Das Stunden-Buch

by Rex Isenberg (Rainer Maria Rilke)

I. Ich lebe grad (I live between)

I live at the edge of the century.
One can feel the wind from a great page,
on which God and you and I have written,
that turns high above in foreign hands.
One can feel the radiance of the new leaf,
on which anything still can be.
The silent forces test its breadth
and stare at each other darkly.

II.  Mein Leben (My life)

My life is not this steep hour
through which you see me hurrying.
I am a tree standing before my background,
I am only one of many mouths,
and truly, the one that is the first to close.

I am the space between two tones
which, together, sound badly:
for the note wants death – 

But in the dark interval they are reconciled,
and tremble together.
And the song stays beautiful.

III.  Ich bin, du Ängstlicher (I am, you anxious one)

I am, you anxious one. Don’t you hear me
surging against you with all my senses?
My feelings, which have found wings,
circle white around your face.
Can’t you see my soul
standing before you clothed in silence?
Doesn’t my springtime prayer
ripen in your glance like on a tree? 
If you are a dreamer, I am your dream.
But if you want to be awake, I am your will
and become the master of all glory
and patrol like a star-silence
over the whimsical city of time.

IV. O Herr!  (O Lord!)

O Lord, give us each our own death.
The dying, that comes from life,
in which we possessed love, meaning, and need.

Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, D. 965

by Franz Schubert (Wilhelm Müller and Karl August Varnhagen von Ense)

When, from the highest rock up here,
I look deep down into the valley,
And sing,

Far from the valley dark and deep
Echoes rush through, upward and back to me,
The chasm.

The farther that my voice resounds,
So much the brighter it echos
From under.

My sweetheart dwells so far from me,
I hotly long to be with her
Over there.

I am consumed in misery,
Happiness is far from me,
Hope has on earth eluded me,
I am so lonesome here.

So longingly did sound the song,
So longingly through wood and night,
Towards heaven it draws all hearts
With amazing strength.

The Springtime will come,
The Springtime, my happiness,
Now must I make ready
To wander forth.

Preludio de un Diamante

by Giovanni Piacentini (Fausto Alzati Fernandez)

I.  Apenas (Barely)

We were barely  

A scream,

interrupting        

the densest of darkness

a scream

generous in its violence

brilliant

virulent, fragile

fierce confetti

We were barely

The edge of a footprint

The lining of a sea star,

A tiny eyelash     

in an abandoned lot barely,

the prelude of a diamond,

rainbow of oil spilt on the pavement,

a defying squeal, an alibi, a stagger

barely.

II.  “Sala de Espera a Dios” (“Waiting Room for God”)

I am the boy who doesn’t know the abyss

He who heard the voice of the devil

He who could picture him in “blue-ray” detail

I am he who renounced the throne

It so happens that I preferred to dance with the hopeless on New Years

And read the Bibles in no order

I am the boy who is no longer

He who became a lion on the hill

I am he who is no longer a boy

I am just a man   

And yes, she         

She is my woman

III.  Fiebre (Fever)

She sprang in me the most broken and improbable flower

Mud of foreign words

Cumulous of an opaque story

The terror, like a loathing in the bronchi

And its thorns pierce through my lung

She sprang inadvertently                 

Always announced by breaths

Its riverbed, at the end of the delirium from the loss of spinning suns

I have cried again and again           

Each time older and clumsier         

But to recover the humor,       

One must stop being the joke.           

“Escúchame” from Florencia en el Amazonas

by Daniel Catán (Marcela Fuentes-Berain)

Where are you Cristóbal?

Did I come all this way just to lose you again?

Has the voracious jungle ripped you away from me once more?

Why do I feel you near?

Cristóbal, Cristóbal. I feel you near.

Hear me. Hear me.

My voice soars toward you like a bird

and it spreads its wings over the world's love.

From you, my song was born,

from within your hands,

which asleep and awake, will bring butterflies.

I know you are hearing me because my song soars.

If you did not hear it, my voice would not fly.

From you my song was born,

because of you, I was able to cross

the tumultuous river of the days

or the serene river of the nights.

And there, on the other bank,

stop to listen

to its own loving murmur.

I know you can hear me in life or in death.

If you were not listening,

my song would not resound.

I feel you palpitate in the wings of every butterfly,

in every green sparkle,

in the wind, the water,

in the depths of the jungle,

in life or in death, I feel you palpitate!

In the flight of my song,

in the gentle air,

I feel you in the air…

Cristóbal! Cristóbal!

I feel your heart beat!

In the gentle air of my song!

I feel you in the air,

I feel you Cristóbal!

I feel you here, here,

here in my song.