Venice masks

Saturday 29 June 2019

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.

Friday 28 June 2019

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.

Thursday 27 June 2019

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.

Wednesday 26 June 2019

+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.

Tuesday 25 June 2019

The Star Wizard's Legacy - Vasko Popa

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

Monday 24 June 2019

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.

Sunday 23 June 2019

The Nut Garden - Joseph Gikatilla

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

Saturday 22 June 2019

Too Lazy To Be Ambitious - Taigu Ryokan

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

Friday 21 June 2019

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.

Thursday 20 June 2019

Wednesday 19 June 2019

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.

Tuesday 18 June 2019

Monday 17 June 2019

The Friend - Francisca Stoecklin

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

Sunday 16 June 2019

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.

Saturday 15 June 2019

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.

Friday 14 June 2019

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.

Thursday 13 June 2019

Easy - Paul Éluard

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

Wednesday 12 June 2019

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.

Tuesday 11 June 2019

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.

Monday 10 June 2019

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!

Sunday 9 June 2019

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.

Saturday 8 June 2019

Friday 7 June 2019

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

Thursday 6 June 2019

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.

Wednesday 5 June 2019

The essence of this world - Rudaki

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

Tuesday 4 June 2019

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.

Monday 3 June 2019

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.

Sunday 2 June 2019

The Celestial Fire -Yannai

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

a fire that devours fire;

Saturday 1 June 2019

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.