Entirely Communicating by Saúl Yurkievich

My thin hair, my gray-haired fuzz communicate
My frown while stressed or relaxed communicates

My pelvis when I walk truly communicates

My nervous meninx in secret code communicate

My zits, of course, also my elbows

According to the circumstance communicate

My nails going from white to black

Growing or lessening communicate

My ostentatious hands communicate

The palm and the phalanx communicate, even the glove

As my breath, sometimes large and sometimes short, communicates

My crystalline or bloodshot eyes

Blinking or winking they communicate

The bags under my eyes and their sleepiness communicate

All of my mouth communicates

The vault, the veil, the pulsating saliva,

Any of the parcels of my porous skin,

All organs, all muscles, all membranes

The body completely communicates.

Song- When I was young I said to Sorrow, by Aubrey Thomas de Vere

I

When I was young, I said to Sorrow,
"Come, and I will play with thee"—
He is near me now all day;
And at night returns to say,
"I will come again to-morrow,
I will come and stay with thee."

II

Through the woods we walk together;
His soft footsteps rustle nigh me.
To shield an unregarded head,
He hath built a winter shed;
And all night in rainy weather,
I hear his gentle breathings by me.

Alone, by Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

Oh Death! by Amado Nervo

To die is a true philosophical act.

NOVALIS.

Oh death! You are the mother of philosophy.

You ennoble the life of a WHO KNOWS!

And you give flavor to our melancholy hours.

In everything that is great—pain, love— there you are.

Triumphal arc of black marble, where it passes trough,

Dignified, the soul that never ceased fighting,

like a taciturn hero; gift, shelter and home

Of someone who naked and alone trampled the hard earth…

You add value to the lives of the most void and vulgar people:

Sancho Panza agonizes, and there is majesty in him.

You draw the faces o men with singular lines,

You, marvelous sculptor of Serenity!

All the gold of silence is yours. (The silver

Of the eloquence you leave for living fooolishly.)

Your silence says more than our verbal torrent

Of millenniums, in its vain flow.

Your pallid hand shuts the door of the room,

And then we see no more, we know no more.
Does a chrysalis morph behind all this?

What portentous alchemy goes on behind it?

Oh death! Creator of mystery: you made

Inquietude fly for the first time in pursuit

Of the Ideal. Looking at your august and sad face,

Man looked up and found God.

From Elevation

The City, by Konstantinos Kavafis

You said, "I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.
Another city will be found, a better one than this.
Every effort of mine is a condemnation of fate;
and my heart is –like a corpse– buried.
How long will my mind remain in this wasteland.
Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I may look
I see black ruins of my life here,
where I spent so many years destroying and wasting."

You will find no new lands, you will find no other seas.
The city will follow you. You will roam the same
streets. And you will age in the same neighborhoods;
and you will grow gray in these same houses.
Always you will arrive in this city. Do not hope for any other–
There is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you have destroyed your life here
in this little corner, you have ruined it in the entire world.

Translation taken from this website.

Measuring Time by Different Clocks. By the Stars. By Luis de Gongora y Argote

If I want by the stars

To know, time, where you are,

I see that you go with them

But with them you don’t come back.

Where do you imprint your fingerprints

That I cannot find your trace?

Now I realize I am wrong

if I believe you fly, run and roll;

You are, time, the one who stays,

And I am the one who goes.

Finish with Everything, by Octavio Paz

Give me, invisible flame, cold sword,

You persistent anger,

To finish with everything,

Oh dry world,

Oh bleeding world,

To finish with everything.

Burn, dismal, burn without flames,

quenched and ardent,

Ashes and living rock,

Desert without shore.

Burn in the vast heavens, sandstone and cloud,

Under the blind light that collapses

Between sterile cliffs.

Burn in the solitude that tears us apart,

Land of burning stone,

Of frozen and thirsty roots.

Burn, hidden fury,

Maddening ashes,

burn invisible, burn,

Like the impotent seas breeding clouds,

Waves like the rancor and rocky foam.

Burn between my delirious bones;

Burn inside the hollow air,

Invisible and pure kiln,

Burn like time burns,

Like time walking towards death,

With its own steps and breath;

Burn like the solitude that devours you,

Burn in yourself, burn without flame,

Solitude without an image, thirst without lips.

To finish with everything,

Oh dry world,

To finish with everything.

Freedom Through the Word. Poetic work (1935-1957)

Mexican Literature.

Fondo de Cultura Económica.

First reprint in Spain, 1990.

To Dream, o Lord, to Dream! by Leon Felipe

Make me dream… To dream, o Lord, to dream!...

I haven’t dream for a long time!

I dreamt that I was once –when I was still a little boy,

At the beginning of the world-

On a runaway horse by the wind,

I dreamt that I rode, runaway, in the wind…

That I myself was the wind…

Lord, make me dream again that I am the wind,

The wind under the Light, the wind trespassed by the Light,

The wind that is unmade by the Light,

The wind melted by the Light,

The wind.., made Light…

Lord, make me dream that I am the Light…

That I am yourself, part of myself…

And keep me, keep me asleep,

Dreaming, eternally dreaming,

That I am a little ray of light by your side.

Quatrain (Cuarteta), by Jorge Luis Borges

Others died, but it occurred in the past,
Which is the season (everyone knows) most propitious for death.
Is it possible that I, subject of Yaqub Almansur,
Die as roses and Aristotle had to die?

From Divan of Almotásim el Magrebi (12^th century)

Translated by Christopher Mulrooney

Jesus and Philosophy: On the Questions We Ask, by Paul Moser

Paper.

I heard about the texts of this author from a friend, of whom Moser was the assessor of his doctoral thesis.

In this document, the author shares a point of view in regard to the attitude Christian philosophers should take when they have to decide about the areas towards they wish to focus on for work and research.

Philosophy is not by default a friend of Christ, nor Christ that of philosophy, even though Christ touches on themes that directly or indirectly impact philosophy, and philosophy can boarder the themes that he talks about.

Then, philosophy can be dedicated to questioning and studying Christ without being committed to him or obey him and be applied like a ministerial tool for the building of the Church; it all depends on the attitude of the philosopher.

For where your area of research is, there your heart will be also.

Alan

To see the document of Paul Moser, click here.

To visit his web page, click here.

The Discovery of Poetry

…I’m not sure that the discovery of love would be necessarily more delicious than that of poetry.

Memoirs of Hadrian

VAIRUS MILTIPLEX MULTIFORMIS

Margerite Yourcenar

Fire and Philosophy

To study it in all it's purity, philosophers make reality suffer almost the same transformations that fire or the mortar make bodies suffer; in these crystals or in these ashes nothing seems to subsist to be or act as we know. […] It would be very difficult for me to live in a world without books, but reality is not in them, since it wouldn’t entirely fit on them.

Memoirs of Hadrian

ANIMULA VAGULA BLANDULA

Marguerite Yourcenar