A Man In His Life

Yehuda Amichai (1924, Würzburg - 2000, Jerusalem)

"A Man In His Life"

A man doesn't have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn't have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.
And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,
to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest
what history
takes years and years to do.

A man doesn't have time.
When he loses he seeks, when he finds
he forgets, when he forgets he loves, when he loves
he begins to forget.

And his soul is seasoned, his soul
is very professional.
Only his body remains forever
an amateur. It tries and it misses,
gets muddled, doesn't learn a thing,
drunk and blind in its pleasures
and its pains.

He will die as figs die in autumn,
Shriveled and full of himself and sweet,
the leaves growing dry on the ground,
the bare branches pointing to the place
where there's time for everything.

• Biographie von Yehuda Amichai

Coffee Lovers

Liebster, ...

(Bild von Andreas Kristensson via flickr)
Zwei Liebende hinter dem Fenster und sie...

Mascha Kaléko

"Auf einen Café-Tisch gekritzelt"

Ich bin das lange Warten nicht gewohnt,
Ich habe immer andre warten lassen.
Nun hock ich zwischen leeren Kaffeetassen
Und frage mich, ob sich dies alles lohnt.
Es ist so anders als in früheren Tagen.
Wie spüren beide stumm: das ist der Rest.
Frag doch nicht so. – Es lässt sich vieles sagen,
Was sich im Grunde doch nicht sagen lässt.
Halbeins. So spät! Die Gäste sind zu zählen.
Ich packe meinen Optimismus ein.
In dieser Stadt mit vier Millionen Seelen
Scheint eine Seele ziemlich rar zu sein.
(1933)

• Mehr Mascha Kaleko: Das Pochen // Meine Dichter, ihre Liebe // Zur Heimat erkor ich mir die Liebe // Mascha Kaléko 100 Jahre

Sour times on the road

Trip-Hop ist schön...

"... nobody loves me
It's true
Not like you do"

Portishead "Sour Times" (aus dem Album: Dummy, 1994)

To pretend no one can find
The fallacies of morning rose
Forbidden fruit, hidden eyes
Curtises that I despise in me
Take a ride, take a shot now

Cos nobody loves me
Its true
Not like you do

Covered by the blind belief
That fantasies of sinful screens
Bear the facts, assume the dye
End the vows no need to lie, enjoy
Take a ride, take a shot now

Cos nobody loves me
Its true
Not like you do

Who oo am I, what and why
Cos all I have left is my memories of yesterday
Ohh these sour times

Cos nobody loves me
Its true
Not like you do

After time the bitter taste
Of innocence decent or race
Scattered seeds, buried lives
Mysteries of our disguise revolve
Circumstance will decide ....

Cos nobody loves me
Its true
Not like you do

Cos nobody loves me
Its true
Not like you
Nobody loves.. me
Its true
Not, like, you.. do
[Quelle]

Portishead "Roads" (aus dem Album: Dummy, Liedtext)