Friday, June 07, 2024

Poem for Thursday and Northwest Folklife Festival

The Vampire 
By Charles Baudelaire 
Translated by George Dillon 

Thou who abruptly as a knife
Didst come into my heart; thou who,
A demon horde into my life,
Didst enter, wildly dancing, through
The doorways of my sense unlatched
To make my spirit thy domain -
Harlot to whom I am attached
As convicts to the ball and chain,
As gamblers to the wheel's bright spell,
As drunkards to their raging thirst,
As corpses to their worms - accurst
Be thou! Oh, be thou damned to hell!
I have entreated the swift sword
To strike, that I at once be freed;
The poisoned phial I have implored
To plot with me a ruthless deed.
Alas! the phial and the blade
Do cry aloud and laugh at me:
"Thou art not worthy of our aid;
Thou art not worthy to be free.
"Though one of us should be the tool
To save thee from thy wretched fate,
Thy kisses would resuscitate
The body of thy vampire, fool!" 

-------- 

We're going to the Olympic Peninsula for the weekend, staying in Forks, so tonight I am doing my homework and watching Twilight (which filmed mostly in Oregon, but Forks has embraced its central location to the saga). A lot of my Thursday was preparation -- laundry, food shopping, packing -- though we did get out to enjoy the gorgeous weather at the beach. 

We watched the Orioles lose and part of the Mariners win, and I had my Thursday night chat group while the Red Sox were obliterating the White Sox. Then we ate dinner and now we're in the last half hour of the first Twilight movie, since we haven't been to Forks since 2005, several months before the first book was published. From the Northwest Folklife Festival:

2024-05-26 14.52.53

2024-05-26 15.09.57

2024-05-26 15.31.39

2024-05-26 15.25.39

2024-05-26 15.28.51

2024-05-26 15.08.30

2024-05-26 15.26.52

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