Olympia 12 - Pindar

Daughter of Zeus who sets free, I beseech you, Fortune,
lady of salvation, guard the wide strength of Himera.
By your power are steered fleet ships on the sea,
sudden wars by land, the gatherings heavy
with counsel. Men's hopes, oft in the air,
downward rock again as they shear a heaving sea of lies.

The Dramatic Symphony (extract) - Andrey Bely

1. The by-street was bathed in sun. The road was turning white. In place of the sky there hung a gigantic turquoise.

The Shining Hours (VIII) - Emile Verhaeren

As in the guileless, golden age, my heart
I gave thee, even like an ample flower
That opens in the dew's bright morning hour;
My lips have rested where the frail leaves part.

Bongwi, the Baboon - Royston Dunnachie Campbell

Grown wrinkled in the suns of noon
And mad from yearning on the moon,
With empty eyes and lifted hands
Our ancient father, Bongwi, stands
Sharp-pencilled on the moonlit sky:
And upward sends his dismal cry,
Blending with eddies of the air
Vague fragments of a mumbled prayer,
That shed upon the plains around
Their ghostly sediment of sound.

The Breast of the Sea - Syl Cheney-Coker

After our bloody century, the sea will groan
under its weight, somewhere between breasts and anus.
Filled with toxins, her belly will not yield new islands
even though the orphans of East Timor wish it so.

He whom a dream hath possessed - Sheamus O'Sheel

He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of doubting,
For mist and the blowing of winds and the mouthing of words he scorns;
Not the sinuous speech of schools he hears, but a knightly shouting,
And never comes darkness down, yet he greeteth a million morns.

Al-Jilnar - lbn Hani al-Andalusi

In tender age amid green branches
the pomegranate tree’s daughter looked
like the heart of a falcon or of a hawk

I Am Woman - Bongiwe Dlamini

I am woman

Empowered, I arise

to birth and nurture nations

Mapmaker - Beatriz Badikian-Gartler

I am Eratosthenes' heir — the librarian
who measured earth. He took an obelisk,
a well, the sun, and made a triangle:
geometry, simple and accurate.

When I look abroad - Abe no Nakamaro

When I look abroad
O'er the wide-stretched "Plain of Heaven,"

The Hour - Samuel Hanagid

She said: “Be happy that God has helped you reach
The age of fifty in this world,” not knowing
That to me there is no difference between my life’s
Past and that of Noah about whom I heard.

Boy on a swing - Oswald Mtshali

Slowly he moves
to and fro, to and fro,
then faster and faster
he swishes up and down.

History - Antonio Preciado Bedoya

Honey flowed everywhere; but that day
they gave it to me
with a rifle

An Attempt to Await - Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen

1

Which awaits which?

Does the sun await the street?

Or does the street await the people:

The simpletons and the beggars?

Koha - Glenn Colquhoun

Aunty Kare gave me her recipe for making steamed-pudding.
She sits with me in church.

Icarus And Sisyphus - O Anna Niemus

Fell down the hill Sisyphus
Fell out of the sky Icarus

I do - Steve Page

Ignore the lyrics:
You can't pursue love.
You don't find love.
Love's not a thing to be kept or had;

The Heron Who Was Hard To Please - Jean de La Fontaine

A long-legged Heron, with long neck and beak,
Set out for a stroll by the bank of a creek.

Going down there - Phillippa Yaa de Villiers

This is a letter scratched out by candlelight:
I leave it for all those who are also
confined, painfully pressed, split open.

Dies Irae - Thomas of Celano

That day of wrath, that dreadful day.
Shall the whole world in ashes lay,
As David and the Sibyls say.