Lament in ebony - Jessica Horn

arms are meant for embracing
minds to cultivate dreams of flight

VAD - Mrs Bignold

'Valueless, A Duffer!' says the Sister's face.
When I try to do her orders with my bestest grace.
‘Vain And Disappointing!’ says Staff Nurse's eye,
If l dare to put my cap straight while she's walking by.

catching your flying kiss - RIC S. Bastasa

what i catch today is a
flying kiss
like a white butterfly
departing from your
rose lips
now hovering to mine

Morning - Nikolai Nekrasov

You're unhappy, sick at heart:
Oh, I know it — here such sickness isn't rare.
Nature can but mirror
The surrounding poverty.

I have Lived Me - Tendai R Mwanaka

What can I possibly see?
In the tracks of my feet.
My body knows it,
What my head denies.
That my spirit dwells inside me
Awakened in my womb
To presence of overwhelming numbers-
answerable to my personal summons.

To God and Ireland True - Ellen O’Leary

I sit beside my darling’s grave,
  Who in the prison died,
And tho’ my tears fall thick and fast
  I think of him with pride:
Ay, softly fall my tears like dew,
For one to God and Ireland true.

Autumn Song - Sarojini Naidu

Like a joy on the heart of a sorrow,
The sunset hangs on a cloud;

The Promised Land - Carl Leggo

like ancient Caleb son of Jephunneh

                           I too

have explored
                           the promised land

A window and a wall - Palas Kumar Ray

I saw the window but I saw no wall.
The open window greeted me to look through.
I saw promises and hopes waiting for me there.

Nightingale - Federica Galetto

I am

I am like a stone under your tongue

Musings - Ian Jazzi

It's sometimes confusing the spin of the earth.
The ways of the world, the happenings in this world.
Today she's nice, tomorrow she's not.
Today it's hot and tomorrow... Rain!
Today stability, tomorrow earthquakes.
Tsunamis. Pain.
Up & down like elevators we all travel the floors of life.
Stopping when there's a power cut or when we have an agenda.
Agenda.

Sonnet - Giovanni Quirino

He commends the work of Dante's life, then drawing to 
its close; and deplores his own deficiencies.

For Noha Al Hegelan - Venus Khoury-Ghata

At that time the earth was so high up
women hung out clouds and laundry on the same line
angels gripped their skirts to keep them from following stray souls

Channelled - Jo Bell

A two-kingfisher day, with sparrowhawks thrown in
and we were bickering at Kingswood Junction.
Water won’t be told, she said, you never learn.
We settled to the first of nineteen locks.

Catania - Vincenzo da Filicaja

Thou buried city, o'er thy site I muse! —
What! does no monumental stone remain
To say, "Here yawned the earthquake-riven plain,
Here stood Catania, and here Syracuse"?

Waking - Kālidāsa

Even the man who is happy
glimpses something
or a hair of sound touches him

The Settled Bards - Ernest O'Ferrall

These be the grim suburban days,
And, tho' in verse we frolic,
All soberly we go our ways
Writing our sweet commercial lays
And any sort of stuff that pays
(Our Johnnie's got the colic).

Candles - Surjit Paatar

Light these candles.
Rise, light these candles.
There will remain,
These quarrelsome winds,
But you should light these candles.

Heaven and hell - Spervogel

He is full of power and might
Who was born on Christmas night,
The holy Christ is He;
Praised of all things that be,
Save the devil, whose lothely pride
Brooked not once to bow the knee,
So must he in hell abide.

She that would gain a faithful lover - Anon

She that would gain a faithful lover
Must at a distance keep the slave;
Not by a look her heart discover,
Men should but guess the thoughts we have.
Whilst they're in doubt their flame increases,
And all attendance they will pay;
When once confess'd their ardour ceases,
And vows like smoke soon fly away.

sparrow parents too - Kobayashi Issa

sparrow parents too

A Coat - William Butler Yeats

I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;

The Miner - Henrik Johan Ibsen

Beetling rock, with roar and smoke
Break before my hammer-stroke!
Deeper I must thrust and lower
Till I hear the ring of ore.

The Elixir of Exile - Abdourahman Waberi

is going to Carthage to help understand
Djibouti

To Silvia - Giacomo Leopardi

Silvia, do you remember
the moments, in your mortal life,
when beauty still shone
in your sidelong, laughing eyes,
and you, light and thoughtful,
went beyond girlhood’s limits?

Who Am I? - Deitrich Bonhoeffer

Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a Squire from his country house.

Your Hands - Pablo Neruda

When your hands leap
towards mine, love,
what do they bring me in flight?

Island of Africa - Wayne Visser

Memories of Gondwana fade
The ancient world torn apart:
As rock plates and craters
Start shifting; slow-drifting –
And outcasts and misfits
Roll Darwin’s loaded dice