LIZ PEARSE, VOICE
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Birthday Salon - 5/16/2020, Liz's house, Pickwick, MN

Google may attempt to translate the non-English texts, which will mess with some formatting. 
If you tell google to stop "helping", this should look like a concert program!
Trois mélodies de 1916 - Erik Satie
I. La statue de bronze, Poet: Léon-Paul Fargue     
La grenouille du jeu de tonneau               
S'ennuie, le soir, sous la tonnelle…            
Elle en a assez!                        
D'être la statue                        
Qui va prononcer un grand mot: Le Mot!       

​Elle aimerait mieux être avec les autres            
Qui font des bulles de musique              
Avec le savon de la lune                   
Au bord du lavoir mordoré                
Qu'on voit, là-bas, luire entre les branches…        
On lui lance à coeur de journée               
Une pâture de pistoles                   
Qui la traversent sans lui profiter            
Et s'en vont sonner                    
Dans les cabinets                   
De son piédestal numéroté!               
Et le soir, les insectes couchent dans sa bouche…   
   


II. Daphénéo, Poet: Mimi Godebska            
Dis-moi, Daphénéo, quel est donc cet arbre        
Dont les fruits sont des oiseaux qui pleurent?        

Cet arbre, Chrysaline, est un oisetier.            

Ah! Je croyais que les noisetiers               
Donnaient des noisettes, Daphénéo.            

Oui, Chrysaline, les noisetiers donnent des noisettes,   
Mais les oisetiers donnent des oiseaux qui pleurent.
    
                    

III. Le chapelier, Poet: René Chalupt         
Le chapelier s'étonne de constater           
Que sa montre retarde de trois jours,           
Bien qu'il ait eu soin de la graisser           
Toujours avec du beurre de première qualité.       
Mais il a laissé tomber des miettes            
De pain dans les rouages,               
Et il a beau plonger sa montre dans le thé,        
Ça ne le fera pas avancer davantage. 


​​​I. The bronze statue
The frog of the tonneau game

​Is bored, this evening, under the arbor
She has had enough
​Of being the statue
That pronounces a big word: The Word!

​She would rather be among the others
Who make bubbles of music

With the soap of the moon
​At the edge of the coppery washtub
That one sees over there between branches
One throws at the heart of day
A platter of disks
​That traverse through without profiting her
​And go clinking
Through the compartments
Of her numbered pedestal
And at night, insects sleep in her mouth


Dapheneo
Tell me, Daphénéo, what is this tree
Where the fruits are birds which cry?

This tree, Chrysaline, is a bird-tree

Ah! I thought that hazelnut trees
Produced hazelnuts, Daphénéo.

Yes, Chrysaline, hazelnut trees produce hazelnuts    
But bird-trees produce birds which cry.


The Hatter
The hatter is astonished to find
That his watch is three days late
Even though he has kept it greased
Always with the finest quality butter.
But he let fall into it crumbs
Of bread - into the works
And he could well plunge his watch into tea
But it wouldn’t be advantageous.
And so the penguin (2019) - Anthony Donofrio 
Poet: Anthony Donofrio

Perhaps I’ll find home.
Perhaps I’ll find myself.
Perhaps I’ll find something meaningful.
Perhaps I’ll find death.

    And so, the penguin, 
now strengthened, 
fear pushed down, somewhere, 
began.

The others, some curious
some stunned, 
looked on.

As did a team of researchers. 
Cameras out, they chose to
archive rather than save or at least help. 

And so, the penguin walked.
And so, the penguin endured. 
And so, the penguin took in the 
vast empty of a new home.

A new reality, A new sense of…

And so, the penguin wept. 

Later, as they closed in…

Smoke.
Smoldering.
Warmth.

And a letter. 

“My dearest, I write to you in complete despair. This place has broken me. Yesterday, I learned that I must spend yet another winter here. I am unsure of what to do, as I cannot leave. Part of me wants to fight, and part of me wants to collapse. Another part of me wants to burn the entire thing to the ground. 
Just take the whole place down.”

And so, the penguin found a
small hut, still standing, with a 
small warm fire. 

​And so, the penguin slept.    

Le dromadaire
Avec ces quatre dromadaires
Don Pedro d'Alfaroubeira
Courut le monde et l'admira.
Il fit ce que je voudrais faire
Si j'avais quatre dromadaires.


​La chèvre de Thibet

Les poils de cette chèvre et même
Ceux d'or pour qui prit tant de peine
Jason, ne valent rien aux prix
Des cheveux dont je suis épris.
​
​
La sauterelle
Voici la fine sauterelle,
La nourriture de Saint Jean.
Puissent mes vers être comme elle,
Le régal des meilleures gens.


Le dauphin
Dauphins, vous jouez dans la mer,
Mais le flot est toujours amer.
Parfois, ma joie éclate-t-elle?
La vie est encore cruelle.


L'écrevisse
Incertitude, ô mes délices
Vous et mois nous nous en allons
Comme s'en vont les écrevisses,
A reculons, à reculons.


La carpe
​
Dans vos viviers, dans vos étangs,
Carpes, que vous vivez longtemps!
Est-ce que la mort vous oublie,
Poissons de la mélancolie?
The Dromedary
With his four dromedaries
Don Pedro d’Alfaroubeira
Traversed the world and admired it.
Such is what I would like to do
If I had four dromedaries.

The Tibetan Goat
The fleece of this goat and even 
of gold for which Jason paid dearly,
Have no value
Compared to the hairs I desire.

The Grasshopper

Here is the little grasshopper, 
Nourishment for Saint John
May my verses be like her,
A feast for the best folks.               

The Dolphin

Dolphins, you play in the sea
 But the flotsam is always bitter
Perchance my joy may break free?
Life is again cruel. 
        
The Crawfish
Uncertainty, oh my delights,
You and I, we travel along
Like the crawfish travel.
Backwards, ever backwards.    

The Carp
In your pools, in your ponds,
Carp, how long you live!
Is it that Death has forgotten you,
Fish of melancholy?

”The pros and cons of live food” (2018) - Fredrick Gifford 

Text: Anonymous, from ratemyfishtank.com
Labor Day - LJ White
Poet: Erika Meitner

The way we sleep to- 
gether is locational, 
seasonal -- the way 
you can buy useful things off
the roadside here in
summer passing through: peaches, 
heirloom tomatoes,
squash, sweet corn, bait, antiques, rugs, 
tie-dye, fireworks, guns -- 
your hand around the back of 
my neck in the dark
above the covers the way 
you'd hold a beer can,
near empty, out on the porch 
before tossing it.
Night - Florence Price
Poet: Louise C. Wallace

Night comes, a Madonna clad in scented blue. 
Rose red her mouth and deep her eyes,
She lights her stars, and turns to where,
Beneath her silver lamp the moon
Upon a couch of shadow lies
A dreamy child,
The wearied Day.​
Verschwiegene Liebe - Hugo Wolf                
Poet: Josef von Eichendorff 
Über Wipfel und Saaten
In den Glanz hinein -
Wer mag sie erraten,
Wer holte sie ein?
Gedanken sich wiegen,
Die Nacht ist verschwiegen,
Gedanken sind frei.
​

Errät es nur eine,
Wer an sie gedacht
Beim Rauschen der Haine,
Wenn niemand mehr wacht
Als die Wolken, die fliegen -
Mein Lieb ist verschwiegen
Und schön wie die Nacht
Silent Love

​
Over treetops and seeds

Into the splendor
Who might guess,
What may come with them?
Thoughts sway,
The night is silent
Thoughts are free.
​

If only one guesses

Who is thinking of them
By the rustling of the groves,
when no one is awake
Except the clouds that float by -
my love is silent
and beautiful as the night.
An den kleinen Radioapparat - Hanns Eisler            
Poet: Bertolt Brecht
Du kleiner Kasten, den ich flüchtend trug,
Daß seine Lampen mir auch nicht zerbrächen,
Besorgt vom Haus zum Schiff, 

vom Schiff zum Zug,
Daß meine Feinde weiter 

zu mir sprächen,
An meinem Lager und zu meiner Pein,
Der letzten nachts, 

der ersten in der Früh,
Von ihren Siegen und von meiner Müh:
Versprich mir, nicht auf einmal stumm zu sein!
To the little wireless radio

You little box, which I carried with me
That your works would not break on me
Fleeing from house to ship, 
from ship to train,
That my enemies from farther away 

Will speak to me.
At my bedside and to my pain,

Last thing at night, 
the first thing in the morning
Of their victories and my fears:
Promise me, never once go silent!

Nocturne - Benjamin Britten
Poet: W. H. Auden
Now through night's caressing grip 
Earth and all her oceans slip, 
Capes of China slide away 
From her fingers into day 
And the Americas incline 
Coasts towards her shadow line.
 
Now the ragged vagrants creep 
Into crooked holes to sleep: 
Just and unjust, worst and best, 
Change their places as they rest: 
Awkward lovers lie in fields 
Where disdainful beauty yields: 

While the splendid and the proud 
Naked stand before the crowd 
And the losing gambler gains 
And the beggar entertains: 
May sleep's healing power extend 
Through these hours to our friend. 

Unpursued by hostile force, 
Traction engine, bull or horse 
Or revolting succubus; 
Calmly till the morning break 
Let him lie, 
then gently wake.
Сирень - Sergei Rachmaninov
Poet: Ekaterina Beketova
По утру, на заре,
По росистой траве,
Я пойду свежим утром дышать;
И в душистую тень,
Где теснится сирень,
Я пойду свое счастье искать…

В жизни счастье одно
Мне найти суждено,         
И то счастье в сирени живёт;
На зелёных ветвях,
На душистых кистях
Моё бедное счастье цветёт…
Lilacs

In the morning, at dawn
In the dewy grass
I will go for a fresh breath in the morning
And in the fragrant shadow
Where clusters the lilacs
I will go to find my happiness..

In life, there is one happiness    
I’m destined to find
And that happiness lives in the lilacs
In green branches
In scented bunches
My poor happiness blooms…
Breath of a Rose - William Grant Still
Poet: Langston Hughes
Love is like dew
On lilacs at dawn:
Comes the swift sun
And the dew is gone.


Love is like star-light
In the sky at morn:
Star-light that dies
When day is born.


Love is like perfume
In the heart of a rose:
The flower withers,
The perfume goes--

​
Love is no more
Than the breath of a rose,
No more
Than the breath of a rose

Three fragments after Schumann and Eisler (2010) - Eliza Brown
Poet: Eliza Brown

I. Friend 
Asking little and with strong conviction 
You guard your knowledge of me with discretion 
May I guard you too? 

II. Shadows 
Ten years’ worth of the shadows of my loves 
And of my griefs lie cast upon this field 
I see them best when the grass is wet 
And the sun has passed behind the edge of mountain 

III. L’Adieu 
Quand je voyage loin d’ici                                          When I travel far from here
Est-ce que je pourrai dire que c’est à moi?             Can I still say that it’s mine? 
Mon coeur aime bien le brouillard                            My heart loves the fog 
Et la fenêtre éclairée de la boulangerie...                And the illuminated bakery window... ​
What’ll I Do? (1923) - Irving Berlin
Poet: Irving Berlin

Gone is the romance that was so divine
'Tis broken and cannot be mended
You must go your way and I must go mine
But now that our love dreams have ended

What'll I do when you are far away
And I am blue, what'll I do?

What'll I do when I am wondering who
Is kissing you, what'll I do?

What'll I do with just a photograph
To tell my troubles to?

When I'm alone with only dreams of you
That won't come true
What'll I do?
Eckart Cycle (2016) - Jason Belcher
Poet: Emily Eckart

I. 
Tangled red curls
dark eyes
pale skin
As she sat down across from him at the table for two
He felt unreal
Like his mind had floated out of his body
To observe this visitation from his past
One corner of her mouth went up
The closest she ever got to smiling.

II. 
Have you been out there recently I asked
No not for many years
I’m afraid it might have changed
Since I saw it last

III. 
What did she know of that stranger
Whose sadness so far outstripped her own
Almost nothing except this
She had stood alone by this river 
Under these magnolias
She had smiled to hide the wounds 
That festered under her skin
She had worn this golden talisman
So smooth and heavy
This ring that Eleanor now for the first time
Slipped onto her unadorned finger​
“The Beautiful Question” (2018) - Amanda DeBoer Bartlett 
Text from NPR - interview with marine biologist Nan Hauser
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