Venice masks

Tuesday 30 April 2019

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.

Monday 29 April 2019

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.

Sunday 28 April 2019

Only a bird - Śrî Ānanda Āchārya

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

Saturday 27 April 2019

Black Children - Rex Ingamells

Where now uninterrupted sun
Is shrivelling the sheaves,

Friday 26 April 2019

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.

Thursday 25 April 2019

Wednesday 24 April 2019

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!

Tuesday 23 April 2019

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.

Monday 22 April 2019

Sunday 21 April 2019

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.

Saturday 20 April 2019

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.

Friday 19 April 2019

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.

Thursday 18 April 2019

Melancholy - Poornima Laxmeshwar

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

Wednesday 17 April 2019

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.

Tuesday 16 April 2019

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.

Monday 15 April 2019

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

Sunday 14 April 2019

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.

Saturday 13 April 2019

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.

Friday 12 April 2019

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.

Thursday 11 April 2019

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.

Tuesday 9 April 2019

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.

Monday 8 April 2019

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.

Sunday 7 April 2019

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,

Saturday 6 April 2019

Radio Poem - Bertold Brecht

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

Friday 5 April 2019

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.

Thursday 4 April 2019

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.

Wednesday 3 April 2019

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.

Tuesday 2 April 2019

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.

Monday 1 April 2019

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