ERIK SANTOS: The Seer (2019)
“Lonely Nocturne” (Langston Hughes, 1942)
When dawn lights the sky
And day and night meet,
I climb my stairs high
Above the grey street.
I lift my window
To look at the sku
Where moon kisses star
Goodbye.
When dawn lights the sky
I seek my lonely room.
The halls as I go by
Echo like a tomb.
And I wonder why
As I take out my key,
There is nobody there
But me–
When dawn lights the sky.
Wake Up! (Clockwork)
“Circles” (Hughes, 1946)
The circles spin round
And the circles spin round
And meet in their own tail.
Seasons come, seasons go,
The years build their bars
Till we’re in jail.
Like a squirrel in a cage–
For the cage is round–
E sometimes find
Ourselves upside down.
“Beale Street” (Hughes, 1947)
The dream is vague
And all confused
With dice and women
And jazz and booze.
The dream is vague,
Without a name,
Yet warm and wavering
And sarp as flame.
The loss
Of the dream
Leaves nothing
The same.
“Final Sonnet to Orpheus” (Rainer Maria Rilke, 1923)
Original Language (German)
English Translation
Stiller Freund der viele Fernen, fühle,
Silent Friend of many distances, feel,
wie dein Atem noch den Raum vermehrt.
As your breath explands Space.
Im Gebälk der finstern Glockenstühle
In the beams of your dark belfry,
laß dich läuten. Das, was an dir zehrt,
Let yourself ring. That, which consumes you,
Wird ein Starkes über dieser Nahrung.
Grows strong from your feeding.
Geh in der Verwandlung aus und ein.
Go through Transformation, out and in.
Was ist deine leidendste Erfahrung?
What has made your suffer?
Ist dir Trinken bitter, werder Wein.
If drinking bitter, become Wine.
Sei in dieser Nacht aus Übermaß
Be, in this vast vrimming Night
Zauberkraft am Kreuzweg deiner Sinne,
Magic Power at the crossroads of your senses,
ihrer seltsamen Begegnung Sinn.
The Sense of their strange meeting
Und wenn dich das Irdische vergaß,
And when the Earthly forget you,
Zu der stillen Erde sag: Ich rinne.
To the still Earth say: I'm flowing.
Zu dem raschen Wasser sprich: Ich bin.
To the rushing water say: I am.
Translation by Erik Santos
“Not What Was” (Hughes, 1965)
By then the poetry is written
and the wild rose of the world
blooms to last so short a time
before its petals fall.
The air is music
and its melody a spiral
until it widens beyond the tip of time
and so is lost to poetry and the rose –
belongs instead to vastness beyond form,
to universe that nothing can contain,
to unexplored space
which sends no answers back
to fill the vase unfilled
or spread in lines
upon another page –
that anyhow was never written
because the thought could not escape
the place in which it bloomed
before the rose had gone.
“Call to Creation” (Hughes, 1931)
Listen!
All you beauty-makers,Give up beauty for a moment.
Look at harshness, look at pain,
Look at life again.
… (text omitted)
Listen!
Futile beauty-makers –
Work for a awhile with the pattern-breakers!
Come for a march with the new-world-makers:
Let beauty be!
“Fire” (Hughes, 1926)
Fire,
Fire, Lord!
Fire gonna burn ma soul!
I ain’t been good,
I ain’t been clean –
I been stinkin’, low-down, mean.
Fire,
Fire, Lord!
Fire gonna burn ma soul!
Tell me, brother,
Do you believe
If you wanta go to heaben
Got to moan an’ grieve?
Fire,
Fire, Lord!
Fire gonna burn ma soul!
… (text omitted)
“Moan” (Hughes, 1926)
I’m deep in trouble,
Nobody to understand,
Lord, Lord!
Gonna pray to ma Jesus,
Ask him to gimme His hand.
Ma Lord!
I’m moanin’, moanin’,
Nobody cares just why-
No Lord!
Moanin’, moanin’,
Feels like I could die,
O, Lord!
Sho, there must be peace,
Ma Jesus,
Somewhere in yo’ sky.
Yes, Lord!
“Island” (Hughes, 1950)
Wave of sorrow,
Do not drown me now:
I see the island
Still ahead somehow.
I see the island
And its sands are fair:
Wave of sorrow,
Take me there.
