm,

Der das stetige Werk immer aus liebender

   Seele näher mir bringt, lächelnd dem Sterblichen,

      Wo ich zage, des Lebens

         Reine Tiefe zu Reife bringt.

Schöpferischer, o wann, Genius unsers Volks,

   Wann erscheinest du ganz, Seele des Vaterlands,

      Daß ich tiefer mich beuge,

         Daß die leiseste Saite selbst

Mir verstumme vor dir, daß ich beschämt,

   Eine Blume der Nacht, himmlischer Tag, vor dir

      Enden möge mit Freuden,

         Wenn sie alle, mit denen ich

Vormals trauerte, wenn unsere Städte nun

   Hell und offen und wach, reineren Feuers voll

      Und die Berge des deutschen

         Landes Berge der Musen sind,

Wie die herrlichen einst, Pindos und Helikon,

   Und Parnassos, und rings unter des Vaterlands

      Goldnem Himmel die freie,

         Klare, geistige Freude glänzt.

Wohl ist enge begrenzt unsere Lebenszeit,

   Unserer Jahre Zahl sehen und zählen wir,

      Doch die Jahre der Völker,

         Sah ein sterbliches Auge sie?

Wenn die Seele dir auch über die eigne Zeit

   Sich, die sehnende, schwingt, trauernd verweilest du

      Dann am kalten Gestade

         Bei den Deinen und kennst sie nie,

Und die Künftigen auch, sie, die Verheißenen,

   Wo, wo siehest du sie, daß du an Freundeshand

      Einmal wieder erwarmest,

         Einer Seele vernehmlich seist?

Klanglos, ists in der Halle längst,

   Armer Seher! bei dir, sehnend verlischt dein Aug

      Und du schlummerst hinunter

         Ohne Namen und unbeweint.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Damn that's a fine poem.

Odes by Hölderlin: Song of the Germans

O holy heart of peoples, O Fatherland!

   Suffering place, like the silent mother earth,

      And unrecognized place, when it’s yours,

         For its depths are known best to foreigners!

They reap the conception, the spirit of you,

   They like to pick the grape, but they sneer at you,

      Vine without shape, at how you stagger

         Wildly about the dregs along the ground.

You land of high and most austere genius!

   You land of love! Though I am already yours,

      Often I cry, angrily, how you

         Stupidly deny your own soul always.

Though you didn’t hide all your beauties from me,

   For often I stood overlooking the green,

      The wide garden exalted in yours

         And saw you revealed on a bright mountain.

I went to your currents and imagined you,

   While the tones as timid as the nightingale

      On silent pastures sang, and the wave

         Was still, and the dawning shore was quiet.

On the banks I saw the cities blossoming,

   The lofty ones, where the diligent workshop

      Was silent, where your sun of science

         Illumines the artist’s grim indulgence.

Do you know Minerva's children? She chose the

   First olive tree for her own; do you know the

      Athenian? She’s still alive, still

        Rules the soul, the musing, silent in men,

When Plato's pious garden is no longer,

   The old river has turned green and the poor man

      Plows the ashes of heroes, and the

         Night bird shyly mourns atop her pillar.

O holy woods! O Attica! If she struck

   You too with her terrible radiance, and

      In a flash of haste enlivened you

         Would the flames give birth to the near aether?

And yet genius wanders, as does the spring, from

   Country to country. And we? Of our young men

     Is there one who does not keep secret
         His punishment, a riddle in his breast?

Thank the German women! They have us enshrined

   To the genial spirit of the idols,

     And they repair each day the evil

         Snarls to bring peace, tame and straight, again.

Where now are the poets, to whom God gave song,

   Like those of old, full of joy and piety,

      The visionary, where are ours? The

         Cold and the bold, the incorruptible!

Now! Be welcomed as a noble, Fatherland,

   With a new-found name, ripest fruit of the times!

      You are the last and the first of all

         Muses, Urania, I welcome you!

Still ashamed and still silent, you contemplate

   A new and joyous work, your testimony
      To the singular, like you, that is

         Born of love and goodness, just as you, are —

Where is your Delos, where your Olympia,

   So we may find ourselves at the highest feast? —

      But how the son guesses, what was yours,
         Immortal, prepared for a long, long time?

------------------------------------------------------------------

Gesang des Deutschen

O heilig Herz der Völker, o Vaterland!

   Allduldend, gleich der schweigenden Mutter Erd,

      Und allverkannt, wenn schon aus deiner

         Tiefe die Fremden ihr Bestes haben!

Sie ernten den Gedanken, den Geist von dir,

   Sie pflücken gern die Traube, doch höhnen sie

      Dich, ungestalte Rebe! daß du

         Schwankend den Boden und wild umirrest.

Du Land des hohen ernsteren Genius!

   Du Land der Liebe! bin ich der deine schon,

      Oft zürnt ich weinend, daß du immer

         Blöde die eigene Seele leugnest.

Doch magst du manches Schöne nicht bergen mir,

   Oft stand ich überschauend das holde Grün,

      Den weiten Garten hoch in deinen

         Lüften auf hellem Gebirg und sah dich.

An deinen Strömen ging ich und dachte dich,

   Indes die Töne schüchtern die Nachtigall

      Auf schwanker Weide sang, und still auf

         Dämmerndem Grunde die Welle weilte.

Und an den Ufern sah ich die Städte blühn,

   Die Edlen, wo der Fleiß in der Werkstatt schweigt,

      Die Wissenschaft, wo deine Sonne

         Milde dem Künstler zum Ernste leuchtet.

Kennst du Minervas Kinder? sie wählten sich

   Den Ölbaum früh zum Lieblinge; kennst du sie?

      Noch lebt, noch waltet der Athener

         Seele, die sinnende, still bei Menschen,

Wenn Platons frommer Garten auch schon nicht mehr

   Am alten Strome grünt und der dürftge Mann

      Die Heldenasche pflügt, und scheu der

         Vogel der Nacht auf der Säule trauert.

O heilger Wald! o Attika! traf Er doch

   Mit seinem furchtbarn Strahle dich auch, so bald,

      Und eilten sie, die dich belebt, die

         Flammen entbunden zum Aether über?

Doch, wie der Frühling, wandelt der Genius

   Von Land zu Land. Und wir? ist denn Einer auch

      Von unsern Jünglingen, der nicht ein

         Ahnden, ein Rätsel der Brust, verschwiege?

Den deutschen Frauen danket! sie haben uns

   Der Götterbilder freundlichen Geist bewahrt,

      Und täglich sühnt der holde klare

         Friede das böse Gewirre wieder.

Wo sind jetzt Dichter, denen der Gott es gab,

   Wie unsern Alten, freudig und fromm zu sein,

      Wo Weise, wie die unsre sind? die

         Kalten und Kühnen, die Unbestechbarn!

Nun! sei gegrüßt in deinem Adel, mein Vaterland,

   Mit neuem Namen, reifeste Frucht der Zeit!

      Du letzte und du erste aller

         Musen, Urania, sei gegrüßt mir!

Noch säumst und schweigst du, sinnest ein freudig Werk,

   Das von dir zeuge, sinnest ein neu Gebild,

      Das einzig, wie du selber, das aus

         Liebe geboren und gut, wie du, sei -

Wo ist dein Delos, wo dein Olympia,

   Daß wir uns alle finden am höchsten Fest? -

      Doch wie errät der Sohn, was du den
          Deinen, Unsterbliche, längst bereitest.

Sunday at Mother's

A blue '59 Citroen,
As rustic as a tractor on an endless hay field,
Glows redolent in the grocery parking lot
With Parisian dreams of existential teens
And the hairpin escapes of the rich and dangerous —
A classic car, one may say, in a world where
Distinction narrows like the late afternoon,
Something, perhaps, to aspire to ...

Until the owner, baggy pants, supplements clutched
In hand, opens its creaking door —
Dutch Masters cigars fill the ashtray,
5150 bags fill the floor;
It's a wonder it even drives, as much as
He's alive, with that look
Of complete despair.

And so the eye betrays again,
Sides with what is lost and unrecoverable —
There's no safety in this world,
Only pathos in what's become of all we knew,
The prerequisite for faith:
No possible solution.

Hands on Old Instruments

Sitar gourd and accordion lungs
Sing, if you let them,
A song of love
From the notes that are freed
To the woodsmoke of a home,
Remembering themselves
Under fingers
And beckoning others
To create in dream
What was real once
From other lovers
Studious before the silence,
For the ghosts,
If that is what they are,
Tell what is true
In the false hardness of objects,
The distance of eyes,
They say your desire
Is not imagined,
Only incomplete,
Lacking only the crypt to hold
All the love you give.
They wait, elusive, for you to
Find this silence
Past the clamor of voices
Scorned,
What left in the air
Bent tones, crying sounds.

Party Lines

At the Noir Bar
They barter condolences
Like arsonists spread straw,
To shatter like crystal
To the surface of the floor.

The message is unscrambled
From the invisible waves
Each to his own illusion,
Safe.

Is there waste? Chaos? Or just
Solitude extending itself
To no place?

Truth shares Thunderbird with bums,
Acts like nothing matters,
No need to justify what needs no proof,
A curio to reach for
In the golden light
Of the store,

Where every kind of crazy
Is worshipped and abhorred
But eventually we agree
For the good of the party
To be redeemed
By what we don't understand,
What others say we are,
What they see.

Loneliness in Music City

Unholy rolling of predator drones:
Every citizen dressed and marching
To the center from every direction
In a yellow hockey uniform

Past the true and deserted churches
And the walking neon guitars
Where the John the Baptist wanna-be’s
Can’t lift their beards to see the dream

Of cowboy boot blonde realized
As the opposite of their inauthentic asses,
Just a machine extracting sentiment
With a right to wave its non-existent flag

Weighing heavy as the river air

Sentiments of the lost, wounded and dead;
How kind strangers can be to those with trunks
And how the home that asks for nothing asks too much.

They kept buzzing through the night
— Like steel guitars, those drones,
Mere souls, on ice, to be sold
To the most rebellious yell,

The strictest catechism
That leaves all flocks behind,

Chasing some debauchery
That refused to be preserved.

I have walked the sordid sidewalks,
Heard the grate of each sweet whine,
Seen the many faceless faces make their way
Across the stricken avenues

And felt the inexorable flow
Go always against the crystal
Of the unimaginable
Sacredness of every individual,

And I have voiced alone
What the wind won’t allow to be kept,
Some cries of annihilation
Of the self in all that confronts it,

What cannot show its face
Or speak of what it is without a “you.”
But the wind makes a ghost of every town
Gusting life from the death of soft, warm lights —

A daring to dream of something different,
Something larger, something nearer,
Somehow realer, than the spectres
Down all the streets you know,

Who left us here long ago,
Before we knew their names.
They didn’t have the strength
To say goodbye.

May Days

1.
On Hopeless Street the purple trees
wave like radar turning

The masters of what should be
will never interfere, in this sun,
with what is — the metal sheen
too clean — the purple trees
too distant  — and the people blind
to the gridlines that hold in orbits
dreams

Indulgences are bartered by old men
in wide straw hats:
dental work, insurance, bonds for bail ...

2.
Shoes clap,
what needs to be understood
is in their sound.
It echoes away.
Too much compassion.

3.
Another world is churning away
I can feel almost its heat
As I imagine I know the words you speak
And you hear the heart I beat.

4.
On Pelican Rock a stillness we can barely dream of
Even the rocks swirl in violent movement
The golds hold such terrible truths
Kelp hung like curtains in dissolving falls

What's released with the wave eludes our capture
Only the crisp frisson crash of white
crowns crushed — eclat  —
Into lines of force that bloom,
like our heartbreaks in endless recursion
Like the danger is play for our unpeeling.

The cliffside castles  — once dream homes  —
now are part of a baroque outcropping
that fills you as far as you can look
with the splendor of the remote,
giving as much as you can yield
to what protects you,
the undisclosed.

On the rock's edge
purple flowers
facing the resolute ocean
without dimension or name,
but speaking to us — all ears —
as to rocks.

5.
The offerings of love — flags
in trees — fall away — late
springtime sadness — as if
the love itself could somehow
die.

The Man in the Cafeteria

The fichus tree grew large,
Larger than it was,
Encouraged by the roots we cut
And the branches we severed.

It became a giant in our eyes.
We made more of its shade
Than of the sky,
And more of its size
Than of the nests it provided,

So much more that, when it had
Crowded out our houses
And taken all our light
We were so displeased it hadn't grown more,
That it hadn't yet conquered the planet.

Sunset at Johnny Rockets

As multiple heavens send their rays
Down through thick-necked cloud
A bearded soul with seashell robes
Wails at how unjust they dance
Upon this glistening floor
Bereft except for separate waitresses
Moving in mute force
How they refuse to lose their harmony
To all our whistling prods
As if we are that lonely girl
Demanding more than one
Fragmentary color
Of helium on a string at supper.

Sprayday Epiphany

The sky is obscured as man is obscured
              by veils of exhalation ash
That makes the morning details smear
              like watercolor grays
But the sky projects a holy tint
              so man can know the truth
And the few who see the poisoned skies
              can maybe see god too.
And the rest who don't believe in eyes 

              or the power of mind or god
Are rewarded with another morning 

              inexplicably without rain.

Cancerian

A giant coin
The moon
Bathes the faces
In pathos

But we'll survive
The light vacuumed away
To what nature
Does not abhor

But constantly raises
A dimmer switch
Like a child afraid it will miss in the dark
The things that cannot exist

Rooster 4

You reap what you shuffle
And play the hand you're felt,
But the skies still stare at you
With all you cannot do
Yet so too does the lady next to you
Who only appears to dismiss all you say
Before she goes back to the sunset on her book.

Rooster 3

Papa Wembe
brought light to the space without others,
who'd already taken the zero percentage of you.
It's a small step from killing a mosquito
to eating a cheeseburger;
the planet that provides becomes your own,
to collect darkness like rainwater
as the sunlight slides away.

Rooster 2

The seashells came out from the rain
Not from the flute player
Still they are one and the same
Like toads and mountainsides.

Rooster 1

Spawning ocelots
For example
Is as clear as diamonds to some
And to others as deeply cut
As the flies in an old Mazeroski
Horsehide glove.

The Finest Leaf Clothespins Can Hold

Isaac Asimov

On a perfect earth
Would live out his ambition
To listen to the trains
In his newsstand by the subway track
Instead of seeing all his dreams go unfulfilled
Like some incoherent poet
Who, having captured the world in a net,
Knows it can't be saved
Or thrown back.

Rumors of Second-Hand Smoke

It's not soul-suckery but a yearning
For beauty
That takes down all that's good
From the trees

Some say the almost true
Is the low-hanging fruit
But I know we only feel the love
With the world on fire

The homeless trumpeter
We never see
Plays "Millard Fillmore Days"
Like reveille

And I become the cormorant
Wary of the shot
The crimp across the pond
Between the man and song

Solstice at Chavez and Chinatown

There are clearings in the grey --
Brilliant mountain gold --
Moments when I'm clear
Of definition,
When it seems like that flower
Surrendered to the fence
I can let the all of myself you hold
Freely pass
And see it's you, not me
I've kept inside.

But it darkens again, the grey,
And the audience turns
Back round at me
Waiting for something specific, authentic,
Though they don't understand the dance;
Being real is somehow ... entertaining.

It is black now on the stage
But the lights in the sky glisten
As I sense the power I have always had
To be wrong,
To make the world correct me.

The Pang for Fading Presences

The scent of concrete
          too vague to hold inside
Like the Christmas mums along the rows
          of cubicles at night

Such fear it will escape
          a balloon that never ceases
Breathing 'til extinguished,
          and with it me.

                                       This slab on the other hand
          will say nothing in perpetuity
And pull emotions out
          like honey draws out flies

But your eyes seem to hold what I say
          forever, although they move
With expert caprice to the next
          forever moment
Clinging like bees to clover
          and whizzing away

Nothing wastes a second
         of its life
And all the colors gained
         turn golden decomposing

The mind simply thinks
         and the figurines reform
                                     yet its shapings
                       scrape out
          rhythms of confusion
Spread confetti'ed feeling on the floor
                             
                                 For what has passed
          maintains its glowing hold
                         The thing we tried to call real
Still lives
                     uncontainable
                                                    like a cameo in amber
          of the leaf that's left of the girl

What's lost was never known
          and what we know as grieving
                               -- our own --
Glares back at us
          conscious
                               but not close

The pointing at the moon is real
          but not the moon itself
Concealed
          to be found

For all the resonance spun forth
         like storms from arctic streams
The image can't be modified
         by even the all-seeing eye

They never move O restless one
         they never move

A Clear Afternoon in Irvine

Eucalyptus leaves arrive in peace
          alit on pod-red streets,
There's laughter in the Spanish, twitter from birds
          on the golden state of blue.

A banner that is barely waving
          is all that one can see
How, behind the curtain, so much is
          suppressed;

What doesn't need to be here now
          in these quiet, empty streets
Where the illusions one creates
          are not even real.

Cold Moon Over Rosecrans

For P.L.P.

And what about my heart, Partisan,
now deeded to its fourth lord,
don’t you feel some gesture of restitution
is in order?

“I’ve finally disappeared
except inside your memory
and still I don’t exist!”

The moonlight, though, was fat
and the blue notes collected
in the flames along your face.
You were crystal from the dells
who felt more than I gave
but was never able to say just what that was
except how you were hurt and needed help
and didn’t know, after all, what you knew.

“Where is your kindness
to not speak for me
even though I have no voice?”

All else vanished, time seems something still to honor
in the silence that stretches from here to Montauk,
and I have wanted to be what would haunt you
but the sketches I’ve drawn in the sand
form their own tableau vivant
frozen in the blue.

“You showed such faith in a lie
I almost believed you were real.”

And I put what could be real in your keeping,
when I would go to my bed
secure among some library books
while you turned up the heat in our marital suite
falling asleep with the pen to my story in your hand,
I’d tiptoe in, next morning, and lift it away
to return it secure to its box.

“That pen was mine, and the book
was empty. You had written it without me
in fire.”

The Fullertonians

Coincidence theorists wear hipster hats.
I can't help but feel partly responsible.

What's in front of us chokes like kudzu,
Dreams too large now, mysteries too small.

Even I chase Prez Prado vinyl
In concentric circles down greater Redondo

As the reals reel in circles,
Plots and chords never resolved,

But the mind like a needle-threading fiddle
Overcomes the glare, by creating what is not

To bear light on the Fullertonians
Like haarpists fakewinter the sky.

They open their umbrellas on the bus
Like death and Texas, or Iceland poppies.

Some Birthday Poems

I.
The present is in the next room
filling pans and clanking pots;
it waits to make a phone call
with a glass of red wine and a knife...

The past looks at me from the wall
wondering if I've learned how large I am
and if I can share their largeness with them,
but all they can do is wait; I pretend
I've moved on.

The future calls like a bird from the window,
something about blue sky and the sound of a riddle
whose words are unknown,
to make the answer clearer.

It's the sound of water boiling,
the unlocking of cutlery,
the ice out of the tray
and nothing else but that.

II.
The buddha that says
all the life in the dead world
is imagined
must be imagined
in the road
to be killed.

Who has told
of what's inside the sense,
the alignment to angels
in the scent of black tea,
the gold beating heart
in the postcard of Kekemapa?

III.
Pigeons move like sheets of rain
some landing on traffic poles
to scavenge drivers who don't taste
the french fries on their fingers
but wait for the magical moment to pass,
staring without seeing
the red arrow as a key;
they can't feel the line of birds
jostle their feathers
just for them.

IV.
Angel city faces
feel free to throw
what broke through their ice,
made them stronger,
on me
but they don't like it
if I look back.

Collapsing Sunday

It's bittersweet
          this peace
That in the arc of breath
          peers
Into the holes not taken
          that grow
From being dark and full
          of echonoise
What might have been
          -- what was
          but never was...

The melody repeats
          stark longings long deferred
While orchestral cushions
          -- never more than auroral ghosts --
Are as voiceless as the sky

The fact of loss
          like a gilded cage
Where sunset stays
          ambrosia out of reach
As unresolved as what hands
          make of time
The picayune weeds one threads through
          to meaning

From some dream that burned
          away before
For cold star certainties:
          elegant denials, noble vindications
The final harmonious note
          stolen by the red-tinged sky
Fading into dissonance
          -- so rich and so alive...

A glow that holds the wizened hands
          as they pass through lighted rooms
Unfolding and then putting back
          things too small to see
Not memory or wisdom
          but what must finally be
Some sacrament of love

Glint of Flesh

Details escape
In clear sun
Endless messes connect
Conduct the current train orchestra
Optimize the glean

Simply wordcloud what you want to see
On the other side

The Poet Speaks

Los Angeles moves with quiet perfection
Too sleek to leave a scrape upon the pond,
All stories stay in the moment's motion
Like a juggler's knives.

But there's one who is still, savagely ranting
In black skullcap, white cane like an antler,
Trimmed beard, blue vest, white pants;
He stands at the crosswalk, bellowing the truth
That possesses him, one too big for words,
Almost too large for sound. He taps his cane
On the sidewalk and asks "where is reality, tell me,
Where?"

And so, in the vast stillness of Los Angeles,
Where everyone's a mask, frozen into manikins,
Swells a frisson of fear, outward like toothpicks
From an unsealed jar.

Leaving Anguilla

The memory of an orange shed
Where a homily in lacquered wood
Embodied a dream of a family

A natural mystic clan emerged from trees.

It suited the locust bean, at least,
And pidgin peas, the goat-crossed coral street

Where cats were leashed in church grass
And chickens foraged freely.

Now I sit in Hungry's Restaurant
With the mid-day Mt. Gay crowd
Burying an inarticulate prayer.

For what was
Never happened
Except as I was told how to feel

The people wearing smiles like flowers
Were never revealed.

The first sight was all we got:

Overwhelming white with sky-blue sea.

The sudden suites and green estates
Will never take the hunger away
For an unfamiliar country

And so we forgot, not sanctified
By pebble roads, we had a purpose.

All the love you gave fell through
But a boy still waits in the sand for you

To carve a lizard king.

Afternoon in Maricot

D'accord echoes in the hallowed mall
Now threadbare marble, the throat-breaking talk
Flows like a bottle of wine,
As if monks have broken a vow of silence
And the harsh judgments of delicious truth
Spin away like yarn.

O the lengths we go to evade compassion,
We walk all day long for what doesn't need us
But everywhere eyes require our large sense of wrong,
Redemption to the March of the Valrykies
To recover what was never theirs,
What would pain them so to lose,
As if they once had gained it
From your sharp, inquiring eyes ... 

That now withhold whatever empathy
Was once the one not wrong they had,
For it became part of a larger wrong,
Implicated in the crime it witnessed.
It joined its heart to what could only grow until it burst,
And then withdrew, the final act, where everyone
Is powerless, and always has been.

Emptier the chasm for having known there were people
Who once lived upon those hills,
Now gone inexplicably, forever.

Gift

Night waves
Night branches
Night watchmen at bars,
Lights on patios
Where wine bottles glow
As parents wane before their children's demands,
Reach for glasses.

The magic the day refused to bestow
Is piled up on the hillsides,
Organized as stars
Near ocean blackness.
No blame or irritation any more
Just the langour inside windows,
Unhappy stares and cackling slurs.

The road curves in circles
All the way around the island
But the cars keep following some longing
For a love that isn't here, at least
But may be there
A boulangerie where they speak Francais,
Or a high-end beachfront mall,
But there they beg with missing teeth
For cigarettes and love,
And there the third floor's always closed
To visitors,
It comes back in your face
Like the merciless sun:
You do not know
What you're given,
How a vault of gold
Has been laid before your feet
So you can observe
The imperfections of the coins.

And someone must pay dearly
For the ointment's shining fly
-- Fingers point and eyes collide
Til sunset masses phantasm armies
And we are left the rich savor
Of darkness,
Which feels our compassion,
Knows how hard we try,
Sees how we make the most
Of every shining token
Slung on a string,
And sometimes, in a
Certain blue light,
It might lead you out
On a pier wet with lamplight
To see the circling below
Of giant shining fishes,
A gift you've finally walked
For long enough
To stand in awe of.

Lilith Conjunct

The women were mean, despairingly crying, as they clung
          to the coffin for a body light as air.

Dogs lapped their tears like they were anti-freeze
          and cowered under abject slaps transferred.  

The phones lit up with vitriol, in hopes the clouds would stay,
         the spell could not be broken today like bread

As if they could be fed. For it was not, to them, love,
         something that fell within their purview,

It was other, it was hate, it was worthy of the raw
         discontent they'd tried with parasols to hide

For millennia it seemed: their papery smiles
         betrayed a fear that all was as it appeared,

That the man had no redeeming acts, the earth
         no cause for grace, no heaven save the rending,

Where all that lived must die, the easier to sweep away;
        creation's in the clean-up, that same old tell-tale story

As the one that murderers say, at bedtime to their grandkids
        when they stamp a kiss of dreams on warm foreheads.

On the Loss of All My Friends

Circe turned all men into pigs

Except to Odysseus, cursed

With true sight. He did not require

The wax in his ears

To endure the siren’s false song;

It was for public consumption,

So that they could pretend

To be him.

There was no great voyage

To part right from wrong,

The finale was written

By stars all along;

But learning can come

When one holds to a role

False enough

There are no ropes.

And when Penelope beckoned

And he had to be lonely again,

He saw his companions at last

As they are, clear in the dark,

Their moving figures of light

So brave and so bright;

How the heart that made him so wrong

Gave the universe flight.