Veterans Day

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

Correction regarding line three: "blue" (not "blues")


Am 13.11.2017 um 10:03 schrieb Kai Frederik Lorentzen:


GRODEK

At evening the woods of autumn are full of the sound
Of the weapons of death, golden fields
And blues lakes, over which the darkening sun
Rolls down; night gathers in
Dying recruits, the animal cries
Of their burst mouths.
Yet a red cloud, in which a furious god,
The spilled blood itself, has its home, silently
Gathers, a moonlike coolness in the willow bottoms;
All the roads spread out into the black mold.
Under the gold branches of the night and stars
The sister's shadow falters through the diminishing
   grove,
To greet the ghosts of the heroes, bleeding heads;
And from the reeds the sound of the dark flutes of
   autumn rises.
O prouder grief! you bronze altars,
The hot flame of the spirit is fed today by a more
   monstrous pain,
The unborn grandchildren.


Georg Trakl

(translation: James Wright and Robert Bly)

https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/Trakl.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Trakl


GRODEK

Am Abend tönen die herbstlichen Wälder
Von tödlichen Waffen, die goldnen Ebenen
Und blauen Seen, darüber die Sonne
Düstrer hinrollt; umfängt die Nacht
Sterbende Krieger, die wilde Klage
Ihrer zerbrochenen Münder.
Doch stille sammelt im Weidengrund
Rotes Gewölk, darin ein zürnender Gott wohnt
Das vergossne Blut sich, mondne Kühle;
Alle Straßen münden in schwarze Verwesung.
Unter goldnem Gezweig der Nacht und Sternen
Es schwankt der Schwester Schatten durch den schweigenden Hain,
Zu grüßen die Geister der Helden, die blutenden Häupter;
Und leise tönen im Rohr die dunkeln Flöten des Herbstes.
O stolzere Trauer! ihr ehernen Altäre
Die heiße Flamme des Geistes nährt heute ein gewaltiger Schmerz,
Die ungebornen Enkel.



Am 13.11.2017 um 01:29 schrieb L E Bryan:

The British produced a fair number of poets reflecting on the Great War.

In the late 90’s they made a feature film, Regeneration, which included as characters, two of the poets, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Both fought in the war. Sassoon survived, Owen did not.

Siegfried Sassoon, Suicide In the Trenches

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Wilfred Owen, The Parable of the Young Man and the Old

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned, both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake, and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets the trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Lawrence

__._,_.___



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20171113/1a2a607c/attachment.html>