The Mother o' Shaun - Cathal O’Byrne

Shaun stood six feet or so, with his head
            up near the rafter,
He be to stoop when he came in the door,

What Polly found in her stocking - Louisa May Alcott

With the first pale glimmer,
Of the morning red,
Polly woke delighted
And flew out of bed.

I. K. - Peter Bruveris

And days lived out are our clay,
and sleepless nights – our salt; to the window
where cloud shadow just crossed, bends
a branch of lilac that bloomed this morning, like a joke

Right now, right now I would like to change - Hasso Krull

Right now, right now I would like to change
into something different. Can I? I don’t know. I
listen to the angry blizzard, a train rattles the things
on the table, then is gone. Did I change

Still Born - Enoch Timpunza Mvula

She did not come just one night:
She did not come just one month.

A Day - Alaíde Foppa

This cloudy sky
with its hidden storm
and foreshadowed rain
is weighing on me;

The crocodile - Shika Kgomedi Lekgothoane

The crocodile is the invoker of the rain waters,
The black one of the pool,
The black black one lying on the water slime;

The Weeping Lady of Kinshasa - Don Too Heng Onn

Have You By Chance Spied From Far
The Weeping Lady of Kinshasa
Each Time I Pass Her By
The Inside of Me Cry

Believe It or Not - Reesom Haile

Remember the Italians
Who invaded and said
Eat but don't speak?

Bermudas - Kamau Brathwaite

First the dark meer
begins to breathe gently into green
into light & light green
until there are like blue

Heu! quid jaces stabulo - John Mauburne

Ah! how humble is thy birth
    In the lowly manger,
Thou the Lord of heaven and earth,
    Weeping as a stranger;
If a King indeed art thou,
Where is all thy glory now?
    Where thy halls of splendour?
Here is nought but poverty,
Barren need and penury,
    Little child so tender.

You Leave with Something of Mine - Medardo Ángel Silva

You leave with something of mine the afternoons you go away…
The pain of loving is the pain of living
and the drizzle in an ancient passageway
invades me with the infinite desire to sob.

Good gods - Elancharan Gunasekaran

Good
gods

The Children - Qassim Haddad

Those many children
who frolic around you
Have you chosen names for them
or will you leave the naming to the gardens?

Tragedy - Recaredo Silebo Boturu

The Okume’s leaves
began to fall
little by little
&,
the wind appeared
to take them like ashes
to the cosmos,
on that night.

Kassaman (We Pledge) - Moufdi Zakaria

We swear by the lightning that destroys,
By the streams of generous blood being shed,
By the bright flags that wave,
Flying proudly on the high mountains,
That we have risen up, and whether we live or die,
We are resolved that Algeria shall live -
So be our witness—be our witness—be our witness!

Green Spirit - Eunice Ngongkum

Foremost flame of our unique earth
tree hugger Wangari Maathai
now gone one to be with the earth

Art Thou Weary? - St. Stephen the Sabaite

Art thou weary, art thou languid,
  Art thou sore distrest?
“Come to Me,” saith One, “and coming
        Be at rest!”

You Have Closed Your Eyes - Giuseppe Ungaretti

A night is born
full of false holes
dead sounds
like the corks
of nets trailed in the water.

The Genius - Leonard Cohen

For you
I will be a ghetto jew
and dance
and put white stockings
on my twisted limbs
and poison wells
across the town

I’ll never lend a book again no matter what - Eustache Deschamps

My books are now lent out in many a place
to people I was sure would have the grace
to give them back, but they’re long overdue.

On the Pulse of Morning - Maya Angelou

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

The Jester - Margaret Widdemer

I have known great gold Sorrows:
Majestic Griefs shall serve me watchfully
Through the slow-pacing morrows:

Dialect of Hurricanes - Frankétienne

          Every day I use the dialect of lunatic hurricanes.
I speak the madness of clashing winds.

Partake - Ceaití Ní Bheildiúin

The hill speaks:

If you are defenceless, come
close to my side and sanctuary;
if you are short of blessings, come
to drink from my wellsprings;
if you are in need of a hiding place, come
under the veil of my mists.

Nothing Exists Per Se Except Atoms and the Void - Lucretius

But, now again to weave the tale begun,
All nature, then, as self-sustained, consists
Of twain of things: of bodies and of void
In which they're set, and where they're moved around.

all because i loved you - Olu Oguibe

once i wrote with the irreverence of youth
and the fire of a heart burning to ash
i plucked words like faggots from blazing coal
and on the anvil of exile i hammered sorrow into verse
the burden of your suffering tore poetry from my flesh
and on the night of your hanging there was dust in my lines
i aimed for song and there was not an eye without tears

Prison Art - Marí Peté

Sugarcane hills cradle Eshowe
this warm winter’s afternoon.
I enter into a quiet room,
step closer to counterpoints
caged by frames:

Hummingbird - Yearn Hong Choi

1
A tiny bird’s long beak is
penetrating into the nectar of an oasis tree’s flower
on the New Mexico desert.

The Boat - Augusta Peaux

With the wing of an eagle, so wide,
the sail of the boat on the stream
strikes to death the sun in the room
and all that remains is a gleam.