Venice masks

Sunday 31 January 2021

I leave thee not - Wolfgang Christoph Dessler

I leave thee not, thou art my Jesus ever,
Though earth rebel,
And death and hell
Would, from its steadfast hold, my faith dissever;

Saturday 30 January 2021

Long life with peace - Xasan Sheekh Muumin

Long life with peace, long life with peace
Long life with peace, long life with peace

Friday 29 January 2021

Vivos plango - Putinas

Now I depart. With benedictory grace
A world of silence summons me to go,
I feel the gentle shroud of endless space,
The Night that soothes and softens all our woe.

Thursday 28 January 2021

This tiny watch - Ivar Ivask

This tiny watch will soon have measured
its century. An heirloom of Father's sister Adelheid.

Wednesday 27 January 2021

Frozen Jews - Avrom Sutzkever

Did you ever see in fields of snow
Frozen Jews, in row upon row?

Tuesday 26 January 2021

The Will to Life - Abu al-Qasim al-Shabbi

If, one day, the people wills to live
Then fate must obey
Darkness must dissipate
And must the chain give way

Monday 25 January 2021

Sunday 24 January 2021

Infinite Love - Søren Kierkegaard

Thou loving Father, 
everything goes wrong for me
and yet Thou art love. 

Saturday 23 January 2021

Life is Short - Francisco Gorrindo

Let’s see, boys—I want to be joyful,
I want to be dazed, so I don’t have to think.

Friday 22 January 2021

The Conversation - Loidology

Come sit here dear,
Come tell me about that gloomy face you wear.
Because the melancholy i can no longer bear.
Let us put all things clear.
Lately you jeer every time i come near,
It seems it is me you fear.

Thursday 21 January 2021

Wednesday 20 January 2021

Tuesday 19 January 2021

I am like a slip of comet - Gerard Manley Hopkins

— I am like a slip of comet,
Scarce worth discovery, in some corner seen
Bridging the slender difference of two stars,

Monday 18 January 2021

How a Dragon is Born - Gueorgui Konstantinov

The beginning is a fight
Between the falling cross
Of a bird
And a serpent,

Sunday 17 January 2021

From the Bridge - Claribel Alegría

I have freed myself at last
it has been hard to break free
near the end of the bridge
I pause
the water flows below

Saturday 16 January 2021

The Eye of Poetry - Lilian A. Aujo

Poetry is the school I will never graduate from
because no matter how hard – I try
I will never tell it all – the secret way of its patterns
And how the same letters form different syllables to form different words,
And how they fall – in front or behind one another, and if re-arranged would create a whole different story...

Friday 15 January 2021

I love you, my gentle one - Ralph Bitamazire

I love you, my gentle one;
My love is the fresh milk in the rubindi
Which you drank on the wedding day;

Thursday 14 January 2021

A Sudden Storm - Pius Oleghe

The wind howls; the trees sway,
The loose housetop sheets clatter and clang; 
The open window shuts with a bang,
And the sky makes night of day.

Wednesday 13 January 2021

A godlike man - Narsimha Mehta

A godlike man is one,
Who feels another’s pain
Who shares another’s sorrow,
And pride does disdain.

Tuesday 12 January 2021

Haidouks - Hristo Botev

Father and Son

Come, Grandfather, blow on your pipe now,
And I will take up the tune
With songs of our heroes, of haidouks,
Songs of voivodes, of chieftains,
Of Chavdar the terrible haidouk,
Of Chavdar the captain of old,
The son of Petko the Fearsome!

Monday 11 January 2021

Monolog of an Effigy - Yevgeny Yevtushenko

When my charitable fellow-writers
               were burning my effigy
and not poking my guts with their pocket-knives —
                    thank God!

Sunday 10 January 2021

Guard Duty - Tomas Tranströmer

I’m ordered out to a big hump of stones
as if I were an aristocratic corpse from the Iron Age.
The rest are still back in the tent sleeping,
stretched out like spokes in a wheel.

Saturday 9 January 2021

i am the richest - Dhal Jirel 'Ravi'

I have a couple of feet
My hut and my rugs
I eat cheap bread and laugh at Fate
I toil through the livelong day

Friday 8 January 2021

Report me to you - Robert Wever

Now I beshrew his herte, that to that wyll not agree,
But yet because the tyme shall not seme very longe,
Or eate we departe, let vs haue a mery songe
The sing as folow'eth.

Thursday 7 January 2021

Yogyakarta - Albert Hagenaars

The line from the volcano’s summit
past the sultan’s palace to the sea’s abyss
spans the sacred space of the culture
in which until the end you are embedded.

Wednesday 6 January 2021

If I Could Only Write - Ramón de Campoamor

“And will you write a letter for me, padre?”—
  “Yes, child—no need to tell me the address!”
“Do you know whom it’s for because on that dark evening
        You saw us walking?”—“Yes.”
 

Tuesday 5 January 2021

The Inquiry - John Dyer

Ye poor little sheep! Ah! well may ye stray,
While sad is your shepherd, and Clio away!
Tell where have you been; have you met with my love,
On the mountain, or valley, or meadow, or grove?
Alas-a-day! No — ye are starv'd and half dead;
Ye saw not my love, or ye all had been fed.

Monday 4 January 2021

Of the voice of things – Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão

Only the wind’s blast
gives lyrical sound
to the windmill’s blades.

Sunday 3 January 2021

The Journey Prayer - Brendan of Clonfert

God, bless to me this day,
God bless to me this night;
Bless, O bless, Thou God of grace,
Each day and hour of my life;

Saturday 2 January 2021

Our Assorted Quarantines - Elizabeth Kate Switaj

I’m running thirty miles of quarantine with wandering pigs and semi
-feral dogs. Beach and coral and islets complete
the two-lane road’s atoll. You said that you were strangely proud

Friday 1 January 2021

A north-country song - Anonymous

Says t'auld man tit oak tree,
Young and lusty was I when I kenn'd thee;