Venice masks

Monday 30 September 2019

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;

Sunday 29 September 2019

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?

Saturday 28 September 2019

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.

Friday 27 September 2019

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!

Thursday 26 September 2019

Sumatra - Miloš Crnjanski‎

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

Wednesday 25 September 2019

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!

Tuesday 24 September 2019

Vashti - Bhekumuzi Tshuma

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

Monday 23 September 2019

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.

Sunday 22 September 2019

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.

Saturday 21 September 2019

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.

Friday 20 September 2019

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.

Thursday 19 September 2019

Wednesday 18 September 2019

North and South - Marí Peté

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

Tuesday 17 September 2019

Good Morning! - Matilda Olkin

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

Monday 16 September 2019

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

Sunday 15 September 2019

God Pursues Me Everywhere - Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

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

Saturday 14 September 2019

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.

Friday 13 September 2019

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.

Thursday 12 September 2019

Sailing Homeward - Chan Fang-shēng

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

Wednesday 11 September 2019

Eye of the Empire - Tsering Woeser

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

Tuesday 10 September 2019

Anecdote of a Goat - Abayomi Animashaun

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

Monday 9 September 2019

XXIV - Gaston Burssens

à Yvette

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

Friday 6 September 2019

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:

Wednesday 4 September 2019

real morning - Raghda Rüstem

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

Tuesday 3 September 2019

Košice - Jozef Urban

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

Monday 2 September 2019

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

Sunday 1 September 2019