31 December 1999 - Ian Mortimer

Pick a year, any year -
and the chances are that I cannot remember
where I was on New Year's Eve
except this year. I was in the square
dancing with my mother who was
drunk for the first time since 1966.

To the Serpent - Aimé Césaire

I have had occasion in the bewilderment of cities to search for the right animal to adore. So I worked my way back to the first times. Undoing cycles untying knots crushing plots removing covers killing hostages I searched.

To One Sick - José Asunción Silva

So you go too? So you’re weak?
So you lack the breath of life and thirst
For the pure air, the wild auroras?

Hope - Fenny Sterenborg

Arduous days and nothing to believe in
and now even I understand the stubbornness of grief

De Profundis - Georg Trakl

There is a stubble field on which a black rain falls.
There is a tree which, brown, stands lonely here.
There is a hissing wind which haunts deserted huts—
How sad this evening.

Misaddress - Glennise Ayuk

the popular opinion hovers like a low stratus cloud,
a cumbersome disguise cloaks unwieldy
on the hearts and heads of the girls and women,
made increasingly so by raindrops of shame
that soak in,

Sunset - Ivan Theofilov

          Oh how I love the joyful sunset
          that comes like an antique vendor
          of shawls and coral bracelets,
of music, wood carvings and colored dusk!

The Shot - Ogundare Tope

each line
on her face is
a story of war,
each crease
tells of battles
fought and lost,
wounds brandished,
hope taken captive.

Lines to Haroun and Yahia - Isaac Al Mouseli

Th' affrighted sun ere while he fled,
    And hid his radiant face in night;
A cheerless gloom the world o'erspread
    But Haroun came and all was bright.

Absentee Husband - Denny Moonde

Its late in the night has he called you yet?
Is he heaven sent?
How can love be absent?
Is what you share fair and decent?

Circle of women - Hilda Twongyeirwe

Your head is a hive,
you are not sure you will survive.
Women form a circle around you
In their eyes, your stories flow like The Nile.
They collect them
and hand you the cup.

Oh Mother of God - Fairuz

Oh mother of God, oh compassionate one
Oh treasure of mercy and assistance
You are our refuge and our hopes
Intercede on our behalf, oh virgin
Feel pity for our deaths

Crossing The Fog - Satish Verma

To undo, what I had
not done.
When you will not give―
me your scars.

The triumph of the victor - Nicholas Gordon

The triumph of the victor means
The losses have begun.
To be well-nigh invincible
Is to be on the run.

Ballads North and South, No. 1 - Claudia Lars

For many years I couldn’t choose
the land of my song.
Two lands, throbbing within,
were mystery and gift.

Jesus the King - Jordan Legaspi

You are the King of kings
born in a manger
to offer the beautiful place for us

Hunger - Jared Angira

The maize will grow
once when
long rains have come

Pepsi Cola - Hubert Matiúwàa

One Sunday a man arrived
to sell black water
that glistened like a riverstone.

The True Life - Tibullus

Let other men gather bright gold to themselves
and own many acres of well-ploughed soil,
let endless worry trouble them, with enemies nearby,
and the peals of the war-trumpets driving away sleep:

The Lusiad (extract from Book V: Cape of Storms) - Luís Vas de Camões

I spoke;—when, rising through the darkened air,
Appalled we saw an hideous phantom glare;
High and enormous o’er the flood he towered,
And thwart our way with sullen aspect lowered.
An earthly paleness o’er his cheeks was spread;

A person is reflected by the whirlpool - Ekaterina Boyarskikh

A person is reflected by the whirlpool, not the face
in the intelligent Angar, crazy January water.

Ten Warnings to the Congregation - Jakushitsu Genkō

1. Always bear in mind that life, whose gravest problems are birth and death, is impermanent.

The Flute - Naim Frashëri

Listen to the flute a-speaking,
Tell the tale of wretched exile,
Weeping for this world of sorrow
Using words of truth to spin it.

Which is which? - Val Sengebau

Who am I?
Where am I?
I can't seem to find the answers.
I don't know where I belong.
I don't know where to go.

The Bird and the Storm-Cloud - Pamelia Sarah Yule

Little bird, is that thy sphere,
Yonder threat'ning cloud so near?
Sunbeams blaze along its brow,
Yet what darkness reigns below!

Climbing Long-View Mountain’s Highest Peak - Meng Hao-jan

Rivers and mountains beyond the form seen:
Hsiang-yang’s beauty brings them in reach,

The white lilies - Luis de Góngora y Argote

The white lilies, children of the Sun,
That Spring grants us from age to age,

Your Song Resounded - Clemens Brentano

Your song resounded. I heard it
Drawn to the moon through roses:

Raga Asa - Baba Sheikh Farid

True lovers are those
who love with all their hearts.
Those who think of another,
speak of another
are called false lovers.

Quotes - Brigitte Fuchs

All rivers flow to the sea the sea
never fills up. Also the woman. And the
sun. Racing back to the place out of
breath. Attempting anew to be woman

That Is Autumn - Theodor Storm

That is autumn; leaves are flying
Through branches naked to the wild;
The ship is rocking, sails are swelling-
Farewell you charming shipborn child.

Kudu - Gaarriye

My father told me this story
when I was a child. We sat
in the shade of a tree and he began:

Kill Me, My Faithful Friends - Mansur Al-Hallaj

Kill me, my faithful friends,
For in my being killed is my life.

More Than Myself - Anne Sexton

Not that it was beautiful,
but that, in the end, there was
a certain sense of order there;

When It Falls - Michael Theophilus Dom

Like a rock
Made of rain

The Glorious New Creation - Isaiah

For I am about to create new heavens
   and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
   or come to mind.

Repulsive being - Juan Rodolfo Wilcock

Repulsive being, you merit
Your verbal acquaintance with grief
Unlike the ants, unlike the porcupine.

Lisis - Dina Bellrham

i’d like you to feel
the pain of the branches,
the hunger of the train as it passes,
the cry of the girl
when the dolls are raped

Love for animals - Tom Mukasa

We give them names,
especially those we tame,

Hawk - Kamau Brathwaite

these children mek dis pack with you

At the river crossing - Jim Pascual Agustin

Rocks and boulders
smoothed to roundness by the relentless
rushing of cold mountain waters,
please keep my daughters’
little feet on your firm backs.

New days are like the changing of water - Nene Giorgadze

New days are like the changing of water.
It’s evening and from far away you see
people’s withering ikebana flowers

Credo - Romain Rolland and Edmond Bordeaux Szekely

We believe that our most precious possession is Life.
We believe we shall mobilize all the forces of Life against the forces of death.

The Missing Language - Zafer Şenocak

the cold days are counted up
the snow has stopped
and turned
into snow made of paper

Poem of things and other things - Oumar Farouk Sesay

A littered mind
A disused thought
A muffled song
A caged bird

Elephant - Anonymous

Elephant who brings death. Elephant, a spirit in the bush.
With his single hand he can pull two palm trees to the ground.

Mis-using - Mtendere Alice Kishindo

Set myself on fire
Let the synthetic melt
The acrylic burn
And all this fat sizzle

I know I can - Esther Mbale

Growing up,
I accepted what society gave me
I accepted that women should lean on men
It was normal seeing a man beat his wife

Dâri - Oumougna de Dantchandou

I dreamed last night
That Dâri de Tchiga was advising me

The Very Self of the Self - Aïda Touré

Peel the golden layer off of you,
lo! Another one appears,
you are made of bouncy
luxurious particles
that ever reach for love,

Bamako! - António Agostinho Neto

Bamako
               Where the truth dropping on the leaf’s sheen
                  unites with the freshness of men
                     like strong roots under the warm surface of the soil
                        and where grow love and future
                           fertilised in the generosity of the Niger
                              shaded by the immensity of the Congo
                                 to the shim of the African breeze of hearts

Other Banks - Fatma Krouma

I love you more in temperate climates
away from the killing sun
and the long and boring Sundays.

The meaning of the Circus - Tène Youssouf Gueye

Distant carillons  of the Great Copper Clock
veiled echoes of bugles and the song of crowds (choir of
great communal feasts, syncopated applause descending
into the depths along green abysses)
we climb back up the dreams to the blue height of stars
all the way to the sonorous circus tiers
resplendent in light.

Drowning - Tsebo Makakole

Scared and frustrated,
Ke tšohile batsoali,¹
What are they going to say,
When I tell them?
My wallet all wet,
Containing my money
And my bank account cards.

Not My Business - Niyi Osundare

They picked Akanni up one morning
Beat him soft like clay
And stuffed him down the belly
Of a waiting jeep.

Two Strangers - Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva

One Sunday in December,
Two strangers met in church.
The Pastor talked about Salvation
and hope.
Then he told the church to join hands
And pray.
Rwabambarussshii shpirit, Jeshushhhhhh

corner pritchard - Siza Nkosi

corner pritchard
has a salon not wider
than the backroom of a house
in mzimhlophe

People in tall buildings - Rethabile Masilo

You see those people in the tall buildings, at their windows,
looking at a sky between whose seams a swallow with her beak
sews patches of blue into place?

The Rank - Thato Angela Chuma

The city pours itself here;
within the damp smell of roasting maize,
sweat,
and the snores of taxis and combis
travelling on half-dressed roads.

Stank with Sweat - Nana Nyarko Boateng

The brave face
I wear is never washed
It stinks with sweat
my mother’s and mine

the inferior - Nanche Billa Robert

we bounced out of the egg
in a minuscule zone
                              worth
                                             wealth
                                                             in a miniature of Africa

Pay attention when it comes - Caroline Anande Uliwa

In the ring of romantic love
There’s a new language
Symbolism with great vantage

In two ways have I loved Thee - Rabi’a of Basri

In two ways have I loved Thee: selfishly,
And with a love that worthy is of Thee.

Lines on Wood - Limam Boicha

As I listened to that old and beautiful song
its fine words were baptised by the flames
igniting the bonfire of this poem

Kaidara (excerpt) - Amadou Hampâté Bâ

When the Great Forger of the skies reached his forge,
he plied his bellows till the forge came alight.

More rich taints yer! - Mamoudou Lamine Kane

At Nouakchott’s reddened intersections,
Baseless arrogance behind each wheel
Pouring down pot-holed roads
Towards who knows what hazy occupations.

O ignee Spiritus / Hymn to the Holy Spirit - Hildegard of Bingen

Praise to you
Spirit of fire!
to you who sound the timbrel
and the lyre.

Debtors’ Lane (with Drums & Ogene) - Christopher Okigbo

A & B: This is debtors’ lane, this is
the new haven, where wrinkled faces
watch the wall clock strike each hour
in a dry cellar.

Hashtag - Davina Philomena Kawuma

Headphones edged with brio,
bulging over skirted sofas.
Sport is the new sex.

Run, Heart, Run - Efemia Chela

I exercise this muscle in my chest
with bad love, fake affection.

Civilian and Soldier - Wole Soyinka

My apparition rose from the fall of lead,
Declared, 'I am a civilian.' It only served
To aggravate your fright. For how could I
Have risen, a being of this world, in that hour
Of impartial death! And I thought also: nor is
Your quarrel of this world.

Departure - Chaman Lall

I
This wind sighing recalls certain things.
I warned you:
Beware of it:
Passion has wings;

But who’s the one to bell the cat? - Eustache Deschamps

Among the mice, so runs the tale,
a brilliant convocation sat
against their enemy the cat

Where I Wander - Levi Yitzchak

Where I wander – you!
Where I ponder – You!
Only You, You again, always You!

Question - Marie Under

We saw those berries, over-ripe and glowing,
in weak and tepid light of the October sun
persisting red as blood, in right full-growing,
without much inkling of the winter clouds to come.

The Joy of Life - Metrodorus

Hold every path of life.
In the market-place are honours and prudent dealings,
in the house rest;

We are Brothers - Mugurditch Beshiktashlian

From glorious Nature’s myriad tongues
Though songs be breathed by lips of love,
And though the maiden’s fingers fair
Across the thrilling harp-strings rove,
Of all earth’s sounds, there is no other
So lovely as the name of brother.

the Prudish Parent - Sylvanus Barnes

And so it came—
The fateful day, the dreaded moment
Which no shrinking parent can postpone.

Adhiambo - Gabriel Okara

I hear many voices
like it's said a madman hears;
I hear trees talking
like it's said a medicine man hears.

May You Be Happy This Morning, Worn Traces! - Imru' al-Qais

How many a day, a night I'd spend
with a woman, stark as a statue outlined,
her face aglow as she turns to her mate
like softly radiant candle light;

Love is Lord of All - Boethius

Why are Nature's changes bound
To a fixed and ordered round?
What to leaguèd peace hath bent
Every warring element?

Song of Antiquity - Maironis

Word is here, from as far as Vilnius: Saddle the steed.
In Marienburg Teutonic knights move to destroy us.
Goodbye, dear heart, my sister! Be still. Wait for me.
     If I not perish, I shall return, joyous.

A pretty tale of Pakistan: I. The First Shot - N.V. Thadani

When comets trail across the sky.
Great men are born — some day to die:
Portents of a mighty fate,
To raise a man or ruin a state!

Sumatra - Miloš Crnjanski‎

Now we are carefree, light and tender.
We just think: how quiet are the snowy
peaks of the Urals.

On the Caprices of Fortune - Shems Almaali Cabus

Why should I blush that Fortune's frown
  Dooms me life's humble paths to tread?
To live unheeded and unknown!
  To sink forgotten to the dead!

Vashti - Bhekumuzi Tshuma

I came to you with my heart,
As a loving shepherd,
An innocent lamb did I come;

A Watermill Beneath the Bed - Rosa Alice Branco

The mosquito net hangs over the white bedspread.
There is a rapids flowing right beneath the bed
and it drags us through the dizzying histories of water.

O Holy Ghost! Thy heavenly dew - John Caspar Lavatar

O Holy Ghost! Thy heavenly dew
The hearts of sinners can renew;
Thou dost within our breasts abide,
And still to holy actions guide.

The Spider in the Holiday House Motel - José Emilio Pacheco

The spider’s been here.

Quick as a will-o-the-wisp,
tiny as a flea the spider scaled-down,
her final reduction to an almost microbial being.

Moroni - MAB Elhad

The Moon’s disc emerges slowly,
Atop the Karthala and its wide open crater.
Crystalline night,
In a town of the East,
To the opaline reflections.

Brothers, your cries - Adi Rumi

Brothers, your cries
are ours too.

North and South - Marí Peté

the sun has touched the leaves
soft dipped brush
september days shrink here
inch by inch

Good Morning! - Matilda Olkin

Oh, the Sun has awoken
And is leaping from her bed.
She opens one eye, then the other,
“Good morning!”

Immortal Lust - Augusto dos Anjos

Do you really think that life-giving bliss,
The driving hunger of eurythmic atoms,
Will abort the molecules in motion

God Pursues Me Everywhere - Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

God pursues me everywhere,
Enmeshes me in glances,
And blinds my sightless back like flaming sun.

Creation - Sophus Niels Christen Claussen

I am unborn as yet, but am delivered giving birth.
From the life in my work I sense the life in myself,
robbed of this mirror, I am as good as laid in earth.

Georgics Book I (lines 1-42) - Vergil

What makes crops smile,
beneath what star it befits to turn the soil, Maecenas,
and to train the vines to the elm-trees;
what is the management of cattle,
what the system for keeping a herd,
what skill is required for the thrifty bees,
henceforth I will take upon me to sing.

Sailing Homeward - Chan Fang-shēng

Cliffs that rise a thousand feet
Without a break,
Lake that stretches a hundred miles
Without a wave,

Eye of the Empire - Tsering Woeser

What kind of eye is that?
Yet, it must be an eye of utmost desires:

Anecdote of a Goat - Abayomi Animashaun

There is one with slackened tie.
Beside him an old paper and a black umbrella.

XXIV - Gaston Burssens

à Yvette

Adieu. These are the final notes
I’ve tapped out on my ribs and chest.

One Must Go Beyond God - Johann Scheffler

In God nought e'er is known,

A-BO-LI-TION - Edouard J. Maunick

A!
… guitars/ravanes/invade us/
triangles/maravanes/carry us/
it’s the hour of the campfire/
it’s the hour of the campfire among the filaos tree/
it’s the hour of the campfire of the bush rum/
it’s the hour of an incandescent memory
existing even before
the native island was founded:

real morning - Raghda Rüstem

I’m finally living a real morning
And I've had to slaughter so many dreams to get here

Košice - Jozef Urban

City of autumn and puddles and smoke
City of statues
To whom we blew kisses

Your Journey - Rumi Ullidov

If you would order me
To take a long trip
To places you have been
And to see things you have seen
And experience every detail of your past life
I would kindly bow and accept your word

Grant us - Edith Kanaka'ole

Grant us
knowledge from above,

Romeo digs Juliet - Grand Corps Malade

Romeo lives on the ground floor of building 3
Juliet, in the building opposite, on the top floor
Both are 16 and every day, when they see each other
There grows in their eyes a desire to share things
It’s on their first date that they take that step
Under a sad autumn sky that rains on their bodies
They kiss like crazy, unafraid of the wind or the cold
For love has its reasons that the seasons don’t understand

In time - Léo Ferré

In time …
In time, it goes, everything goes away.
We forget the face and we forget the voice,
The heart, when it stops beating, there’s no point
Searching any further, you must let it go and that’s good.

A Song and Three Questions - Amjad Nasser

I.
Talk is silver,
poetry is gold,
and women are the ringing of both metals.

Outskirts: Winter without People - Gennady Aygi

this shining
of light from from the world
along the revetment (o empty malleability
of dead resonance! —

Iventory of Things Left Behind - Liana Alaverdova

Things left behind: one casserole, enormous,
Ideal for pilav; Great-grandma’s samovar
In brass, antique (or nearly); with medallions
Assorted works of art, still life with melon,

How to Walk on the Seashore - El Mahdi Qeraz

To be conscious is an evil being walking
Ask an insect on the seashore jumping
From one end to the other drawing
A wandering circle

Girls at Bwandilo, Lilongwe - Anonymous

Ladies of Bwandilo

They shameless signal you down
Clad in their min skirts
Min skirts endowed with long slits

It seemes that Tunis is an auncient towne - Anonymous

It seemes that Tunis is an auncient towne
Neere to the ruines of Carthage once so prowde,

I think about you, Mogadishu - Delalorm Sesi Semabia

You star in my nightmares
You seduce in my temple
You challenge my sleep.

Kampala Beggar - David Rubadiri

Dark twisted form
Of shreds and cunning
Crawling with an inward twinkle
At the agonies of Africa.

Banjul this afternoon - Obinna Chilekezi

I can’t comprehend the weather
as the sun goes laughing in this cold
around the town.

Dear Cape Town - Kerry Hammerton

I would like to give you a giraffe
like the one in the central park of Cuidad Juárez.
In that northern Mexican town
they treat their giraffe like a tourist.

Cairo - Nesma

I'd go to the airport an hour before the arrival time of your plane even though I know it'll arrive an hour late.
I'd go an hour early because I want us to share your first experience of Egyptian timing.
Egypt is not bound to the pace in which Earth loops her way around the sun like the lake swan, because Egypt always preferred belly dances to ballet and it shows well in weddings.

Spring in Nairobi - Ngwatilo Mawiyoo

Spring in Nairobi
is Jacaranda trees in bloom
a blissful blue, bold, edging
toward lavender gladness.

Addis Ababa - Fekade Azeze

I walk your streets, but make no strides:

your shops and kiosks crowd my eyes

ENTs and dentistries

music stalls

drug shacks

photo booths

jumbled!

chaotic!

The Bible - Alice Sedgwick

What taught me the first great cause
Who existed ere creation rose
And gave us our universal laws
        The Bible

March - Susan Frances Harrison

Here on the wide waste lands,
Take—child—these trembling hands,
Though my life be as blank and waste,
My days as sorely ungraced
By glimmer of green on the rim
Of a sunless wilderness dim,
As the wet fields barren and brown,
As the fork of each sterile limb
Shorn of its lustrous crown.

The Price of Progress - Aileen Shirra

Chestnuts lie strewn on the cow grass
Cast down among the leaves by carelessly gusting gales
And prematurely aborted from their spiky wombs,
White underbellies betraying their vulnerability,
By fat- cheeked, scolding squirrels

Fog - Louise Otto-Peters

A grey veil has settled all around.
I know not: will the sun break through
Or will this fog completely mask it, today;
And will it rise; and will it fall again?
So might I ask- but the world maintains its silence
And meadow and valley are filled with haze.

My Nook - Nora May French

Oh, half way up the hill it was, where one might sit leaf-hidden,

  And stare across the canyoned depths to distant miles of blue;
Upon the little path to it no foot might step unbidden.

I Hardly Remember - Rafael Guillén

I hardly remember your voice, but the pain of you
floats in some remote current of my blood.
I carry you in my depths, trapped in the sludge
like one of those corpses the sea refuses to give up.

A Letter from the Youth of Britain - Krystina Mawer

Little Britain is severed and splintered,
A country divided in two,

Fake - N. Ullrich Katalin

Fake-flowers in fake-soil,
fake-world with fake-lawn.

How Babs Malone Cut Down the Field - Barcroft Boake

                Now the squatters and the “cockies,”
                Shearers, trainers and their jockeys
Had gathered them together for a meeting on the flat;
                They had mustered all their forces,
                Owners brought their fastest horses,
Monaro-bred—I couldn’t give them greater praise than that.

Pinocchio - Leungo Frank

I used to be just like Pinocchio
I wanted to be real
To feel things
Feel joy
Feel pain

The Land of Exile - Ch`u Yuan

Methinks there's a genius
Roams in the mountains,
Girdled with ivy
And robed in wisteria,

Pine Tree in Spring (for Leon Damas) - Chinua Achebe

Pine tree
flag bearer
of green memory
across the breach of a desolate hour

Heartbeat - Mikayil Mushfig

My heartbeat said:
"There's luck ahead...
Great, glorious days
That brace and daze
Are yet to come!"

Humility - Marguerite Porete

This Humility, who is aunt and mother,
is daughter of Divine majesty and so is born from Divinity.

Ecstasy - Gabriela Mistral

Now, O Christ, seal my eyelids,
Let ice on my lips be spread!

The sun is at rest - Holger Drachmann

The sun is at rest; its rays are gone!
Day now reposes,

Song of Day in Yosemite Valley - Yone Noguchi

O thunderous opening of the unseen gate of solemn Heaven's Eternal Court!
Behold, clouds, tenants of the sky, sweep down from the Heavens unto a secret palace under the Earth!—

In Sophie’s Diary - Juliusz Słowacki

For poems, Sophie, ask me not, I pray.
When thou art back in Poland’s merry clime,
A flower will sing a song for thee each day,
A star at night will make for thee a rhyme.

Theory of Recruiting - Regina Derieva

Sons of bitches
were born
with hearts of stone,

The Song of the Wind - Taliesin

Whose idea was the wind?
Created before the deluge,
he is a powerful creature,
sans flesh, sans bone,
sans veins, sans blood,
sans head, and sans feet.

Sonnet XVI. Love and Art - Michelangelo Buonarroti

As pen and ink alike serve him who .sings
      In high or low or intermediate style;
      As the same stone hath shapes both rich and vile
      To match the fancies that each master brings;

Lord Tennyson - T. Ramakrishna

A poet of my native land has said -
The life the good and virtuous lead on earth
Is like the black-eyed maiden of the East,

To Be an Infant - Sonja Åkesson

to be carried on the arms of daddies
as conversational bait for strange ladies

Danish Manor Ghosts - Henrik Nordbrandt

Danish Manor Ghosts
was the title of a book
that my mother said she stopped reading
because it got too Frightening.

This Evening Also - Paul Celan

More fully,
since snow fell even on this
sun-drifted, sun-drenched sea,

Lament II - Jan Kochanowski

If I had ever thought to write in praise
Of little children and their simple ways,
Far rather had I fashioned cradle verse
To rock to slumber, or the songs a nurse
Might croon above the baby on her breast.

I Travelled among Unknown Men - William Wordsworth

I travelled among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.

Dreaming of the Mountain - Ayukawa Nobuo

It is the only place I will be able to return to.
It is the beginning and the end of nature.
The mountain of my homeland.
The village where my father was born is in the mountains,
the town where my mother was born is surrounded by mountains.
Always the sun and moon rise from the peak and set in the ridge.

Old Spookses' Pass - Isabella Valancy Crawford

I.
We'd camped that night on Yaller Bull Flat,--
     Thar was Possum Billy, an' Tom, an' me.
Right smart at throwin' a lariat
     Was them two fellers, as ever I see;
An' for ridin' a broncho, or argyin' squar
     With the devil roll'd up in the hide of a mule,
Them two fellers that camp'd with me thar
     Would hev made an' or'nary feller a fool.

The Loreley - Heinrich Heine

I know not what evermore grieves me,
What makes me sorrow so:
A tale of old times never leaves me,
A tale of long ago.

+ANTINOUS+: A Poem - Fernando Pessoa

It rained outside right into Hadrian's soul.

The boy lay dead
On the low couch, on whose denuded whole,
To Hadrian's eyes, that at their seeing bled,
The shadowy light of Death's eclipse was shed.

The Star Wizard's Legacy - Vasko Popa

He left behind his words
Lovelier than the world
No one dares look at them

You Will Hear Thunder - Anna Akhmatova

You will hear thunder and remember me,
And think: she wanted storms. The rim
Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson,
And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.

The Nut Garden - Joseph Gikatilla

The Nut Garden holds things felt and thought,
and feeling for thought is always a palace —

Too Lazy To Be Ambitious - Taigu Ryokan

Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.

Summer Paintings in Europe - Floss M. Jay

Oh – and these are not paintings:

This shoulder of wheaten gold
tumbling across the low hill
susceptible to breeze and wind
as Van Gogh predicted.

Oh when will autumn moon and spring flowers end? - Li Yu

Oh when will autumn moon and spring flowers end?

Beyond Siberia Again Siberia - Regina Derieva

Beyond Siberia again Siberia,
beyond impenetrable forest again forest.
And beyond it waste ground,
where a blizzard of snow breaks loose.

Every Time I Kiss You - Nizar Qabbani

Every time I kiss you
After a long separation

The Friend - Francisca Stoecklin

You are so far away.
The space that parts our gaze
Cannot be bridged
in a single day.

Raga Dhanashri - Pipa

The body is God,
the body is the temple,
the body is the worshiper,
the body is the sacred shrine.
The body is the incense,
the lamp, the sacred offerings;
it is the body I worship
with broken petals.

The Demon Snow-Shoes (A Legend of Kiandra) - Barcroft Henry Boake

The snow lies deep on hill and dale,
In rocky gulch and grassy vale,
The tiny, trickling, tumbling falls
Are frozen ’twixt their rocky walls
That grey and brown look silent down
Upon Kiandra’s shrouded town.

The Steppe - Boris Pasternak

How lovely those journeys into quiet!
Boundless the steppe, like a seascape,
ants rustle, and the feather-grass sighs,
mosquitoes go whining through space.

Easy - Paul Éluard

Easy and beautiful under
your eyelids
As the meeting of pleasure
Dance and the rest

The Quality of Life - Publius Annius Florus

Bacchus, of the vine revealer, let thy fullness aid the vine:
Send the dulcet juice aflowing which no nectar can outshine.
Grant it ever-mellowing storage lest in veins inimical
It produce a smack of roughness turned to vinegar withal.

Love's despair - Dermot O'Curnan

I am desolate,
Bereft by bitter fate;
No cure beneath the skies can save me,
No cure on sea or strand,
Nor in any human hand—
But hers, this paining wound who gave me.

Go, dream no more - Pamelia Sarah Yule

  Go, dream no more of a sun-bright sky
    With never a cloud to dim!—
Thou hast seen the storm in its robes of night,
Them hast felt the rush of the whirlwind's might,
Thou hast shrunk from the lightning's arrowy flight,
    When the Spirit of Storms went by!

Bermuda triangle - Ivan Borislavov

Did I dream I was flying over the Bermuda triangle?
Below me the stars were reeling –
the lights of the heavenly airport.
And the airplane – a Southern Cross on fire –
engraved in the vortex of night.
I was ablaze with fire – other than this I can't remember anything.

The lay of Our Lady (IV) - Frauenlob

Do not deny,
Too shy, the joy,
When he thee did ply —

Blood Money - Syl Cheney-Coker

Along the route of this river,

with a little luck, we shall chance upon

our brothers' fortune, hidden with that cold smile

The Feast - Dorian Haarhoff

I have laid the round table
and set the seven-bit candle stick, centre-piece.
the hour is late. the chairs stand empty.
the invited guests have not come
nor sent regrets.

The essence of this world - Rudaki

May the world please our lord. May he live long.
May no accidents befall him.

To a Dead Crow - Kasiprasad Ghose

Gay minstrel of the Indian clime!
How oft at morning's rosy prime
When thou didst sing in caw, caw numbers,
Vexed I've awoke from my sweet slumbers,
And to avoid that hateful sound,
That plagues a head howe'er profound,
Have walked out in my garden, where
Beside the tank, in many a square,
Sweet lilies, jasmines, roses bloom,
Far from those trees within whose gloom
Of foliage thick, thou hadst thy nest
From daily toil at night to rest.

Courbet:The Stone Breakers - Rene Char

Sand and straw live gently, soften the fall of wine.
They gather quills from dovecotes.
Theirs is the gullet’s greedy tongue.

The Celestial Fire -Yannai

Now an angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a blazing fire —

a fire that devours fire;

Siberia - James Clarence Mangan

In Siberia's wastes
   The ice-wind's breath
Woundeth like the toothed steel;
Lost Siberia doth reveal
   Only blight and death.

the well digger - Yokoi Yayū

the well digger
comes out into the floating world—
the heat!

The Domain - J. Le Gay Brereton

The bulging cloud mounts lazily
    In shade where sunlight glances through,
And sweeping lightly from the tree
    Melts indolently in the blue.

Liverpool - Yasemin Balandi

When night ends, the fog begins
Heavy as lead!
Shrouding the town:
Once grand
And home of grandeur.

Everything Has Changed (Except Graves) - Mzi Mahola

I stood at the ruins
of my former school
where I was patiently moulded;
wild plants own every space now;
my soul was paralyzed.
What happened to the roofs
the doors and windows?

A Meditation - José Agostinho de Macedo

Portentous Egypt! I in thee behold
And studiously examine human-kind,
Learning to know me in mine origin,
In the primeval and the social state.

Descend from your head into your heart - Theophan the Recluse

You must descend from
your head into your heart.

The Forest Reverie - Abijah M. Ide

’Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of woe,
Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,

Vondel's Lucifer (Act II, lines 1-34) - Joost van den Vondel

Ye speedy Spirits, stay our chariot now,
God's Morning-star in its full zenith stands;
Its height is reached; and lo! the moment comes
When Lucifer must set before this star,
This double star that rises from below
And seeks the way above, to tarnish Heaven
With earthly glow. No more should ye adorn
Proud Lucifer's apparel with glittering crowns,
Nor gild his forehead with the glorious dawn
Of morning-star, to which Archangels kneel.

The Gardener's Daughters - Hugo von Hofmannsthal

One fills the large Delft jugs,
Painted with blue dragons and birds,
With a loose sheaf of bright flowers:

the sun is a new house - H.C. Artmann

the sun is a new house
you write it
it is tomorrow
we hold our hands through
the open windows

Noah in Salonta - Srgjan Sekulić

In Salonta¹
in front of the Orthodox church
a man was offering Salah.

Place de la Concorde - Florence Earle Coates

Near where the royal victims fell
In days gone by, caught in the swell
Of a ruthless tide
Of human passion, deep and wide:
There where we two
A Nation’s later sorrow knew—
To-day, O friend! I stood
Amid a self-ruled multitude
That by nor sound nor word
Betrayed how mightily its heart was stirred.

How is it I can love You - Symeon the New Theologian

How is it I can love You
     within me,
     yet see You from afar?

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (Quatrains I - XII) - Omar Khayyam

Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight!
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light,

Remembering Sahel - Paulos Netabay

Who could forget the war?
The battles where we fell,
the awful sun, our wounds
glistening like jewels
in the hell we’ve never left…

The Shaving of Murdoch - Standish Hayes O'Grady

When he and Cathal of the Red Hand, King of Connaught, entered the monastic life together.

Murdoch, whet thy knife, that we may shave our crowns to the Great King,
Let us sweetly give our vow, and the hair of both our heads to the Trinity.

Monastery in the Hills (Monk's Song) - Dato Barbakadze

Each morning I fetch water from a hidden spring
and quietly watch the changing clouds.
I do not know if I will see another winter
but I am still happy, surrounded by mountains and green places
where so many mortals—so many weak ones—live.

The Fall of the Leaves - Charles-Hubert Millevoye

With the spoils of the wood,
Autumn had littered the earth;
The groves without mystery,
The nightingale without voice.
Sadly, and dying with his dawn,
A youth, afflicted, paced slowly
Across, as in earlier years,
This wood of delight, once more.

I must be the last time - Daniel Faria

I must be the last time
The final rain over the last animal in the grass
The corpse where the spider decides the circle.

Lead us up beyond light - Dionysius the Areopagite

Lead us up beyond light,
beyond knowing and unknowing,
to the topmost summit of truth,

I am weary of the speakers of English - Màiri Mhór

I am weary of the speakers of English
I long for some warmth and music
I am truly tired of the speakers of English

Home - Leonidas

Cling to thy home! if there the meanest shed
Yield thee a hearth and shelter for thy head,

Green, green the river-side grass - Anonymous

Green, green the river-side grass,
Dense, dense the garden willows,

The Sundowner's Dream - David Campbell

He sat by the fire;
It burned with a black flame
In the fluid air
And he told me his dream.

In an age unlike our own - Sappho

I declare
That later on,

Green Fingers - Carl Spitteler

Green Fingers rides through the wood.

And never a word says she,
But she sets her mark upon every tree.
And soon there's a whisper, a titter,
And out comes Kobolds with a skitter
To dance in the faery-ring,
And high in the branches swing -
Kobold,
Catch the gold
That on branching boughs doth its curls unfold.

In Praise of God (from Avoda) - Yose ben Yose

I shall proclaim the mighty deeds of God,
     who is glorious in power.
He alone is God
     and there is no other;

A goobie is not a calabash - Ted Eric Matthews

Is not de calabash ah want, is de goobie!
Yo’ don’t know de difference? Well I tell yo’!

Blindness cure - Epiphanie Mukasano

you have been looking for too long
you have even borrowed a telescope

From A Place - Titilope Sonuga

I come from a place

where mothers go to battle each day
with a baby strapped across their backs
another still clinging from their breasts
childcare at its finest

The Dead Doll - Margaret Vandergrift

You needn't be trying to comfort me— I tell you my dolly is dead!
There's no use in saying she isn't, with a crack like that in her head.
It 's just like you said it wouldn't hurt much to have my tooth out, that day;
And then, when the man 'most pulled my head off, you hadn't a word to say.

May I Never Miss… - Hector Marcó

The storm of the years
has whitened your head,
dear bright-eyed mother
who lives and breathes for me.

Being a Sri Lankan - Saduni Wanniarachchi

Mothers’ hips are eroded
And her clavicles stick out.
She has had too many children
But she is still pregnant.
Her lungs are punctured
And Shred into pieces
Of ripe cloudless flesh
Only to be hidden beneath
Layers of charred rubber.

Only a bird - Śrî Ānanda Āchārya

I am not God nor His messenger—
I am only a singing bird.

Black Children - Rex Ingamells

Where now uninterrupted sun
Is shrivelling the sheaves,

I am - Grigore Vieru

I am the apple tree that rises
With shiny fruit toward the stars,
While down below a leper scratches
Against its trunk his ugly scars.

Word Nine - Abay Kunanbayev

When dying,
I will not lament:

Invocation - Mirjam Tuominen

Beyond the seven mountains
the seven valleys
the seven rapid torrents
the seventy-seven nights
the seventy-seven days
the seven hundred-and-seventy-seven days-and-nights
the seven thousand and seventy-seven paradise years
inferno years purgatory years
shut up in the mountain
beyond the valleys
beyond the rapids
beyond the nights the days
the days-and-nights
the paradise years
inferno years purgatory years
inside shut in
outside shut out
I cry: ‘Awake!

St. George And The Dragon - Anonymous

Of Hector's deeds did Homer fing,
And of the sack of ftately Troy,
What griefs fair Helena did bring,
Which was fir Paris' only joy:
And by my pen I will recite
St. George's deeds, and Englifh knight.

The beasts are very wise - Rudyard Kipling

The beasts are very wise,
Their mouths are clean of lies;

Done is a Battle - William Dunbar

Done is a battle on the dragon black,
Our champion Christ confoundit has his force;
The yetis of hell are broken with a crack,
The sign triumphal raisit is of the cross,
The devillis trymmillis with hiddous voce,
The saulis are borrowit and to the bliss can go,
Christ with his bloud our ransonis dois indoce:
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.

O gladsome light - Hieromartyr Athenogenes

O gladsome light, O grace
Of God the Father's face,
The eternal splendour wearing;
Celestial, holy, blest,
Our Saviour Jesus Christ,
Joyful in thine appearing.

Bitter was the night - Sydney Carter

Bitter was the night,
thought the cock would crow forever
Bitter was the night before the break of day.

Melancholy - Poornima Laxmeshwar

From my window
I see the orange circle
Escape in a blue quilt
Quietly without leaving any traces of its existence

Come Away, My Love - Joseph Kariuki

Come away, my love, from streets
Where mankind eyes divide,
And show windows reflect our difference.
In the shelter of my faithful room rest.

The midnight mouse - Christian Morgenstern

When it's midnight and neither moon
Nor stars do light the sky,
Then twelve times across the heavens
The midnight mouse doth fly.

Talvez - Régis Bonvicino

Might be a bird passing over
might be a moment of silence
might be the sun in hiding
might be winter hasn't
passed

I Walk in Danger All the Way - Hans Adolf Brorson

I walk in danger all the way.
The thought shall never leave me
That Satan, who has marked his prey,
Is plotting to deceive me.
This foe with hidden snares
May seize me unawares
If e'er I fail to watch and pray.
I walk in danger all the way.

To my beloved: With my soul in my lips - Medardo Ángel Silva

When you imagine our impassioned love’s flame
inside your chest to be extinguished,
the day you’re without me, my life will be torn from me
only because of you is my life beloved.

Remembrance - Mario Battistella

Every week feels so long
when you are not close to me!
I don’t know what superhuman powers
give my life meaning, so far from you.

Poems: V - Publius Annius Florus

When my young pear-trees I planted, when I planted apple-trees,
On the bark the name I gravéd of the sweetheart who is mine.

My native Pines - Joseph Howe

My native Pines—my native Pines,
    I love beneath your boughs to stray,
While morning’s sun upon you shines
    With bright, and warm, and fervid ray;
For oh! ’twas thus in childhood’s hours,
    I rov’d beneath them wild and free,
And gathered May’s unsullied flowers,
    That sprung around each forest tree.

Moonlight Sleeps Within your Heart - Jean Lahor

Moonlight sleeps Within your heart,
A gentle light of summer moon
And I 'shall set the cares of life apart
When, in your brightness,' shall I swoon.

Morning Hymn - Gregory the Great

Lo, fainter now He spread the shades of night,
And upward spread the trembling gleams of morn;
Suppliant we bend before the Lord of Light,
And pray at early dawn,

Radio Poem - Bertold Brecht

You little box, held to me escaping
So that your valves should not break

64 - Bruce Levitan

So, when the alarm bell rang, insistently calling to me
I awoke to the bright morning sunlight piercing the curtain:
X-rays of the pattern picked out so that I could see
The individual flowers and birds illuminated - like a fountain
Yin-yang, the bright reverse of what they really are meant to be.

It is not necessary - Chu Hsi

It is not necessary to go out of one's way to get rid of the natural mind;
it needs only that the spiritual mind shall rule.

Sigh no more, ladies - William Shakespeare

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.

I Wonder - Elfrida De Renne Barrow

My heart is a small room,
  And life is the light of day
That peeps in through the window
  Joyous and gay.

This Day Our Daily Dog - Giselle Caputo

It’s as if the plastic bags
had become the sofa’s latest outfit
because why remember the dead
and gather dust in the house

Layla - Ahmad al-Alawi

Full near I came unto where dwelleth
Layla, when I heard her call.
That voice, would I might ever hear it!

The Song of the Thrush - Rhys Goch ap Rhiccert

I gave ear, in the shade
By a mighty oak made,
To the soft warbled words
Of the wild forest birds;
Till all fell a-hush,
When the voice of the thrush
Sent forth a sally
Of song through the valley.
Most exquisite
Was the transport of it!

The Blood of Fruits - Kushal Poddar

Sometimes I think I grew a taste
for the dead. Did you hear
the tale of young ones buried
for the sake of fecundity,

A Scandal On The Head - Kwesi Brew

The broken bone cannot be made whole
The strong have sheltered in their strength
The swift have sought life in their speed
The cripple and the tired heaped out of the way onto the ant hills
Had been, bit by bit, half eaten by termites

Announcements - Brian Bilston

We would like to apologise for the delay.
This is due to the wrong kind of deal,
which indeed is any kind of deal
that might make your forward journey possible
at this time.

In a Dilapidated House - Ayukawa Nobuo

The wind blew hard that day
just after keichitsu¹
the Eastern and Southern windows
made sounds one after the other
the door opened and closed…

Ngak - Val Sengebau

I took my leave from my beloved land
Suffocated with deep emotional turbulence

Cry Hari - Jnāneśvar

Stand at the door of God
One moment nigh,—
Thou hast the fourfold bliss
Obtained thereby.

My Country- My Maldives - Aminath Neena

The beauty of splashing waves
Caress my homeland
Loving the stretch of white gold
Pure and innocent motherland

Octagonal Howl Poem - Rita Valdivia

In the cawing of my night
more drawn out than a thought
compacted by the atmosphere;
desires curdle like some vital sustenance
raped by air.

Foreword to the Fables - Ignacy Krasicki

There was once a young man whose temperance never flagged;
There was an old man, too, who never scolded or nagged;

O, Land of the Free - Samuel Alfred Haynes

O, Land of the Free by the Carib Sea,
Our manhood we pledge to thy liberty!
No tyrants here linger, despots must flee
This tranquil haven of democracy.
The blood of our sires which hallows the sod,
Brought freedom from slavery, oppression's rod
By the might of truth, and the grace of God,
No longer shall we be hewers of wood.

A pretty tale of Pakistan - N.V. Thadani

A pretty tale of Pakistan —
Shadow of a dream of dawn,
Seen by a Poet on the lawn
Of pleasant mount, by pleasant sea!

The Boast - Hywel ab Owain

A white-topped wave is washing ever
The Royal grave of Rhufawn Bevr;
    There lies the Land I love and England loathes,
Right rich the growths her sickles sever.

An Even-song - St. Patrick

May Thy holy angels, O Christ, son of living God,
Guard our sleep, our rest, our shining bed.

The Bonny Moor Hen - Anonymous

You brave lads of Weardale, I pray lend an ear
The account of a battle you quickly shall hear,
That was fought by the miners, so well you may ken
By claiming a right to the bonny moor hen.

The Republic of Power - Alfonso Hernández

Every year the dictator makes a speech to the multitudes
from his pragmatic throne – Peace Love Justice –
(as if history were an expedient of his base passions).

Arriving shortly - K. Srilata

When amma came
to New York City,
she wore unfashionably cut
salwar kurtas,
mostly in beige,
so as to blend in,

My Chosen One - Hywel ab Owain

My Chosen One is tall and lissome,
Purple her cloak as heather blossom;
      My chosen joy it is to watch her face,
When thoughts of grace breathe from her bosom.

do not fear heights - Yu Yoyo

taking a cigarette out onto the balcony to jump off the building
or taking the thought of
jumping off the building
out onto the balcony to smoke a cigarette

The viewless atoms of the air - Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

The viewless atoms of the air
Around me palpitate and burn,

With a pure heart - Attila József

Without father without mother
without God or homeland either
without crib or coffin-cover
without kisses or a lover

The Sign - Vladimir Solovyov

One, forever one! Though in the sleeping temple
There is a hellish glow in the darkness, and thunder in the midst of the stillness,—

I Am the Night - Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger

I am the night. My veils are much softer
Than the white of death's dark vale.
All burning pain do I cool
In my blackened boat under sail.

The Prophecy - Taliesin

               A dragon fire-breathing,
               In horrid coils wreathing
Shall fly from the East with armed pinions outspread,

Mud is made of earth and water - Tihomir Jančovski

One day, when you will not open your eyes, surely,
you have died.

To the stars - Bernard ter Haar

Are ye sheep of snowy whiteness,
Which the night as shepherd leads,
When the sun sinks down to slumber
Through the blue ethereal meads?

The Tree - Björnstjerne Björnson

The Tree's early leaf buds were bursting their brown;
"Shall I take them away?" said the Frost, sweeping down.
"No, leave them alone
Till the blossoms have grown,"
Prayed the Tree, while he trembled from rootlet to crown.

De Spectaculis.VI (That warring Mars) - Marcus Valerius Martialis

That warring Mars
served thee in arms
unconquered
suffices not, Caesar;
Venus herself too serves.

Consolation - Alphonse Lamartine

Drop, lone and silent tears,
On pitiless earth to rest!
Not now on piety's meek hand,
Or friendship's gentle breast!

The Earth is our Friend (Garden of Creation) - Yasus Afari

The earth is the garden of creation
Purposefully clothed with lush, green vegetation.
Roots!
Firm enough to prevent critical soil erosion,
All elements working in union,
For natural joy and satisfaction.
The earth is a friend, we are the friends of the earth

Cinema - Adel Khozam

In the cinema there is a lot of killing
The screen is full of imaginary blood

On Fatalism - Al-Shafi‘i

Not always wealth, nor always force,
A splendid destiny commands;
The lordly vulture gnaws the corpse
That rots upon the barren sands.

Peasant Pavo - John Ludvig Runeberg

’Mid the high, bleak moors of Saarijärvis
On a sterile farm, lived Peasant Pavo,
And its poor soil tilled with care untiring.
Trusting to the Lord to send the increase.

Self Recollection (Sonnet XVI) - Vincenzo da Filicaja

In buoyant days of young self-confidence
And credulous trust in counsels that misled,
This mind, the sport of passion, lov'd to tread
Each tempting path which fascinates the sense.

Adoration of the Palm Trees - Jean el Mouhoub Amrouche

At night the palm trees shed heavy tears.
Their shadows bend over the sea
Nearly soundless like the scattered souls that weep
In the serene immobility of the stars.

I stand against - Ben Caesar

paging so many rages/
trying overstand why we hate and rape/
our sisters/

Night - Duncan Campbell Scott

The night is old, and all the world
    Is wearied out with strife;
A long gray mist lies heavy and wan
    Above the house of life.

A wife's heart - Meng Jiao

On the wu-tung tree, phoenix and mate grow old together;
Duck and drake cleave to each other till death.

Mallee scene - Flexmore Hudson

On the death-still plain
two steel rails glare.

Her Song - Epiphanie Mukasano

the song of my mother's hand stirring sorghum pap
tastes like the morning sun; a song echoed
among the leaves of her cassava tree; a prayer, a murmur
climbing Rutare mountains

The Infinite! - Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock

How soars this labouring spirit, while it thinks,
O boundless Lord, of Thee!
How low midst earth and littleness it sinks
When it descends to me;
To self, and sorrow's night, and brief mortality!

Meta Milonga for Rodolfo Wilcock and his Cat - Vittorio Gassman

Rodolfo Wilcock: I know of no other mind
More geometric, more mercurial
I doubt there was another thinker
So funereally intelligent.

Dawn - Archbishop Khorene Nar Bey de Lusignan

Roses upon roses
Spread in sheets below,
In the high blue ether
Clouds that shine like snow,
Lightly, brightly, softly,
Spread before thy feet,
In this tranquil season
Wait thy face to greet;
Waits in hope all nature,
O Aurora sweet!

The Nature - Chu Hsi

1. Moral Law is the Nature,
   and the Nature is Moral Law.

The Dream - Zelda Quakawoot

A dream is not a prediction
Nor is it your only goal
It’s a larger slice of sunshine
That glows within your soul

Maureen - John Todhunter

O, you plant the pain in my heart with your wistful eyes,
Girl of my choice, Maureen!
Will you drive me mad for the kisses your shy, sweet mouth denies,
Maureen?

A man wounded by a rabid dog - Paulus Silentiarius

A man wounded by a rabid dog's venom sees, they say,
the beast's image in all water.

O Trinity, our Lord - V. Utrenev

Most-pure, Invisible, Incomprehensible,
Untraceable, and quite Invincible,
And sole Immortal One,

The Scar - Raúl Aguirrezabalaga

You’ve got the fame of a big thug—
but now you’re not even a shadow
of who you once were.

The Last Coffee - Cátulo Castillo

Your memory touches down like a tornado,
the autumn sun begins to set again
I watch the drizzle, and as I watch
the spoon stirs in the coffee…

It is the season - Antipater of Sidon

It is the season for the ship to travel tearing through the waves;
    no longer does the sea toss, furrowed by dreadful fret.

Erinna - Antipater of Sidon

Few are Erinna's verses nor is she wordy in her songs,
    but this her little work is inspired.

The day when you will love me - Alfredo Le Pera

I hear you softly breathing;
That quiet murmur caresses my dream.
How my life is laughing
If your big dark eyes look at me with their gleam.
And if I have the comfort
Of your singing laughter, whose bursts always seem
To make my wound feel better,
I become a forgetter!

Spring - Mugurditch Beshiktashlian

How cool and sweet, O breeze of morn,
Thou stirrest in the air,
Caressing soft the dewy flowers,
The young girl’s clustering hair!
But not my country’s breeze thou art.
Blow past! thou canst not touch my heart.

Although a wretched sinner - Pope Innocent III

Although a wretched sinner,
Dear Son of God Most High,
I call to thee for mercy,
Oh, hear my mournful cry.

To All and Everything - Vladimir Mayakovsky

No.
It can’t be.
No!
You too, beloved?
Why? What for?
Darling, look -
I came,
I brought flowers,
but, but... I never took
silver spoons from your drawer!

I am Kerry - Sigerson Clifford

I am Kerry like my mother before me
And my mother’s mother and her man
Now I sit on an office stool remembering
And the memory of them like a fan
Soothes the embers into flame.
I am Kerry and proud of my name.

In the Microscope - Miroslav Holub

Here too are the dreaming landscapes,
lunar, derelict.

Remembering Lechchami - Monica Ruwanpathirana

I reach the plantation gently stepping amidst the cold mist
I drift up along the trails in the hilltop plucking the leaves
I see the estate border while treading the wavy hills
I feel my limbs trembling as I get close to the bush near the edge

To My Lamp - Edmond Rostand

Dear lamp, my old friend, by your light
My books I’d read and verses write.
You’d watch behind your humble shade
While sleep on my ruddy eyelids played.
Then ashamed I’d startle aright!

Ghazal - Alisher Navoi

Spring is like absolute hell for me without you,
The red bloom is fire in it, the white has icy view.

A Flower - Ardakh Nurgaz

I planted a flower, to offer to the sun
The burning sun

I suffer - Monique Ilboudo

I suffer
From the aid
Generous or disguised

A Hymn to Love - Amado Nervo

The day you shall love me will bear more light than June,
The night you shall love me– full-mooned,
a tale left untold within each ray,
The day you shall love me will bear more roses than May

The Largest Life - Archibald Lampman

I
I lie upon my bed and hear and see.
The moon is rising through the glistening trees;

What He Said - Cempulappeyanirar

What could my mother be
to yours?

Aubade - Dafydd ap Gwilym

It seemed as if we did not sleep
One wink that night; I was sighing deep.
The cruellest judge in the costliest court
Could not condemn a night so short.
We had the light out, but I know,
Each time I turned, a radiant glow
Suffused the room, and shining snow
Alit from Heaven’s candle-fires
Illuminated our desires.

To Emma - José Martí

Do not feel sad, dear child, because you lack
The gift of speech which heaven has denied you:

The Fruits of Patience - Thomas à Kempis

Patience under suffering
Will to man these graces bring, —

On yearning for Mt Fuji - Yamabe no Akahito

Heaven and earth:
Since the time they parted,
Of manifest divinity,
Reaching the heights of awe,
In Suruga stands
The high peak of Fuji;

Silvae Book IV: 3 – The Via Domitiana - Publius Papinius Statius

What vast cacophony, of tough flints
And solid steel, filled stony Appia,
On the side that borders on the sea?

Going to Sleep - Hermann Hesse

And now the long long day has left me tired,
May my wish be granted by the starlit night,
Like the hopeful prayers of every exhausted child.

Parabolic ballad - Andrei Voznesensky

Among a parabola life like a rocket flies,
Mainly in darkness, now and then on a rainbow,
Red-headed bohemian Gauguin the painter
Started out life as a prosperous stockbroker.
In order to get to the Louvre from Montmartre
He made a detour all through Java, Sumatra,
Tahiti, the Isles of Marquesas.

Kannada ‘Vachana' - Basava

Do not steal, Do not kill,
Do not utter the untruth,

The Wayfarer - Robin Hyde

The wounds of the world are good wounds, got in a hardy fight —
Therefore ’tis best to welcome or pilgrim or knight
Who limping comes on his quest, forspent or betrayed,
Whose breast is an aching thrust; and who will not be stayed.

Burial - Kingsley Fairbridge

Among the Manyika, a dead infant is buried by its Mother without a ceremony.

The Centipede - Edith L. M. King

I've often watched you, centipede,
And I can't think however
You manage those long rows of feet —
You must be very clever.

The Harp of India - Henry Louis Vivian Derozio

Why hang'st thou lonely on yon withered bough?
Unstrung for ever, must thou there remain;
Thy music once was sweet — who hears it now?

The Pretty Redhead - Guillaume Apollinaire

Here I am before you all an utterly sensible man
Knowing life and about death as much as a living person can know

The Year - Ella Wheeler Wilcox

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That’s not been said a thousand times?