Songs
Angalta Kigalshe
An-gal-ta ki-gal-she
Ngesh-tug ga-ni nan-gub
Din-gir an-gal-ta ki-gal-she
Ngesh-tug ga-ni nan-gub
I-na-nna an-gal-ta ki-gal-she
Ngesh-tug ga-ni nan-gub
Nin-mu mun-shub mun-shub ku-ra ba-e-a-e I-na-nna aw-mun-shub
Ki-mun-shub ku-ra ba-e-a-e
Na-men mu-un-shub
nam-la-gar mun-shub ku-ra ba-e-a-e
Transliteration of an ancient Sumerian myth music by Paul Levy
Aramaic Prayer
Glorious divine spirit
Focus your light within me
You from whom the breath of life comes, grant me pure love of thee.
Help us detach the fetters of faults binding us
As we let go the guilt of others
From you comes the all working will, the lively strength to act
May we make it useful.
Untangle the knots within so that
we can mend our hearts’ simple ties to each other.
You who fill all realms of energy, light and sound, may your light be experienced in our utmost holiness.
Glorious divine spirit
Focus your light within me
You from whom the breath of life comes, grant me pure love of thee.
From you comes the song that beautifies all and renews itself from age to age.
From you comes the song that beautifies all And renews itself from age to age.
Glorious divine spirit
Focus your light within me.
You from whom the breath of life comes, grant me pure love of thee.
English translation of an ancient Aramaic prayer Precursor to the Lord’s Prayer
Hey Man
Pay some attention.
I’m not just somebody.
Wake up to me, hey man.
Look at me honey.
This style of seduction,
You don’t ignore, hey man
Dig this trip it will set you free.
Forget your dreams come sleep with me.
This love I’m offering
Don’t think it’s something,
You can piss on, hey man.
Music by Paul Levy
Lyric by Frederick De’Arechaga
In the Beginning
In the beginning was the mounting fire,
That set the weathers from a spark; a three-eyed red-eyed spark.
Blunt as a flower life rose.
Life rose and spouted from the rolling seas
Burst in the roots pumped from the earth and rock
In the beginning was the word from the solid gases of the light
Abstracted all the letters from the void
And from the cloudy bases of the breath
the word flowed translating to the heart
First characters of birth and death
Music by Paul Levy
Poem by Dylan Thomas
Between Night and Never
Between night and never,
I watered a plant of sorrow
Till its roots were deep
Its branches were all enfolding.
I tended the plant incessantly
Fed it with desire
And it grew lush in the ground of being.
Between night and never
I nurtured the image of a bird of prey
With talon and beak and cruel eyes
Perched on the plant of sorrow.
Its name was Thought
And it tore at my mind in a kill frenzy
You, Thought, are the bones of fear
The very flesh of anguish
You are what bleeds in me
You claim that the self exists thru you alone
But I can’t find that self.
You are trickster, the ultimate salesman.
You try to obliterate the ground of being with your smooth chatter.
I am a riddle unsolvable thru thought without a center
Beyond night and never.
Beyond the shadowy flickering thought spasms,
I stand at the last desolate outpost of imagery
And with wild stillness enter otherness
The end of thought
The plant of sorrow withers with neglect
The bird of prey has no place to perch
I bury the body of thought in the ground of being
This poem is its last voice
And now it is done.
Music by Lee Barry
Lyrics by Paul Levy
The Birth of Nanna
Enlil idu Ninlil inush
Numannir idu
Kisikil mu unshub
Enlilli
Luka galva Gumunade e
Kisikil mu unshub
Lukagal
Lusigarra
Lushudi esh
Lusigar kugga
Ninzu Ninlilli I imdi
Uda enmu
Uda enmu mu atarra
Za ekimu
Nammu
Ni-in padde.
Enlil walked,
Ninlil followed
Nunamnir walked, the maid followed.
Enlil says to the man of the gate,
“O man of the gate, man of the lock
O man of the bolt, man of the pure lock
The queen Ninlil is coming.
If she asks thee about me
Tell her not where I am.
Text from ancient Sumerian cuneiform tablet
Music by Paul Levy
Graffiti
Quis quis amat calidis nondebet
Pontibus uti.
Nam memo flamas ustas amarare potest
Vale mea fac me ames
Ni mo ist bilius nis si quia ma uit
Quid retribuam pro omnibus quae
retribuit mihi non sum dignus sed tantum dic uer
Bo et sanabitur anima mea
scri-i binti mi dictat a mor monstrat qui cupido
Piririam si-ni ti si di-us it si uilim
Quis quis amat calidis non debet pontibus uti
Namnemo flammas ustas amarare potest.
Music by Paul Levy
Lyrics taken from graffiti on the walls of ancient Pompeii
Fuego en las Montañas
No tengo nunca mas, no tengo siempre.
En la arena la victoria dejo sus pies perdidos.
Soy un pobre hombre dispuesto a amar a sus semejantes.
No se quien eres. Te amo.
La muerte es solo piedra del olvido.
Te amo, beso en tu boca la alegría.
Traíganos leña. Haremos fuego en la montaña.
Never, forever...they do not concern me.
Victory leaves a vanishing footprint in the sand.
I live a bedeviled man, disposed, like any other,
to cherish my human affinities. Whoever you are, I love you.
(The peddling and plaiting of thorns is not my concern, and many know this.
I am no weaver of bloody crowns. I fought with the frivolous
and the tide of my spirit runs full; and in sober earnest,
my detractors are paid in full with a volley of doves.
Never is no part of me; because I am I with
a difference: was, and will always be so: and I speak
for the pureness of things in the name of my love’s
metamorphoses.)
Death is the stone into which our oblivion hardens.
I love you. I kiss happiness into your lips. Let us
Gather up sticks for a fire. Let us kindle a fire on the mountains.
Music by Paul Levy
Poem by Pablo Neruda
It’s the Sea
It’s the sea
Who nobly gave birth
To these things
That now breed life upon the earth.
From vines that there cling
To the foliaged top of trees
Birds that take wing
To the scattered clouds above
The mountains arose
As some strange god from the deep
And humans made their home
In the womb of Her domain
Piano by Paul Levy
Voice by Karena Mendoza
Misunderstood
It’s a disadvantage to be noticeably strong It leads to the assumption
Great men can’t be wrong
But in my opinion
Rich experienced weaned Quite to the contrary
Is what I’ve been
No one understands me
It’s pretense they do
They’ve no time to listen
But always expect me to
Answer all their problems
Be strong and unmoved Returning back tomorrow
Blaming me on what went wrong
What’s the use explaining
They’ll never understand anyhow
I shouldn’t be complaining
Of feelings I’m not allowed
Tangled in these words that
Unfairly get confused
With the right of being respected
and that which they interpret of me
Misunderstood
Music by Paul Levy
Lyrics by Frederic de’Arechaga
Water Night
Night with the eyes of a horse, that trembles in the night.
Night with eyes of water in the field asleep.
Is in your eyes, a horse that trembles.
Is in your eyes of a secret water.
Shadow-water eyes.
Well-water eyes.
Dream-water eyes.
Silence and solitude.
Two little moon-led animals.
Drink from your eyes.
Drink from those waters.
If you open your eyes,
Night opens doors of moss.
The secret kingdom of the water opens
Flowing from the center of night.
And if you close your eyes,
A sweet and silent river current fills you from within.
Flows forward, Darkens you.
Night brings its wetness to deltas in your soul.
Night brings its wetness to deltas in your soul.
Night brings its wetness to deltas in your soul.
Poem by Octavio Paz (1914-1998)
Translated from Spanish by Muriel Rukeyser
Music by Paul Levy
The Naked Moon
The naked moon rose on a field of poppies.
And kissed the blossoming flowers beneath its light so cold.
And without shame of its naked body
This luminary brushed atop wrinkled mushrooms so old.
The beautiful lady flowers returned embraces to this moon.
Vines that Greeks once ate bred forth fruit at her light.
Clandestine plants with sensuous pleasure all reciprocated.
None afraid of the screaming roots and the prey of night.
The naked moon is waiting for us.
Stretch out your arms, extend your hands to touch.
Goddess of night, come worship her.
Amidst these fields nature lovers rudely wrestle.
Gleaming moonbeams from their sweated unclad skins.
But the naked moon accustomed to their rituals
floated onwards ‘gainst these starlit scenes.
Once a month when her mission calls that naked she rise.
This sets in motion her enchantments and her spells.
None’s so great that can resist her hallucinogenic entry.
That can boast of clothing that which she’s unveiled.
The naked moon is waiting for us.
Stretch out your arms, extend your hands to touch.
Goddess of night come worship her
Music by Paul Levy
Lyrics by Frederic De’Arechaga
Superstition
Superstitions roots from the fears of men.
Truth forgotten.
Indecision, breeds forth to plague the mind.
Old traditions.
Could I free those hearts from this fearful haunting spells that they weave around themselves?
Would I gain access by this philanthropic gesture
what secrets divulged
would I be master of then.
But no
Man still insists
to grovel and crawl to his
Superstitions
Sent from the night they are.
Succubi, sanguine and thirsty.
Plague.
Children of darkness
Can you be known?
Music by Paul Levy
Lyrics by Frederic de’Arechaga
Yemoja Olokun
Yemoja Olokun Yemoja Olokun
awado e awado
Yemoja Olokun Olokun baba o
Olokun gbawao gbawa orisa
Olokun baba o baba orisa baba o aye
Prayer to the orisha Yemoja (Mother of Fishes) in Santeria
Music by Paul Levy
Spell of Isis
I inhale the sweet breeze
That comes from your mouth.
I contemplate your beauty every day.
It’s my desire to hear your lovely voice like the north wind’s whiff.
Love rejuvenates your limbs.
I give this hand
That holds your soul
And you shall live by my embrace
Call me by my name
again and again forever.
And never will it sound without response
(translation of an ancient Egyptian spell/love song from Isis to her dead husband, Osiris)
Music by Paul Levy
Prophecy
We are on the edge of a void at the end of the world.
We are on the edge of a void at the end of the world.
All the people waiting for the fall.
My dearest what shall we do?
When we can’t eat the food no more, can’t drink the water,
can’t breathe the air no more
Oh what shall we do?
Tell me what shall we do?
Out mother, the Earth, is so sickened,
Now she will lay down.
Children raped their mother
Children raped their mother.
In time the Earth will heal
And our kind may not be here
And there may be no children
and there may be no children
What horror we have done
The future now has gone.
So now what is there to do,
So catastrophe cannot get in?
We must make a better place.
Somehow we’ll make a better place.
And we must make a better place.
Wake up to what we’ve done.
We must wake up to what we’ve done.
Music and lyric by Paul Levy
Song of the Blind Harper
Men pass away since the time of the first sun
and youths come in their stead.
Like the hidden sun is reborn every morning
to die in the horizon.
Men are begetting,
women are conceiving.
Every soul inhales the breezes of dawn
but once.
For all born of women
go down beyond the Earth.
Make a good day.
Garland your lover’s arms and breasts
with lotus blossoms dwelling in your heart
sitting beside you.
Enjoy song and music.
Leave behind all evil cares.
Be mindful of joy
till comes the day of pilgrimage,
when we draw near the land
that loves silence.
The dead are as if never born,
Since the time of the first sun.
Nothing remains of theirs.
They in the shades sit
On the bank of the river.
Drinking it’s sacred waters in peace.
Be mindful of that day,
When you too shall start for the land
To which one goes never to return.
Translation of an ancient Egyptian lyric by a blind harper
Music by Paul Levy
Hymn to the Sun
Rise up from the east.
Extend your arms across the sky and chase the stars.
Sun, unconquered light,
beware the moon that now reluctantly departs.
Bring us but delight.
Bequeath us wisdom’s greatest fruit and give us might. Help.
Destroy our foes,
that would eclipse us leaving but eternal night.
For, too soon like you
our life will set amongst the mountains of the west
Dawn Goes Softly
Dawn goes softly to another land where no one ever knows her
There, the only place she dares to live her life of gentleness.
There, and nowhere else, she rode and now she’s gotten off.
Never laughing, never crying, never-end beginning.
Always standing in her self to stare into the rising sun.
Music and lyric by Paul Levy (1969)