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11.24.2016

wind-swept spirit

In this mortal frame of mine which is made of a hundred bones and nine orifices there is something, and this something is called a wind-swept spirit for lack of a better name, for it is much like a thin drapery that is torn and swept away at the slightest stir of the wind.


Matsuo Bashō, ‘The Records of a Travel-Worn Satchelʼ (after The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches, edited and translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa)

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5.19.2016

4.01.2016

Hidden

I propose
turning the key


useless to
conceal from you that
strange things
take place


it used to
ring of its
own accord


chair by
the window and the
door closed


saw the curtain
detach


falling


when I weary of
looking, something is
bound to appear


walking
backwards


she is frightened
by the sound but
cannot describe it


the face
vanishes, the
hands remain


white arms beneath
fearful drapery


looking out, over
the hill


I burn it, it
distills a dark mucus


curtain
wrenched away


a gossamer
veil, as it
seems


resembling, yet
most unlike her


armless
chair, handless
cup


sloping downwards to
the base of the hill


momentary
grasp around
her ankle


an old-fashioned
house


a narrow
lane on a
declivity




Keith Waldrop,  from The House Seen from Nowhere (Litmus Press, 2002)

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2.29.2016

Salve Regina



music: Arvo Pärt, Salve Regina
visuals: Béla Tarr, Satantango

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1.17.2016

like flies

Thinking moves in circles and people appear to me like flies which always bump into the window pane when they try to get out into the open. Someone has got to open the window, but much work and leisure is required for that.


from a letter by Count Hans Ludwig Paul Yorck von Wartenburg to Wilhelm Dilthey

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1.13.2016

two poems by li shangyin


NOTE ON A RAINY NIGHT TO A FRIEND IN THE NORTH

You ask me when I am coming. I do not know.
I dream of your mountains and autumn pools brimming all night with the rain.
Oh, when shall we be trimming wicks again, together in your western window?
When shall I be hearing your voice again, all night in the rain?



THE JADE POOL

The Mother of Heaven, in her window by the Jade Pool,
Hears The Yellow Bamboo Song shaking the whole earth.
Where is Emperor Mu, with his eight horses running
Ten thousand miles a day? Why has he never come back?




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