Showing posts with label Urmuz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Urmuz. Show all posts

Sunday, March 21, 2010

More Urmuz ...poesy...Fuchsiada excerpt


drawing by Marcel Iancu


Fuchsiada
Heroico-erotic poem, musical too, in prose

A deluge of hollers and threats. A deluge of disonancies, of chords upturned and unconcluded, of dodged cadenzas, faulty consonancies, of trills, but above all, rests, showered from every direction upon the exiled artist. A hail storm of jagged sharps and naturals pelted his back ceaselessly, a drawn out rest shattered his spectacles... Those gods possessed of viciousness in excess barraged him with shinbones, with aeolian harps, with lyres and cimbals, and, utmost of score-settling, with Acteon, with Polyeucte, and with Enescu's Third Symphony, whose inspired music on this occasion, originated indeed from Olympus.
     At last, Fuchs's fate was decided. He was to first roam through Chaos with unbearable swiftness, in five minute revolutions, around the planet Venus, then after, so as to wholly expiate the affront brought upon the goddess, he was to be exiled companionless to the uninhabited planet, with the burden of giving birth on his own and on his own alone, to that off-spring, that superior race of artists, which should have sprung forth in Olympus from his amorous union with Venus.
     Fuchs barely began carrying out his verdict, when Pallas-Athena, forbearing, stepped in (unexpectedly) on his behalf.
     He was granted permission to fall back to earth, but only under one condition: there is so much useless off-spring there, artistic or not, that it was not at all needed to beget any other. It was foisted on Fuchs the task of doing away with snobbism and spinelessness of thought in art on earth's realms.
     Placed thus, in this dire bind, after a prolonged and mature cogitation, the artist determined that this last condition was far more difficult to bring about than the off-spring begetting on Venus...
     A heroical decision was then reached by our hero in his roaming through Chaos. He consented to accept Athena's assistance under the condition imposed upon him; but, when he sensed the proximity of earth, he did what he did and, budging a bit to the right, he dropped down in that very neighborhood, slightly shady, from which he departed and which spellbound him such.
     Knowing himself now well prepared, he would learn here how to put into practice that which he hadn't known until then, so that afterwards, fully initiated, he would request the Venerated One's audience so as to try to rehabilitate himself as best he could in what had been left wanting. In this manner, he told himself, it will become possible to give birth to that new race of supermen, and thus would be released of the duty to undertake on earth the impossible bane imposed upon him.
     But the vestals of pleasure, who had welcomed him mirthfuly, upon discerning his intentions, surrounded him from all directions, intercepted abruptly his forward motion and beleaguered, bereaved, flailing their arms in the air in sign of protest, excommunicated him from the neighborhood, exclaiming in unison: "Woe to you, Fuchs, we have lost you and recognize you no longer, because formerly you were the only one who, from Plato's times onwards, understood how to love us purely... What sort of thoughts do you nurse as you step amongst us? Woe to us from now on deprived of the aesthetics of your sonatas, woe to you deprived of the inspiration of our lofty love! Fie on her who, though our mistress, Olympus's and the world's, did not understand how to appreciate you, and spurning your love and art, led you to fall so high up... Flee, Fuchs, you are unworthy of us now!
     Flee, Fuchs, you slimy satyr! How could you devalue the noblest organ, the ear?! Flee Fuchs, you're dishonoring this neighborhood,
     Flee, Fuchs, and may the gods protect you!"
     Thus excommunicated, and frightened of an eventual discharge of their liquid displeasure, Fuchs sat swiftly at his piano and, pedaling steadily and forcefully, arrived lastly at his quiet shelter, with his spirits oppressed, disconcerted, sickened of men as well as of gods, of love as well as of muses...
     He fled to get his umbrella back from the shop and, taking his piano along, they vanished forever in the midst of nature, glorious and unbounded...
     From there his music radiates with equal force in all directions, thus causing the word of grateful Fate to be carried out in part, ordaining him that through his scales, concerts and etudes of staccato, to spread far the word and by their grace, through the power of education, to cause the appearance in time on this planet an improved and superior race of beings, towards his glory, his piano's, and Eternity's...  


full Fuchsiada at Exquisite corpse


A bit of metaphysics and astronomy ... Urmuz


Urmuz (Romania 1883-1923)






A bit of metaphysics and astronomy

unfinished essay

It is simply not true - the symposium said with one accord - that in the beginning the "word came from God" or that "God was the word." In the beginning - the drinking party reaffirmed - before there was any "word", there was only the " deaf-and-dumb alphabet"; for surely it is hard to beleive that cosmis substances and matter could have learnt straight away to express anything at all; they may not even have been able to ask to be excused or even to say "papa" or "mama". Most probably - the diners went on- the heavenly bodies took shape neither by God's munificence, nor from their own own urge to spin and thus create something out of nothing merely for the sake of turning round and round , nor from gaseous solids.
It is more likely that they wherre neither created nor uncreated: nobody's children, born of accurate or inaccurate calculations, in instalments, with sweat and toil; in addition,
insufficiently nourished at the Heavenly Maternity Clinic with milk mixed with soda water by the dairymaids of the Milky Way.
Even admitting that they spin only for their own amusement, it is still difficult to suppose that their motives are entirely disinterested, without the intention of making the slightest profit. Surely it would seeem rather ridiculous for anyone to gyrate for ever and ever, free of charge, just to be seen by others...
--Whaaat? Mean and selfish interests among the heavenly bodies? naively protested the ideologically-minded plebs, waiting outside in the courtyard for the verdict.
The crowd had good reason, and yet no reason at all for being so apprehensive...
In fact, who in the first place could have impelled matter and he cosmic force into becoming something when they, in their turn, by destroying themselves or simply by handing in their resignations, could at anytime have compelled the "something" to become the "nothing"?...
Then again, who among us can complain that the primordial force, the cause of all causes, may never be attained or discovered, when everybody is striving to reach it from the start, or from behind, and nobody ever attempts to cover it, for a moment, or to catch it on the hip at leas once?
And what is the good of fighting to discover a cause, the sole and primordial cause, when unfortunately causes are at the same time affects; and these in turn bring about other effects which are diabolically manifold and tangled?
What then is the point of our seeking a single cause, this initial, generative force which we feel must exist, when it is itself so stubbornly determined to produce nothing but multiplicity? It thirst for multitudes, for complexities and contradictions; it needs millions of people, flies, sponges, monsters, stars -- all at a price of great suffering and inconvenience to them. It also needs "trunk-fish" and "sawfish", and swallows numbers, distances and high speeds, with no purpose or necessity...