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    AC Benus
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Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

Miracles - 4. . . . your fingers like bubbles move . . .

.

. . . your fingers like bubbles move . . .

Part Four of

 

 

“THOU”

Lover Poems

by August Stramm

Translated by AC Benus

 

 

 

Miracle

 

You’re erect! You’re erect!

And I

And I

I waver

Spatial temporal weighted

You’re erect! You’re erect!

And

Raving bears me

As I

Bear myself

To Thou!

To Thou!

You negate time

You rotate the cycle

You spirit the mind

You regard the gaze

You

Wheel the world

The world

The world!

As I

Circulate in the All!

And you

And you

Thou

Erect

That

Miracle!

 

 

 

Finery

 

Wisdom fools

The true and false

Murder gives birth

To be but to die

Crying jubilantly

Hatred of offenses

Awesome and soft

Must be

Impossible!

For as your body flames

The world

Grows dim!

 

 

 

Impulse

 

Fright Struggling

Fight Wrestling

Groanings Sobbing

You’re

Undone!

Piercing Bias

Writhing Clasping

Heating Faintness

Myself and Thou!

Decoupling Slide

Moanings Vibrate

Deflating I

Find

Thee

Thou!

 

 

 

Encounter

 

Your pace grins back at me from up ahead

And

Snags the heart.

The pitch and roll hooks and catches.

Fasteners sling hashing wagtails

Through the

Shadows

Of your

Skirt.

You wag and wag.

My interest reaches out in vain.

The sunshine laughs!

And

Stupid shyness hinders

Denied denied!

 

 

 

Scourge

 

You bristle and resist!

The firebrands keen

While flames

Scorch!

Not I

Not Thou

Not Thyself!

But me

Myself!

 

 

 

Gameplay

 

Your fingers like bubbles

Move

Atop me to Rumble and Thrust

A Teasing’s Coaxing Tortured Sense

Through Quivering Sleep.

The shackles break.

Your core rises aloft!

Your eyes descend through the streetlight's gleaming sheen

And savor me

And

Savor savor

The dawn’s

Bluster!

The sides all fall in.

Space!

But

Thou!

 

 

 

Almighty

 

Explore Issues

You have Answers

Escape Distress

You bear Courage

Through Stink and Smut

You spread the Straight and Narrow

Phony and Spiteful

You laugh Last!

Manic Despair

You comfort Euphoric

Death and Misery

You warm Richly

High and Abysmal

You crook the Ways

Pernicious Devil

You win over God!

 

 

 

_

Copyright © 2023 AC Benus; All Rights Reserved.
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Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

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Chapter Comments

11 hours ago, AC Benus said:

. . . an installment unloved and unread . . . :(

 

... or perhaps overlooked and unread, thanks to the notification that came only on "opening day".  I'd been watching for the additional chapters, and wasn't aware of this one until I followed up on yesterday's notification for the next chapter.

I just spent an educational hour or so reading about August Stramm.  This was the most informative source:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/august-stramm

And this perhaps is the crux of the matter:

Quote

Reading Stramm’s poetry as “a conflict between two simultaneously present but fundamentally irreconcilable belief systems,” Sheppard [a critic writing about Stramm] pointed out that Stramm “experienced those dilemmas ... as acutely painful problems which involved his whole personality, not just his abstracting intellect, and it is for this reason that his strange, challenging poetry will continue to intrigue long after so much of the autistic inflation which currently passes for ‘theory’ has been consigned to the waste-paper baskets of intellectual history.”

So if one cannot comprehend the poet or the poems, one can appreciate that the agitation caused by "dilemmas" possessed by a poet 100 years ago in a different culture using a different language comes through clearly in the translation.  That's the part I love, and perhaps it's the most important :) 

 

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An interesting exploration of poems by a complex man.  One thought I had is that this group of poems all highlighted his vulnerability in harsh honesty.

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On 4/15/2023 at 10:03 PM, Backwoods Boy said:

... or perhaps overlooked and unread, thanks to the notification that came only on "opening day".  I'd been watching for the additional chapters, and wasn't aware of this one until I followed up on yesterday's notification for the next chapter.

I just spent an educational hour or so reading about August Stramm.  This was the most informative source:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/august-stramm

And this perhaps is the crux of the matter:

Quote

Reading Stramm’s poetry as “a conflict between two simultaneously present but fundamentally irreconcilable belief systems,” Sheppard [a critic writing about Stramm] pointed out that Stramm “experienced those dilemmas ... as acutely painful problems which involved his whole personality, not just his abstracting intellect, and it is for this reason that his strange, challenging poetry will continue to intrigue long after so much of the autistic inflation which currently passes for ‘theory’ has been consigned to the waste-paper baskets of intellectual history.”

So if one cannot comprehend the poet or the poems, one can appreciate that the agitation caused by "dilemmas" possessed by a poet 100 years ago in a different culture using a different language comes through clearly in the translation.  That's the part I love, and perhaps it's the most important :) 

 

I read this quote and maybe it enlightened me a bit about what one persons opinion of Stramm's poetry is. Unfortunately the emotion and interpretation I see is probably a lot more simple and less wordy 😛 

But I do get it :) Thanks!

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I'm not an expert on poetry and I don't read poems often, but I definitely have felt a wide range of emotions from reading the selections you've presented.  

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On 4/15/2023 at 9:03 PM, Backwoods Boy said:

... or perhaps overlooked and unread, thanks to the notification that came only on "opening day".  I'd been watching for the additional chapters, and wasn't aware of this one until I followed up on yesterday's notification for the next chapter.

I just spent an educational hour or so reading about August Stramm.  This was the most informative source:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/august-stramm

And this perhaps is the crux of the matter:

So if one cannot comprehend the poet or the poems, one can appreciate that the agitation caused by "dilemmas" possessed by a poet 100 years ago in a different culture using a different language comes through clearly in the translation.  That's the part I love, and perhaps it's the most important :) 

 

Thank you, Jon. In an ideal world, the artistry of a piece should speak for itself, and I know lots of artists are loathe to "tell" anyone how they should think or feel about what they've presented. Scholars -- well, lol -- they are of a different mind altogether! It's always a tossup if I read others' ideas concerning what I have my hands dirty with until after I've done my business with someone else's work. I'm even avoiding reading August von Platen's journals while I'm translating his Sonnets, for, again, I'd like each of his poems to have the room they need to breathe.

Thanks again for reading these "DU" poems. Challenge, heartache, headache -- all part of love, right? ;)

 

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On 4/15/2023 at 10:31 PM, raven1 said:

An interesting exploration of poems by a complex man.  One thought I had is that this group of poems all highlighted his vulnerability in harsh honesty.

Thank you, Terry! You've said something I have thought almost since starting my efforts with the "THOU" poems: Stramm is being entirely vulnerable here. He seems not to care if he exposes himself (pun...intended? unintended, lol), or what reaction the publication of these poems might garner him in the press.

After more than 110 years though, it's clear he's won. His bold parsing of phrases, images and idea are greeted by some living poets today as "not unique." Well, mavericks become lost under leaf litter too I guess. But I'll always know how influential August Stramm has been to Western poetry, period.

Thanks once more!

Edited by AC Benus
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On 4/17/2023 at 1:21 PM, wildone said:

I read this quote and maybe it enlightened me a bit about what one persons opinion of Stramm's poetry is. Unfortunately the emotion and interpretation I see is probably a lot more simple and less wordy 😛 

But I do get it :) Thanks!

lol, thanks, wildone! We're probably both in the less-wordy camp with it comes to reading Stramm's poetry. He asks us to inhabit his space for a while, and if we do, he promises us quite an engaging journey. But, in the end -- as I've already mentioned in past comments -- it's about the heart's understanding. The mind is the mind is the mind, and always alone wherever it treads.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. You're the best  

Edited by AC Benus
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10 hours ago, Bill W said:

I'm not an expert on poetry and I don't read poems often, but I definitely have felt a wide range of emotions from reading the selections you've presented.  

Thank you, Bill, for taking this journey with Stramm and me. Many miles have been walked, it feels, since I first set out to translate this collection of "Lover Poems." I guess like any journey, there are highlights and lowlights; things engaging us as memorable, and things better left forgotten.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and support. They're greatly appreciated 

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These poems are definitely a roller coaster of emotions, as someone else said.  I can relate to the shyness preventing an Encounter from taking place.  I also found Almighty thought-provoking.  

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On 4/30/2023 at 5:29 PM, Valkyrie said:

These poems are definitely a roller coaster of emotions, as someone else said.  I can relate to the shyness preventing an Encounter from taking place.  I also found Almighty thought-provoking.  

Thank you, Valkyrie. I'm rather fond of Almighty. It's a very intense piece to me. It also is the only Expressionist poem I've encountered so far that dabbles into rhetoric. It seems modern German poets avoided it like the plague, but here, Stramm reclaims it in very convincing style. At least to me ;)

Thanks again for reading and offering support. It's greatly appreciated

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