( via / via )

A Hyphen is a Ripple on the Surface of the Sea.

“ 'When you think about newborn babies being killed in our own lifetime,' he said, 'all the efforts of culture seem worthless. What have people learned from all our Goethes and Bachs? To kill babies?' "

- Vassily Grossman, Life and Fate (t. Robert Chandler) see also Adorno (via @aliner)

Anubis at the cinema.

"...Night, night,
once you were the bride of mysteries
adorned with lilies of shadow--
In your dark glass sparkled
the mirage of all who yearn
and love had set its morning rose
to blossom before you--
You were once the oracular mouth
of dream painting and mirrored the beyond.

Night, night,
now you are the graveyard
from the terrible shipwreck of a star--
time sinks speechless in you
with its sign:
the falling stone
and the flag of smoke."

--Nelly Sachs (tr Hamburger, Mead et al, 1967)

Heroic Dickens.