Saturday, January 30, 2010

Dance Me To The End Of Love - Leonard Cohen

 
Painting: RachelArts 

"Dance Me To The End Of Love"

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

A river died of thirst

Photo :Zoriah 
Gaza refugee camp 08-12-08

A river was here

and it had two banks

and a heavenly mother who nursed it on drops from the clouds

A small river moving slowly

descending from the mountain peaks

visiting villages and tents like a charming lively guest

bringing oleander trees and date palms to the valley

and laughing to the nocturnal revellers on its banks:

‘Drink the milk of the clouds

and water the horses

and fly to Jerusalem and Damascus’

Sometimes it sang heroically

at others passionately

It was a river with two banks

and a heavenly mother who nursed it on drops from the clouds

But they kidnapped its mother

so it ran short of water

and died, slowly, of thirst.


© Mahmoud Darwish (vertaal deur Catherine Cobham)

"Sister, there are tears in my throat
and there is fire in my eyes:
I am free.
No more shall I protest at the Sultan's Gate.
All who have died, all who shall die at the Gate of Day
have embraced me, have made of me a weapon."
(from 'Diary of a Palestinian wound')

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Valentine


Painting by Cyril Rolando


Valentine

Not a red rose or satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.
Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your refelction
like a wobbling photo of grief.
I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or a kissogram.
I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
positive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.
Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its sent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

Carol Ann Duffy

Saturday, January 16, 2010

I crave your mouth - Pablo Neruda

Image: "The hug" by Nan Goldin

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair,
Silent, starving I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disquiets me,
I search the liquid sound of your steps all day.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
For your hands the color of the wild grain,
I hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your loveliness,
The nose, sovereign of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

And I walk hungry, smelling the twilight
Looking for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barren wilderness.


Pablo Neruda