Venice masks

Friday 31 May 2019

the well digger - Yokoi Yayū

the well digger
comes out into the floating world—
the heat!

Thursday 30 May 2019

The Domain - J. Le Gay Brereton

The bulging cloud mounts lazily
    In shade where sunlight glances through,
And sweeping lightly from the tree
    Melts indolently in the blue.

Wednesday 29 May 2019

Liverpool - Yasemin Balandi

When night ends, the fog begins
Heavy as lead!
Shrouding the town:
Once grand
And home of grandeur.

Tuesday 28 May 2019

Everything Has Changed (Except Graves) - Mzi Mahola

I stood at the ruins
of my former school
where I was patiently moulded;
wild plants own every space now;
my soul was paralyzed.
What happened to the roofs
the doors and windows?

Monday 27 May 2019

A Meditation - José Agostinho de Macedo

Portentous Egypt! I in thee behold
And studiously examine human-kind,
Learning to know me in mine origin,
In the primeval and the social state.

Saturday 25 May 2019

The Forest Reverie - Abijah M. Ide

’Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of woe,
Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,

Friday 24 May 2019

Vondel's Lucifer (Act II, lines 1-34) - Joost van den Vondel

Ye speedy Spirits, stay our chariot now,
God's Morning-star in its full zenith stands;
Its height is reached; and lo! the moment comes
When Lucifer must set before this star,
This double star that rises from below
And seeks the way above, to tarnish Heaven
With earthly glow. No more should ye adorn
Proud Lucifer's apparel with glittering crowns,
Nor gild his forehead with the glorious dawn
Of morning-star, to which Archangels kneel.

Thursday 23 May 2019

The Gardener's Daughters - Hugo von Hofmannsthal

One fills the large Delft jugs,
Painted with blue dragons and birds,
With a loose sheaf of bright flowers:

Wednesday 22 May 2019

the sun is a new house - H.C. Artmann

the sun is a new house
you write it
it is tomorrow
we hold our hands through
the open windows

Tuesday 21 May 2019

Noah in Salonta - Srgjan Sekulić

In Salonta1
in front of the Orthodox church
a man was offering Salah.

Monday 20 May 2019

Place de la Concorde - Florence Earle Coates

Near where the royal victims fell
In days gone by, caught in the swell
Of a ruthless tide
Of human passion, deep and wide:
There where we two
A Nation’s later sorrow knew—
To-day, O friend! I stood
Amid a self-ruled multitude
That by nor sound nor word
Betrayed how mightily its heart was stirred.

Sunday 19 May 2019

How is it I can love You - Symeon the New Theologian

How is it I can love You
     within me,
     yet see You from afar?

Saturday 18 May 2019

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (Quatrains I - XII) - Omar Khayyam

Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight!
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light,

Friday 17 May 2019

Remembering Sahel - Paulos Netabay

Who could forget the war?
The battles where we fell,
the awful sun, our wounds
glistening like jewels
in the hell we’ve never left…

Thursday 16 May 2019

The Shaving of Murdoch - Standish Hayes O'Grady

When he and Cathal of the Red Hand, King of Connaught, entered the monastic life together.

Murdoch, whet thy knife, that we may shave our crowns to the Great King,
Let us sweetly give our vow, and the hair of both our heads to the Trinity.

Wednesday 15 May 2019

Monastery in the Hills (Monk's Song) - Dato Barbakadze

Each morning I fetch water from a hidden spring
and quietly watch the changing clouds.
I do not know if I will see another winter
but I am still happy, surrounded by mountains and green places
where so many mortals—so many weak ones—live.

Tuesday 14 May 2019

The Fall of the Leaves - Charles-Hubert Millevoye

With the spoils of the wood,
Autumn had littered the earth;
The groves without mystery,
The nightingale without voice.
Sadly, and dying with his dawn,
A youth, afflicted, paced slowly
Across, as in earlier years,
This wood of delight, once more.

Monday 13 May 2019

I must be the last time - Daniel Faria

I must be the last time
The final rain over the last animal in the grass
The corpse where the spider decides the circle.

Sunday 12 May 2019

Lead us up beyond light - Dionysius the Areopagite

Lead us up beyond light,
beyond knowing and unknowing,
to the topmost summit of truth,

Saturday 11 May 2019

I am weary of the speakers of English - Màiri Mhór

I am weary of the speakers of English
I long for some warmth and music
I am truly tired of the speakers of English

Friday 10 May 2019

Home - Leonidas

Cling to thy home! if there the meanest shed
Yield thee a hearth and shelter for thy head,

Thursday 9 May 2019

Green, green the river-side grass - Anonymous

Green, green the river-side grass,
Dense, dense the garden willows,

Wednesday 8 May 2019

The Sundowner's Dream - David Campbell

He sat by the fire;
It burned with a black flame
In the fluid air
And he told me his dream.

Monday 6 May 2019

Green Fingers - Carl Spitteler

Green Fingers rides through the wood.

And never a word says she,
But she sets her mark upon every tree.
And soon there's a whisper, a titter,
And out comes Kobolds with a skitter
To dance in the faery-ring,
And high in the branches swing -
Kobold,
Catch the gold
That on branching boughs doth its curls unfold.

Sunday 5 May 2019

In Praise of God (from Avoda) - Yose ben Yose

I shall proclaim the mighty deeds of God,
     who is glorious in power.
He alone is God
     and there is no other;

Saturday 4 May 2019

A goobie is not a calabash - Ted Eric Matthews

Is not de calabash ah want, is de goobie!
Yo’ don’t know de difference? Well I tell yo’!

Friday 3 May 2019

Blindness cure - Epiphanie Mukasano

you have been looking for too long
you have even borrowed a telescope

Thursday 2 May 2019

From A Place - Titilope Sonuga

I come from a place

where mothers go to battle each day
with a baby strapped across their backs
another still clinging from their breasts
childcare at its finest

Wednesday 1 May 2019

The Dead Doll - Margaret Vandergrift

You needn't be trying to comfort me— I tell you my dolly is dead!
There's no use in saying she isn't, with a crack like that in her head.
It 's just like you said it wouldn't hurt much to have my tooth out, that day;
And then, when the man 'most pulled my head off, you hadn't a word to say.