"Summer is growing old and everything is flowing into a single melancholy murmur"

~ Tomas Tranströmer, from "The Cuckoo"

I think my heart is heavy; I think I just saw the soul. While I held my life in a poem; I broke free and took all of the dying glimpses back. Glimpses! They are dying but not dead; nothing sunny should ever be darkly dead. I don’t have to convince nobody anymore; suddenly very little matter; suddenly everything does but suddenly my heart is heavy but maybe with the right meaning this time around. This time around I want the storm and the song to intertwine. I want this, I want this, I want the shattered something to not reveal itself all at once. I want to see but even more to be; to be part of the mystery; to be coming around smiling again  but to dance in private. This time around, I will hold these things and not burn them; I will love these glimpses little by little and glue them sickly and wickedly to the soul as I come home.

August 9th 2022 by Tina Jaxen

Jag älskade dig.

Om du bara hade vetat hur mycket. Jag älskade att prata med dig, att höra ditt skratt. Men du visade aldrig det tillbaka. Så jag vågade aldrig säga något.

Det är mitt största misstag, och min största ånger.

Jag älskar dig.

Och du kommer aldrig veta hur mycket.

One of Them Days / D’Ä Somlia Dar

One of my tattoos is the final line of Fanny Alving’s poem “D’ä Somlia Dar”. She was an early 20th century writer (and the mother of Barbro Alving), and battled depression. This poem always makes me feel a little better, and in the hopes that it may work for others, I have made an English version.

I made a previous more literal translation that kept all the dialect from the original. This time, I skipped most of that, but OTOH kept the rhyming scheme and rhythm as well as I could.

ONE OF THEM DAYS by Fanny Alving my translation (Swedish original below)

It's one of them days that feel so darn long And whatever you're doing, you're doing it wrong, You're feeling all mean and full of scorn And mad that you ever been born. Your heart is as cold as a hermit's cave And your room feels as dark as the deepest grave And your husband's a knave.

You look outside, and see a street Where everything's dirty and gray. You sneer at the people you happen to meet And wish them far away. You mock the things they call good and sweet With every word you say.

Until Still In a while, maybe The clouds go away, see And the sky is remarkably blue after all And your troubles are really remarkably small. Your lament grows quiet, and you take a good look, See, it's brightening in all the corners and nooks. Your eyes are a-twinkling It feels like a glitter Of giggles and titters And then as you sit there You catch yourself thinking: "Darn, it's fun to live after all!" D'Ä SOMLIA DAR D'ä somlia dar, som en ä så betryckt och allt va en gör, så gör en förryckt. En känner sej svulten i själa och le och arg att en nånstin vart te. En känner sej tryckt som en ginge te skrift och en tycker att kammarn är svart som en grift och en minns en ä gift. Och tittar en ut, så sir en en gata, där allting är torftigt och grått. Och säger en någe, så är de te rata och tycka att allt ä smått. Och skrattar en, så skrattar en styggt som en skata åt allt va di kallar för gott. Men så ändå om en stund kan dä hända att vind sig kan vända, och himlen han ä ändå märkvärdigt blå och bekymmerna ä ändå märkvärdigt små. Dä ä som bedrövelsen fick sej en törn, å dä börjar å ljusna i snyter å hörn. Dä börja å blänka, dä ä som ett glitter åv småskratt och fnitter, och rätt som en sitter så börjar en tänka: "D'ä tjyven så roligt å leva ändå!"

—August Strindberg

[Solnedgång på havet, 1883]

Selected Poems of August Strindberg, editor and translator Lotta M. Lofgren

In solitude's time my tongue has burned to tell you the beautiful things I knew and dreamed - but in your nearness my thought drowses, dumb. my gate is closed, and my heart goes numb.

Karin Boye, Spellbound (Trollbunden)

"Alba" by Lars Gustaf Andersson, translated by Carolyn Forché

[text id: The curtain moved gently, / dawn spilled milk over the city. / I never saw you again like that. ]

The Library, Pt. 1

I smudged my eyeliner

And spilled my tears on a hardcover

Forgive me, Simone de Beauvoir

I never meant to hurt you

I've scrolled through books of love and death

Kierkegaard y José Gasset...

View On WordPress

Fine book.

Bogserbåten är fräknig av rost. Vad gör den här så långt inne i landet? Den är en tung, slocknad lampa i kylan. Men träden har vilda färger. Signaler till andra stranden! Som om några ville bli hämtade. På väg hem ser jag bläcksvamparna skjuta upp genom gräsmattan. De är de hjälpsökande fingrarna på en som snyftat länge för sig själv i mörkret där nere. Vi är jordens.

[The tugboat is freckled with rust. What is it doing so far inland? It’s a heavy burnt-out lamp, tipped over in the cold. But the trees still carry colours – wild signals to the other shore as if someone wanted to be fetched home. On the way back, I see mushrooms pushing up through the grass. Stretching for help, these white fingers belong to someone who sobs down there in the darkness. We belong to the earth.]

Tomas Tranströmer, Skiss I Oktober / Sketch in October

December Evening 1972  // Tomas Transtromer

Here I come, the invisible man, perhaps employed by a Great Memory to live right now. And I’m driving past the locked-up white church – a wooden saint is standing in there smiling, helpless. As if they had taken away his glasses. He is alone. Everything else is now, now, now. The law of gravity pressing us against our work by day and against our beds by night. The war.

(translated from the Swedish by Robin Fulton)

Carillon by the Tomas Tranströmer

''I lie on the bed, my arms outstretched.

I am an anchor that has dug down deep and

        that holds on

the huge shadow that is floating up there

the great unknown that I am a part of and that is certainly

        more important than I am. ''

”Om du bara förstod. För att våga krävs mod. Jag ville försvinna.

Men återuppstod”

Hjalmar Gullberg, Förklädd Gud/Disguised God (I/IX)

Since people expressed interest in getting more posts about classic Swedish literature, I decided to share Hjalmar Gullberg’s Förklädd Gud, a multi-part poem about Apollo living as a mortal. Beneath the original there’s a translation by John Hearne.

Because the poem is so long, I’m sharing it a little at a time. Each post will also have a link to the music by Lars-Erik Larsson – all in one piece, though. (Would you prefer the same one every time, or a different recording? There are several. Either way, do listen to the music, it’s gorgeous!)

Prolog:

Ej för de starka i världen men för de svaga. Ej för krigare men för bönder som plöjt sin jordlott utan att klaga spelar en gud på flöjt. Det är en grekisk saga... 

I.

Vem spelar på en pipa en låt av gryningsluft, för himmelsk att begripa, höjd över allt förnuft? Vem äger lösenorden, flöjtvisans dolda text? Vem spelar på jorden för djur och växt?

Vem är den gode herden som för sin flock i vall och som med gräs förser den och toner av kristall? Vem går på betesängar i sommardagens kvalm och sover bland drängar på jordisk halm?

John Hearne’s translation:

Preface:

Not for the strong in the world but for the feeble. Not for the warlike, but for the humble who till the soil without a grumble a god plays on a flute. It is a Grecian fable.

I.

Who plays upon a pipe as the dawn awakes the land? From heaven comes a message No one may understand. Who put the secret password into the hidden flute? Who plays for the earth, for the flesh and fruit?

Who is that goodly shepherd who leads his flock through here so they may graze in peace, hearing tunes so crystal clear? Who wanders through the meadows in summer’s shining day and sleeps in the shadows on fragrant hay?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMM-qpISYEA

Love me when I least deserve it, because that’s when I really need it.

Swedish Proverb

...my thought drowses, dumb. my gate is closed, and my heart goes numb.

Karin Boye, Spellbound (Trollbunden)