Mors et Vita - Jacopo Sannazzaro

Alas! when I behold this empty show
  Of life, and think how soon it shall have fled;

As Ocean’s Stream - Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev

As ocean’s stream girdles the ball of earth,
From circling seas of dream man’s life emerges,
And as night moves in silence up the firth
The secret tide around our mainland surges.

On the picture of an Infant - Leonidas

Playing near a precipice

While on the cliff with calm delight she kneels,

A Christmas hymn - Walafrid Strabo

Lumen Inclytum Refulget. 

Through the skies in glory streaming,
Is a star of brightest ray;
O'er the earth the radiant wonder
Drives the shades of night away.

Hymn for the Nativity - Notker Balbulus

Before the ages and the stars of morn
The ever-living Son of God was born;
Whom, as their Maker, heaven and earth adore,
And the wide ocean sings from shore to shore,

Written in Australia - Arthur Adams

The wide sun stares without a cloud:
  Whipped by his glances truculent
The earth lies quivering and cowed.
  My heart is hot with discontent:
  I hate this haggard continent.

To Leven Water - Tobias George Smollett

Pure stream, in whose transparent wave
My youthful limbs I wont to lave;

Spring Song of the Birds - King James I of Scotland

Worschippe ye that loveris bene this May,
For of your blisse the Kalendis are begonne,

No room for the dead - W.J. Anderson

      Yes, the earth is bright
      And hearts are light;

Artemis - Sappho

Once as a too, too lissome
Maiden was plucking a blossom . . .

A Personal Dog - Vahni Capildeo

it isn't matter
isn't doesn't matter
does it compared
with what shan't
have known your
lines are all
lines of approach

World Wounded - Francis W.L. Adams

She shall never know
I loved her so,

Proem - Martin Carter

Not, in the saying of you, are you
said. Baffled and like a root
stopped by a stone you turn back questioning

The Children's Church - Karl Gerock

The bells of the churches are ringing, —
Papa and mamma have both gone —
And three little children sit singing
Together this still Sunday morn.

Madhushala (The Tavern) - Harivansh Rai Bachchan

Seeking wine, the drinker leaves home for the tavern.
Perplexed, he asks, "Which path will take me there?"
People show him different ways, but this is what I have to say,
"Pick a path and keep walking. You will find the tavern."

Rubai - Sultan Murad II

Cup-bearer, bring, bring here again my
      yestereven's wine;

Life's Philosophy - Theodore de Banville

Youth, untouched by melancholy,
Fair as the sun of Italy, —
Cling to thy delicious folly !

Departing - Joe Friggieri

When I'm about to leave forever
I want it to be at night
with crickets singing in the corn

To a Friend on the Eve of May 1858 - Guido Gezelle

Once I see the flowery wreaths of May,
the month of love for Mary and her Child,
the month of love for thee, my pious friend,
the month of love of poetry, more sweet
Than love to both our blended loving hearts!

Beauty and the Illiterate - Odysseus Elytis

Often, in the Repose of Evening her soul took a lightness from
                  the mountains across, although the day was harsh and
                  tomorrow foreign.

The Image of God - Francisco de Aldana

O Lord! who seest from yon starry height,
Centred in one the future and the past,
Fashioned in thine own image, see how fast
The world obscures in me what once was bright!

Oil Ailment - Rira Abbasi

And now I know what ails the world: Power
Humility dies on its very own emaciated neck
Even cockroaches rise
Against the sanctity of your body
The world is sated with virus.

Up North - Mary Hannay Foott

Into Thy hands let me fall, O Lord,—
Not into the hands of men,—
And she thinned the ranks of the savage horde
Till they shrank to the mangrove fen.

Sonet of Venus and Cupid - Mark Alexander Boyd

Fra banc to banc, fra wod to wod, I rin
Ourhailit¹ with my feble fantasie,

It was the month of May - Juan Lorenzo Segura

It was the month of May, a glorious time,
    When merry music make the birds in boughs,

Song of a Young Girl - Flavien Ranaivo

Oaf
tlie young man who lives down there
beside the threshing floor for rice;
like two banana-roots
on either side the village ditch,

Ode XIV: To the Roman State - Horace

O ship, new waves will bear you back again to sea.
O what are you doing? Bravely seize the port.

Rising at midnight - Gregory the Great

Rising at midnight, one and all awaking,
Chant we in ceaseless round our matins sweet,
And to the Lord, melodious music making.
In tuneful quire our twilight hymns repeat.

Women - Simonides of Amorgos

She from the steed of wanton mane
Shall spurn all servile toil and pain;
Nor shake the sieve, nor ply the mill
Nor sweep the floor, though dusty still.

Do not worry for to-morrow - Ben Sira

Do not worry for to-morrow,
As thou dost not know the sorrow
Which to-day bears in its train.

untitled poem - Adilia Lopes

1.
Penelope
is a spider

Up and sing! - Mawlana (Taj ud-Din) Ahmed

Up and sing! O 'anqa-natured¹ nightingale!
High in every business doth thy worth prevail:
Sing! for good the words are that from thee proceed;
Whatsoever thou dost say is prized indeed.

Idyl I: The Stray Cupid - Moschus

As Cupid from his mother Venus strayed,
Thus crying him aloud the goddess said,
"If any one a wandering Cupid see,
The little fugitive belongs to me:

Arise and render thanks to God - Notker Balbulus

Arise and render thanks to God,
The Lord and King of all,

De Spectaculis.IV (A crowd dangerous to peace) - Marcus Valerius Martialis

A crowd dangerous to peace
and a foe to tranquil  rest,

Mame - Fatou Dioffé Bâ

Grandfather, last of my Fathers,
My luck, my hope, my essence,
Tell me about my roots, tell me about my rooted self.
Oh Father, how much I wished from you!

Poetry - Lieke Marsman

At the moment it feels a bit like
those times I would try to find
a hiding place behind
the gym building yep, a dank place

Days of my childhood - Michael Ghazarian Nalbandian

Days of my childhood, like a dream
Ye fleeted, to return no more.
Ah, happy days and free from care,
Ye brought but joy in passing o’er!

Rear View Mirror - Cheela Chilala

Sweaty hands gripping the wheel
Perspiration on my brow,
My feet weary and my shoes worn,
I drive through life's tough terrain

An Open Wound - Tanja Bakić

An open wound
Under the hot earth
Calls me out.

Factory of Tears - Valzhyna Mort

And once again according to the annual report
the highest productivity results were achieved
by the Factory of Tears.

Shadows on the Land, II - Carlos Villagra Marsal

         Ill-fated land,
orphaned by your children,
mansion of forgetfulness
and of punishment.

Star-Struck - Nana Olapet Olawumi

I was just a nobody
A girl who sang in a bar

A Girl - Adriaan Morrien

I am too weak to keep up life’s renewal
within myself, my blood is too speechless; see
my fearing hands and see my lap

Clotilde - Guillaume Apollinaire

Anemone and columbine
Where gloom has lain
Opened in gardens
Between love and disdain

No Country we Headed to - Saif al-Rahbi

No woman we loved
the enemy didn’t conquer first.

The “WHO?” of lbn Abitur of Cordoba - Yosef lbn Abitur

who
ANCHORED the high skies
who
SET OFF the wheels for those who shine

Mack The Knife - Bertolt Brecht

Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear
And he shows them pearly white.
Just a jack knife has Macheath, dear
And he keeps it out of sight.

The Seeing Blindness - Kushal Poddar

We watch the slim women model
for our favorite potato wafers.
What is silence but the crunching incisions?

The Arms of Bodhisatva - Tiziana Colusso

What is wisdom
if not inscribed in the natural flux of things?

My Dear and Only Love - James Graham

My dear and only Love, I pray
    This noble world of thee
Be govern'd by no other sway
    But purest monarchy;
For if confusion have a part,
    Which virtuous souls abhor,
And hold a synod in thy heart,
    I'll never love thee more.

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.

The Baby - Kālidāsa

On parents’ knees, a naked, new-born child,

Vexing - Li Shangyin

Encountering magnificently flavoured food, the spleen, stomach not cooperating
Enjoying drink the whole night, then finding the wine vessel empty

High Ride in the Streets - Gregor Podlogar

sun rays have ripped open the clouds' bellies
the rain has stopped tourists are exhausted

The First Rule of Sinhalese Architecture - Michael Ondaatje

Never build three doors
in a straight line

Adoration - Madame Guyon

I love my God, but with no love of mine,
     For I have none to give;

Always repeating the same mistake - Anat Zecharia

Always repeating the same mistake
going up and down the escalators
passing shops, billboards, neon signs,
hundreds of thousands of things for sale: running shoes
a glass brooch, old-fashioned soap flakes, a small tube
short white socks, buy one, get one free.

Landslides - Kevin Isaac

Wishes...frozen in time
Like low-hanging fruits
Sweetening on branches of reminiscences

Grey Hair - Ashjan Al Hendi

Jasmine fixed its heart in her braid
a flowering rivulet
touched her hair
the flavor of perfume
slept on her breath

Winter - Eeva-Liisa Manner

Leaves float, hours, seasons
from room to room.

a passing glimpse of the first of may, storypoem - Hipólito Alvarado

this is the morning filled with little flags
birds
              children
people at the fiesta in the park

Seven-Headed Beast - Astrid Cabral

The more I age
the more heads I snip from the seven-
headed beast. And then I recognize him,
my intimate, my neighbour.

Mother to be do you ponder the future - Bruce Levitan

Mother to be do you ponder the future,
Wondering whether the world will be safe;
For a new baby will there be some refuge
In a land so filled with orphans and waifs?

Calcutta and I - Sunil Gangopadhyay

Calcutta is a dead weight on my heart:
I must destroy her before I go.
I shall seduce her away to Haldia port
and feed her sweets spiked with arsenic—
Calcutta is a dead weight on my heart.

Mud Flats - Kim Soo-Bok

She lies there with her hugely pregnant body.
At dawn a ship leaves, cutting through her stomach.
As it emerges from her body, headed for the sea,

When It Is Raining - Zbyněk Hejda

When it is raining,
the pond looks
as if it is just convalescing

Two Birds - Anzhelina Polonskaya

Two birds on the grey, ashy sand.
The sleeping bird is on the right; her feathers are dull

A prayer to Mwari and the ancestors at a time of drought - Anonymous Zezuru tribesmen

Tovela, our great father,¹ We have a petition for rain.

Mozart’s Requiem - Stella Vinitchi Radulescu

They have lived a stone life, a star life, a rat life,
tears wiped out by the Siberian wind, packages wrapped
in despair,
moved from prison to prison, from age to age.

War and a Woman - Saba Kidane

War and a woman I sing.
A country
needs a woman
to find peace.

Red Thistle - Umberto Piersanti

when the sirocco ceases, the bitter cliff
—the thorns remain through the long winter,
the ox moans as its white mass
sinks down through the snow—
throws out its flowers among the sticks

Ambush - Gbemisola Adeoti

The land is a giant whale
that swallows the sinker,
with hook, line and bait

I have a lover - Hafsa Bint Hamdun

I have a lover who can’t be budged

Catfish in the Woods -Yoko Danno

My dog suddenly runs off
slipping the leash
startled by a wild beast.

My Small White Dog and I - Silja Walter

My small white clog and I,
We walk through every door we see
We shiver and we cry.
We look for you. We look for me.

On the Death of his Mistress - Abu Sahet Alhedhily

Dost thou wonder that I flew
Charm'd to meet my LEILA'S view?

Illicit - D.H. Lawrence

In front of the sombre mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of
             rainbow,
And between us and it, the thunder;
And down below, in the green wheat, the labourers
Stand like dark stumps, still in the green wheat.

If I Be Waspish, Best Beware My Sting - Lina Ramona Vitkauskas

Hello. I am a:
a. platinum wire thread,
b. legume television,
c. court skald,
d. plasmatic haphazard.

Excessive Song V - Dan Sociu

Then, on the third day of the Congress, a boundless lethargy
overtook me on the balcony of your hotel room

Thirst - Siamanto

My soul is listening to the death of the twilight.

The New Land - Cyril M. Kanhai

In the darkness tonight
I suddenly became aware
Of the land

Curb for stubborn steed - St. Clement of Alexandria

Curb for stubborn steed,
Making its will give heed;
Wing that directest right,
The wild bird's wandering flight;

Leaves Fell - Juhan Liiv

A gust roused the waves,
leaves blew into the water,
the waves were ash-gray,
the sky tin-gray,
ash-gray the autumn.

into the shades - Yoko Danno

         like rescue
         ropes
         wisteria
         flowers
         hanging
         from
         the trellis

A Star - Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi

1
Awoken by light, I scratch the glass
of dreams, and find myself
stepping free of shadows and silence.

Handprints - Khalil Reza Uluturk

Today again the ones
investigating the crime gathered.
They have already prepared the camera with its red shoulder straps
To take my photo - head and profile.

Love’s Bondman - Fra Guittone d’Arezzo

Great joy it were to me to join the throng
  That thy celestial throne, O Lord, surround,
  Where perfect peace and pardon shall be found,
  Peace for good doings, pardon for the wrong;

The Will to Life - Abdellatif Al Ouarari

If people one day aspire for life
People threw the night in the trash bin,
Lifting the chains on the impossible, and answer fate's call
At dawn, they echoed the difficult melody of Abul Kassim
In two sentences, and said:
To fire, this untrue message,
To the wind, the dream of travel!

The Beauty - Du Fu

She is a young woman of matchless beauty
Living unnoticed in a lonely valley.
The daughter of a good family, she says,
But ruined now, with woods and weeds for company.

Stand and face me - Sappho

Stand and face me, dear; release
That fineness in your irises.

Came to me - Rudaki

Came to me
           Who?
She.

Arai Takako - Specter!

There is a girl who goes nowhere
There is a girl who sucks up severe nourishment
Like a water jug

O, Thou Eternal One! - Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin

O Thou Eternal One! whose presence bright
All space doth occupy, all motions guide;
Unchanged through time's all-devastating flight;
Thou only God! There is no God beside!

Dostoyevsky - Elmer Diktonius

A city.
A lane.
A beggar.
A whore.
Dark.
Wet.

The Belly Remains - Tchicaya U Tam’si

Sure the belly remains chaste
under a treasure of white bones
then open to a fighter’s song
lost body and soul
in the flames of his passion

Himalaya - Lekhnath Paudyal

A scarf of pure white snow
Hangs down from its head to its feet,
Cascades like strings of pearls
Glisten on its breast,

Doubt - Fernand Gregh

Upon the topmost branches dies
A last ray of the setting sun;
A glimmer of strange gilding lies
Upon the leaves' vermilion.

Free as a Bird - Elizabeth Kaufman-Buchel

Unattached
With no roots
With no barrier

The Millihelen - Sinéad Morrissey

It never looks warm or properly daytime
in black-and-white photographs the sheer cliff-
face of the ship still enveloped in its scaffolding
backside against the launching cradle

Justice Is Done - Amadou Oumar Bâ

Beaten up,
Robbed,
Hospitalized?

Most Favoured Guest! - Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba

O Most Favoured Guest who has come with cheer and blessings, you are welcome! You are welcome! You are most welcome without end!

A Little Bird I Am - Madame Guyon

A little bird I am,
Shut in from fields of air,
And in my cage I sit and sing,
To him who placed me there;
Well pleased a prisoner to be,
Because, my God, it pleases thee!

The Gazelle - Rainer Maria Rilke

Enchanted one: how can one harmonize
Two chosen words so as to reach the rhyme
Which comes and goes in you, as by a sign.
From out your forehead leaf and lyre arise,

My English - Zamir Osorov

It was very hard for me
to speak with the West
through translators,

Reality - Rabi’a of Basri

In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
Speech is born out of longing,
True description from the real taste.

Sonnet - Michael Madhusudan Dutt

I am not rich, nay, nor the future heir
To sparkling gold or silver heaped on store;

Identity Apples - Mbizo Chirasha

I am a fat skeleton, resurrecting
From the sad memories of dada
And dark mysteries of animism
I am Buganda
I bleed hope

Security of Person - Lynn Sweeting

That I am here
writing,

not running
from bombs
of chemicals
or fire,

Realization - Śrî Ānanda Āchārya

I will keep the fire of hope ever burning on the altar of my soul,
I will feed it by day and by night with the fuel of industry and the oblation of thought,
Like a spring plant the great purpose is growing in the garden of my heart;

2 termite skyscrapers - Anonymous

2
termite
skyscrapers

Longing for the South - Konstantin Miladinov

If I had an eagle's wings
I would rise and fly on them
To our shores, to our own parts,
To See Stambol, to see Kukus,
And to watch the sunrise: is it
dim there too, as it is here?

When my love was born - Anise Koltz

When my love was born
I washed it
From my right hand

Journal - Asmir Kujović

I try to be busy
not to think of It.

Human Speech - Rahmat Fa'aola Pele

Human speech can be the sword that separates truth from falsehood
It brings victory to the defenders of justice

I hate the cyclic poem - Callimachus

I hate the cyclic poem and I don’t enjoy

The road that goes too far this way and that.

A hymn - Bede

A hymn of glory let us sing;
New songs throughout the world shall ring;
By a new way none ever trod
Christ mounteth to the throne of God.

The Scowl of the Perpetual Dictator - Elvio Romero

What a difficult countenance!
What a complex countenance!
There’s something that draws me to his furrowed brow,
on his patriotic mission.

Who are You? - Gopal Prasad Rimal

Here we are fond of our needs,
the vanity which hides them
is dear to us:

All the characters - Ester Fenoll García

All the characters

Leave the book

To embrace me

Ice - Torkilk Mørch

In the heart of the ice is fire.
You can touch it, feel it,

Autopsychography - Fernando Pessoa

The poet is a man who feigns
And feigns so thoroughly, at last
He manages to feign as pain
The pain he really feels,

Oh Madagascar - Michael Parfait Andrianjaka

Oh Madagascar the holy
Big island next to Africa
The sea surrounds you
I love you, adore you, and will never deny you
Because you are so wonderful

I look for you early - Solomon Ibn Gabirol

I look for you early,
my rock and my refuge,
offering you worship
morning and night;

My Donkey Says - Reesom Haile

I put on my pants
One leg at a time
And my shoes one after the other.
What's to understand?

Electric Lock - Shang Ch'in

Tonight the streetlights where I live went out at midnight as usual.

The Procession - Claribel Alegría

There is a still silence
thinking me
another flayed silence
walking inside me

The Next Take - Christy Birmingham

You sat there in the dark, collecting dust
For days upon days
As you laid on a bed of pens and
Scissors with a bent handle.

The Great Despair - Roque Dalton

   My country you do not exist
you’re my silhouette badly drawn that’s all
a word that fooled the enemy

i am selfish. with my blackness - Inès Giramata

i am selfish.
with my Blackness.
my Black features.
i am selfish with my Black tears.

The Prophet - Aleksandr Pushkin

I dragged my feet through desert gloom,
Tormented by the spirit's yearning.
And saw a six-winged Seraph bloom
Upon the footpath's barren turning.

#Burundi2015 - Ketty Nivyabandi

may you be more
than a game of cards
may you be more
than dry bones

Pink and Blue - Ras Mo

Ever since I was small I try to understand
what it really really means to be a man
because some things I learnt since I was a baby
like pink for a girl and blue for me
so I ask myself constantly
what does it to really mean to be manly
in this pink and blue society
How should I act like a man
How should I act like a man

I had a dream one sultry summer’s night - Martin Kloess

I had a dream one sultry summer’s night
The stardust cast a trail to light my way
A gentle stream was there to guide my flight
To place some purpose to meaning of day

Nature's Orchestra - Jane Okot P’ Bitek Langoya

The branches of the trees nod in unison
As the trees hum softly
In rhythm to the rattling leaves

Plaza de España - Marcelo Ensema Nsang

The tired afternoon falls
on a rhythm of palm trees

Utter - Vahni Capildeo

Night drinks salt water from a bucket, draws
a sleeve from the sea, spills hand across mouth.

The Dream of Dakiki - Ferdowsi

My heart was fired, as from his sight it turned
Toward the world's Sovereign Throne, and inly yearned,
'May I lay hand upon that book some day
And tell, in my own words, that ancient lay!'

I'm Your Slave, You are My Love - Nezim Frakulla

I'm your slave, you are my love,
I turn to you, my beloved,
Save me now or let me perish,

Exhortation to the Village (8) - Ateif Khieri

Tomorrow the straitened wars
In darkness, suddenly,
the crates of fruit terrify

Poem - Soad al Kuwari

and I bear all orbits
on the strong arms of my delusion
I am a stain on runaway destiny,

Daughter of the Low Land - Peter Anyang’-Nyong’o

After I have communed with them,
With dead men’s ideas;
‘Nya dyang’ ’ comes to me
With accusing persuasion:
       ‘Come, “wuod twon”,
        My activities are vital.’

"Fire" Third State: Voice of Prayer - Rogelio Sinán

- How very late have begun to flow the rivers of dawn!
- What torrential music has seeped through all the wounds!

Cavafy's Whip - Adam Fet'hi

The prickly pear,
thorny, of wily fingers, friend to Tunisians on wedding nights
(when the grains of chance ripen) and eid mornings, when
halawa calms
the tufts of burnouses.

Fierce was the wild billow - St. Anatolius of Constantinople

Fierce was the wild billow,
Dark was the night;
Oars laboured heavily,
Foam glimmered white;

Herbs of the Past - Zahir al-Ghafri

Thus ...
did an icy sun hurl you into the depths of the forest
Now the song on the angel’s lips is your guide to life

Vafthruthnismol - Snorri Sturluson

Othin spake: 
"Counsel me, Frigg, for I long to fare,
And Vafthruthnir fain would find;
In wisdom old with the giant wise
Myself would I seek to match."

When someone tells you “you look smart” - Jiwon Lee

When someone tells you
You look smart,
What does it mean?

Camões - Jose Lopes

Among the great poets
You are the greatest still.
You were on a par with the prophets,
You knew how to love!

Room 421 - Menno Wigman

My mother’s near kaput. She’s got a hutch,
not quite a box, and sits the same day out
each day on her much pissed-on chair. Can stare
at trees outside, and in those trees are birds
that know not who has once begotten them.

Sewn Beneath My Lids - Kushal Poddar

Deeper I traverse
into the field of
golden wheat, it gets
stickier, thick with
insane brushstrokes.

Holy Spirit Prayer - Saint Augustine

Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit,
That my thoughts may all be holy.

Poets Among Each Other - Gyula Illyés

There can be no virtuous man
Who stops writing poetry
And stops telling the truth.

Life - R. H. Lola Koundakjian

She dices the onions finely.
A construction worker, 25, falls to his death.

looking for signs - Stella Vinitchi Radulescu

I should make music from your amnesia

God

Breathing - Rajathi Salma

Everything happens so quickly
before I can feel it.

Roses - Publius Annius Florus

What roses have I seen come with the morn!
Scarce born they were, yet not alike in age:

On the day of death - Peter Damian

Ah, thou bringest dreams of terror,
Thou of life my latest day,
Bringest dreams that shake my pulses,
Fill my bosom with dismay;
Sunk in solemn gloom and anguish
I behold thy parting ray.

Death thinks the Stars at Night are Scabbed over Wounds - Gokçenur C.

Death runs a shop in the Grand Bazaar on Fesçiler Street
Death thinks using foreign words from time to time very cool
Death tries to hide the existence of stripeless zebras from everyone else

Tribe of Woods - Warsan Shire

I held down my daughter last night
spread her limbs across the forest
laid her out to rest
crushed berries across her mouth and
gave her my knuckles to chew on

The Premises of Grass - Eugene Ostashevsky

The Laughing Philosopher has entered
the Witless Relocation Program
Outside his window there’s a rooster
that looks like a toaster

Elegy - Bewketu Seyoum

The fall of every leaf diminishes me,
so when I hear a rustle
I send my eyes out of the window
to look at the trees in the yard.

Terrorism not a religion - Ammar Butt

“Where is my daughter?”
The mother asks,
Not knowing that her daughter
Couldn’t survive the blast.

Or Perhaps We Will Never Enter Our Lives At All But Remain Always Somewhat at the Door of Things? - Johanna Skibsrud

Repeat ourselves, in the cramped and inner
chambers of our hearts, where, in ever-narrowing circles, we

Warning - Antun Branko Šimić

Man, be careful
not to walk small
under the stars.

Calls of Youth - Hermana Ramarui

Give us birth, my elders.
Stop the colonial web.
Open the door to freedom.

In Your Absence - L Ölziitögs

In my eyes there are butterflies, a felt hat, mirror and a candle.
In my eyes there are women, an apple, trees and a bird.
In my eyes there are clocks, a key, cloud and the sky.
In my eyes there is everything, except for you.

Berlin. January - Salome Benidze

Step over the grey corpses of angels
shot by this bleak wall
that path will bring you to me:

Insídia do tempo - Tina Mucavele

The chorus to the song says:
I just wish you were in my shelter during a storm
I just wish I could walk down the street holding hands with you
I just wished you could care a little about me

The Shrub - Vojislav Ilić‎

A thunder stricken shrub on a grey hill it rests,
Like a dark almighty giant. And grassy ribbon dense,
Twists around his shape. And playful mountain breeze
Sways the bright flowers and trees.

Civilised Girl - Jully Makini

Cheap perfume
Six-inch heels
Skin-tight pants
Civilised girl

Flight of the Firstborn - Peggy Carr

He streaks past his sixteenth year,
small island life stretched tight
across his shoulders

The skillful master fisherman - Anonymous Tuvalu native

The skillful master fisherman with his noose!

Blues Fragment - Francisco José Tenreiro

For Langston Hughes

All the melancholy of nights in Georgia
comes to me
this stormy night in Europe
through the solitary voice of the trumpet:

The Tram Journey - Milena Ercolani

You got on the same tram
only to get off before me,
your steps were slow,
your hand shook slightly,
your gaze was lit by nostalgia...

Blood in the Kava Bowl - Epeli Hauʻofa

In the twilight we sit drinking kava
from the bowl between us.
Who we are we know and need not say
for the soul we share came from Vaihi.

thirsty - Dionne Brand

This city is beauty
unbreakable and amorous as eyelids,
in the streets, pressed with fierce departures,
submerged landings,
I am innocent as thresholds
and smashed night birds, lovesick,
as empty elevators

Lamentations from paradise - Helda Marie

Did you hear the sea calling
as we rowed across the reef to the island?
The same name they gave our forefathers ages ago.
Was that what we heard as frigates hushed?
Laments of the uprooted?

April Woman - Salma Jayyusi

Poem to My Son

I am an April woman:
December ash that consumes itself
frightens me

My Sinking Island, Kiribati - Lovelygal

Waves crashing onto shore
Rising higher more and more
People crying, people dying
There is no land to live on anymore

Losing the Old Ways - Theothora Fahorug

A branch was growing on a tree
very happily.
A strong wind came
and broke it off the tree.

I give you thanks my God - Bernard Binlin Dadié

I give you thanks my God for having created me black
For having made of me
The total of all sorrows,
and set upon my head
the World.
I wear the livery of the Centaur
And I carry the World since the first morning.

Hymne Monégasque - Théophile Bellando de Castro

Greetings, to our neighbours!
Greetings, to all those who are watching us!
It is important that you remember the following:

The Poet - Yone Noguchi

Out of the deep and the dark,
A sparkling mystery, a shape,
Something perfect,
Comes like the stir of the day:

Goodman’s Bay II - Christian Campbell

Straight to the bush to gather cracked
bottles of beer and rum, shards of seaglass
smoothed by wind and sand. We Haitian

For the world’s beauty - Umar Timol

For the world’s beauty / to be complete /

Dream-wall - Asad Chowdhury

Dreams have no doors nor walls
They stroll like open skies,
White birds
flying
circling
In the deep blue sky.

Flying-Fox - Albert Wendt

More rat than bird,
more superstition than fox,
you hang from that banyan

The Mural of Arrogance - Mohammad Almoghrabi

     to Amina’s soul

The world is a
wasteland,
a wasteland is my destiny.

Custom - Grace Mera Molisa

Custom
is an English word
English
a confluence
of streams of words

Come, You Faithful, Raise the Strain - John of Damascus (John Mansur)

Come, you faithful, raise the strain
Of triumphant gladness!
God has brought his Israel
Into joy from sadness,
Loosed from Pharaoh’s bitter yoke
Jacob’s sons and daughters,
Led them with unmoistened foot
Through the Red Sea waters.

Wishes - Niyi Osundare

Wish I could still laugh with the lotus
On the bank of the Nile

Know ye not Ivar Sir Alfsön? - Sigrid Undset

Fair goes the dance at Munkolm
   On silver sand.
There danceth Ivar Sir Alfsön —
   Holds the Queen’s own hand.
      Know ye not Ivar Sir Alfsön?

Obeah Night - Jean Rhys

A night I seldom remember
(If it can be helped)
The night I saw Love's dark face
Was Love's dark face
“And cruel as he is”? I've never known that
I've tried my best you may be certain (whoever asks)
My human best

Love song - Anonymous Misīrī tribesman

Fair without [adornment of] beads and necklace,
I pray for you to God the One the Creator
that graciously He may grant you a divorce.

Sierra Leone at 48 - Abdulai Walon-Jalloh

I'm in ripe middle age
Facing the difficulties of a new page
Yet I'm expected to be a sage
Though I'm bound in my little cage

Differences - Joanne C. Hillhouse

“Is his choice”
He says
Matter of fact
Like the boy deserved to die
For this
Accident of biology

The Day of Easter - Dionysios Solomos

The last cool star of dawn was
foretelling the brightest sunshine;
no cloud, no drift of mist was travelling
across any part of the sky.

Dear Matefele Peinam - Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner

dear matafele peinam,
you are a seven month old sunrise of gummy smiles
you are bald as an egg and bald as the buddha
you are thunder thighs and lightning shrieks

The Rood speaks - Cynewulf

“It was long past – I still remember it –
That I was cut down at the copse’s end,
Moved from my root. Strong enemies there took me,
Told me to hold aloft their criminals,
Made me a spectacle. Men carried me
Upon their shoulders, set me on a hill,
A host of enemies there fastened me.

Emerald Dunes - Ketty Nivyabandi

From the depths of misty silences
The night’s last secrets are enfolded
Within the numb necks of old roosters
While the watchmen shamefully doze
Great women rise up,

Numerical Conjecture - Fawziyah Abu-Khalid

Six
Seven
Nine
These are not numerical symbols

I Want to Walk with Jesus - Kumalawaty Sundari

His loving arms shield me
In my daily pilgrimage.

St.Kitts and Nevis Independence 33 - Edrice Lewis Viechweg

We are a nation, proud and free,
Citizens of Liamigua and Oualie.
Fertile Land, Land of Beautiful Waters,
Cherished home of our sons and daughters.

How Could You? - Jovon Uwimana

How we used to be!
We were good neighbours,
But I don’t know what we had become by April ‘94.

Modernity in the Desert - Soad al Kuwari

We talk of many things we don’t understand.
Modernity in the desert! The latest
joke in a world full of jokes.

God's end - Bruce Levitan

Most of us walk around as if
we have our eyes closed;
Like letters that are sans serif
we miss out on what's exposed.

The passion of St George - Maria Grech Ganado

I drew up short. And, yes, I drew in startled –
  –  that shorn hair, standing on edge
like a black hedgehog, instead of the soft tresses
I’d dreamt had bound my heart –

African Moon - Koumanthio Zeinab Diallo

I have dreamed for you
Friend
A beautiful moon

I see it happening - Adam Abdurrahman

I see a dreadful plague
Spreading its pestilence here.
They call it development.
They call it refinement.

Monrovia 2008 - Patiricia Jabbeh Wesley

On the side walk, patches of people
linger late.

Who? - Anne Udui

Who are they to come to our isle
      to change the machas to their "so-called"
      style?

The Moon and Spring - Teresa Colom

we don’t write about death only about life

the dead do not write

A beautiful prayer - Joanne Gobure

I asked God to take away my habit.
God said, No.
It is not for me to take away,
but for you to give it up.

The Gull - Michael Donhauser

She’s stuck on her legs, sticking to her legs, and ducked down is how she carries her head, tucked into her feathers, turns her beak, a kind of needle, towards the wind.

Luxembourg 1939 - Léopold Sédar Senghor

This Luxembourg morning, this Luxembourg autumn,
As I walk back and forth upon my youth,
No strollers, no fountains, no boats in the water,
No children, no flowers.

Shall I find my life‘s black story - Thomas Mann

Shall I find my life‘s black story
Turn to lustre in thy glory?

The one I saw again - Jean Portante

                    The one I saw again
two days ago kept sewing
the same wound up again:

I’m Scared! - Adamou Idé

I’m scared!
 Yes, I do not conceal it from you
 I say it: I’m scared!

Weaving - Cresantia Frances Koya-Vaka‘uta

                              Pacific               Women                 Weave

Weaving               woven                 patterns

                                     Pictures                in the                     loom of life

Mosaics                 of culture              and family

The Lusiad (extract from Book V: Madeira) - Luís Vas de Camões

Nam'd from her woods, with fragrant bowers adorn'd,
From fair Madeira's purple coast we turn'd:

The Christ-child - St Gregory of Narek

The lips of the Christ-child are like to twin leaves;
They let roses fall when he smiles tenderly.

The fight is my spring - Vasco Cabral

The fight
It's mine
Spring

The Young Wife's Dream - Siamanto

Year after year, sitting alone at my window,
I gaze on thy path, my pilgrim heart-mate,
And by this writing I wish once more to sing
The tremors of my body and mind, left without a guardian.

I did not find Masood - Rua Salem

I did not find Masood
Or the shop.
Nor did I find my uncle.

The ghetto - Barnabé Laye

You are in the ghetto, my brother
You are in the ghetto.

The Mountain Wreath - Petar II Petrović-Njegoš

Montenegrins, do you see this wonder?
Fifty full years I've spun of my life's yarn.

A Nightingale in the Cage of My Breast - Farzaneh Khojandi

In this leafy orchard is a nightingale,
a nightingale whose songs are the dawn
and take me into the light,
to the mountains of legendary Farhad,

To be a girl - Raghda Gamal

You never thought that someday
You'll wish to know
What it's like to he a girl...

A Monkey at the Window - Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi

I
The little boy, playing in bed
while his wounded mother cooks,
is throwing little words and circles
out of the window.

In Search of - Magtymguly Pyragy

My country is Etrek, my people are Goklen,
I am in search of love,
My soul is filled with turbulence,
I am in search of the Sufi leader to bless me with power.

Tiris - Ali Salem Iselmu

If you ever come
to a wide, white land
dotted with towering black statues

To Laokein B. - Koulsy Lamko

Every night when the storm blows down sun-dried brick

houses and huts

Every warm night when men are at the mercy of mosquitoes

Every silent night that will echo the howl of the owl

Every night when the revival of the soil will grow its cotyledon

The Persian Bride - Elizabeta Bakovska

You speak to me in a language I don't understand.
Your eyes, a blue we don't have,
called me out of the many
pale women's faces there in Susa.

Hiccups - Léon Damas

I gulp down seven drinks of water
several times a day
and all in vain
instinctively
like the criminal to the crime
my childhood returns
in a rousing fit of hiccups

It's the Dream - Olav H. Hauge

It’s the dream we carry in secret
that something miraculous will happen,

All Passion Concluded - Mirta Rosenberg

Caprices of light
through the top chink
of the shutters
                         and the heat,
the cold like lime and the sun,

My God - Nyabuoy Gatbel

My God is not a he or she.
My God is not a gender but a spirit.

Snow, Electricity - Luis Chaves

Clothes out to dry
and those clouds.

There’s a new dog
who follows me everywhere
I go. He is here now,
under the table. When it’s storming
out he flattens himself onto the floor and will not be moved.

How to Fall in Love with an African City - Gbenga Adesina

In time, you too will come to learn dear friend, the soft rustle,
Soft whoosh of affection for a city like a lover like a love song: Nairobi, Abuja, Dakar
throbbing in your ribs: Accra, Harare, Port Novo, carving a place for themselves, to nestle
In spite of yourself in the jar
of things you call loved.

In Your Language - Grigore Vieru

Everybody giggles
In the same old language,
Everybody whimpers
In the same old tongue.

No father - Pope Urban VIII

Brave Saint, no blandishments of earth
Availed to draw thee from God's love;

Thank You for Being a Woman - Jémima Fiadjoe-Prince Agbodjan

Thank you for being a woman
For having been born
To know the pain of childbirth;

My beautiful country - Seshie Mauriko

Oh, you beautiful country,
country between sea and territory: I love you.

In the bird’s long silence I step into the day - Shrinivási

In the bird’s long silence I step into the day
like palm trees their song rustles every which way
clearing the air of a bloody past that once held sway

Fatherland - Alykul Osmonov

Dress warmer, the road with ice and snow is spread
The winter's severe, the blizzard howls at hand
Your ice chill I take upon my own head
By the road I will wait, stop awhile, my Fatherland!

Where are you? - Aleksa Šantic

When pearls of dew at night are strewn
On meadow flowers in early bloom,
My bosom starts a longing tune:
“Where are you, where are you?”

Everyday Lament - Augustin Tin Ujević

How hard it is to be weak,
How hard it is to be alone,
And to be old, yet young!

there is nothing worse - Alain Mabanckou

there is nothing worse
than the grief of black-rhun palms
the sleep of swamps
the silence of passerines

Letter to the Prime Minister - Bhanubhakta Acharya

Everyday I see kind authorities and they get rid of my worries.
I am at peace and at night I watch dances for free.
I do what my friends - mosquitoes, fleas, and bedbugs - say:
the mosquitoes sing and the ticks dance, I watch their play.

A woman is alone - Aída Cartagena Portalatín

A woman is alone.
Alone with her stature. With her open eyes. With her open arms. With her heart open like a wide silence.

To Withstand Evil - Mila Haugová

Alfa lives on. She sleeps less.
She hardly dreams. She loves much more.
She blooms in the wastefulness of autumn.
Her sight weakens.

Date Palm Trinity - Khaled Mattawa

Today the date palms were pruned,
the branches taken before the fruit ripened,
before sweetness littered the sidewalks.

The Central African Republic - Aimée Yangbadji

Here in CAR, we speak french and the national language which is Sango

Taw Khuarj ceremony - a royal poet of the Lane Xang Dynasty

The highest Then prince Laan Kaap Kham Vaa
Presented himself and spoke before his father,
Then Luang, who afterwards gave orders
To bedeck the mightiest elephants with trappings of gold.

The nature of Man - Alain de L'Isle

In this world each mortal creature
      Shows our life in form and feature,
      From the very dawn of birth;
Even as in a mirror showeth
      How the man appeareth, groweth,
      And his sad return to earth.

Only Mothers will Embrace Sorrows - U Sam Oeur

I wade through solitude
to the cottage where we used to
gather to drink rice wine,
enjoying false peace.
I sit under the same palm-leaf roof,
gaze at your chairs
but see no one,
hear only your laughs.

Kawthar: Princess of Mali - Aïda Touré

O Fountain of Immanence,
a gem from the Throne itself,
laid on the two hemispheres
of the Seen and the Unseen,
mystery dancing upon the Waters
of Wisdom from ancient Arabia to Mali,

Nirat Phu Khao Thong - Sunthorn Phu

Near to, I could smell the King's scent,
Sweetly rend'ring the air at hand:
The King died, tasteless became the land
He died, and scentless my own fate.

Love - Czesław Miłosz

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.

How beautiful is Yak Legpai Lhadar’s face! - Ap Chuni Dorji

How beautiful is Yak Legpai Lhadar’s face!
Yak Legpai Lhadar- the god-sent calf!

When the apricot tree blossoms - Hamid Olimjon

Flowers have decorated the branches
Calling the name of life at dawn,
And naughty wind on the first morning
Stole away the aroma of the blossoms.

The boat of words casts anchor - Mohamed Al-Harthy

Remarkable, the three of them together:
the mouse,
the keyboard
and the word processor

Message from a Martyr - Mbarka Mint al-Barra’

Fire your bullets -- our hearts are already ablaze
       In this land, grief wells up from my distress

Because Of You - Amir Hamzah

'Flowers burst into bloom,
Loving life because of You;
Love spreading like flowers in my heart
Filled it with the fragrance of blossoms, and their dust.

We don’t sing anymore - Jeffrey Mane Febi

Here! Comfort and solace we seek. Where we love and beloved.
Once a promise I smell; of together hearkening to sounds of poetry;
Of to the beat of alliterations together dancing;
Of together in fields of metaphor, cuddling and be cheery;
Of through the bars of many a rhyme kissing.

Sand - Rolf Jacobsen

There is a precise total for all the grains of sand on earth,
as well as for the starry worlds above our heads

Don’t stay far away from me for long - Juan Rodolfo Wilcock

Don’t stay far away from me for long
unless you want memory to devour all

Pop Melody - Sigfús Daðason

The dream is as moonlight
the moonlight as a dream
as moonlight
the dream I finally had last night

1886 - Abay Kunanbayev

Oh, my luckless Kazakh, my unfortunate kin,

An unkempt moustache hides your mouth  and chin.

Blood on your right cheek, fat on your left —

When will the dawn of your reason begin?

To the Bío Bío - Andres Bello

Blest were he, O Bío Bío!
Who could dwell forevermore
In a deep grove, cool and shady,
Upon thine enchanted shore!

Read - Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo

Make no sound, do not speak:
off to explore a forest, eyes, heart,
mind, dreams . . .

Chernobyl - Volha Ipatava

House. Hundred-year oak. A well-spring flowing
And storks winging from a distant strand.
'Human, grant that we may make our home here,
Very sweet to us appears this land.'

Decora Lux Aeternitatis - Elpis

Eternal glory, with the streaming ray
Of holy fire, has filled the golden day,
Crowning with light the apostolic chiefs,
And opening through the stars their luminous way.

a sudden fear of coming home - Naja Marie Aidt

a sudden fear of coming home
like meeting up with a sect one has left
and what if one can’t hold out against them

Year of Tango - Varand

Sunset, you sombre sunset,
Ardent music, boundless sorrow.
New stairs, new terrace, a new abode,
Golden age of dreams, of senses…

Homo sapiens - Ludwig Steinherr

The man down on his knees who's fated
to scrub the cobblestones
with a toothbrush —

I miss you - Bongiwe Dlamini

your hands, your eyes
I miss exploring your mouth, your mind

Minchmoor - William Hamilton

Sweet smells the birk: green grows, green grows the grass,
    Yellow on Yarrow's banks the gowan,
Fair hangs the apple fraie the rock,
    Sweet the wave of Yarrow flowan.

Shepherd of tender youth - St. Clement of Alexandria

Shepherd of tender youth
Guiding in love and truth
  Through devious ways;
Christ our triumphant king,
We come Thy name to sing;
Hither our children bring
  Tributes of praise.

Has My Heart Gone To Sleep? - Antonio Machado

Has my heart gone to sleep?
Have the beehives of my dreams
stopped working, the waterwheel
of the mind run dry,

The Return - Claribel Alegría

How will the return be?
My parents won’t be there
I won’t climb the volcano
with them
to gather orchids.

At Euroma - Henry Kendall

They built his mound of the rough red ground,
  By the dip of a desert dell,
Where all things sweet are killed by the heat,
  And scattered o’er flat and fell.
In a burning zone they left him alone,
  Past the uttermost western plain;
And the nightfall dim heard his funeral hymn
  In the voices of wind and rain.

The Horror of the Rain - Jean Delville

Implacably, dismally, prophetically,
It is raining, interminable tears of rain, it rains
Death upon the dismal city, long bereaved of sun.
It rains annihilation, immensely, upon my sleep
and my tormented dreams and, in the night, it rains

The Cloud Rains - Amir Khosrow

Cloud raining, and I from my friend am separated:
          how can, on such a day, the hearts be so separated?

What do animals dream? - Yahia Lababidi

Do they dream of past lives and unlived dreams
unspeakably human or unimaginably bestial?

A war-torn wife - Chenjerai Hove

This war!
I am tired
of a husband who never sleeps