Sleeping like Superman

He seems to have recovered from jumping out of our window fifteen feet down into the street last week (chipped a tooth, scratched his nose), but he's clearly still dreaming of glory.

Centaury

Sometimes, to give a variety to our amusements, the girls sung to the guitar; and while they thus formed a little concert, my wife and I would stroll down the sloping field, that was embellished with blue bells and centaury, talk of our children with rapture, and enjoy the breze that wafted both health and harmony.

The Tikhvin Cemetery, St Petersburg

Nikolai Karamzin (1766-1826), writer.

Mily Balakirev (1837-1910), composer.

Piotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), composer.

Yevgeny Baratynsky (1800-1844), poet.

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), writer.

Alexander Dargomyzhsky (1813-1869), composer.

Anton Rubinstein (1829-1894), composer, conductor, self-parody.

César Cui (1835-1918), composer.

Alexander Borodin (1833-1887), composer, chemist.

Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881), composer, Ed Griffiths lookalike.

Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857), composer.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), composer.

Bargain of the Holiday

Nikolai Ivanovich Orlov, Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms (Moscow, Meditsina 1965). Slightly worrying is the fact that the gazetteer section has been altered by hand (not, thank goodness, by a number of different hands), so that every now and then you read an entry that has annotation as follows: 'This mushroom is, in fact, NOT EDIBLE'.

Current Favourite Sentences

This artist's impression shows a Cretaceous crocodile that had a scaly armoured body and cat-like features. At 3 inches long it had a similar size to modern cats.

Current Favourite Sentences

He sweetened the soft drink with saccharin and named it Fanta, after the German word for fantasy or imagination. It sold well, especially once food became scarce and buyers began using Fanta as a soup base.

Gatchina!

Photos might come in a slightly strange order from our recent Russian holiday, as I took a film camera and a digital one and therefore have photos from as it were days 1-4, 7-13 and 16-18 available now, and the others in a few days. So, here are some pictures from Gatchina, the least-visited and most relaxing of the many palaces of St. Petersburg. Well, the palace is a bit of a dump (as palaces go), but the gardens are lovely.

It is difficult to get a shrew to pose for you, unless (as here) it is dead.

This frog was more obliging.

And this red squirrel was the sciurine equivalent of Angelina Jolie or Tom Cruise: it would have signed autographs if I'd had a pen and it had had opposable thumbs.

Holland 0-1 Spain

Mustafa Stitou (1974- ; trans. David Colmer)



Magnificent if sagging ass.
She is so magnificent. She'd drive a blind
man mad at night.
A poke, dear madam, will stoke
the fire in your cunt
whisper in your ear
love should never be less than tailor-made
you coming? I'll make you a winter coat, a summer frock,
and both a perfect fit.
First ask you for a light.


Luis de Góngora (1561-1627)



De la brevedad engañosa de la vida

Menos solicitó veloz saeta
destinada señal, que mordió aguda;
agonal carro por la arena muda
no coronó con más silencio meta,

que presurosa corre, que secreta,
a su fin nuestra edad. A quien lo duda,
fiera que sea de razón desnuda,
cada Sol repetido es un cometa.

¿Confiésalo Cartago, y tú lo ignoras?
Peligro corres, Licio, si porfías
en seguir sombras y abrazar engaños.

Mal te perdonarán a ti las horas:
las horas que limando están los días,
los días que royendo están los años.

Thanks

For anyone who has been clicking on the names of any of the poets mentioned here in the Poetry World Cup, it must be obvious that I owe a huge debt to the Poetry International Web, the website of the Poetry International. Thanks a lot. A real shame that Armenia didn't qualify.

Uruguay 2-3 Germany

Emilio Frugoni (1880-1969)



Definición

La ciudad en que vivo es una gran aldea.
con sus casitas chatas de techo de azotea
y su espíritu chato como su arquitectura.
En fin, que tiene el genio igual a la figura.
Sin embargo, su vida no carece de encanto,
el encanto de un sueño quieto, mas no profundo,
al cual llegan afónicos los rumores del mundo ...
Su ritmo es cadencioso, lento como el de un canto
de cuna.

Pero aquí gira en tanto
La diabólica rueda de la Fortuna ...


Nico Bleutge (1972- ; trans. Hans-Christian Oeser, Gabriel Rosenstock and the author)



then the heat slowly eased itself
off the balcony and the eyes were more easily

diverted from the houses. the white
satellite dishes at the windows

already the first lights began to glow
encapsulated blue and green.

when the eyes wanted to stray between
the boardings there was a red

plastic bag in the air gleaming far above
it floated by and gradually gave the gaze

some focus until it sat softly and calmly
behind the eyelids