Lost in the translation...

In looking for the words to a poem by my favorite 19th century poet in regard to another post I'm working on,  I came across this little gem.

Wenn ich in deine Augen seh,
So schwindet all mein Leid und Weh;
Doch wenn ich küsse deinen Mund,
So werd ich ganz und gar gesund.
Wenn ich mich lehn an deine Brust,
Kommt's über mich wie Himmelslust;
Doch wenn du sprichst: "Ich liebe dich!"
So muß ich weinen bitterlich.

Heinrich Heine 1797-1856

I think some poetry can be translated and retain the intent of the writer's message, but then again things are oftentimes best expressed in the language that they were originally written.  So it is with most of Herr Heine's work.

Too soon gone.

I attended the funeral of the father of one of my friends last week.  I debated going, as I wondered if my friend would want me there.  As it turned out, he did.

It was emotional for both of us, a great deal more so than I imagined.   As I mention in previous posts, I was very much attached to my dad.  Still not a day goes by that I don't think about calling him to tell him this or that.  There are many things my father told me in the course of our lives.  He and I spent a great deal of time together, and yet, it was still not enough.

Folks have been slipping away from me, I guess it's always been that way.  My father's cousins. One was a priest.  He was a scholar and my ideal minister.  Dad used to say to me.  'Stop by and visit Father Ralph', on my way to and from wherever I was going.  I was young then, and life seemed eternal.  Ralph had always been there.  Perhaps in not being cognizant of my own mortality I did not see his either.  Then one day he was gone.

Uncle Lee.  We never really got to sit down and talk about some things that I'd wanted to ask him about.  He was killed by a cracker.  The guy was speeding, suspended license, no insurance on a borrowed truck.  Blew through an intersection and then Uncle Lee was gone.  I always say that there's no such thing as a worthless human being, but then some white trash asshole kills my uncle and I have to think, well, maybe there are one or two....  Lee was a kind, loving man for whom there was nothing more important than family.  Taken too soon.

Dear Abby....

....dear Abby, You won't believe this: My stomach makes noises whenever I kiss.   John Prine 

So, I was reading the news the other day and I came across the advice column.  A woman had written in to complain that her marriage was sexless.  She said was not attracted to her husband, never had been.   She explained the reason she married him the  first place was sort of because everyone else liked him and it seemed like a good idea at the time.  Now she's wondering if perhaps there's something more that she's missing.  Well, DUH!

Stuff like this just blows me away when I read it or hear about it.  

I have a friend who dated a very attractive young lady many moons ago.  He was a dashing fellow himself.  Blue eyes, curly brown hair, natural athlete with a perfectly proportioned physique.  Personality abundant, he's the type of person that I would be pleased to have my daughters bring home.  He confided in me that this particular young lady would never let him touch her.  Apparently her mother had her convinced that sex was disgusting and painful.  "When your time comes, you'll have to lay there and take it.  It's your duty."    

Flash forward a decade, another friend, this one a female. Petite, blonde, cute as can be.  She told me that her marriage had been without physical affection for almost the entire length of it's nine years.  I told her that, if I were I a single man, I'd be wanting to lick her all over like a postage stamp and paste her on my forehead.  


I may be peculiar, but a loveless marriage is downright perversion.

Uber den Traum

The subconscious mind is a most intriguing thing to me.  (See my earlier post nosce te ipsum.) My first love   in education was psychology.  Biology, genetics and psycho-chemistry also fascinated.

Saturday night I had a dream.  In that dream appeared a girl I knew some twenty plus year ago. We lived overseas and traveled together as a group in college for a foreign language and cultural history program.  I'd not thought of her consciously for some time.

In the dream we were going to have conjugal relations.  It never happened in the dream nor in in the gegenwalt.  In reality, I was somewhat repulsed by her as I perceived her to be not a nice person.  She was sadistic, and a mean sort of a sadist.  Of course sadists are mean, Jack, you say.  I think one can be a tormentor and still have sympathy and love for the tormented.  (See 'Rosemary'. We were buds, she just liked to whup me every now and again. Playing with one another as it were.)  The girl from the dream in reality was more like a cat that played with the kill before eating it, NOT my kinda gal.

Then again, in the dream, she wasn't the intentionally evil person I knew her to be.  She was sweet, like Tupelo honey, another paradox.  This leaves me wondering why, of all people, my little brain would que HER up, and make her sweet?

ALMOST CUT MY HAIR

David Crosby

---

Almost cut my hair
It happened just the other day
It was getting kind of long
I could have said it was in my way

But I didn't and I wonder why
I feel like letting my freak flag fly
And I feel like I owe it to someone

Must be because I had the flu for Christmas
And I'm not feeling up to par
It increases my paranoia
Like looking into a mirror and seeing a police car

But I'm not giving in an inch to fear
Cos I promised myself this year
I feel like I owe it to someone

When I finally get myself together
I'm gonna get down in some of that sweet summer weather
I'm going to find a space inside to laugh
Separate the wheat from the chaff

Cos I feel like I owe it, yeah
Said I feel like I owe it, yeah
You know I feel---- like I owe it yeah to someone


This ditty, another penned by Jimi Hendrix "If 6 was 9" and Joe Walsh's "Life of Illusion" make me sometimes wonder what I might be like if I did not have somewhat unusual proclivities.  In the past I have decided that I would be 'normal'.  Cast aside certain aspects of myself.  Usually end up felling depressed.   I wonder though, would I be as funny?  As compassionate?


When I was in college, right after the breakup with the love I thought would save me, I went through an extended period of self denial.  Strictly vanilla, dated girls and told them nothing of my secret self.  I wonder if others have had similar experiences with their kinks?

MERRY CHRISTMAS, Y'ALL!!!

I was honey-doing at my mother-in-law's house last week when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a miniature Dachshund and ten beautiful toes!  The caption that Talbots chose is 'AS YOU WISH'.  I'm thinking that maybe 'LUCKY DOG' might be at least as appropriate a title.

Whose wish is it?  Several years back I was talking with a dog lover friend of mine. She's very pretty. Wholesome girl next door good looks like Saundra Bullock.  A good mother and a great person.  She's on the list of people I admire.

We were watching her dogs play and the conversation drifted to what a dog's life might be like.  We both thought that it could be a good thing to be a dog, but, I added, it would depend on to whom you belonged. She replied, 'Yeah, I think it would be good to be my dog.  Wouldn't you like to be my dog?'  I said, 'Oh, honey...you have NO idea!'

That comment went pretty much right past her.  Folks who aren't kinky don't have kinky thoughts.  Like this picture, most folks probably think it's just a cute ad, and it is, but I see a little more to it.

I asked my wife what message she thought the photo conveys.  Her response? "Lick my feet, doggie!"

A crowd of people turned away....

.......but I just had to look, having read the book.

I found a reference to this book and film some time ago on Mistress 160's Abode.  She's an Auzie. The subject of her prolific blog is her life and times with Sol, her sub.  She wrote a poignant piece about this film and it's premise.

I've not seen the film, but I did buy the book.  It's well written, and touches on a theme that has been part of my fantasy life for years, even before I had any inkling that sex or sadomasochism or any such thing existed.

When I was a lad, I oftentimes escaped into my head where I was taken captive by a group of girls.  Always bigger, stronger and many, I was at their mercy.  One thing missing from this story that was always present in my imagination was caring.  Yes, I was beaten and tormented, but there was always one who protected me, loved me and cared for me.

Revelation is about rape.  Despicable thing that it is.

The women in this story abduct and abuse the main character, then discard him.  He was a professional dancer. After the incident he finds himself unable to pursue his craft.  He's left to deal with the aftermath on his own.

In the end, I believe he does heal, though the book is a bit of a cliff hanger in that it ends at the beginning of his coming to grips with the reality of what happened to him.  Following a lengthy, years long and fruitless search, his life is approaching some semblance of normalcy when he happens upon one of his captors quite by accident.  The reader can't be certain that she's one of the culprits, but I'd bet money she's guilty based upon her behavior when when he confronts her.  He's subsequently arrested for accosting her.  It is at that is the point  he begins to reveal what happened to him.