drunk on poetry

.... and wine and beer. but tonight there were firsts

first time anyone ever spoke a poem to me in attic greek

it was lines by sappho

to the effect of being shaken by love, like trees shaking in the wind on a mountainside

first sip of tokai wine very good, very drinkable, very intoxicating

first time i spoke to other people about how much i loved the poetry of gerard manley hopkins

first time i wrote down THE WINDHOVER from memory

I do love Hopkins

I do I do

because of language

linguistic magic

alliteration rhyme vision image

the brilliant fire from within

sheer plod makes plough down sillion

shine

the cutting open, the revealing, the opening up, the gash

gold vermillion

BUT in the midst of all this poetry and beauty i know that

i am aging

my body tells me every day that this is so

i think about making days and years count

i want to think that what i am doing is not just all about me

i hope it is not just that

i hope i am making a difference

in a good way

but how do i know

"wer immer strebend sich bemüht"

but am i really striving, or just indulging myself?

how can we really know?

at some point it ends. sooner or later. i hope later rather than sooner,

but how do you know?

i ride my bike uphill, i feel my heart pounding.

i walk upstairs with groceries in my backpack

milk, yoghurt, beer.

the backpack is heavy

and i breahe heavily

and my knees are not strong

and i wonder, a little, if i will make it

it is only two flights

so it shouldn't be a problem

but still ... my breath is not even

in the morning i have a piss hard-on

and so i say, wow, at least that is still working

but is it really? How long does it last? And what is it all about?

Maybe in the end all that matters is

that someone spoke.

It was Greek.

Spoke to me,

But it was not Greek to me.

Sopron May 2011 Part 2

Street signs both in Hungarian and German

1. The fire tower in the background
2. One of the pocket parks in a residential area
3. Inscription over the "modern" synagogue
4. Facade at the Eszterházy palace

Sopron May 1011 Part 1

First picture/view from the top of a hill about 150 yards from my panzio.

Eszterházy palace in Fertőd, abut 320 miles east of Sopron, at the southern edge of the Neustadtler See
Breakfast at the panzio

even more pics

Bratislava agin, looking toward the National theater
Just off the side of the Karlskirche

Looking south down the street next to the Karlskirche

The interior court of the Spanish riding school, with Japanese tourits and a few of the horses visible in their stallls

Easter Vienna and Bratislava, even more

The Rathaus in Vienna. Light was fading fast, and I didnt have time to move closer to the building to be able to get more detail into the shot.

Bratislava, showing the mix of relatively modern (including the bridge over the Danube) with the retained.

Picture #3 Another view of the Rathaus.

# 4 This is what you get for $40 a night. No tv, no coffee machine. The toilets and showers are shared. But it is really all that I need when I am travelling, just wish it came at half that price.

#5 Heading back to Hungary. This is about 20 miles east of Vienna, the fields in bright sunlight are almost blinding, but there was a large cloud mass so the fields were only moderately bright

Easter Vienna Bratislava, more notes

Bratislava still has a section of its old wall remaining.

The view from my "seat" at the Staatsoper. There were about 200 people outside, not counting those tooting car horns and sidewalk stroller-conversationalists. The production was absolutely first rate, with a Satan who looked like he had just stepped out of a GQ ad--black leather trenchcoat and red vest. And handsome to boot, sort of a Johnny Depp face, but with more of a Tom Cruise body.

The trees are in the gardens at Schönbrunn palace. Different styles of trimming are done to produce different styles of aisles. Here the trees are cut to produce an arch overhead. In other pathways the trees were sheared off square, to look something like thick lime popsicles.

A new version of the classical pediment, only this time in glass.

Vienna/Bratislava Easter 2011

Main drag of Bratislava. The downtown is definitely worth a 2-3 hour stroll, there are cafes galore and by any standard the beer is cheap== full service for 1/2 liter of beer was running about $2.00, when it is about $5 in Vienna.

It is not hard to get there, about 1 hr trainride from Vienna, but then figure it is at least another half hour or so each way to get to the train station in Vienna, travelling by metro or streetcar. So total travel is about 3 hours to spend a profitable 3 hours. I guess I am glad I went, but i think the time would have been better spent in one of the Viennese museums.

I wanted to get to the center of town just before sunset to capture the glow from the buildings. I would have liked to have a deeper blue in the sky, but it still turned out well.

This is the main altar of the Karlskirche, and while I am not a big fan of baroque, I have to admit that this one nearly knocks your socks off. The triangle and tetragramm at the center of the nimbus are extremely effective, the rays of gold effervesce with natural light. This photo was taken at around 6 pm, before I headed off to the opera to watch public tv screening of the performance of Faust going on inside.

On the way to the Albertina on the Monday after Easter I happened past the Spanish riding school. There was a huge gaggle of Japanese tourists in the courtyard, all of them going gaga over the beasties, and then a group of three horses were paraded out, and I got a quick shot off as one passed by.

Here is more of the sunset light effect on the royal buildings, I think this is the Kunsthistorisches Museum. You can see the shadow of the cupola cast against the main dome, giving you an idea of the angle of the sun... i.e., very low on the horizon.