golempoem

About 4 mins, shot in super 8, a 2002 film by José Alberto Pinheiro.

Out of the mist of history
He’ll come again
Sailing on ships across the sea
To a wounded Nation

Signs of a savior
Like fire on the water
It’s what we prayed for
One of our own

Just wait
Though while he may roam
Always
A hero comes home
He goes where no one has gone
But always
A hero comes home

Deep in the heart of darkness sparks
A dream of lies
Surrounded by hopelessness
He finds the will to fight

Theres no surrender
Always remember
It doesn’t end here
We’re not alone

Just wait
Though while he may roam
Always
A hero comes home
He goes where no one has gone
But always
A hero comes home

And he will come back on the crimson tide
Dead or alive
And even though we know the bridge has burned
He will return
He will return

Just wait
Though while he may roam
Always
A hero comes home
He knows of places unknown
But always
A hero comes home

Someday they’ll carve in stone
“The hero comes home”

He goes and comes back alone
But always
A hero comes home

Just wait
Though while he may roam
Always
A hero comes home

Lyrics for the closing song of Beowulf (U.S.: Zemeckis, 2007, 115 mins)

Composed by Alan Silvestri, sung by Idina Menzel

Film by Joseph Fusco.

SIR GAWAINE AND THE GREEN KNIGHT

Reptilian green the wrinkled throat,
Green as a bough of yew the beard;
He bent his head, and so I smote;
Then for a thought my vision cleared.

The head dropped clean; he rose and walked;
He fixed his fingers in the hair;
The head was unabashed and talked;
I understood what I must dare.

His flesh, cut down, arose and grew.
He bade me wait the season’s round,
And then, when he had strength anew,
To meet him on his native ground.

The year declined; and in his keep
I passed in joy a thriving yule;
And whether waking or in sleep,
I lived in riot like a fool.

He beat the woods to bring me meat.
His lady, like a forest vine,
Grew in my arms; the growth was sweet;
And yet what thoughtless force was mine!

By practice and conviction formed,
With ancient stubbornness ingrained,
Although her body clung and swarmed,
My own identity remained.

Her beauty, lithe, unholy, pure,
Took shapes that I had never known;
And had I once been insecure,
Had grafted laurel in my bone.

And then, since I had kept the trust,
Had loved the lady, yet was true,
The knight withheld his giant thrust
And let me go with what I knew.

I left the green bark and the shade,
Where growth was rapid, thick, and still;
I found a road that men had made
And rested on a drying hill.

–Yvor Winters

Photo credit: from Cotton Nero A.x. courtesy of the British Library

This video, along with more than 150 other works by the very prolific Charles Bryant, can be found at brychar66.

For more of Lev Yilmaz’s Tales of Mere Existence, visit AgentXPQ

L’ÉTERNITÉ . . .

L’éternité
ne fut jamais perdue.

Ce qui nous a manqué
Fut plutôt de savoir

La traduire en journées,
En ciels, en paysages,

En paroles pour d’autres,
En gestes vérifiables.

Mais la garder pour nous
N’était pas difficile

Et les moments étaient présents
Où nous paraissait clair
Que nous étions l’éternité.

-Eugène Guillevic

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GRACE

Glance at a woman on a train platform.
Suddenly we’ve been married for years.

I know all the delicate nuances
in her nine dialects of silence.

Can pick her from a thousand others
just with a sniff of her neck.

We sit next to each other, as we always have.

Our elbows touch, like the tips of matches.
Exactly the way I remember.

When she says excuse me, this is my stop,
there is nothing awkward about it.

–Jeffrey McDaniel

Photo credit: readers by phfig

(A. Modigliani)

Меня, как реку,
Суровая эпоха повернула.
Мне подменили жизнь. В другое русло,
Мимо другого потекла она,
И я своих не знаю берегов.
О, как я много зрелищ пропустила,
И занавес вздымался без меня
И так же падал. Сколько я друзей
Своих ни разу в жизни не встречала,
И сколько очертаний городов
Из глаз моих могли бы вызвать слезы,
А я один на свете город знаю
И ощупью его во сне найду.
И сколько я стихов не написала,
И тайный хор их бродит вкруг меня
И, может быть, еще когда-нибудь
Меня задушит…
Мне ведомы начала и концы,
И жизнь после конца, и что-то,
О чем теперь не надо вспоминать
И женщина какая-то мое
Единственное место заняла,
Мое законнейшее имя носит,
Оставивши мне кличку, из которой
Я сделала, пожалуй, все, что можно.
Я не в свою, увы, могилу лягу.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Но если бы оттуда посмотрела
Я на свою теперешнюю жизнь,
Узнала бы я зависть наконец…

–Ахматова

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the caravan is come
the caravan is gone

now the darkness empties
the evening of our vague weeping

worming into the undertow
into the purpled flesh

of learned loneliness
bending forward toward

the pledge of another dawn
when again the caravan

will return and sere lips
will part to utter once again

abba     abba     not knowing
how else to begin

–M. Salomon

Photo credit: IMG_4084 by le jeune étranger