Eros – Page 5 – BEFORE I FORGET

20/07/201521/07/2015

Rilke to Tsvetaeva, Jealous over Pasternak

I’m surprised but delighted that this is easily the most “liked” and reblogged translation on my Tumblr account, and a close second to the recent original “first-degree” poem of my own, Tethering – For Davo.

***
We touch from afar. But how? With airborne
brushes our beating wings stir each other.
Poets live alone. Sometimes another
one comes forth, one who bears what we have borne.

Wir rühren uns, womit? Mit Flügel-Schlägen,
mit Fernen selber rühren wir uns an.
Ein Dichter einzig lebt, und dann und wann
kommt, der ihm trägt, dem, der ihn trug, entgegen.

Val Mont Glion, Canton Vaud. 3 Mai 1926 (cited from Pasternak, Tsvetaeva, Rilke)

11/09/201425/09/2025

B among the Consonants

O bulbous periwinkle,
sunk in sodden goldenrod sand,
your valve sets me a-tingle.
Let me hold you in my hand.

***
First in a series of twenty-one. In homage to Arthur Rimbaud and his Voyelles, but also to Binney & Smith Company, the creators of Crayola wax crayons.

I think of them as love poems to the consonants, but with the proviso that each refer to at least one crayola colour.

The smell “of Crayola crayons is one of the most recognizable scents for [U.S.] adults, ranking at number 18, trailing coffee and peanut butter that were number one and two respectively, but beating out cheese and bleach, which placed at 19 and 20.”