For Tina - Inua Ellams

The day I discovered how she survived the civil war,
how she saw her friends pass like minutes into oblivion,
how she screamed through drop zones and Morse codes
into jungle, dodging bullets, hiding and crying into rain,

The mouths of streets - Anna Kamienska

The mouths of streets are silent, windows go blind,
Cold veins of tracks tremble noiselessly.
In the mirror of wet pavement the sky hangs
With lead clouds full of hail.

Beauty in woman; the high will's decree - Dante Alighieri

He compares all Things with his Lady, and finds them wanting

Beauty in woman; the high will's decree;
Fair knighthood armed for manly exercise;

The Falcon - Der von Kürenberg

I raised a noble falcon
For more than a year;

Childhood faith - Einar Westling

Do you still believe in heart,
Nor from childhood faith depart?
Can you pray as in the days of long ago:
"Lord, who loves the children all,
Keep me, guard me, though I'm small"?
Aged mother will rejoice with heart aglow!

Journey and a half - Freedom T.V. Nyamubaya

Have you ever been ordered to strip
In front of a thousand shouting eyes
Forced to lie on your back
With your feet astride

The Fairy Well of Slemish - Cathal O’Byrne

Twas the grey of the evening when Shaun came over
The mountain's shoulder by Torloch's Tower,
Like clustered pearls lay the dew on the clover,
One pale star burned thro' that dew-grey hour.

It is war! It is war! - Matthias Claudius

It is war! It is war! O God’s angel, keep it away
and intervene to stop it!
Sadly, it is war—and I do not want it to be my fault!

SETI - Boghos L. Artinian

Rest in peace, Carl Sagan!
Contact was not imminent when you died,

Lonesome Night - Hermann Hesse

You brothers, who are mine,
Poor people, near and far,
Longing for every star,

The Kiss Across the Ocean - Tomaž Šalamun

O little bird, how tired I am!
Do you want to see everything that I have written today?
New I have an entire factory
and little men dressed in little sackcloths.

To the soul - Yehudah Halevi

Oh, you that sleep in the bosom of childhood,
how long will you rest there?
Know that youth is shaken off like straw!

Schrödinger’s Cat - Ahmad Ebrahimi

Is it the observer
who brings the world into existence

The night’s deep violoncello - Karin Boye

The night’s deep violoncello
hurls its dark rejoicing out across the expanses.

In the night - Joaquín Arcadio Pagaza

It seems like noon, so bright the lustre shed
On the damp forest by the moon's white glow.
The breeze scarce moves yon oak tree to and fro,
That mid a thousand others rears its head.

The advent of Indra (The Hunter and the Hero - Book VIII) - Bhāravi

Arjun, mighty in his strength,
All impure passions overcame;
And to his holy hermitage,
Rejoiced at heart, great Indra came.
He came disguised, — as come the gods, —
Even like an ancient anchorite,
Wearied by a tiresome journey,
Weak in limbs and weak in sight.

Everything must end - Fujiwara no Ietaka

Everything must end.
Thus the day tries to begin
with the morning bell.

Fortunio’s song - Alfred de Musset

If you think I'm going to say
Whom I dare to love,
I cannot, not even for an empire,
Name her for you.

The little yellow road - Seosamh mac Cathmhaoil

I am sick, sick,
No part of me sound;
The heart in my middle
Dies of its wound,
Pining the time
When she did stand
With me shoulder to shoulder
And hand in hand.

The Guitar - Federico Garcia Lorca

The weeping of the guitar
begins.
The goblets of dawn
are smashed.

Diwan IV:17 - Joseph ben Tanchum ha-Yerushalmi

Did heaven’s gates open into the universe
or did earth touch the celestial lights,

Or did the brilliance of the face of a certain notable
shame the luminaries,

Confession of a Stolen Kiss - Charles d'Orleans

My ghostly fader, I me confess,
First to God and then to you,
That at a window, wot ye how,
I stale a kosse of gret swetness,

From: Beasts of Nalunga - Jack Mapanje

Now That September 11 Should Define Mr Western Civilisation ...
(for Sarah Maguire & Saadi Yousef)

I remember being summoned to the British Council Office
Once, back home; I’d got the Commonwealth Scholarship

Gas - Natalia Smirnova

look, we intend to croak. but we will just
live on. and on and on and on

The Hour of the Children - José Emilio Pacheco

The children traffic in a new species of rats,
Ringed like lobsters and colored magenta and sky blue.
Strange flavor at first
But since hunger doesn’t lie
We grow used to baking them.