GRETCHENS STIMME

from:
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Selected Poetry"
translated by David Luke
Penguin Books, 1999


GRETCHENS STIMME

Meine Mutter, die Hur,
Die mich umgebracht hat!
Mein Vater, der Scheim,
Der mich gessen hat!
Mein Schwesterlein klein
Hub auf die Bein
An einem kühlen Ort — Da ward ich em schönes Waldvogelein,
Fliege fort, fliege fort!


GRETCHEN’S VOICE

Who killed me dead?
My mother, the whore!
Who ate my flesh?
My father, for sure!
Little sister gathered
The bones he scattered;
In a cool, cool place they lie.
And then I became a birdie so fine,
And away I fly — away I fly.

Creativity

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.

-- George Lois

It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquillity and occupation which give happiness.

It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquillity and occupation which give happiness.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Slave to the Shavian Rhythm

Slave to the Shavian Rhythm

The practice of Zen

The practice of Zen
Has no secret,
Except standing on the
Verge of life and death.

- Takeda Shingen (1521-1573)

I can't tell you what art does

I can't tell you what art does and how it does it, but I know that often art has judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past suffered, so that it has never been forgotten. Art, when it functions like this, becomes a meeting-place of the invisible, the irreducible, the enduring, guts, and honor.

Berger, John

The empty sky listened with a cold heart

In my pot nothing but the wind’s deep moan,
For company only a staff of wisteria vine;
Last night we chatted and laughed till all hours
The empty sky listened with a cold heart.

- Muso Soseki (1275–1351)