Reflections -- Leon Malinofsky
Reflections - Leon Malinofsky
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In the life of a man, his time is but a moment.... his sense, a dim rushlight. All that is body is as coursing waters.... all that is of the soul, as dreams, and vapors. -- Marcus Aurelius
Zum Sehen geboren / Zum Schauen bestellt, / Dem Turme geschworen / Gefällt mir die Welt. -- Goethe
Click on a topic of interest, or scroll down the page -
Voices * Spirit * Passion * Muse * Nature * Eros * Joy * Romance * Eternity * Innocence * Transcendence * Voyages * Mammon * Apocalypse * The Ribald * De Profundis * An Arabesque * A Conjuration * Fine Art * The Metaphysics of Skydiving * Dark Things * Links! * About the Author * Your Comments
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Voices
The world according to Marcus Aurelius (.wav - 291,150 bytes) TrueSpeech version!
Dylan Thomas reads "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" (.wav - 1,060,864 bytes)Approximately a 7-minute download time at 28.8 Kbps. TrueSpeech version (.tsp - 102,714 bytes!)
Dylan Thomas reads "And Death Shall Have No Dominion" (.wav - 1,236,992 bytes)Approximately a 9-minute download time at 28.8 Kbps. TrueSpeech version (.tsp - 160,000 bytes!)
The Lee Shore -- a meditation on thought and independence, by Herman Melville
An exaltation from the Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss (.wav - 712,704 bytes) A five-minute download time at 28.8 Kbps and well worth it. TrueSpeech version. mp3 version!The CD of this stunning, legendary performance, by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, is only $12. at Amazon!!
Passion
The Two Trees, by William Butler Yeats Image of Yeats
The Two Trees, sung by Loreena Mckennitt Reading the lyrics by W. B. Yeats while hearing this music can be a transcendent, unforgettable experience. Here is an image of Loreena Mckennitt! The selection is from McKennitt's album entitled "The Mask and Mirror".
Amazon has the entire CD for about $15, and it is great!
The Shepherd's Lament (Goethe), translation by Leon Malinofsky
Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae, by Ernest Dowson
-- ("I am not quite as I was under the rule of the beautiful Cynara")
The Theologian's Tale, by H. W. Longfellow
-- A tale of faith and courtship told in plain dactyls, with a powerful subtext. From "Tales of a Wayside Inn".
A Pilgrimage to Kevlaar (Heine), translation by Leon Malinofsky
--"Die Wallfahrt Nach Kevlaar" is an unusually powerful work of passion, prayer and deliverance.
Muse
Ars Gratia Artis, by C. P. Cavafy
To the One of Fictive Music, by Wallace Stevens
Sometimes The Sky's Too Bright, by Dylan Thomas (with interpretation)
A Letter To My Aunt Discussing The Correct Approach to Modern Poetry, by Dylan Thomas
-- "A Letter To My Aunt" is a satire, in verse, of an aunt's poetic pretensions
Nature
The Force That Through The Green Fuse Drives The Flower, by Dylan Thomas (with interpretation)
A Forsaken Garden, by Algernon Charles Swinburne
The Law of the Yukon, by Robert W. Service -- a rather different view of nature from Swinburne's.
Eros
Goblin Market, by Christina Rossetti19K .gif of Christina Rossetti
Farewell to Eros, by Clark Ashton Smith
Bette Davis Eyes -- song lyrics by Donna Weiss/Jackie DeShannon
Joy
The Comedian Harmonists: Wochenend und Sonnenschein (Approx. 3 meg filesize-- ca. 18 mins. to download at 28.8 Kbps)
The Comedian Harmonists, a group of six young men, sang in Cabaret-era Berlin (early 1930s). Their renditions radiate pure joy.
Go for a photo and to browse the definitive CD of their work!
Romance
Translations by Leon Malinofsky
Ich und Du (You and I), by Christian Friedrich Hebbel
Es Färbte Sich Die Wiese Grün (With Color Blooms the Meadow Green), by Novalis
Eternity
gee i like to think of dead, by e e cummings
Thanatopsis, by William Cullen Bryant
in a middle of a room, by e e cummings
The Garden of Proserpine, by Algernon Charles Swinburne
The Reaper and the Flowers, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow --written by the poet after the tragic loss of his wife and children in a fire.
what if a much of a which of a wind, by e e cummings
Innocence
Fern Hill, by Dylan Thomas
Fern Hill, read aloud by Dylan Thomas (True Speech audio file... see note above!)
Transcendence
The Emperor of Ice Cream, by Wallace Stevens
Of Mere Being, by Wallace Stevens
The Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait, by Dylan Thomas
The Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait, read aloud by Dylan Thomas. (TrueSpeech audio file-- see note above!)
Moonlight -- brief verse
The Fish, by Rupert Brooke
Voyages
The Elixir
The Dark Side of the Moon (.jpg- 206,259 bytes)
Orbit of Venus (.gif- 236,597 bytes)
The Deserts of Mars (.jpg- 109,774 bytes)
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Perhaps the strangest voyage of all.
Mammon
mam mon (noun). 1. New Testament. riches or material wealth. 2. (cap.) a personification of riches as an evil spirit or deity.
The Common Cult, by George Sterling
Apocalypse
The Second Coming, by William Butler Yeats
All Along The Watchtower, by Bob Dylan
-- Click on any branch of imagemap or any element of outline for interpretation
The Ribald
the boys i mean are not refined, by e e cummings
De profundis
Mozart (.wav - 1,384,448 bytes) From the C-sharp minor sonata, performed by Vladimir Horowitz.TrueSpeech version.mp3 version!
Beethoven (.wav - 1,308,672 bytes) From the Hammerklavier sonata in B-flat, Op. 106, performed by Rudolf Serkin. TrueSpeech version. mp3 version! Midi file version (entire movement)
Franz Schubert-- Der Doppelgänger. Performed in Russian by the legendary Feodor Chaliapin. (True Speech version only.) For an English translation of the lyrics, look .
Please note the .wav files are large and can take 7 to 9 minutes to download at 28.8 Kbps. The TrueSpeech files are **much** faster but the audio quality is less. The .mp3 files are virtually as fast, and the quality is almost equal to the original .wavs, which suggests you should really have an mp3 player (see above)! (The original .wavs are already highly compressed, so they lack CD quality; but new high-resolution versions will be coming in the future!)
An Arabesque
The Place of the Solitaires, by Wallace Stevens
A Conjuration
The Conjuring in the Iron Tower, by E. R. Eddison-- Possibly the finest fictional account of an alchemic conjuration in the literature.
Fine Art
Judas Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver, by Rembrandt van Rijn
After ten years of searching, I have finally found a color image of this work!
A Visit to the Musee D'Orsay
Eleven superb (mostly impressionist) paintings.
The Metaphysics of Skydiving
The time has come for The Metaphysics of Skydiving to have its own page, complete with quotes, personal reflections, skydiving verse, pictures, a movie, a short story, some cartoon humor by Don Martin, and lots of colorful graphics. To visit this page, click !
Dark Things
Monsters from the Id-- Two short stories by Clark Ashton Smith that demonstrate the link between poetry and horror.
Nyctalops, by Clark Ashton Smith
The Lord of the Smoking Mirror-- Tezcatlipoca, most potent and implacable of the Aztec deities. Speaks in Delphic portents through the mirror, his gateway. Look into the smoking glass-- what is he saying?
Links!
(These links will open in a new browser window.)
University of Toronto Library -- poems and
literature in English
The poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Project Bartleby - Works of Melville, Shelley, Wordsworth, Wilde, Whitman
Dead Poets Society -- formerly known as
Richard's Poetry Library.
A wonderful collection of favorite poems.
The Thinking Man's Minefield
Some intriguing, some outrageous intellectualisms compiled by Kevin Solway
Booklovers: Fine Books and Literature Page
-- maintained by Piet Wesselman
Poetry Lover's Guide to the World Wide Web -maintained by Lucius Furius. Poems by Lucius Furius
Your comments are most welcome.
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Leon Malinofsky, lwm@map.com
For the terminally bored or morbidly curious, some biographical information on Leon is .
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