And there was poetry

One of the most profound cultural experiences a life can entail happens when somebody starts discovering  the intimate poetry of a language new to them, and achieve that certain point in which they are at the same time illuminated and poetically drunk.

This is a translation of a beautiful song by Zohar Argov, corrected (probably poorly) by me. Argov was a singer of Yemenite origin who died prematurely in 1987, but before that he opened the doors of the Israeli middle class to Mizrahi music, the music of the millions of non-European Jews who arrived in the country from all around the Arab world, escaping from popular and state-sponsored antisemitism since the decade of 1930. The translation, as always, offers only a pale idea of the inner beauty of the poem, originally composed in a language that is deep, plastic and plenty of powerful metaphors.

Tales are weaved in the nights,

birds are already sleeping and dreaming.

The night is quiet and dark,

the stars ask from above:

What happens, girl?

What happens, little one?

What are you dreaming about?

I dream too.

We will tell stories during the nights,

I will caress your hair with my both hands,

you are my home, you are mine, I will not forget you.

I have a little mother and I have you.

Tales are weaved during the nights,

the owl still breaks the silence,

The night is quiet and dark,

the stars ask from above:

What happens, girl?...

Intuition

You listen an unknown melody that somehow seems to be related to Jewish history, and immediately after that you learn that it is the "II. Andante" from the Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's Clarinet Sonata in E-Flat major.

A Vision of Hell

Gestern war ich mit X bei der Metropol. Er wollte rumsauen, und ich hatte kaum Lust darauf […], aber ich dachte, dass zumindest ich saunieren könnte, und irgendwann ein Bier mit ihm trinken.
Es war ekelhaft. Da das CSD Wochenende läuft, es war voll, aber alle hatten getrunken oder Drogen genommen. Sie sind wie Zombies frenetisch und mit leereren Augen rumgelaufen. Die Musik, die Dunkelheit, die warme stinkende Luft, die Kerle... Es war wie ein Haus des Irrsinns, oder wie die Hölle, als manche haben sie beschreibt: ein Ort wo es gibt kein Licht, keine Ruhe, kein Ziel, wo eine riesige Menge verdammte Seelen zwecklos, ohne Ende rumlaufen...
[…]
Es war aber Interessant als Beispiel des Verfalles des schwulen Teiles der Gesellschaft. Und als Bestätigung von was für ein Typ ich bin und was nicht. Das […] machte kristallklar, dass ich solche Leute auch für ein Fick nicht brauche.

"Yesterday I was with X in the Metropol [a sex-sauna]. He wanted to mess around and I was not that horny […], but I thought that I could at least use the sauna and somewhen drink a bier with him.

It was revolting. Since the gay pride weekend is ongoing, the place was full, but everyone had drank or taken drugs. They walked around frenetically with empty eyes, like zombies. The music, the darkness, the warm stinky air, the guys... It was like a house of madness, or like Hell, as many have described it: a place where there is no light, no rest, no purpose, where a multitude of damned souls walk around aimless, endlessly...

[…]

But it was interesting as expression of the downfall of the fag part of society. And as confirmation of what kind of guy I am, and what kind of guy I am not. That […] made crystal clear that I do not need such people, not even for a fuck."

[From a chat with C.]

Damned souls wandering to Hell. Detail from the central tympanum of the Amiens Cathedral.