John Prine - Hello In There (Live From Sessions at West 54th)

Me and Loretta, we don't talk much now
She sits and stares through the backdoor screen
And all the news just repeats itself
Like some forgotten dream that we've both seen
(John Prine, from the lyrics of Hello In There)

This song has a story for me. I came to know it when I bought Diamonds & Rust by Joan Baez around 1975, the year it was released. Hello In There instantly struck me as one of the best songs on the album and made me aware of its composer, John Prine. As a result, I started listening to Prine and bought several of his albums.

Labordeta - Aragón

José Antonio Labordeta

Aragón

   

Polvo, niebla, viento y sol,

Donde hay agua una huerta.

Al Norte los Pirineos:

Esta tierra es Aragón.

Al Norte los Pirineos

Al Sur la tierra callada.

Pasa el Ebro por el centro

Con su soledad a la espalda.

Dicen que hay tierras al Este

Donde se trabaja y pagan.

Hacia el Oeste el Moncayo

Como un Dios que ya no ampara.

Desde tiempos a esta parte

Vamos camino de nada.

Vamos a ver cómo el Ebro

Con su soledad se marcha.

Y con él van en compaña

Las gentes de estas vaguadas,

De estos valles, de esta sierra,

De estas huertas arruinadas.

Polvo, niebla, viento y sol,

Donde hay agua una huerta.

Al Norte los Pirineos:

Esta tierra es Aragón.

**********

Aragon

   

Dust, fog, wind and sun,

Where there is water an orchard.

To the North the Pyrenees:

This land is Aragon.

To the North the Pyrenees

To the South the quiet land.

The Ebro flows through the center

With its solitude at its back.

They say there are lands to the East

Where there’s work and they pay.

To the West the Moncayo

Like a God that no longer protects.

Since time immemorial

We are on our way to nothing.

Watching the Ebro

Carry away its loneliness.

And with it go in company

The people of these meadows,

Of these valleys, these mountains,

These ruined orchards.

Dust, fog, wind and sun,

Where there is water an orchard.

To the North the Pyrenees:

This land is Aragon.

English translation by Johannes Beilharz.

Feeding the birds at EUR lake

For S.

Last Saturday the women
of the Gugnani clan
and I as their chauffeur
went to EUR lake
to feed dry bread
and chocolate-coated
rice crispies to the birds –
droves of ducks, geese,
pigeons and seagulls.
I was reminded of my
mother and how, even
during her last days
at home, her first priority
in the morning was
to feed the birds, come
sunshine, ice or snow.
I remembered how
she'd walk out
on that terrace in
slippers and gown,
oblivious of everything
except the birds
and the seeds
she had for them.
I cried for her,
perhaps the first time
since she died in 2009.

– Leonard "Loaded with Memories" Blumfeld

Today's horoscope says romance

Romance is in the air today, L.B. Take that special woman in your life and do something completely different. Get last-minute tickets to a rock concert, or arrange to spend the day canoeing. Do something to shake up your relationship a bit. It is at risk of becoming a bit stale. If there is no one special in your life right now, call a good friend to see if he can set you up with someone. This is no time to be alone!

No, this does not feel like a romantic day at all. I'm afraid the computer that put this horoscope together is even more wrong than usual.

A. That special woman in my life - if I may call her that - would definitely not be thrilled by a last-minute rock concert. She prefers classical or Russian. And canoeing is out. Did that computer take into account the weather hereabouts? This is more the time for ice skating than water sports.

B. Yes, things are a bit stale in that they're not moving at all. Haven't been much in over a year. In fact, calling it a relationship at all would be exaggerating. Even though there are relationships of all kinds. This is definitely one of all kinds.

C. I wouldn't know which friend to call for that.

D. I completely agree - this ain't no time to be alone. Nobody should be. Not even a recluse* such as I.

* I've been called that by my dear ex-wife numerous times (always feeling that I'd been completely misunderstood in 19 years of marriage). And a British friend recently called himself that and seemed to imply the same for me. The truth: I'm just like anybody else, need time with others and time by myself.

Len "Temporarily Recluded" Blumfeld

The next relationship fib

Once again for A.B.

She
stub-
bornly
refuses
to become my next
relationship experiment.

- Leonard "Truly Loves Her" Blumfeld

Personal note: Mind-wrote this while taking a shower, went out to have dinner, returned, and it was still on my mind. So I simply had to write it down and publish it!

This also marks my first return to the fibonacci in quite a while.

What a beautiful late August day - not hot, but warm and sunny. The trees, chestnuts are first, are beginning to shed their leaves, and there's that crisp breath of fall in the air. I could stay with this season for a long time; it's my favorite.

Is this poem autobiographical? you might ask. Well, yes and no. Looking at myself and my failed relationships of the last seven years with some cynicism, this is definitely deserved. But then again - I never had even the slightest bad intention... Perhaps I should not be so harsh on myself.

Do I love her as truly as I profess? By my standards I do, perhaps even by fairly elevated standards. Will it last? That I don't know. But it has for a year and a half.

The merest touch of her

Poetry came by again last night
to drop something off.

I spend too much time
without Poetry but don’t

want to be too insistent
in calling her over.

What did she drop off?
A locket I can’t seem to open.

But I’m not worried. It
sits on my desk with

a silvery half-smile
and reminds me of Poetry.

– Leonard Blumfeld

Note

This is my belated contribution to Poetry Thursday's invitation of August 2.

I was working hard on inspiration (see previous entry To squeeze tears out of a rock) and found it in a line read on Poetry Thursday itself:

“Poetry keeps me company and sings me lullabies. Poetry is making moments, little moments, into brushstrokes.”

Ode to loneliness

This
is an ode
to
loneliness

It has
neither
an anode

nor, you
guessed it,
a cathode

– Leonard Blumfeld (copyright 2007)

Invitable note
Written in an attack of musing about loneliness and its pain and omnipresence even in the presence of others, and using or mis/abusing the 3-part form of the ode (strophe, antistrophe and epode), see Wikipedia.

Invitable afternote
This "ode" could be simply read as a joke, but it might possibly invite further speculation along the lines of what should preferably happen between anode and cathode and what the result is if nothing happens or if these two movers are removed. Enough said!