[THEMES] February 2009

[miir.livejournal.com]

Mostly bits and pieces taken from (or inspired by... or cannibalized from... or, well, you know...) poems.

February 2009 themes


1 What hope shall we cherish, what pure premonition

2 Waves vied for your attention

3 Blossom to blossom to dusty blossom

4 But to hear the mermaids singing

5 I will be the water for your thirst

6 The mathematics of forgetting

7 A pomegranate lamp

8 Knowing only departures, never returns

9 Scalded by the fire of the great moon

10 I know it well, the nakedness of truth

11 My shadow pinned against a sweating wall

12 A suicide of leaves

13 One sword dividing slumber

14 Blindness and desire

15 Unfeathering hope one-handed

16 Change our bones to gases

17 One pierced moment whiter than the rest

18 The blood of hyacinths

19 Every paradise is lost

20 The gravitational constant

21 Icarus also flew

22 When happiness falls

23 The nightingale's eye

24 Rose, oh pure contradiction

25 Tinder ablaze

26 And light becomes what it touches

27 The world is tiny; the heart's enormous

28 We touch, we hold, we keep one another free


--

Notes:


1 What hope shall we cherish, what pure premonition (Pablo Neruda, Signifying Shadows, translated by Ben Belitt)

2 Waves vied for your attention (Rainer Maria Rilke, The First Elegy, translated by Stephen Mitchell)

3 Blossom to blossom to dusty blossom (Li-Young Lee, From Blossoms)

4 But to hear the mermaids singing (T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock)

5 I will be the water for your thirst (Benjamin Alire Sáenz, To the Desert)

6 The mathematics of forgetting (...No excuse for this one, sorry. Have another mathematical prompt? The limit as epsilon approaches zero, from the definition of a derivative.)

7 A pomegranate lamp (Hades and Persephone; also Simoun from El Filibusterismo by Jose Rizal)

8 Knowing only departures, never returns (Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities)

9 Scalded by the fire of the great moon (Amy Lowell, The Taxi)

10 I know it well, the nakedness of truth (Paul Éluard, Nudité de la vérité. « Je le sais bien. » -- The nakedness of truth (I know it well) -- couldn't find the translator, sorry)

11 My shadow pinned against a sweating wall (Theodore Roethke, In a Dark Time)

12 A suicide of leaves (Pablo Neruda, The Book of Questions, translated by William O'Daly; excerpt from the Belitt translation)

13 One sword dividing slumber (Ala al-Din and Badr al-Budur in One Thousand and One Arabian Nights)

14 Blindness and desire (Cupid and Psyche)

15 Unfeathering hope one-handed (Emily Dickinson, Hope is the thing with feathers)

16 Change our bones to gases (Lisel Mueller, Monet Refuses the Operation)

17 One pierced moment whiter than the rest (ee cummings, it is at moments after i have dreamed)

18 The blood of hyacinths (Apollo and Hyacinthus)

19 Every paradise is lost (Robert Hass, Against Botticelli)

20 The gravitational constant (as featured in Newton's law of gravitation: 1, 2)

21 Icarus also flew (Jack Gilbert, Failing and Flying)

22 When happiness falls (Rainer Maria Rilke, The Tenth Elegy, translated by John Waterfield)

23 The nightingale's eye (A.S. Byatt, The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye; also another name for color twist glass: 1, 2)

24 Rose, oh pure contradiction (Rainer Maria Rilke, self-composed epitaph, translated by Stephen Mitchell)

25 Tinder ablaze (Rumi, "If anyone lacks tinder, let him set his rubbish ablaze with my fire.")

26 And light becomes what it touches (Lisel Mueller, Monet Refuses the Operation)

27 The world is tiny; the heart's enormous (Shu Ting, Fairy Tales, translated by Donald Finkel)

28 We touch, we hold, we keep one another free (Rika Lesser, Degli Sposi; a note, though: the final italics don't appear in the book I have)