Paul Valery's "The Graveyard by the Sea" read by Elizabeth Fraser

English Translation of Paul Valery's poem "Le Cimetière Marin" read by Scottish singer Elisabeth Fraser.

Absolutely wonderful reading, beautiful and hypnotic voice. However, it omits the last 6 stanzas, the last stanza is my favorite one. This is the last stanza of this poem, the ending:

The wind is rising! . . . We must try to live!
The huge air opens and shuts my book: the wave
Dares to explode out of the rocks in reeking
Spray. Fly away, my sun-bewildered pages!
Break, waves! Break up with your rejoicing surges
This quiet roof where sails like doves were pecking.

Das Lied vom Kindsein, Gedicht von Peter Handke / The Song of Childhood Poem by Peter Handke

Song of Childhood 

By Peter Handke

When the child was a child 

It walked with its arms swinging, 

wanted the brook to be a river, 

the river to be a torrent, 

and this puddle to be the sea.

When the child was a child, 

it didn’t know that it was a child, 

everything was soulful, 

and all souls were one.

When the child was a child, 

it had no opinion about anything, 

had no habits, 

it often sat cross-legged, 

took off running, 

had a cowlick in its hair, 

and made no faces when photographed.

When the child was a child, 

It was the time for these questions: 

Why am I me, and why not you? 

Why am I here, and why not there? 

When did time begin, and where does space end? 

Is life under the sun not just a dream? 

Is what I see and hear and smell 

not just an illusion of a world before the world? 

Given the facts of evil and people. 

does evil really exist? 

How can it be that I, who I am, 

didn’t exist before I came to be, 

and that, someday, I, who I am, 

will no longer be who I am?

When the child was a child, 

It choked on spinach, on peas, on rice pudding, 

and on steamed cauliflower, 

and eats all of those now, and not just because it has to.

When the child was a child, 

it awoke once in a strange bed, 

and now does so again and again. 

Many people, then, seemed beautiful, 

and now only a few do, by sheer luck.

It had visualized a clear image of Paradise, 

and now can at most guess, 

could not conceive of nothingness, 

and shudders today at the thought.

When the child was a child, 

It played with enthusiasm, 

and, now, has just as much excitement as then, 

but only when it concerns its work.

When the child was a child, 

It was enough for it to eat an apple, … bread, 

And so it is even now.

When the child was a child, 

Berries filled its hand as only berries do, 

and do even now, 

Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw, 

and do even now, 

it had, on every mountaintop, 

the longing for a higher mountain yet, 

and in every city, 

the longing for an even greater city, 

and that is still so, 

It reached for cherries in topmost branches of trees 

with an elation it still has today, 

has a shyness in front of strangers, 

and has that even now. 

It awaited the first snow, 

And waits that way even now.

When the child was a child, 

It threw a stick like a lance against a tree, 

And it quivers there still today.

Flickering Lights

Give me all the flickering lights!

tiny specs of fluttering rays

and city glitters shimmering

but only from far away.

i want them all it’s an addiction

i want the christmas lights buried in snow

and the blips in science fiction

films from years ago. 

give me all the night sky’s twinkling sprinkles

and the red pulsing eyes

on tvs that standby

fading, flirting in and out

like a game of cat and mouse.

bits of foil in the distance

blowing kisses from the sun to me and

showing no resistance to the photons

that consistently pass notes on

from one lover to the other

like cupids tiny brothers.

give me all the flickering lights.

light every candle and wave every phone

glinting and bleeping and

imprinting glowing circuses

that linger while I’m sleeping.

an orchestra of weeping light

swan singing like star crossed choirs

who play themselves to me

all night.

(poem by Wirrow)

Two Billion Light Years Of Loneliness

Human beings on this small orb
sleep, waken and work, and sometimes
wish for friends on Mars.

I’ve no notion what Martians do on their small orb
( neririing or kiruruing or hararaing ).

But sometimes they like to have friends on Earth.
No doubt about that.

Universal gravitation is the power of solitudes
pulling each other.

Because the universe is distorted,
we all seek for one another.

Because the universe goes on expanding,
we are all uneasy.

With the chill of two billion light-years of solitude,
I suddenly sneezed.

 - "Two Billion Light Years Of Loneliness" by Shuntaro Tanikawa