Venice masks

Thursday 30 June 2016

What are you doing, soul? - Petrarch

“What are you doing, soul? What do you think?
Will we have peace? A truce? Or always war?”—
"I do not know our future, but I see
our torment doesn't please her lovely eyes.”—

Wednesday 29 June 2016

Point Cristina and Point Fernanda - Marcelo Ensema Nsang

Album of doves
that comes to coo
the sister couple
who sleep in the sea.

Tuesday 28 June 2016

And You Never Forgot - Ali Podrimja

Here and there beyond barred windows
Chasing you people forgot themselves

Monday 27 June 2016

An Elder’s Prayer - Bai T. Moore

Oh great Spirit of the forest,
I have nothing in my hand
But a chicken and some rice

Sunday 26 June 2016

Jesu, Dulcis Memoria - Bernard of Clairvaux

Jesu, the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills the breast;
But sweeter far Thy Face to see,
And in Thy Presence rest.

Saturday 25 June 2016

Animal Crackers - Richard de Zoysa

“Draw me a lion.”
So I set my pen
to work. Produce a lazy, kindly beast . . .
Colour it yellow.

Friday 24 June 2016

Skeete's Bay, Barbados - Robert Lee

One always missed the turning, but found, in time
The broken sign that pointed crookedly, loath to
Allow another stranger here. Perhaps this Tom

Thursday 23 June 2016

My Tabriz - Suleyman Rustam

I never get tired of looking at your beauty,
My Tabriz1, my Tabriz, my gorgeous Tabriz!

Wednesday 22 June 2016

Metempsychosis - Juan Ramón Molina

I was a fish in the mirrors of the sonorous ocean wide,
where I beheld the glimmer of gems and metals;
that is the reason why I love the foam, the sourly
rocky shores, the briny gales, and the vivid choral reefs.

Tuesday 21 June 2016

After the Deluge - Ingmāra Balode

the first such spring after the deluge —
i do not see you squint once.

Monday 20 June 2016

Emigrant - Corsino Fortes

Every evening, sunset crooks
             its thumb across the island
And from the sunset to the thumb
             there grows
             a path of dead stone

Sunday 19 June 2016

Saturday 18 June 2016

One eye crystal, one eye flame - Mimi Khalvati

One eye crystal, one eye flame, it arrives
by stealth. Carrying tatters in its jaw,

Friday 17 June 2016

Where have the mushrooms gone? - Timothy Wangusa

My kinsmen, where have the mushrooms gone?
Where have all the mushrooms gone?
That sprouted in homestead and everywhere?

Thursday 16 June 2016

Country Peace - Mahmud Yussop

The rustling leaves
bring that wondrous feeling
the town people miss
called country peace.

Wednesday 15 June 2016

The Guelder-Rose - Lesia Ukrainka

The Cossack is dying, the maiden crying:
"Let me stay beside you, deep in earth I would be lying!"

Tuesday 14 June 2016

Monday 13 June 2016

City in the East - Emma Moughabghab

At the centre, upon the peak of the grey hill,
you hold the beating heart of the gyroscope;
it goes round and round and back again:
surrounded by fleeting shadows of multiple lives,
it melts in the summer heat in an iridescent simulation
of the shimmering lights and whispering voices of the city.

Sunday 12 June 2016

I am legion - Andrew King

I am the lost one trapped in depression;
I am the broken one trapped in my rage;
I am the hurting soul chained to addiction;
I am self-harmer abused at young age –

Saturday 11 June 2016

Clock - Pierre Reverdy

In the warm air of the ceiling the footlights of dreams are illuminated.

Friday 10 June 2016

Second to none - George Cosbuc

Her shoulders with fair braids are graced,
Lithe as the wheat-stem is her waist,
Her sable apron laced with taste —
She's all in all for me.
When she is near, I take alarm;
When she is off, I come to harm;
When others take her by the arm,
Priests pray to set me free!

Thursday 9 June 2016

The First Book of the Æneis (lines 1-18) - Vergil

Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate,
And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate,
Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore.

Wednesday 8 June 2016

Bruno Bends, Falls (1) - Raúl Zurita

In front the mountains emerge like a fine gauze
that curves over the shadows. The snow of the
cordillera phosphoresces lightly, like a gauze
that floats. Above, the infinite stars and the black
sky. Words are tenuous, the stars are tenuous.

Tuesday 7 June 2016

A Girl Strike-Leader - Florence Kiper Frank

A white-faced, stubborn little thing
Whose years are not quite twenty years;
Eyes steely now and done with tears,
Mouth scornful of its suffering—

Monday 6 June 2016

Song of the Search - Constance Lindsay Skinner

I descend through the forest alone.
Rose-flushed are the willows, stark and a-quiver,
In the warm sudden grasp of Spring;
Like a woman when her lover has suddenly, swiftly taken her.
I hear the secret rustle of the little leaves,

Sunday 5 June 2016

Morning Hymn - St Hilary

Hymnum Dicat Turba Fralrum

Raise the song, O band of brothers,
Let the holy anthem ring;
Sound the hymn of loud laudation,
Unto Christ, our Lord and King.

Saturday 4 June 2016

The Wives of Weinsberg - Gottfried Augüst Bürger

Which way to Weinsberg? neighbour, say!
  ’T is sure a famous city:
It must have cradled, in its day,
Full many a maid of noble clay,
  And matrons wise and witty;
And if ever marriage should happen to me,
A Weinsberg dame my wife shall be.

Friday 3 June 2016

The London Convict Maid - Anonymous

Ye London maids attend to me,
While I relate my misery,
Through London streets I oft have stray'd,
But now I am a Convict Maid.

Thursday 2 June 2016

Poor Will’s in Ruthin Gaol - I.D. Hooson

Poor Will’s in Ruthin Gaol,
Dejected and depressed,
His net and gun are lying
Redundant in a chest;