Venice masks

Monday 29 February 2016

This Love - Jacques Prévert

This love
So violent
So fragile
So tender
So hopeless

Sunday 28 February 2016

There Is a House in Heaven - Spervogel

There is a house in heaven, they say;
You reach it by a golden way.

Saturday 27 February 2016

New Year's Watch - Su Shi

Soon now, we'll mark the year's end that approaches,
It's like a snake that crawls into a hole.

Friday 26 February 2016

Lullaby - Fenny Sterenborg

Softly lie down
and close your eyes so blue
worry no more
for tonight I'll watch over you

Thursday 25 February 2016

Watermark - Fatima Naoot

They will ring the bells the first of June
Some good reasons for that
The most important one is that
It is the first of June

Wednesday 24 February 2016

Moonshine - Kate Jennings

Yesterday I was sick, sick
in the head,
panic and paranoia,
it's been like that for years, used to say
I was a victim or the victim.

Tuesday 23 February 2016

Inkerman: The Battle Field by Moonlight - Caroline Hayward

Above the vale of Inkerman,
Calmly the moon's rays fell,
Revealing as by light of day,
That deep and lonely dell;
Tchernaya's waters as a band
Of silver graceful flowed,
But who can paint the ghastly scene,
Which those bright rays disclosed!

Monday 22 February 2016

The Fight With The Dragon - Friedrich Von Schiller

Why run the crowd?  What means the throng
That rushes fast the streets along?
Can Rhodes a prey to flames, then, be?
In crowds they gather hastily,
And, on his steed, a noble knight
Amid the rabble, meets my sight;

Sunday 21 February 2016

Love, Love - Pedro Calderón de la Barca

What is the glory far above
All else in human life?
Love! Love!

Saturday 20 February 2016

Mirroring - Alessio Zanelli

We are all the others.

Each of us.

All we are or attain in life
is also due to all the others.

Friday 19 February 2016

Hope - Juan Esteban Yupanqui Villalobos

So I want to see you again
even in my sleep.
You have to know: now again
I grieve for you a lot.

Thursday 18 February 2016

A Day in Bed - Katherine Mansfield

I wish I had not got a cold,
The wind is big and wild,
I wish that I was very old,
Not just a little child.

Wednesday 17 February 2016

Odd - Philippe Soupault

A thread tightens
a shadow descends
a butterfly distends

Tuesday 16 February 2016

Forgiveness - George William Russell

At dusk the window panes grew grey;
The wet world vanished in the gloom;
The dim and silver end of day
Scarce glimmered through the little room.

Monday 15 February 2016

Sunday 14 February 2016

My Time Is Brief - Solveig von Schoultz

The holy disquiet knocked at my door.
‘I haven’t the time, I’m baking my bread,
the dough is rising, the oven is red.
Wait, as you’ve had to wait before.’

Saturday 13 February 2016

De Spectaculis.III (What race is set so far) - Marcus Valerius Martialis

What race is set so far,
what race so barbarous, Caesar,
wherefrom a spectator is not in thy city?

Friday 12 February 2016

Border Song IV - Lu Lun

A sumptuous banquet is spread, in the wild, the open air:
Our tribal allies have come, our hard-won victory to share.

Thursday 11 February 2016

Before the sun comes up - Katlego K Kol-Kes

Before the sun comes up:
When the eyes of those
who creep around in day, alight,
yet dance with tender
taps and bats.

Wednesday 10 February 2016

Tuesday 9 February 2016

Monday 8 February 2016

A Visit to the Clockmaker - Kristin Dimitrova

I crossed the street
to enter a secret shop
where hundreds of hands grind time.

Sunday 7 February 2016

Saturday 6 February 2016

Amnesia - Ilire Zajmi

My memory has been erased
It is not stored either in a hard copy
Nor in a disk a flash or a CD

Friday 5 February 2016

On Prose - Kiwao Nomura

Then I
committed to memory everything
I felt compelled to remember

Thursday 4 February 2016

One life - Inua Ellams

In a farm in Mexico, a grain of corn
is armed with faith. Half covered with soil
it trusts the wind will guide it water, waits
as sunlight plaits itself into photosynthesis,
germinates and listens for the world’s pay.

Wednesday 3 February 2016

Tuesday 2 February 2016

The Grave of Shelley - Oscar Wilde

Like burnt-out torches by a sick man's bed
    Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun bleached stone;
    Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,

Monday 1 February 2016

February - Margaret Atwood

Winter. Time to eat fat
and watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat,
a black fur sausage with yellow
Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries
to get onto my head. It’s his
way of telling whether or not I’m dead.