#max hayward

[whisperthatruns]

Not, not mine: it's somebody else's wound. I could never have borne it. So take the thing that happened, hide it, stick it in the ground. Whisk the lamps away . . .                                           Night.

Anna Akhmatova (1889--1966), tr. from Russian by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward, text from Sean Singer’s daily email, The Sharpener

[we503]

Epilogue

1.

I have learned how faces fall to bone, how under the eyelids terror lurks, how suffering inscribes on cheeks the hard lines of its cuneiform texts, how glossy black or ash-fair locks turn overnight to tarnished silver, how smiles fade on submissive lips, and fear quavers in a dry titter. And I pray not for myself alone... for all who stood outside the jail, in bitter cold or summer's blaze, with me under that blind red wall.

from ‘Requiem’ by Anna Akhmatova

translated by Stanley Kunitz with Max Hayward

[merulae]

I don't think I could love you so much if you had nothing to complain of and nothing to regret. I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and of little value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.

Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

[n0r4g4m4]

wow finally something that is original :0

me and my sister are trying to make a mini comic series about these guys ;)

[endless-unfolding]

We don't know how to say goodbye: we wander on, shoulder to shoulder. Already the sun is going down; you're moody. I am your shadow.

Anna Akhmatova, trans. Stanley Kunitz & Max Hayward, in Poems of Akhmatova

[merulae]

They loved each other, not driven by necessity, by the ‘blaze of passion’ often falsely ascribed to love. They loved each other because everything around them willed it, the trees and the clouds and the sky over their heads and the earth under their feet.

Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

[collectedpoems]

"Three things enchanted him..."

by Anna Akhmatova

Three things enchanted him: white peacocks, evensong, and faded maps of America. He couldn't stand bawling brats, or raspberry jams with his tea, or womanish hysteria ...And he was tied to me.

translated by Stanley Kunitz