Jean Paul and Goethe: Album Dialogue

4352 Jean Paul and Goethe: Album Dialogue
in Walther von Goethe's album April 1825


"Der Mensch hat hier dritthalb Minuten: eine zu laecheln, eine zu seufzen und eine halbe zu lieben; denn mitten in dieser Minute stirbt er." 
     --Jean Paul Richter


Translation:

Five minute-halves: our life supply.
One minute smiling, one to sigh,
One half to love, but - watch it, guy! -
That half's the end, and then you die.

-----------------------------------


Ihrer sechzig hat die Stunde,
Ueber tausend hat der Tag.
Soehnchen! Werde dir die Kunde
Was man alles leisten mag.  
     --J. W. von Goethe

Translation:


Sixty minutes in an hour;
Thousand-plus the day contains.
Sonny, think how great your power:
In such time, how much one gains!

     --translations copyright by Martin Bidney

"Rounding Third": A Review

4263 "Rounding Third": A Review
a Spenserian sonnet for Ann, Marilyn, Sylvia, Victoria,
and the Chenango River Theatre


The ball a sphere, a diamond all beside:
How straight the line to race, and player-aim!
From life-irregularity to hide,
A wife that died, a friend one feared to blame,

The lure of Brigadoon, the crying shame
Of piping over hills and far away,
The shoelace, Fury-tool, the fool of fame,
The farce-incarceration every day

By cellphone and the company-display
Of diligent subjection to the rule...
The baseball gem: how bright, but will it stay
A guiding light, or morph into a ghoul?

Though foes arose, a growing hope was heard
Resounding, for they'd found a rounding third.

     --Martin Bidney, copyright 2011

A Mastercraft of Black

2682 A Mastercraft of Black
exhibition, sculpture of Ronald Gonzalez

"I wasted time, and now doth time waste me,"
Richard the Second said. Not so does he
Who these black statues crafted! Clock of sun
Moving may ill dispute a mastery

Though it can crush, erode it. So has done
Time with our fancied grand. But malison
Thus great and unabating may be fought:
Anticipate the race that will be run!

Ronald can scavenge, salvage, yet his thought,
Savage, competes in ravage. He has brought
A black that deadens, rusting that corrodes,
To prophesy our last, appointed lot.
. . . . .
What is the "Well"? A black spittoon is set
(Got from a dental office), slug-filled. Let
The glum beholder feel the emptiness
The crumpled humpback purse will help beget.
. . . . .
It knows a crafty coper who the lack
And sadness of decay reshapes. The black
Of solemn pall and falling night will rhyme
With avid answer to its ravin-rack.

The tragicomedy not all sublime
Of dulling, rusting, cracking, crumbling, grime
Is Homo Faber as a Maker-Mime.
Time may waste me, I have not wasted time.

     --copyright 2011 by Martin Bidney

Happy Bastille Day or "La Marseillaise," The French National Anthem Rewritten...

First, listen to the original, "La Marseillaise," French National Anthem en français, with English and French subtitles.

http://youtu.be/4K1q9Ntcr5g

Here are my thoughts, and then my newly authored version dedicated to world peace.

 

Peaceful Marseillaise with English Translation

4226 Une Marseillaise paisible

Après une ère si remplie
De désaccord décourageant,
Maintenant le but d'harmonie
Va paraître bon et plaisant,
Va paraître bon et plaisant.
Les grands héros de toute la terre
Sont ceux qui défendent la paix,
Le vrai suprème bienfait,
Bénédiction bien singulière.
Joignons, bons citoyens,
Les mains en amitié!
Chantons, chantons,
Que notre accord
Soit pour l'éternité.

(written 1/21/06)

English Translation

The era that is gone has been
A time of war, disheartening.
The aim of harmony will win
A state most worthy now to sing.
The heroes of the world are they
Who struggle to defend the peace,
A light supreme of kindly ray,
A blessing: let it never cease.
Then join, good citizens, your hands
In everlasting amity
And forge a strong accord that stands,
And which the world, amazed, may see.

--Peaceful Marseillaise and English Translation
copyright by Martin Bidney 7/5/11

Precursors

4196 Precursors
sonnet for Andrei Guruianu


A four-tiered painting in Saqqara tomb
Showed variable composition style:
Tall jars in rows lend upright feeling while
Flat, laden plates diversify the room

With horizontals. Offerings that loom,
By bearer, butcher brought, the mind beguile;
The feast-provisions, each a gleaming pile,
Delight the eye; and dancers, lithe, illume,

In allegory, merit which the tongue
Will speak in lyric, sweetly to be sung
With vigor by musicians. To what end?

For tribute. I'm Egyptian, too. For me
The thing that can distinguish poetry
From madness will be this: to have a friend.

     --copyright by Martin Bidney 6/26/11

Sonnet for Steve Palmer

4131 Sonnet for Steve Palmer copyright by Martin Bidney [recited on the video]

ARIES (March 21-April 19). Instead of imagining or assuming what others see when they look at you, know for sure. Take a picture or videotape yourself. The results will help you project the image you want to project.

–-Press & Sun-Bulletin, June 7, 2011

Songs upon my psaltery

With the morning sun ray strove. . . .

          --J. W. von Goethe, “Past in Present,”

(poem 13 in West-East Divan, tr. MB

Albany: SUNY P, 2011)

Though I was born in Taurus, April twenty-first,

I like to check on neighbor Aries too and see

If there is profit, Nancy-Reagan-wise, for me

In guidance from a sign. The writer’s here immersed

In wisdom relevant to what I need to do.

Exactly what we’re planning! Have a video

Journal to give the world the image you would show,

With poetry, of course. On Thursday, thanks to you,

I’ll hearken to the starry wizard of the Press

And, like Apollo-god, Sun-Bulletin display

From whence a writer-light of high Olympus may

Not only me in recitation-frame portray

But send, with words, into the worried wilderness

A demonstration: psaltery and solar ray.

6/7/11