Franz Kafka

Tuesday, December 5, 2023

"July and the Night" - A Poem from "Jersey Blues: Selected Poems"

Starry Night - Vincent Van Gogh ️ - Van gogh vincent 


July and the Night


I breathe Turgenev -

"... In the pure dry air there is a scent
of wormwood, rye in blossom, and buckwheat;
even an hour before nightfall there is no moisture
in the air. It is for such weather that the farmer 
longs, for harvesting his wheat..."

The end of a glorious July day.
In the secretive orchard of my ancestors,
Crouched at the foot of a scrawny, old pear tree,
I recollected all my past, long gone Summers,
And wondered how long the tree had been standing;
It had always yielded small, pale-green pears:
Sour when firm in the prime time of Summer,
Then sweet and juicy, when full and ripe.
Grandfather must had planted it, before my days;
No special care or attention was required from us,
For the trunk was joined to the land,
His tree drew moisture from the rainfall,
And was married to the sun.
When I was little I used to climb
Upon the lower, slender branches,
For I wouldn't venture any higher.
My being brimmed over with tenderness...
The crickets chirped their laborious love songs,
And bats flitted around the tree tops, against the blue.
Hovering in the fresh breeze, I smelled the odorous youth,
That once ran through my weary limbs.
Across the magnificent hour-glass of the terse sky,
The night shadows advanced rapidly on the blackening earth.
I chilled: the pitch-dark night was an hypothesis,
The dream-like sentry to my besieged, solitary fortress.
As the night fell upon me, I closed my eyes
And felt merriment all around.
I thought to myself that,  although we took no heed,
While the tree lived, I too lived, and saw a bit of the world.
The orchard was whispering mysteriously, and in the nearby
Gardens the flowers had closed their corollas, seeking rest.
As the tide of memories ebbed, my existence receded too;
I quivered in fright: it was a nook that a soul
May never let go of lightheartedly.  
 
Amsterdam, July, 2013 
Copyright © Alessandro Baruffi

From "Jersey Blues: Selected Poems", also available on iBookstoreNOOK Book, and Amazon Kindle.

Sunday, October 1, 2023

Hávamál: Le Canzoni e i Detti di Odino, l’Eccelso (Edda Poetica): Traduzione Italiana, Corredata di Note e Testo Originale in Antico Norreno

 

Hávamál, (dall’antico norreno: “Detti o Canzoni di Odino, l’Eccelso”) è una raccolta poetica composta di centosessantaquattro strofe di aforismi, saggezza familiare, consigli e incantesimi magici attribuiti al dio nordico Odino. L'opera, che contiene almeno cinque frammenti distinti, originariamente scoperti in tempi diversi, costituisce una porzione fondamentale dell’Edda poetica. Si ritiene che la maggior parte delle poesie siano state composte in Norvegia nel IX e X secolo.
Traduzione Italiana, Corredata di Note e Testo Originale in Antico Norreno.
Available as Printed and ebook edition on Amazon, as well as on Kobo.

Sunday, February 26, 2023

Spirit of Rhaetia: The Call of the Holy Mountains



Intertwined with the tantalizing, never-ending quest for a man's own roots and sense of self, the novel narrates the mysterious, epic story of the ancient people of the Alps, the untold history of mythical Rhaetia: a land largely identified with the Rhaetian Alps, a country that in 600 B.C. comprised what is today’s central and south-west Switzerland, Grisons and Ticino, Liechtenstein, the entire Tyrol and Vorarlberg in Austria, Valtellina in the north of Lombardy, and the Adige valley in Italy. At the time of the Roman conquest it extended to parts of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg states in Germany, south of the river Danube, including the territories of the Vindelici people, who occupied the northern part of Rhaetia and whose chief town was Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg).
Arguably, it is the human lamp itself, the fire of sheer existence, the barrier to our reconnection with the powerful forces of nature, and the beyond world, that of ancestry. What is it today the Spirit of Rhaetia? Does it still exist? Or was it just a dream in the darkness of the night that turned into fire, exhausted itself, and faded into oblivion?
Our times are doomed, as we are presently confronted with the most powerful forces that blind our eyes, drain our strength, turn us into mere cannon fodder at the mercy of the demons of modernity. Like never before, a man's soul screams for freedom, his very flesh and bones ache for truth; his scorching thirst for meaning is unutterable and unbearable; he seeks for the burning sun, the cool moon, the glimmering skies, the very earth that never changed; he turns to the land of the ancestors for salvation, thus he turns to the everlasting and everstanding mountains.
Now, one man will ascend them one last time, to rejoin his ancestors and meet the Almighty God.

Publisher: LiteraryJoint Press, USA

Bookstores (Printed and e-book): 

Amazon Kindle and Amazon PaperbackKobo e-book, Lulu e-book and Lulu PrintedBarnes & NobleNOOK BookBol.comGoogle Play & many more. 

 

Carducci Essentials: the Poems of Giosuè Carducci Translated in English

 


Translated in English, with original text in Italian.

Giosuè Carducci, (born July 27, 1835, Val di Castello, near Lucca, Tuscany [now Italy]—died Feb. 16, 1907, Bologna, Italy), Italian poet, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1906, and one of the most influential literary figures of his age.


The son of a republican country doctor, Carducci spent his childhood in the wild Maremma region of southern Tuscany. He studied at the University of Pisa and in 1860 became professor of Italian literature at Bologna, where he lectured for more than 40 years. He was made a senator for life in 1890 and was revered by the Italians as a national poet.

Carducci Essentials: the Poems of Giosuè Carducci Translated in English, Published by LiteraryJoint.

The latest translation of the work of  Giosuè Carducci.

Publisher: LiiteraryJoint Press, USA

Bookstores (Printed and e-book):

Amazon KindleAmazon PrintKobo e-bookGoogle Play Books.


Sunday, December 25, 2022

Jetsun Milarepa: The Songs of Milarepa (Italian Edition and Portuguese Edition)




Jetsun Milarepa: I Canti di Milarepa (Italian Edition: I Canti di Milarepa) on Amazon and Kobo.

Jetsun Milarepa: I Canti di Milarepa (Portuguese Edition: Jetsun Milarepa: os Cânticos de Milarepa (Todas as Canções Sobre o Dharma, desde “Os Cem Mil Cânticos” ) on Amazon and Kobo.

Milarepa, (born 1040—died 1123), , one of the most famous and beloved of Tibetan Buddhist masters (Siddha). His life and accomplishments are commemorated in two main literary works.
The first is a biography by the “Mad Yogin of Tsang” that chronicles the major events in his life from birth, to Enlightenment, to death. According to this work, Milarepa studied black magic in his younger years in an attempt to gain revenge on a wicked uncle who had stripped his mother and sister of all their property, after having previously promised to look after them when Milarepa’s father died. After a series of successful acts of destruction and revenge against his uncle and other family members, Milarepa is said to have undergone a crisis of conscience. Soon afterward, he sought out various Tibetan Buddhist masters, finally gaining acceptance as a full-fledged disciple under the guidance of the Tibetan master Marpa, founder of the Bka’-brgyud-pa sect. The lengthy relationship between Marpa and Milarepa is a significant element in the biography, since it emphasizes the necessity of, and intimate trust that develops in the student-disciple relationship in VajrayānaBuddhism. After his years of study with Marpa were completed, Milarepa sought out remote, isolated mountain retreats in which he practiced rigorous meditation, only occasionally would he visit Marpa. Milarepa continued the Bka’-brgyud-pa line, converting and teaching many disciples.

The second work of commemoration is a collection of Tantric songs entitled The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, which express the nature of Buddhist teaching. They also expand upon the climate and conditions of Milarepa’s mountain ascetic retreats as well as the intense labors and ultimate joys of the ascetic life.