1. |
The Dancing Snake
03:31
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The Dancing Snake
My languid darling, how I love
To see the silken sheen,
When your body stretches and ripples
Your shimmering skin!
I breathe the tang of the ocean
In the deeps of your hair,
A shifting mass of blue and brown,
A sea itself; and there,
Like a sleeping ship that awakens
As the morning breezes rise,
My dreaming soul casts off and sets
Its course for distant skies.
Your eyes that speak of nothing,
No sweet or bitter end,
Are two cold precious jewels
Where gold and iron blend.
The loose and lovely cadence,
The rhythm of your walk,
Is like a snake who dances
At the end of a stick.
(….)
And your body bends and stretches
Like a slim ship that braves
The sea it rolls and pitches,
With yards tipping the waves.
And when, like the glacier melting
To swell a mountain stream,
Saliva rises in your mouth
And brims your teeth, it seems
As if I drank Bohemian wine,
Tangy, invasive, tart,
A liquid sky that sends a rain
Of stardust on my heart!
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2. |
Longing for Nothingness
04:17
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Longing for Nothingness
Sad spirit, once so ready for the fight,
Hope, who so often spurred you on your way,
Rides you no longer. Have no shame, lie down;
Old horse, the stones have lamed your stumbling feet.
Let go, my heart, and sleep your brutish sleep.
Defeated weary mind, you old marauder,
Now neither love nor combat can arouse you;
Farewell, the trumpet’s call, the sighing flute!
Old pleasures, tempt this brooding heart no longer!
The fragrance of the spring is gone for ever.
Minute by minute, Time engulfs my soul
As snowdrifts swallow up a stiffening corpse;
I contemplate the round globe from above
And seek no hut to shelter from it all.
Come, Avalanche, take me with you in your fall!
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3. |
The Enemy
05:53
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The Enemy
My youth was nothing but a darkling storm
Shot through at times by brilliant bursts of sun;
And in my garden few red fruits remain
After the thunder’s ravages and the rain.
Now I have reached the time of autumn thoughts
When spade and rake are needed to reclaim
The flooded land where water has dug out
Holes in the earth, gaping as wide as tombs.
Who knows if the new flowers that I dream of
Will ever find in this poor soil, washed clean
Like some bleak strand, their mystic quickening food?
— O sorrow, sorrow! Time consumes our life;
The enemy who gnaws our hearts unseen
Grows tall and waxes strong on our lost blood.
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4. |
Burial
02:36
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Burial
If on a dark and sultry night
Some charitable Christian soul
Should find a rubbish dump and put
Your once proud body in a hole,
When the chaste stars no longer watch
And sleep has weighed their eyelids down,
There will the spider weave her webs
And the viper bear her spawn;
Above your cursed head you will hear
Wolves with their long lamenting howls
Night after night, throughout the year,
And starving witches mumbling spells,
Old lechers playing dirty games,
And shady ruffians plotting crimes.
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5. |
Meditation
04:32
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Meditation
Have patience, O my Sorrow, settle down.
You longed for Evening, Evening now is here:
A dusky air falls and enfolds the town,
To some men bringing peace, to others care.
While the dull mortal crowd, sweating beneath
The whip of Pleasure and his pitiless sway,
Reaps the remorse born of some servile feast,
Give me your hand, my Sorrow, come this way,
Far from them all. See the dead Years lean out
From Heaven’s balconies in faded robes;
See, rising from the deep, smiling Regret;
The dying Sun asleep beneath an arch;
And, like a long shroud trailing from the East,
Hear, love, that footfall… hear Night’s soft approach.
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6. |
Obsession
03:11
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Obsession
Great woods, your winds oppress me like the heft
Of great cathedral organs; and our hearts,
Shaken with dying groans, are echo chambers,
Vaults where your De profundis still vibrates.
I hate you, Ocean! All your bounding tumults
I find within: the bitter laughter of
A man defeated, all his sobs and insults,
I hear resounding in the sea’s vast laugh.
How you would please me, Night, without those stars
Whose light speaks in a language that I know!
I only seek what’s empty, black and bare.
But darkness is itself a canvas where
My eyes project a thousand vanished souls
Who look at me with a familiar air.
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7. |
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The Vampire
You came like the blade of a dagger
To my heart that was humbled and sad,
As bold as a pack of wild demons,
Dressed up for a pageant, and mad;
You made in my mortified spirit
Your bed and your private domain,
-You monster to whom I am shackled
As the convict is to his chain,
As the drunkard is to his bottle,
As the gambler is to his game,
As the vermin are to a carcass,
-Accursed, accursed be your name!
I prayed for the sword to come swiftly
With the blow that would render me free,
And I asked if perfidious poison
Could succour a coward like me.
But alas, both the sword and the poison
Gave answer and said with disdain:
“Base slave, you are deeply unworthy
That we ever should shatter your chain;
You fool, if our efforts could grant you
The freedom from her that you crave,
Your kisses would soon give new life to
The corpse of your vampire-love!”
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8. |
The Harmony of Evening
03:44
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The Harmony of Evening
Now comes the time when trembling on its stem
Each flower diffuses fragrance like a censer;
Perfumes and sounds swirl in the evening air;
Slow melancholy waltz and dizzy languor.
Each flower diffuses fragrance like a censer;
The violin trembles like a grieving heart,
Slow melancholy waltz and dizzy languor!
The sky is spread like an altar of repose.
The violin trembles like a grieving heart,
A tender heart that hates the vast dark void!
The sky is spread like an altar of repose;
The sun is drowned in its own thickening blood.
A tender heart that hates the vast dark void
Gathers each gleaming vestige of the past;
The sun is drowned in its own thickening blood….
Your memory shines in me like a monstrance.
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9. |
A Pagan's Prayer
03:11
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A Pagan’s Prayer
Ah, do not dampen down those flames,
But heat this frozen heart in me,
Pleasure, you torturer of souls!
Diva! supplicem exhaudi
Goddess, a presence in the air,
And in our buried lives a blaze,
Hear the despairing voice that sings
A brazen anthem in your praise.
Voluptuous pleasure, be my queen,
Put on your siren’s mask again,
Fashioned of velvet and of flesh;
Pour heavy sleep into my glass
Of mystic wine, O formless ghost
Of multiform voluptuousness.
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10. |
The Ghost
03:50
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The Ghost
With bestial angelic eyes
I shall return and make no noise,
And slip into your quiet room
And glide towards you in the gloom;
My dusky love, I shall bestow
Moon-cold kisses on your brow,
With coiled caresses writhing round
Like snakes that haunt a burial ground.
Morning will not reveal my face,
You’ll wake to find an empty place,
Though when night comes I shall be there.
Others endeavour to possess
Your life and youth through tenderness -
Not me: I choose to rule by fear.
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Susanna Oslo, Norway
The Norwegian artist Susanna has released albums as Susanna and the Magical Orchestra/Susanna/Susanna Wallumrød since 2004 on labels like Rune Grammofon/ECM/Grappa Musikkforlag and since 2011 on her own label SusannaSonata. Critically acclaimed for both her own songs and her highly personal interpretations of other people's songs. ... more
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