Tag: stanzas

How we decided we were machines ourselves

Stephen Hawking was in trouble. Another
man wasn’t sure that the world existed.
Every day he heard loud, terrifying
screams inside his head. His bodyguard said

he spent evenings staring at the wall.
Apparently impossible things were
happening all the time: The President
of Turkmenistan was determined to give

his horse to Britain; Leila the elephant
visiting a psychiatric community’s
Christmas party, inflating a giraffe.
He locked his wife in a cupboard and watched

Citizen Kane again and again.
Human beings will always betray you.
Now there was nothing for the dolphins
to do, he would be their creature.

From No Context Adam Curtis Intertitles.

When we are asleep

The moon is shining, though heavy clouds cover her.
One can see the row of small ships silhouetted
in front and behind us against the grey sea.
And so we sail on towards Caen. You, my angel,

sleep gently in the nursery. A long line
of flares hangs over Cherbourg. Funny to imagine
that there Germans run around their guns.
The engine of our boat rocks and rattles.

With me sleep three officers; how childlike
and natural we look when we are asleep.
The air is free of aeroplanes. The best
we can do now is listen to the wireless.

I hope that Andrew’s golden head
rests gently upon his small pillow.
My eyes become wet when I think of you;
I can imagine how you listen to the news.

From Captain Alastair Bannerman’s diary entry on D-Day, 6 June 1944.

The old calendar must be the right one

For the animals still use it. The stork
flies away according to it, the bear
comes out of his hole on the Candlemas day
of the old calendar and not of the Pope’s 

and the cattle stand up in their stalls
to honor the birth of the Lord
on the Christmas night of the old
and not of the new calendar. 

The Pope has made his new calendar
that Christ will get confused and not know when
to come for the last judgment, and the Pope
will continue his knavery still longer.

An Italian walnut tree that had
reliably put forth leaves, nuts, and blossoms
on the night before Saint John’s day under
the old regime performed its feat 

on the correct day in fifteen eighty-three.
I have today sent a branch, broken off,
to Herr von Dietrichstein,
who no doubt will show it to the Kaiser.

From The Reform of the Julian Calendar, Roscoe Lamont, 1920.

When in France

The sheets on this bed are damp.
The radiator doesn’t work.
I cannot sleep at night, there is so much noise.

I have lost my keys.
I cannot open my case.
It doesn’t work.

Excuse me, sir, that seat is mine.
I cannot find my ticket!
That man is following me everywhere.

There has been an accident!
Someone robbed me.
He has lost consciousness.

I feel sick. The noise is terrible.
I did not know that I had to pay.
I am lost. He is losing blood.

From Collins’ Pocket Interpreters: France, 1937.

Paul

From a walled garden and some shepherds’ huts,
a huge, tri-peaked white zeppelin would come
into view. Then Paul Hollywood would close in
across the lawn, his silver quiff cutting

the air like a fin. A crisp oxford shirt
meant to make his eyes pop—a velvety navy
just across the color wheel from his tan.
Mary dispensed praise prudently, as if

pressing a toffee into your palm. But
Paul Hollywood can entwine seven strands
of dough into an ornamental wreath
with the dexterity of a concert pianist.

The rest of the time, he will handle your
bread like airport security. He flips
it upside down, knocks on its bottom,
interrogates it with sausage fingers.

When he is done, he dusts his hands and sheaths
them in his denim carapace. Sometimes we
observed Paul from afar, smoking alone
near the meadows’ edge, pacing like a bull.

From Inside the world of “The Great British Bake Off”.

Septuye

Taking something, that is burning, from the fire

Etu, sun rising from the hills
Etumu, bear warming itself in the sun
Elsu, falcon circling high in air
Putsume, bear sitting on top of big rock with soles of feet turned forward, legs spread

Yottoko, black mud at edge of water
Tulmisuye, bear walking slowly and gently
Tupi, throwing salmon on to bank
Tunna, salmon’s intestines pulling out like string

He’eluye, bow, arrows, and quiver placed against tree while warrior rests
Yelutci, bear traveling among rocks and brush without making noise
Yanapaiyak, little clouds passing by sun and making small shadows
Lilepu, bear going over a man hiding between rocks

Musonota, magpie jumping on the ground
Haiyepugu, bear becoming angry suddenly
Hotutu, round rocks hurting the feet, when one is walking
Teukululaye, bear making so much noise when walking that it frightens other creatures

Teiwu, valley quail defecating as it flies
Toketi, bear, making dust when running
Noteu, missing things when shooting with arrows
Heltu, bear barely touching people as it reaches for them

Müle, hawk seizing quail on ground
Patiwe, to break by twisting
Tokolasik, black-oak acorns getting rotten in water, having been forgotten
Molimo, bear going into shade of trees

Personal names and their meanings from Miwok Moieties, 1916, and Wild Life.

War and Peace

A huge vista of life and suffering humankind 
which makes the present troubles easier to endure, 
and the loneliness of death a little thing.

Siegfried Sassoon

Clouds came down and blotted the landscape 
and we squatted in a vineyard and smoked 
our pipes by the blaze of dry olive-branches. 

In the cloudy weather after rain
the clearness of the hills and glens 
shifted from shadow to gleams of watery light 

and the skylines were clean-cut 
and delicate-edged. The hills looked green—
there was a look of Ireland about it.

And when we got home to camp 
I found a letter from Dorothea, 
the good soul, full of Limerick hunting, 

and hounds flying over the big green banks.
Our padré rather drunk to-night 
after all the communion wine he’d blessed

and been obliged to ‘finish up’. 
And the news from remote France 
grows more ominous every day.

(From Siegfried Sassoon’s diary, 1918)

Three good pictures

My life is a short, intense celebration. 
With almost every breath I take, I get 

a new sense and understanding 
of the linden tree, of ripened wheat, 

of hay, and of mignonette. 
I suck everything up into me. 

When it’s warm and I’m tired, I sit down 
and weave a yellow garland, a blue one, 

and one of thyme. A reaper in a blue smock. 
He mows down all the little flowers 

in front of my door. I know now of two 
other pictures with death in them.

(From Paula Modersohn-Becker’s diary, 1900