Waiting for the Marines - Fadel K Jabr

Twelve years have passed
And the Iraqis are turning over
Like skewered fish
On the fire of waiting.

Get Drunk - Charles Baudelaire

Always be drunk.
That's it!
The great imperative!
In order not to feel
Time's horrid Fardel

All My Life - Regina Derieva

All my life
I sought
an angel.

The Old Gray Wall - Bliss Carman

Time out of mind I have stood
Fronting the frost and the sun,
That the dream of the world might endure,
And the goodly will be done.

This sky of lost miles - Ranjit Hoskote

Shield your eyes from this oblong patch of light
where the towers once stood, where now there floods
on our TV screens this sky of lost miles, miles yet to be
– now never to be – redeemed, this sky that showers
a rain of ash and scorched maple leaves,

Grandmother Moon - Ribka Sibhatu

Like once upon a time
here comes grandmother moon
through the window
full of tales and memories.

Thread in a Spider’s Web - Coral Bracho

A little stream, drawn by the magnets of air and light,
and flowing like time, like copper forming,
is the thread

Pretty Halcyon Days - Ogden Nash

How pleasant to sit on the beach,
On the beach, on the sand, in the sun,
With ocean galore within reach,
And nothing at all to be done!

Barely Disfigured - Paul Éluard

Adieu Tristesse
Bonjour Tristesse
Farewell Sadness
Hello Sadness

I Go Walking into a Spring-Tree - Kim Su-Bok

Constantly inclined to start talking to anyone,
sitting idly in a room with the light out,

stones - Sjón

i’ve been hit on the head by a stone – my ex-wife has been hit on the head
by a stone in my presence – my old school friend has been hit on the head

The Ship, Solid and Black - Juan Ramón Jimenez

The ship, solid and black,
enters the clear blackness
of the great harbour.

Nocturne III - José Asunción Silva

          A night
A night full of hushings, of the curled wool of perfume
     And incanting wing,

You who want - Hadewijch

You who want
knowledge,
seek the Oneness
within.

To a Nose - Francisco de Quevedo

There was a man
              stuck
                  to a nose,

On feeing his city - Samuel Hanagid

And this in his youth on leaving Cordoba:

Spirit splits in its asking,

and soul in its wanting is balked;

The Sorrow of Love - William Butler Yeats

The quarrel of the sparrows in the eaves,
The full round moon and the star-laden sky,
And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves,
Had hid away earth's old and weary cry.