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.