Doom
(poème de Baudelaire en Anglais et en Français)
The Desire for Annihilation (translated by William Aggeler)
Dejected soul, once anxious for the strife,
Hope, whose spur fanned your ardor into flame,
No longer wishes to mount you! Lie down shamelessly,
Old horse who stumbles over every rut.
Resign yourself, my heart; sleep your brutish sleep.
Conquered, foundered spirit! For you, old jade,
Love has no more relish, no more than war;
Farewell then, songs of the brass and sighs of the flute!
Pleasure, tempt no more a dark, sullen heart!
Adorable spring has lost its fragrance!
And Time engulfs me minute by minute,
As the immense snow a stiffening corpse;
I survey from above the roundness of the globe
And I no longer seek there the shelter of a hut.
Avalanche, will you sweep me along in your fall?
—
Le Goût du néant
Morne esprit, autrefois amoureux de la lutte,
L’Espoir, dont l’éperon attisait ton ardeur,
Ne veut plus t’enfourcher! Couche-toi sans pudeur,
Vieux cheval dont le pied à chaque obstacle butte.
Résigne-toi, mon coeur; dors ton sommeil de brute.
Esprit vaincu, fourbu! Pour toi, vieux maraudeur,
L’amour n’a plus de goût, non plus que la dispute;
Adieu donc, chants du cuivre et soupirs de la flûte!
Plaisirs, ne tentez plus un coeur sombre et boudeur!
Le Printemps adorable a perdu son odeur!
Et le Temps m’engloutit minute par minute,
Comme la neige immense un corps pris de roideur;
— Je contemple d’en haut le globe en sa rondeur
Et je n’y cherche plus l’abri d’une cahute.
Avalanche, veux-tu m’emporter dans ta chute?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmstqlIziZ4
Lyrics:
Everyday nothing seems to change
Everywhere I go I keep seeing the same old things
and I, I can’t take it no more
I would leave this town, but I,
I ain’t got nowhere else to go
–
Wake up in the morning to more,
more bad news and I
sometimes I feel like I was born to lose and I,
It’s driving me out of my mind
Gonna catch the next train and I
move on down the line
–
I’ll be ready now
I’ll be ready when my train pulls in
I’ll be ready now
I’ll be ready when my train pulls in
I know my time ain’t long and I,
I can’t live this life again – no, no, no
—
Walkin’ down the street you might wanna cross a smiling face, but they’ll
stab you in the back as soon as you turn – walk away – and I
Oh Lord, it’s bringing me down
If things don’t change around here
ain’t no use in me hanging ’round
–
I’ll be ready now
I’ll be ready when my train pulls in
I’ll be ready now
I’ll be ready when my train pulls in
I know my time ain’t long around here and I,
I can’t live this life again – no, no, no
Lyrics:
Pent up in here
Left all alone, I’m with
The one I most fear
I’m sick and I’m tired
Of reasoning
Just want to break out
Shake off this skin
Loom larger than life
I can’t swallow
Another slice
Seems like my shadow
Mocks every stride
Can I learn to live with
What’s trapped inside?
Pent up in here
Left all alone, I’m with
The one I most fear
I’m sick and I’m tired
Of reasoning
Just wanna break out
Shake off this skin
I can’t escape myself
I can’t escape myself
Lyrics:
I need some company
I miss the noise of life
The silence deafens me
The minutes I can’t kill
I keep an eye on the time
I catch it standing still
In my hour of need
Sometimes I get so near
I journey aimless days
But always end up here
In my hour of need
In my hour of need
In my hour of need
Ah, look at all the lonely people…
In the church where a wedding has been,
Lives in a dream…
Waits at the window, wearing the face
That she keeps in a jar by the door,
Who is it for…
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people,
Where do they all belong?
Of a sermon that no one will hear,
No one comes near…
Look at him working, darning his socks
In the night when there’s nobody there,
What does he care…
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people,
Where do they all belong?
Ah, look at all the lonely people…
And was buried along with her name,
Nobody came…
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt
From his hands as he walks from the grave,
No one was saved…
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people,
Where do they all belong?
You said: ”I’ll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried as though it were something dead.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I happen to look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”
–
You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.
This city will always pursue you. You will walk
the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods,
will turn gray in the same houses.
You will always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you’ve destroyed it everywhere else in the world.
Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard.
This poem is based on the ancient Greek epic poem Odyssey, which is attributed to the legendary author Homer. Quick summary of the Odyssey: there was a war between the ancient Greeks and the Trojans (Troy was – and still is – located at nowadays North-western Turkey), the Greeks laid siege on the city of Troy for 10 years and they destroyed it (there’s another ancient epic poem, Aeneid by the Roman author Virgil, that picks up the story after the destruction of Troy, but let’s stick to Homer’s Odyssey for now). After that, one of the Greek kings named Odysseus (in Latin: Ulysses) set out for Ithaka, his birthplace and kingdom. On his journey home (which lasted, according to the poem, 10 years) he had many adventures and misadventures.
And, for the film buffs, a good adaptation of the Odyssey is this one:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118414/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Odyssey_(miniseries)
Anyway, I posted this poem because we can see it as a representation of life itself. And I can’t decide if it’s optimistic or pessimistic…
At first glance, it seems very optimistic: keep trying and fighting to reach your goals, whatever they are. Its meaning is similar to the phrase ”the chase is better than the catch”. But the final lyrics of the poem make me think of it as pessimistic and a little bit ironic:
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
These lyrics are implying that it was all for nothing, that every effort was fruitless and meaningless. And that’s why I can’t decide… I might say that the interpretation of Cavafy’s poem depends on someone’s views on life…
Although I may never commit suicide
I spend parts of each day thinking about suicide –
Thinking about how I lack the courage to do it.
–
I wake in the mourning with 60 per cent depression.
That’s how it remains for the whole day,
Except for the odd occasion in a year
–
In the doorway or on the street I meet by chance
For a few minutes a woman passing-by
Who has the time to stop and talk for three minutes
–
Or five minutes or even sometimes seven or eight minutes,
Who rocks back on her heels in her pink, hooped skirt
With laughter, no matter what the topic.
–
Depression and despair are two different states
Of mind, not having a lot in common.
Although I have 60 per cent depression, I do not despair.
–
I do not see eye to eye with Samuel Beckett
Who disapproved of suicide and who promulgated
The doctrine of ”going on” for the sake of ”going on”.
–
Estranged from my family, if I do not soon
Take my own life, others will take it from me –
Hooded males with knives in their tracksuits
–
Or medics in their scrubs prancing corridors
Or cowpat-faced ward sisters smirking
Or ice-cold proprietors of old peoples’s homes.
–
How is it that you do not see it, Samuel,
That I do not want to go on for the sake of going on –
Seeing the same old, tired-out impressionist paintings again and again?
–
Men are such po-faced bores.
Each one of them an editor-in-chief.
I wand to stand still by the water’s edge.
–
I want to hold a woman’s hand for the last time.
I want to fill my pockets with Palaeozoic stones.
I want to open my eyes.
From the collection Praise In Which I Live And Move And Have My Being (2012).
Just as dry summers pant for the first rain,
so thou art thirsty for a happy home
and for a life remote, like hermit’s prayer,
a corner of forgetting and of love.
–
And thirsty for the ship upon the sea
that ever onward sails with birds and sea-things,
filling its life with our great planet’s light.
But unto thee both ship and home said: ”No!
–
Look neither for the happiness remote
that never moves, nor for the life that ever finds
in each new land and harbor a new soul!
–
Only the panting of a toiling slave
for thee! Drag in the market place thy body’s
nakedness, strange to the strangers and thine own!”
From the poetry collection ”Life Immovable” (or ”The Motionless Life”), published in 1904. Translation by Aristides Phoutrides.
Have you ever tried or even thought about committing suicide to any of these places? And do you have a place in which you would like to commit (or attempt) suicide?
As for me, I went to the Corinth Canal several times (for those who don’t know, I live in Athens, Greece), but I never thought to jump from the Acropolis of Athens… And I keep wondering why…
Lyrics:
Four o’clock in the afternoon and I didn’t feel like very much
I said to myself, ”Where are you golden boy? Where is your famous golden touch?”
I thought you knew where all of the elephants lie down
I thought you were the crown prince of all the wheels in Ivory town
Just take a look at your body now, there’s nothing much to save
And a bitter voice in the mirror cries, ”Hey, prince, you need a shave”
Now if you can manage to get your trembling fingers to behave
Why don’t you try unwrapping a stainless steel razor blade?
That’s right, it’s come to this… Yes, it’s come to this…
And wasn’t it a long way down… Wasn’t it a strange way down…
–
There’s no hot water and the cold is running thin
Well, what do you expect from the kind of places you’ve been living in?
Don’t drink from that cup, it’s all caked and and cracked along the rim
That’s not the electric light, my friend, that is your vision growing dim
Cover up your face with soap, there, now you’re Santa Claus
And you’ve got a gift for anyone who will give you his applause
I thought you were a racing man, but you couldn’t take the pace
That’s a funeral in the mirror and it’s stopping at your face
That’s right, it’s come to this… Yes, it’s come to this…
And wasn’t it a long way down… Wasn’t it a strange way down…
–
Once there was a path and a girl with chestnut hair
And you passed the summers picking all of the berries that grew there
There were times she was a woman, there were times she was just a child
And you held her in the shadows, where the raspberries grow wild
And you climbed the twilight mountains and you sang about the view
And everywhere that you wandered, love seemed to go along with you
That’s a hard one to remember, yes, it makes you clench your fist
And then the veins stand out like highways, all along your wrist
And yes, it’s come to this… It’s come to this…
And wasn’t it a long way down… Wasn’t it a strange way down…
–
You can still find a job, go out and talk to a friend
On the back of every magazine, there are those coupons you can send
Why don’t you join the Rosicrucians? They will give you back your hope…
You can find your love with diagrams on a plain brown envelope
But you’ve used up all your coupons, except the one that seems
To be written on your wrist, along with several thousand dreams
Now Santa Claus comes forward, that’s a razor in his mitt
And he puts on his dark glasses and he shows you where to hit
And then the cameras pan, the stand-in stuntman
Dress rehearsal rag… It’s just the dress rehearsal rag…
You know, this dress rehearsal rag… It’s just a dress rehearsal rag…
Vincent Willem van Gogh – July 29, 1890
https://www.vincentvangogh.org
http://www.vggallery.com/painting/p_0612.htm
http://www.vggallery.com/painting/p_0779.htm
Wouldn’t it be better if everyone of us could live in his/her own unique madness?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7YEVP4r2ok
Lyrics:
Leave the madman in his madness
And don’t try to bring him to his senses
You don’t know what is hidden
Inside the mind of a madman
–
He might find in his madness
Everything he has desired
And wasn’t able
To see and to obtain
–
Leave the madman in his madness
Leave him in his dream
He’s been sick and tired of this world
And he created one of his own
Here we are
Stuck by this river,
You and I
Underneath a sky that’s ever falling down, down, down
Ever falling down
Through the day
As if on an ocean
Waiting here,
Always failing to remember why we came, came, came:
I wonder why we came
You talk to me
as if from a distance
And I reply
With impressions chosen from another time, time, time,
From another time
So We’ll Go No More A-Roving
So we’ll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul outwears the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we’ll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.
The Lament of Tasso (extract)
the Mind’s canker in its savage mood,
When the impatient thirst of light and air
Parches the heart; and the abhorred grate,
Marring the sunbeams with its hideous shade,
Works through the throbbing eyeball to the brain,
With a hot sense of heaviness and pain;
Prometheus (extract)
Titan! to whose immortal eyes
The sufferings of mortality,
Seen in their sad reality,
Were not as things that gods despise;
What was thy pity’s recompense?
A silent suffering, and intense;
The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show,
The suffocating sense of woe,
Which speaks but in its loneliness,
And then is jealous lest the sky
Should have a listener, nor will sigh
Until its voice is echoless.
The Giaour (extract)
He who hath bent him o’er the dead
Ere the first day of Death is fled,
The first dark day of Nothingness,
The last of Danger and Distress,
(Before Decay’s effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where Beauty lingers,)
And marked the mild angelic air,
The rapture of Repose that’s there,
The fixed yet tender thraits that streak
The languor of the placid cheek,
And—but for that sad shrouded eye,
That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now,
And but for that chill, changeless brow,
Where cold Obstruction’s apathy
Appals the gazing mourner’s heart,
As if to him it could impart
The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon;
Yes, but for these and these alone,
Some moments, aye, one treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the Tyrant’s power;
So fair, so calm, so softly sealed,
The first, last look by Death revealed!
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (extract)
But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:
My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,
And my frame perish even in conquering pain,
But there is that within me which shall tire
Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire.
January 22nd, Missolonghi (extract)
‘Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!
My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of Love are gone;
The worm—the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!
The fire that on my bosom preys
Is lone as some Volcanic Isle;
No torch is kindled at its blaze
A funeral pile.
The hope, the fear, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain
And power of Love I cannot share,
But wear the chain.
What a poet…What a great poet…
(Byron’s statue at Missolonghi)
Whatever it might cost, a look into the future,
Forsaken but not lost,
Nor given in to torture,
Like noises in the wall, no one will notice,
You know you will fall
And drown in misfortune.
Crowned by the doom, you almost see it coming,
To stand or to give up,
You can figure nothing.
Then you retrace your steps, and when the world rejoices
You stumble back and forth,
You’re torn between the choices…
And the disaster gleams, beckoning the reverie
You’re dwelling into dreams
You know astral travelling,
Far away from scorns and senseless agitations
You’re breaking into thorns
Of anger and frustrations.
Strange as it may seem, another day of struggling
For something to redeem,
For something… just for something.
Knowing is cold, ignorance is starving,
All the mess you hold
Is pulling down – you’re drowning.
Water never burns Â
In the gulfs of fire
Even if that means
Death of the desire,
Once the soul has turned
Face down in the mire
What is left behind
Will keep the noises quiet.
bombs arc through the air
and burst on the ground
on roofs, on the houses
on the people hell-bound.
The city is burning
and peace that they’re yearning
dissipate into the night
and wither from sight
the mothers are singing
rocking their children to rest
as the chaos erupts
and sins are soon blessed
The gods turn to demons
and dance to the tune
of the death and the dying
and the promised, sweet doom.
A mother buries her child
among the debris
a candle burns softly
as it’s set off to sea
she cries to the silence
to the cold metal giants
falls to her knees
and then whispers “please”
Their pleads are the melody
their suffering the song
to those who listen
and ignore all the wrong.
They swallow their grief
and and hope it is brief
they pray with frail breath
for a quick, humble death.
For who would still want
to live in a place
where money and power
outweigh living fates?
I once knew a piper,
He danced to his own tune,
Got bit by a viper,
Got caught up in his doom,
Don’t we all know a piper,
Who got bit by a viper,
Dancing to tunes,
In the middle of our rooms,
And I need a cappuccino,
Don’t touch my oregano,
Or I’ll kick you where,
The sun don’t shine.
And those two lines,
Didn’t fucking rhyme,
Oh, well.
I know. I has skills at the poetries.
Life sucks and I’m going crazy!!Â
Why not try some drugs?I’m already destroyed,anyway.