Category: 2022 – Spring

Categories
2022 - Spring

Spells

Image: ©️ Andres Stadelmann

Author: Andres Stadelmann

Spells
Toppled by storms
And strands
Born to brush a little with your feet
Sometimes with your hands
But never with your eyes

Sheets, smells
You kick with your feet
And you reach for those hands
But the touch is too far to keep away from those 


Those voices I hear
They can breathe
And sometimes think
And often drift
Into that land of dreams

But when my hands rejoin
To something offscreen
And try and stay awake
By that touch of fatigue
And I try and stay awake
Thinking of those brave, brave men
And the spikes in the bush
And the fire of that dream
Thinking clean
Thinking clean
A touch of a spleen

And those souls lost in paradise
How shall I think of thee
And that touch oh so dry
And that mouth oh so still
Only dreaming
Only dreaming
To that still of a hill

But when I try, when I try
When I try
To dream far
Just a foot
Just a touch
Of that fiery hill

Please
Please
Take me

Categories
2022 - Spring

The Awaken One

Author: Gislain

A slight subtle move, barely noticed… at first. A small gentle pulse, slowly leaving the hidden side of the heart; less than a low murmuring rumble, but still… echoing throughout the whole chest and silently crawling its way along the shivering nerves.

It’s awake.

Emerging from its long lasting slumber, it raises its head and stretches its neck, its back and tail, twisting and rolling as the dreams fade away. It coils around a now constricted beating core, sneaking in-between the drunk liver, hissing lungs and the addicted spleen, bumping against the bars of its thoracic cage.

It’s locked still.

But yearns to free itself. So it grows, enlarges and soon fills every inches of space. It strikes in despair at the walls of its prison like a trapped animal; and beats, bangs and bashes, smites, slaps and punches… until one rib dislodges itself from the spin. One, two, three… and the beast is free. Gnawing its way up to the base of the skull, up to the inner ear, it whispers to the soul in a long cold sepulchral breath:

“Let… me… out.”

One, two, three more sips to drown the pest and wash any thoughts away; its existence has to be forgotten once more. Four or five in the early morning, the hour glass is flooded and time is mired in sand. There is no escape. And the end is creeping closer and closer. The pressure both from in and out compressing the brain in anguish, forcing it to kneel and cower on itself. Six or seven, less than ten… that’s how many seconds it has left. And the mind knows; the mind fighting still in agony, the mind losing the game and still, itself; the mind trying to hold onto its dying corps knows what lies at the end.

If it wins.

It scratches, tears and rips the flesh with its claws, eating its way out to burst out of its host. Wearing only bloody skin and shadows upon its bony unworldly body; hidden in the shade, hidden on the dark side of the heart; it awaits its time. And under its gloomy glowing eyes smiles but a grin of pure darkness and warped teeth, drooling of anger and rage.

It’s hungry still.

Categories
2022 - Spring

Literary Quizzes

Image: ©️ USA-Reiseblogger – Pixabay Licence. Source.

Complete the titles or authors’ names of the following works: 

I Know Why the ___ ___ Sings by Maya Angelou

The ___ Land by T. S. Eliot

Moby Dick by ______ _____

___ Lost by John Milton

“The ___ Speaks of ___ ” by Langston Hughes

Little Women by _____ ________

The ___ Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Le Morte d’Arthur by _____ _____

A Rose for Emily by ______ _____

Pick the right answer for the ending of each of these stanzas:

From William Blake’s “The Tyger”:

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?

________________________

________________________

  1. And when thy heart began to beat, / What dread hand? & what dread feet?
  2. What the anvil? what dread grasp, / Dare its deadly terrors clasp!
  3. What immortal hand or eye, / Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

From Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death”

We paused before a House that seemed

A Swelling of the Ground –

The Roof was scarcely visible –

________________________

  1. We passed the Setting Sun –
  2. My Tippet – only Tulle –
  3. The Cornice – in the Ground –

From Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”

 And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

_______________________________________________

            ___________________

  1. Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door— / Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
  2. Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;— / This it is and nothing more.
  3. And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor / Shall be lifted—nevermore!

Guess the work and author the following summaries come from:

Emotionally damaged young adult boy drops out of school, consistantly rants about adults being a bunch of fakes, befriends a prostitute and a couple of nuns and keeps nagging everybody else about the ducks from Central Park asking them where the hell do they all go in the winter. Last but not least, he desires to preserve a child’s innocence. 

Answer: ________________________

Young prince deals with an existential crisis while his widowed mother marries his uncle (who we don’t like by the way) and his father’s ghost visits him every now and then to spook him into avenging his death. And of course, his solution to it all is (drumroll please) to pretend to go all nuts, procrastinating on killing his uncle, accidently stabbing the wrong dude, dramatically harassing his mom, driving his ex to insanity, and talking to himself instead of taking action. 

Answer: ________________________

** Scroll down to see the answers :)

Answers:

First quiz:

  • Caged Bird
  • Waste
  • Herman Melville
  • Paradise
  • Negro ; Rivers
  • Louisa May Alcott
  • Canterbury
  • Thomas Malory
  • William Faulkner

Second quiz:

  • For Blake’s “The Tyger” : 2.
  • For Dickinson’s poem: 6.
  • For Poe’s “Raven”: 9.

Last quiz:

  • The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
  • Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Categories
2022 - Spring

anchored heart

Image: © Andreia Abreu Remigio

Author: Andreia Abreu Remígio

I was healing my drought the night your glance got me drunk.

My sky had been a hue of black like a departing storm,

Months of digested desensibilization had me numb and sunk.

But you anchored my heart – and got me dry and warm.

Through sleep’s heavy throb… we now sculpt each other’s effigy

Beneath the gothic peachy light, to swallow me whole is your quest;

As for my hell-worthy purpose and heavenly urgency

Is to brace your beautiful body’s weight on my chest.

The stars I longed for when I was lost at sea, I now see

Glowing in your eyes. Mourning, I tremble and shiver

But not of icy cold weather – for I am carefree!

While certain that I will be holding you as rushes in the river.

Suddenly, my soft tugged sobs that rock our playground

Drown us of worries. Still, you anchor my heart,

And word by word the sorrows go down the drain.

The poets’ invisible string yet holds us bound –

Be assured – whatever the distance forcing us apart.

We’ll kiss the crashing waves away when we meet again.

Categories
2022 - Spring

Crossword

Author: Katharina Schwarck


Across

2. Last name of the author of “Bright Star”.
4. The Faculty of Arts’ favourite animal.
7. One of the three rivers on campus. It is the Western-most river of the three. It has its source near Cheseaux.
11. Last name of the author of “Recitatif” and “Beloved”.
12. Le Château de …….
13. UNIL’s shepherd, Bob ……
14. The linguist who theorised the cooperative principle and the eponymous maxims.




   
Down

1. The English students’ association.
3. The number of printed MUSE editions there have been, including this one.*
5. One of the three rivers on campus. Etymologically, this river’s name means “crayfish river”.
6. Virginia Woolf’s androgynous character.
7. UNIL’s favourite animal.
8. William Warder’s last name. You know, the guy who created the publishing house that’s responsible for all the big books we have to buy in first year.
9. The Canadian city Cécile Heim went to on exchange during her MA.*
10. Harry Potter’s owl.
11. One of the three rivers on campus. This river is the only one that does not have a metro stop named after it.

Clues marked with a * correspond to answers that can be found in this edition of MUSE.


Answers:


Across
2. Keats
4. Fox
7. Sorge
11. Morrison
12. Dorigny
13. Martin
14. Grice

   
Down
1. SCOPE
3. Sixteen*
5. Chamberonne
6. Orlando
7. Sheep
8. Norton
9.Vancouver*
10. Hedwig
11. Mèbre

Categories
2022 - Spring

Blackbird

Author: Rodrigo Koller

there’s a blackbird at my window

that wants to get in

but the glass is too thick for him.

there’s a blackbird at my window

that wants to get in,

spreading its wings and screaming my name,

demanding I let him in

but the monsters inside are too cruel for him.

I tell him

Stay out,

don’t you wanna live

and die at war under the sun?

there’s a blackbird at my window

that keeps crashing its beak against my heart

hoping to crack it one day

but I’m too tough for him.

I tell him

Do you wanna tear me up?

tear my insides out for the world to see?

I won’t let you get in

I will just stay at your form until you die

and leave your body there

so no bird comes to scar me again.

but at night sometimes

when he can’t no more

he sings a little,

and it’s enough to pierce the glass

and make me sob a little.

and I forget the walls I’ve made

so women don’t see my heart,

and there I am again

my insides torn apart,

my soul singing and bleeding.

Categories
2022 - Spring

Sonnets to my Rodina

Image: ‘Protests in Belarus’ © Ang Bob.

Author: Nadia K. Bauer

I.
Когда увижу я —
The silver portal that you lock every night
With the same rusty nail
Olga laughing and you rolling your eyes
Когда почувствую я —
The humid moist the tall pinewoods
CAST alongside their shadows — on the little dachas
The smell of yellowed newspapers burning in the pechka
Will I ever UNsee —
The marks of JAIL on his smudged face
Her mother’s disappearance
The firebombs they threw just across the street,
Will I ever — on the earth of my liberated Rodina —
STAND again.

II.
Hold me —
Rodina moya
Give me SILU to watch you derive from under my feet.
Do not let go of your endless plains and of your
clear birch groves — of your teethless babushkas
who will keep — selling the same juicy blueberries
by the roadside — until I can embrace you again.
Let the shadows of the gaol bars slowly wash off his face.
Give her the strength to walk on our lines without me
— give her the strength to walk. Дай им more years —
rock them until I can take them in my arms from you.
To me, give надежду to believe
That I will feel my bare feet on your
WET and FREE earth again.

Categories
2022 - Spring

The Shop Window

Image: © Furaha Mujynya of Christiane Cornuz’s Cercle seul (1973).

Author: Furaha Mujynya

October:

No faces, no emotions, no warmth, just a train of black coats and umbrellas hurrying along the street, swallowed by the sound of water pouring from the sky. This lasted a week – a long week. A ray of sunshine then peered through the heavy clouds. Finally, headless bodies were given smiles, a pair of eyes and a variety of laughs and screams were to be heard again. I could lastly go back to my perverse search for a new life to follow to fill the boring day. And as expected, I was rewarded with the arrival of the signature seekers, hounding every passing shadow for a bit of their ink. They formed a shocking duo blocking every possible way in and out of the narrow street, rendering the I’m-busy-no-look technique pointless to avoid them. With cheery but loud voices they presented their endless pitch about the suffering of some almost extinct animal – or was it maybe about the destruction of the rainforest? Anyway, what’s truly impressive is their ability to pronounce so many words in such little time, to never tire and always happily accost the next unsuspecting pedestrian. They definitely have great potential for sales. One even managed to get a smile out of a hurried passerby, not that it made him stop to sign the petition.

November:

It’s getting colder, which means people walk faster and there’s less for me to observe and more time to get bored. Though, thanks to our dear drug dealers I get to have at least one Tom and Jerry scene a day. Usually, it’s more of a gentle trotting away including a few paranoid glances behind their shoulder. But this time, I witnessed two grown men running at full speed with their belted pants sagging almost down to their knees. Their pace was so intense that their steps echoed down the entire road. This sudden energetic impulse did not match their habitual nonchalance. Though, a few seconds after they ran past me, I saw what motivated them to sprint on sandy pavement in such an attire. A cop chasing them – with the widest stride I have ever seen – was screaming ‘STOP’, as if the word itself could make them stop. I wondered what possessed our dear policeman to run after the same two guys working this corner almost every day. Perhaps he was looking for an excuse to exercise, or maybe he had the same wicked desire as me to check whether they could actually run with sagging pants – if so, hypothesis proven. Not only can they run, but they can do it faster than a trained officer of the law!


January:

Because of the cold and the snow, we kept the door closed during most of the day. But even without sound I still get invested in the scenes I observe; I simply have to get creative. It was snowing heavily so almost no one walked down the Madeleine Avenue leaving me alone with my thoughts, which is never a good idea. When an unexpected glimmer of hope appeared in the shape of a woman, dressed in black from head to toe with a visibly soaked scarf around her head meant to shield her from the snow. She was openly wailing. Even though her cries were mute to me, I could distinctly see the tears running down her cheeks. She just kept on walking with her hands in her pockets, wind blowing in her face, snowflakes melting at the contact of her warm skin, adding water to her tears. She seemed so consumed by her own emotions that the outside world did not matter, it could have hailed, rained blood, she would have just kept on walking. I wondered what could get someone in such a state. Was it just one bad day in a sea of good ones? Was the weight of life simply too heavy to carry? No matter the reason, it seemed incredibly freeing to cry in the snow, almost tempting to do so. But then I remembered that’s how you get sick, by walking in the snow with wet hair, crying yourself to exhaustion.

February:

Today was unnecessarily noisy. Between the protesters’ chants echoing down the street and the funny but loud homeless man approaching every person he saw; I could have used the silence of January. Not that I’m ungrateful for the many tales I got to observe. The homeless man managed to ask for money in such a warm and cheerful manner that he got more people to stop than the association leeches. As for the protest, having people stare at you through the window because they don’t believe in masks and you’re wearing one – not the kind of scene I was looking for. I prefer to play the role of spectator in the lives of my wandering pedestrians. I do not yearn to participate in it.

March:

With sun came the long-awaited warmth of Spring. People are clearly happier when it is sunny, birds are chirping, and flowers blooming. I saw a dancing toddler walking way faster than her mother, stuck with carrying three shopping bags and pushing the stroller. Then I got to watch the usual cortege of preschoolers walking up the avenue, stopping every few seconds to giggle at the pigeons, gawk at the colorful bottles in the shop window or simply stare into oblivion. Their caretakers were forced to make the smallest steps possible to match the short strides and lack of focus of the little ones. There was also a cheeky little boy, no more than four, who came into the shop to hide from his dad behind the glass door, which he thought was hilarious – and so did I. Then his father, a bit annoyed, grabbed him by the arm and apologized whilst hurriedly exiting the shop. The memories of children’s quirks and weird ideas got me smiling for the rest of the day, making boredom tomorrow’s problem.

Categories
2022 - Spring

Marina’s poems

Image: ‘Champagne’ © Sam Howitz. – CC BY 2.0 licence

Author: Marina Silietti

Peace

I was spattered with your lies echoing in my dreams
I felt hopeless, wrecked by the winds that took all of my tears
My bones cracked wondrously on your deceiving skin
My fears were painted in hell and I never saw it coming

My mind shattered slowly as you stood there
Sinking my thoughts and I deemed rugged revenge
I waded out brutally into your brokenness
And your ocean blue eyes bathed in knowingness

You put in the bag the last piece of me
Sidestepping my dismantled wounds
Wandering with your desolate dishonesty
While I was still in the woods

I laid there on the cold reddened ground
Claiming the mercy of the full moon
Asking for the mortality of our bound
While she lighted the inky room

And in the death of my soul, I found peace

Champagne Taste

I swallow your glance like pouring water
And you wreck my fears like golden cure
It’s delicate how you’re spinning in my brain
It’s untamed how you’re shining despite the pain

The champagne drops falling onto our faces is the only remedy
The brightest nights sparkling between the dark is our lightened legacy
So, I’d dare to hold your hand in the crowded room
Are they noticing how I pray for your body to bloom

This song isn’t made for the mighty stars
I’ll ask you to put its melody over a memory you miss
And I hope you’ll choose the day you kissed my lips
Do you remember how you squeezed my necklace around your sliver scars

There are bubbles stuck on your skin, darling
Even the champers samples like your eyes
I’d kill to taste your heart just for once
And I’ll claim my feelings for your mind

Until the end of the night

Categories
2022 - Spring

To A Lost Love

Image: Grimshaw Atkinson, A Moonlit Evening, 1880 ©️ Coleccion Carmen Thyssen

Author: Roxane Kokka

Listen to the dark, fallen leaves as they whisper
In a tremulous chant that I have lost a love
Of which I could not place another soul above.
As in the hollow streets of sorrow I linger,
In the burning ashes of regret I wonder
Of the alternative actions I avoided
And of enigmatic passions I distorted,
Out of fear, out of anguish, out of bitter
Dread of something new. As the thoughts of solitude
Sting my knowledge of that which I could not cherish,
And all my senses, one by one, slowly perish,
I drift in the perpetual silence ensued.

Categories
2022 - Spring

My Grandma’s Garden

Image: ©️ Patrick Didisheim

Author: Leah Didisheim

The Nature in my grandma’s Garden always amazed me
There is this sense of Family
That you find in the grass, and in the flowers
And in the trees and in the hours

You arrive at the Gate
You hear the rocks crack under the wheels
The trees are still there
The walnuts are still left lifeless on the ground

In the summertime, you do not take the main door
You turn around the House
And smile at the pool on your right

You look at the hole that the tree left
He seems to say « I was the King here once »
And you turn again, and walk up the stairs.

Categories
2022 - Spring

Landscapes – Guillaume’s poems

Image: ©️ Guillaume Amstutz

Author: Guillaume Amstutz

Rosy Dawn

A blinding light floods the sky
Stretches from the soil to mountain high
Dyes the land in the sweetest tones
Nourishes the leaves, brightens the stones
The droplets that hung in the air
Now shine bright, pink and fair
The world is a prism bathed in light
Reflecting life, banishing night.

The World in Winter

The mountains are like the earth’s teeth
hungering for a dawn after a long, long night
and the frost takes hold in this barren heath
a potter’s field covered in white

The falling flakes are the cold ashes
of a fire that bright burns no more
on the meadow the snow crashes
burying deep the earth’s ardor

Under the rooftops covered in white
a quiet maze of vacant halls
bathed dimly in faint daylight
when in slumber the pale sun falls
and as the wind howls over the world
whittling the trees with its whistling
carving the rocks with runes all twirled
crushing the hopes and their kindling
a bitter cold devours the groves
turning the wood into splinters
while a waning moon rises up above
silent witness of the winter

The Shattered City

An organism of steel and concrete
spreads like a disease, far out into darkness
with skeletons adorning the streets
waiting for light to shine on the nameless

The dying stars flicker only dimly
as the towers are circled by haze
the ghosts are roaming limply
in this collapsed and dusty maze

Under the ground, hopes are buried
old love letters in the streets scattered
and hate letters in the chimneys burned
down to ashes, by winds carried

Broken wings caught in cobwebs
clipped apart by vicious hands
far below, the water ebbs
and crashes on the cliffs and sands

But far above, a faint glimmer
beyond the forest and the hills
a distant hope that still lingers
before diving in the landfills

Nightfall

It expands to the furthest corners
All the sorrows, the joy, the songs it covers
The darkness progresses, and soils, and gathers
But through the tears in its skin, the light shimmers