Corbin Allardice
Poem 2 - Someone (Untitled)
I paced in my room until late in the night, Wide opened my eyes, thought and took sight. Someone sang somewhere of blazing luck, Their...
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Corbin Allardice
Sep 27, 20201 min read
To Your Burning Root (Untitled) by Moyshe Varshe -- Poem 1 & Fragment 1
Fragment 1 Upon my soul’s own grave I built a tent of reed* Now I live there--out of need. Afn keyver fun mayn neshome hob ikh a getselt...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 26, 20201 min read
Undated (final diary entry)
(Note: This is the final entry in Moyshe Varshe's diary, written less than 10 days before he committed suicide. The remainder of the book...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 26, 20201 min read
April 12, 1912
Do I bow my head, silence myself, pray? And do I then do the opposite--raise my head, speak, curse? No, not that. I have a feeling that I...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 25, 20201 min read
February 28, 1912
Who knows? Perhaps it’s all for the good. May I murmur: (משלי ג, פרק יב) כי את אשר יאהב יהוה יוכיח For whom the LORD loves, He rebukes?...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 25, 20201 min read
January 2, 1912
December 19--January 2. A new year. Symbolic dates. Hygiene: Silence. Not speaking and not thinking. Everything is declamation: Studying,...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 24, 20201 min read
December 19, 1911
Has it not all happened to me before my time? Really, it hasn’t. But a suffocating and suffocating haze envelops all.* Did I not expect...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 23, 20201 min read
November 6, 1911
I don’t want to dream in waking life. Dream is lie’s truth. In dream, everything is finished and done. But in an environment that puts...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 23, 20201 min read
October 30, 1911
My sensitivity is my enemy. I am a mass of sick nerves, reacting to sensations.
Corbin Allardice
Sep 22, 20201 min read
October 29, 1911
Another two weeks gone. Why don’t I break [out of] the enchanted circle? Am I destined to spend my life muttering about my fate? There...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 21, 20202 min read
October 8, 1911
Two weeks. I’ve been living without self-consciousness. I’m almost well. But something is missing. What? I do ugly things, for I am full...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 20, 20201 min read
September 29, 1911
What is it? Why am I not thinking? Am I now nothing more than a nest for cheap thoughts? I choke them out--they come without end. And it...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 19, 20201 min read
September 15, 1911
Long since I touched my diary--[I had] no thoughts. Why? Are there external causes? Why do I let myself be shaped from without? I need to...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 18, 20201 min read
September 7, 1911 (l'shone toyve tikaseyvu)
Living stoically--I cannot. I have already looked over there, on the other side. The stoics say: everything ends--wait quietly, and don’t...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 17, 20202 min read
September 5, 1911
I must work, without end, towards feeling whatever it is in myself that constitutes unity. And if I give up, I should be carried by the...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 16, 20201 min read
September 3, 1911
There are times when I live entirely without self-consciousness, times when I live all but without mind. I vegetate. I listen to myself,...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 16, 20201 min read
September 2, 1911
A protracted ebbing.* Everything revolves around the one: how can one live on their own grave? You cannot break the chains of sin/the...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 15, 20201 min read
September 1, 1911
It’s fall. Heavy droplets drip sad and terminal--it seems this rain will be eternal.* That’s sentimental. There is no fall--for me. I...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 14, 20202 min read
August 29, 1911
I am pessimistic, and that is something fundamentally base--one must not be pessimistic; only base natures of know not of joy. Is not...
Corbin Allardice
Sep 13, 20201 min read
August 27, 1911
I am weak, and my life is unneeded. But I want to believe: work is waiting for me. True, it’s black work--but it is work for Yiddish...
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