Troubled Water

The seven ages of woman - Hans Baldung (1544)  Museum der bildenden Künste  گلوں سی گفتگو کریں قیامتوں کے درمیاں ہم ایسے لوگ اب ملیں حکایتوں کے درمیاں لہولہان انگلیاں ہیں اور چپ کھڑی ہوں میں گل و سمن کی بے پناہ چاہتوں کے درمیاں ہتھیلیوں کی اوٹ ہی چراغ لے چلوں ابھی ابھی سحر کا ذکر ہے روایتوں کے درمیاں جو دل میں تھی نگاہ سی نگاہ میں کرن سی تھی وہ داستاں الجھ گئی وضاحتوں کے درمیاں صحیفۂ حیات میں جہاں جہاں لکھی گئی لکھی گئی حدیث جاں جراحتوں کے درمیاں کوئی نگر کوئی گلی شجر کی چھاؤں ہی سہی یہ زندگی نہ کٹ سکے مسافتوں کے درمیاں اب اس کے خال و خد کا رنگ مجھ سے پوچھنا عبث نگہ جھپک جھپک گئی ارادتوں کے درمیاں صبا کا ہاتھ تھام کر اداؔ نہ چل سکوگی تم تمام عمر خواب خواب ساعتوں کے درمیاں گلوں سی گفتگو کریں قیامتوں کے درمیاں  ہونٹوں پہ کبھی ان کے مِرا نام ہی آئے آئے تو سہی، بر سرِ الزام ہی آئے حیران ہیں،  لب بستہ ہیں، دلگیر ہیں غنچے خوشبو کی زبانی ترا پیغام ہی آئے لمحاتِ مُسَرّت ہیں تصور سے گریزاں یاد آئے ہیں جب بھی غم و آلام ہی آئے تاروں سے سجا لیں گے رہِ شہرِ تمَنّا مقدور نہیں صُبح...

«Adieu, vous que j'aimais. Ce n'est point ma faute si le corps humain ne peut résister trois jours sans boire. Je ne me croyais pas prisonnier des fontaines. Je ne me soupçonnais pas une aussi courte autonomie. On croit que l'homme peut s'en aller droit devant lui. On croit que l'homme est libre... On ne voit pas la corde qui le rattache au puits, qui le rattache, comme un cordon ombilical, au ventre de la terre. S'il fait un pas de plus, il meurt.» «Je ne comprends plus ces populations des trains de banlieues, ces hommes qui se croient des hommes, et qui cependant sont réduits, par une pression qu'ils ne sentent pas, comme les fourmis, à l'usage qui en est fait. De quoi remplissent-ils, quand ils sont libres, leurs absurdes petits dimanches ?» «Je ne regrette rien. j'ai joué, j'ai perdu. C'est dans l'ordre de mon métier. Mais, tout de même, je l'ai respiré, le vent de la mer. Ceux qui l'ont goûté une fois n'oublient pas cette...

I am tired of planning and toiling In the crowded hives of men; Heart-weary of building and spoiling, And spoiling and building again. And I long for the dear old river, Where I dreamed my youth away; For a dreamer lives forever, And a toiler dies in a day. I am sick of the showy seeming Of a life that is half a lie; Of the faces lined with scheming In the throng that hurries by. From the sleepless thoughts' endeavour, I would go where the children play; For a dreamer lives forever, And a thinker dies in a day. I can feel no pride, but pity For the burdens the rich endure; There is nothing sweet in the city But the patient lives of the poor. Oh, the little hands too skillful, And the child-mind choked with weeds! The daughter's heart grown willful, And the father's heart that bleeds! No, no! from the street's rude bustle, From the trophies of mart and stage, I would fly to the woods' low rustle And the meadows' kindly page. Let me dream as of old by the river, A...

 Au bout du petit matin…  Va-t-en, lui disais-je, gueule de flic, gueule de vache, va-t-en je déteste les larbins de l’ordre et les hannetons de l’espérance. Va-t-en mauvais gris-gris, punaise de moinillon. Puis je me tournais vers des paradis pour lui et les siens perdus, plus calme que la face d’une femme qui ment, et là, bercé par les effluves d’une pensée jamais lasse je nourrissais le vent, je délaçais les monstres et j’entendais monter de l’autre côté du désastre, un fleuve de tourterelles et de trèfles de la savane que je porte toujours dans mes profondeurs à hauteur inverse du vingtième étage des maisons les plus insolentes et par précaution contre la force putréfiante des ambiances crépusculaires, arpentée nuit et jour d’un sacré soleil vénérien.  Au bout du petit matin bourgeonnant d’anses frêles les Antilles qui ont faim, les Antilles grêlées de petite vérole, les Antilles dynamitées d’alcool, échouées dans la boue de cette baie, dans la poussière de cette vill...

When we awoke early next morning the train was crossing a wide valley of paddy fields. The rising sun struck its beams across the surfaces of innumerable miniature lakes; in the middle distance farmhouses seemed actually to be floating on water. Here and there a low mound rose a few feet above the level of the plain, with a weed-grown, ruinous pagoda, standing upon it, visible for miles around. Peasants with water-buffaloes were industriously ploughing their arable liquid into a thick, brown soup. (p.191) Auden and I developed a private game: it was a point of honour to praise most warmly the dishes you liked least. ‘Delicious,’ Auden murmured, as he munched what was, apparently, a small sponge soaked in glue. I replied by devouring, with smiles of exquisite pleasure, an orange which taste of bitter aloes and contained, at its centre, a large weevil. (p.195) War is bombing an already disused arsenal, missing it and killing a few old women. War is lying in a stable with a gangrenous leg...

[...] Now the door of the cell worked on a simple hinge of its own. It was not connected with the central power station, dying far away in France. It opened, rousing immoderate hopes in Vashti, for she thought that the Machine had been mended. It opened, and she saw the dim tunnel that curved far away towards freedom. One look, and then she shrank back. For the tunnel was full of people – she was almost the last in that city to have taken alarm. People at any time repelled her, and these were nightmares from her worst dreams. People were crawling about, people were screaming, whimpering, gasping for breath, touching each other, vanishing in the dark, and ever and anon being pushed off the platform on to the live rail. Some were fighting round the electric bells, trying to summon trains which could not be summoned. Others were yelling for Euthanasia or for respirators, or blaspheming the Machine. Others stood at the doors of their cells fearing, like herself, either to stop in them ...

La Amazonia tiene un riesgo profundo, inmenso; el riesgo de la Amazonia es el appétit planetario por el consumo; como pasó en las selvas de Asia, de Sumatra, Papúa Nueva Guinea, en las selvas de África. Se fueron desapareciendo en función de la demanda planetaria de tierras para la agricultura, de tierras para producir el aceite de palma. La amenaza en la Amazonia es la demanda mundial por la carne, por la soya. Tendríamos, el planeta entero —no sólo los países del Amazonia— la responsabilidad seria de intentar bloquear esta destrucción local en función de un control de la demanda. Es una responsabilidad planetaria; uno de los objetivos al hacer esta exposición en el mundo entero, es intentar ayudar a concientizar a todo el planeta de que tenemos que proteger este ecosistema. Pero, para responder a tu pregunta, hay una amenaza real, brutal. En los años 80 la Amazonia brasileña estaba casi toda ahí, y hoy 17,2% ya se fue; en los últimos 40 años se fue. Se debe proteger este ecosistema ...

Eternal War 1st Circle , oil on 11 gesso panels (detail) - Samira Abbassy (2011) (To the lady of Persian storytelling,  Simin Daneshvar )  My country, I will build you again, if need be, with bricks made from my life. I will build columns to support your roof, if need be, with my bones. I will inhale again the perfume of flowers favored by your youth. I will wash again the blood off your body with torrents of my tears. Once more, the darkness will leave this house. I will paint my poems blue with the color of our sky. The resurrector of “old bones” will grant me in his bounty a mountain’s splendor in his testing grounds. Old I may be, but given the chance, I will learn. I will begin a second youth alongside my progeny. I will recite the Hadith of “love and country” with such fervor as to make each word bear life. There still burns a fire in my breast to keep undiminished the warmth of kinship I feel for my people. Once more you will grant me strength, though my poems have se...

I look at everything in my life in a way that allows me to write about it. "With friends Jean-Loup was jolly and impertinent, quick to trot out his ‘horrors’, as he called them, things that would make the girls scream and the boys blush. Twice he showed his penis at mixed dinner parties. Even so, his ‘horrors’ were, while shocking, kind-hearted and astute. He never asked about money or class, questions that might really embarrass a French man. He would sooner ask about blow-jobs than job prospects, cock size than the size of a raise. In our funny makeshift circle – which I had cobbled together to amuse him and which fell apart when he left me – the girls were witty, uncomplicated and heterosexual, and the boys handsome and homo. We were resolutely silly and made enormous occasions out of each other’s birthdays and saint’s days. Our serious, intimate conversations took place only between two people, usually over the phone. I neglected friends my own age. I never spoke English or ta...

[...] Consta que em pleno século XVII, 10% da população portuguesa teria origem africana. Essa população não nos tinha invadido. Os portugueses os tinham trazido arrastados até aqui. E nos miscigenámos. O que significa que por aqui ninguém tem sangue puro. A falácia da ascendência única não tem correspondência com a realidade. Cada um de nós é uma soma. Tem sangue do nativo e do migrante, do europeu e do africano, do branco e do negro e de todas as outras cores humanas. Somos descendentes do escravo e do senhor que o escravizou. Filhos do pirata e do que foi roubado. Mistura daquele que punia até à morte e do misericordioso que lhe limpava as feridas. A consciência dessa aventura antropológica talvez mitigue a fúria revisionista que nos assalta pelos extremos nos dias de hoje, um pouco por toda a parte. Agora que percebemos que estamos no fim de um ciclo e que um outro se está a desenhar, e a incógnita existencial sobre o futuro próximo, ainda desconhecido, nos interpela a cada manhã q...