my way or the highway
my way or the heartache
my way or minus the highway
my way or minus the heartache
minus the heartache,minus the highway
minus the soul,minus the heartache
minus the soul,plus the soul
minus the soul,plus the heartache
the mind,body is a plus of the soul
minus the soul,minus the body,plus the mind
plus the mind,plus the body,minus the soul
minus the soul is plus the body
the soul is at peace with the mind
the soul is at peace with the body
Ho Xuan Huong English Translations by Michael R. Burch
This is my modern English translation of the poem "To the boy Elis" by Georg Trakl.
To the boy Elis
by Georg Trakl
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Elis, when the blackbird cries from the black forest,
it announces your downfall.
Your lips sip the rock-spring's blue coolness.
Your brow sweats blood
recalling ancient myths
and dark interpretations of birds' flight.
Yet you enter the night with soft footfalls;
the ripe purple grapes hang suspended
as you wave your arms more beautifully in the blueness.
We sing in the branches,
The birds of night, born brittle
In broken words and melancholic memes,
As holy as the body in a dream
Woven in, set upon a tree,
Old and scorned, played out like a fiddle
With worn out strings, a holy see
That’s thrown upon the body in a dream
Windows open and close down here—
We listen with fear but cannot hear
And feel we’re being seen
In silence as the body in a dream
Until, at last, the knock that rocks the door,
With words that whisper no more—
