Mongolia 16/7

*Dated 16/July/2000 (also some 12 years ago...)

I love the unbounded green fields in Mongolia in particular. Everything was so still, and yet everything was moving and flowing. I could feel the minute, or even delicate, vibration of life within the strong peacefulness. I could feel the rhythm within that silent music. The cattle and horses were beautiful. Their black and brown skin was shining under the sunlight as if it were velvet. The fragrance of grass and the smell of animals; everything came to the smell of stillness in the air. The mountains in a great distance were covered with the greyish-blue silken touch. You can really swim in the vast greenness, swim in the Golden Lotus blossoms and swim in the clean and light sky. So there was this serene beauty in every touch, in the sensuous world belonging both to celestials and human beings. The sunset here began with purely golden shines and then smeared over and dyed the sky and the earth with melancholic pink. Everything was melting together into a pure spark. The sky in Mongolia was not as blue as it sometimes is in London, so blue that it is piercing. The Mongolian sky was light, clean and limpid. Like music. Like a song.


"The poignant song is echoed through all the sky in many-coloured tears and smiles, alarms and hopes; waves rise up and sink again, dreams break, and form. In me is thy own defeat of self."

"It is this overspreading pain that deepens into loves and desires, into sufferings and joy in human homes; and this it is that ever melts and flows in songs through my poet's heart."

"He it is who puts his enchantment upon these eyes and joyfully plays on the chords of my heart in varied cadence of pleasure and pain.
He it is who weaves the web of this maya in evanescent hues of gold and silver, blue and green, and lets peep out through the folds of his feet, at whose touch I forget myself.
Days come and ages pass, and it is ever he who moves my heart in many a name, in many a guise, in many a rapture of joy and of sorrow."

"Keeping steps with that restless, rapid music, seasons come dancing and pass away---colours, tunes, and perfumes pour in endless cascades in the abounding joy that scatters and gives up and dies every moment."

~ from Gitanjali, by Rabindranath Tagore, extracts of verses 71, 84, 72 & 70

Mongolia 15/7

(*Written when I first travelled to Inner Mongolia on an art and archaeological journey, with a group led by a painter/sculptor/ceramicist and erudite art historian and his wife, around the summer of 2000. It was during moments like this, as described in my journal entries, that I realised that which is the most beautiful, poignant and the most miraculous one can imagine and experience is the nature. How it moves us. How it thrills us. How it compels us to be transported and lifted above our ordinary sense of self-focus and consciousness, whilst our heart is ever so still and our gaze is ever transfixed upon what is all around us, with such tender depths of intimacy and immediacy, such an embrace.)


One day I was looking out from the window of the bus. There were some lilac clouds mingled with the light blue sky, as if a soft piece of lilac silk were being stretched over in an intense nerve. The sky reminded me of Magritte's "The Raw Nerve," though the clouds might be more dimensional through the game played by light and sky. That vast gauzy violet cloud was dripping down to the green earth like waterfalls made of silk. A drip of lilac watercolour got into the pure and white clouds, and then it took over all the beauty and life which formerly belonged to the sky. It was the limpid vibration in a false sense of the ominous. Standing on a plain of the mountain top, my world then was uncharted; another large cloud with amazingly graceful golden embroidery, symbolising an infiltrative omen of glimmerings, was anticipating a miracle that was to come down to earth from heaven.

The lines of the mountains were so tender yet so strong that they resembled the lines of human shoulders. And there was this green mist covering the earth, soft and blurred and silky. Have you ever had this painful feeling when looking at the sunset? It sometimes looks like an enormous wound, a swollen gall, swelling and swelling, spreading all over until it painfully chokes the sky. The world then is only the sky, only the painfully scarlet wound.

René Magritte, The Raw Nerve, 1960

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I am lost to the world)

What a voice. What a heart. The soul transported and transcended in the most beautiful melodies of lyric baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who left us in May this year. I will always miss his music.
"I am dead to the world's tumult, and I rest in a quiet realm. I live alone in my heaven, in my love and in my song..."


Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,
Mit der ich sonst viele Zeit verdorben,
Sie hat so lange nichts von mir vernommen,
Sie mag wohl glauben, ich sei gestorben!

Es ist mir auch gar nichts daran gelegen,
Ob sie mich für gestorben hält,
Ich kann auch gar nichts sagen dagegen,
Denn wirklich bin ich gestorben der Welt.

Ich bin gestorben dem Weltgetümmel,
Und ruh' in einem stillen Gebiet!
Ich leb' allein in meinem Himmel,
In meinem Lieben, in meinem Lied!

{ English translation below by Emily Ezust }

I am lost to the world
with which I used to waste so much time,
It has heard nothing from me for so long
that it may very well believe that I am dead!

It is of no consequence to me
Whether it thinks me dead;
I cannot deny it,
for I really am dead to the world.

I am dead to the world's tumult,
And I rest in a quiet realm!
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love and in my song!

(*Text for 'Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,' by Friedrich Rückert, set to music by Gustav Mahler. One of Mahler's five Rückert-Lieder.)


《我被這個世界遺棄》

詩句和音樂看似頹廢灰色的厭世表象之下，卻隱含深刻動人的真情。馬勒認為這首歌曲有一種「眼見情感已經滿溢到舌尖，卻發不出任何聲音」的感覺，甚至認為這首歌曲表達的就是他自己。樂曲裡蘊含的情感內斂醇厚，以極緩慢的速度推進；在豎琴、雙簧管和法國號的主導下，彷彿勾勒出藝術超越俗世之後達到孤絕境界的淒清美感。這對日後馬勒譜寫第五號交響曲第四樂章有明顯影響。

*上述文字取自臺灣國家交響樂團 National Symphony Orchestra 於9/26/2011晚間音樂會節目單之樂曲闡述


‎("...Mahler thought this song conveyed a certain feeling of 'sensing the emotion is already filled to the brim, right at the tip of your tongue, and yet you're not able to make a single sound.' He even thought this song was an expression of himself..." His love, emotions and feelings are so deep and intense that, instead of an avalanching outpour, it was quiet, solitude, even silence -- art and aesthetics unveiling the maya of this world and lifting it into a realm of pure beauty.)


It was a beautiful late September night, immersed in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and Rückert-Lieder (as well as Wagner's Lohengrin prelude). Mahler's music and love, to me, are like Rilke's poetry -- one of my favourite poets whose words always move and teach me tremendously, my hero-poet who has transcended it all and yet looks back at you like a Bodhisattva, takes your hand to walk on the path together.


Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Daniel Barenboim on piano


an equally heartrending rendition of Dietrich Fishcer-Dieskau with Leonard Bernstein on piano

Lhasa's Story

She reminds me so much of a friend of mine, the way she speaks, the way she always smiles when she speaks... I love the story Lhasa's father told her, and in particular the way she tells it -- with her soft, husky, almost mystic voice. What a beautiful soul she was.



When my lifetime had just ended
And my death had just begun
I told you I’d never leave you
But I knew this day would come

Give me blood for my blood wedding
I am ready to be born
I feel new
As if this body were the first I’d ever worn

I need straw for the straw fire
I need hard earth for the plow
Don't ask me to reconsider
I am ready to go now

I'm going in I’m going in
This is how it starts
I can see in so far
But afterwards we always forget
Who we are

I'm going in I’m going in
I can stand the pain
And the blinding heat
'Cause I won't remember you
The next time we meet

You'll be making the arrangements
You'll be trying to set me free
Not a moment for the meeting
I'll be busy as a bee

You'll be talking to me
But I just won't understand
I'll be falling by the wayside
You'll be holding out your hand

Don't you tempt me with perfection
I have other things to do
I didn't burrow this far in
Just to come right back to you

I'm going in I’m going in
I have never been so ugly
I have never been so slow
These prison walls get closer now
The further in I go

I'm going in I’m going in
I like to see you from a distance
And just barely believe
And think that
Even lost and blind
I still invented love

I'm going in
I’m going in
I’m going in

*          *          *

How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart

And give to this world
All its
Beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light
Against its
Being,

Otherwise,
We all remain

Too
Frightened.

~Hafiz Sherazi

My poems featured in Deathly Romantic's (now Dark Eye Glances) "Mad Poetry"

It is a great joy and wonderful privilege for me that Deathly Romantic Magazine (now Dark Eye Glances) has selected two of my poems (Snow Leopard and Black Panther, for H. & The First Poem: for David) to be featured in the "Mad Poetry" section of its summer issue. I discovered this gem via its editor/publisher Garth von Buchholz's beautifully sensual and swooningly emotional poem Anaïs and Henry, where one can truly feel the poet's passionate heart. I recited the poem out loud after my first reading, as for me, it is almost like a play in itself, in addition to being complete and utter poetry. The poem is written as a dialogue, and according to the poet, partially inspired by The Song of Songs of Solomon. Garth is currently working on a collection of "darkly romantic" love poems for an upcoming book, which I am eagerly anticipating...

Many thanks to Garth and Deathly Romantic, once again, for featuring my poetry. This is like my birthday celebration coming early, and I feel I am closer to the realm of my idol and heroine Morticia Addams (oh, the "goth chick" in me will forever be fascinated and mesmerised by the darkly elegant and impossibly romantic Morticia and Gomez...)! More importantly, it has been a real pleasure getting to know works of other like-minded poets and artists, and I look forward to many more collaborations with Deathly Romantic in the future.


On other surety none; freely we serve
Because we freely love, as in our will
To love or not; in this we stand or fall:
And Som are fall'n, to disobedience fall'n,
And so from Heav'n to deepest Hell; O fall
From what high state of bliss into what woe!

~John Milton: Paradise Lost, Book V

‎"Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."
So sung a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet;
But a Pebble of the brook,
Warbled out these metres meet:
"Love seeketh only self to please,
To bind another to Its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite."

 ~William Blake: The Clod and the Pebble, from Songs of Experience

La Confession (by Lhasa de Sela)

Je n'ai pas peur

De dire que je t'ai trahi

Par pure paresse

Par pure mélancolie

Qu'entre toi

Et le Diable

J'ai choisi le plus

Confortable

Mais tout cela

N'est pas pourquoi

Je me sens coupable

Mon cher ami

Je n'ai pas peur de dire

Que tu me fais peur

Avec ton espoir

Et ton grand sens

De l'honneur

Tu me donnes envie

De tout détruire

De t'arracher

Le beau sourire

Et meme ca

N'est pas pourquoi

Je me sens coupable

C'est ca le pire

Je me sens coupable

Parce que j'ai l'habitude

C'est la seule chose

Que je peux faire

Avec une certaine

Certitude

C'est rassurant

De penser

Que je suis sûre

Se ne pas me tromper

Quand il s'agit

De la question

De ma grande culpabilité

Je n'ai pas peur

De dire que j'ai triché

j'ai mis les plus pures

De mes pensées

Sur le marché

J'ai envie de laisser tomber

Toute cette idée

De "vérité"

Je garderais

Pour me guider

Plaisir et culpabilité