Venice masks

Thursday 30 April 2020

Wednesday 29 April 2020

The Broken Wing - Liam Ó Comain

A racing pigeon of distance ability,
His colour known as grizzle, that is
White feathers spotted with other spots
Of colour. A likeable and interesting bird
And when he was less than a year old I
Sent him for a training flight
In preparation for racing.

Tuesday 28 April 2020

Dawn of Darkness - Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

I know, I know,
It threatens the common gestures of human bonding
The handshake,
The hug
The shoulders we give each other to cry on

Monday 27 April 2020

Sunday 26 April 2020

Thou art of all created things - Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Thou art the essence of all created things,
O Lord, the essence and the cause.
The source and centre of all bliss;
What are those veils of woven light
Where sun and moon and stars unite.

Saturday 25 April 2020

Escape from - Jovica Ivanovski

Escape from yourself, that’s what poetry is.
In the meantime you search for yourself –
that’s poetry, too.

Friday 24 April 2020

Grammar, Music, Rhetoric - Lucilius

Pluto turns away the dead rhetorician Marcus, saying,
"Let the dog Cerberus suffice us here;

Thursday 23 April 2020

There is Some Hour - Marina Tsvetaeva

There is some hour – like a cast off load –
When our proud had been fully tamed.
The learning hour – on each life-long  road –
Is predestined and great.

Wednesday 22 April 2020

Hair Comfort - Antun Gustav Matoš

I watched you last night. In a dream. Sad. Dead.
In a fatal hall, in idyll of flowers,
On a high stand, in agony of candles,
Ready to give you my life as an offer.

Tuesday 21 April 2020

Gwalchmai's delight - Gwalchmai ap Meilyr

Swift rising dawn of joyful gliding June,
Melodious song of birds, calm, lustrous noon!
A gold-torqued Chief am I that know not fear,
A fierce, host-facing lion, rout in my rear!
At night I guard with bound-protecting sword
The babbling flow of Dygen Freiddin's ford.

Monday 20 April 2020

The Stranger - Aleksandr Blok

In the evenings, above the restaurants,
The air is hot and thick and wild,
And with drunken cries
A putrid springtime spirit rules.

Sunday 19 April 2020

Dawn - Moses ibn Ezra

I rose at dawn to praise Thy name,
My sins o’erwhelmed my soul with shame,
But comfort after penance came,
For all my hopes are set in Thee.

Saturday 18 April 2020

Paradise. Storefront. Monte Street - Reina María Rodríguez

The ventilator
blades are tired       of lifting dust over
      these lifeless objects
objects in disuse.exhaling.restlessness.

Friday 17 April 2020

O caterpillar, daughter of the butterfly - Svetlana Ivanova

O caterpillar, daughter of the butterfly
You too one day will soar past tower and roof,

Thursday 16 April 2020

For He was Scotch and So was She - Jean Blewett

They were a couple well-content
With what they earned and what they spent,
Cared not a whit for style's decree,
For he was Scotch, and so was she.

Wednesday 15 April 2020

Can I dream? - Ali Znaidi

Can a veiled woman sit next to a woman in a miniskirt?
Can they sit harmoniously beside each other telling tales?
Can they tell each other stories? Can they converse
without fearing that understanding between them fails?

Tuesday 14 April 2020

The rape of Helen (Lines 1-40) - Colluthus

Ye Nymphs of Troy, children of the river Xanthus,1
who oft-times leave on your father’s sands
the snoods that bind your tresses and the sacred toys of your hands,
and array you for the dance on Ida,2

Monday 13 April 2020

The Verses that Saved Sakya from Sickness: A Prayer for Pacifying the Fear of Disease - Thangtong Gyalpo

May all the diseases that disturb the minds of sentient beings,
And which result from karma and temporary conditions,
Such as the harms of spirits, illness, and the elements,
Never occur throughout the realms of this world.

Sunday 12 April 2020

The Vision: (Katia: Easter Sunday, 1916) - Katharine Tynan

She had a vision in the dark
Ere the first lark from nest took flight;
She saw her own son from fierce strife
Win to new Life and new Delight.

Saturday 11 April 2020

if you let me go with you - Olvido García Valdés

if you let me go with you into the night,
in the dark hour of the metro, before
dawn, if I could take in,

Friday 10 April 2020

Do we place you in a tomb? - Andrew King

Do we place you in a tomb, Loving One?
Do we wrap God’s saving love in funeral spices?
Having seen justice pierced, truth undone,
corruption’s blade red-edged by power’s devices

Wednesday 8 April 2020

Tuesday 7 April 2020

Golden volumes - Heinrich Rantzau

Golden volumes! richest treasures!
Objects of delicious pleasures!

Monday 6 April 2020

Project Report - Christian Morgenstern

To get this research undertook
I bought a needle and the BOOK,

Sunday 5 April 2020

Sonnet IX - Carlo Maggi

Ah  Holy Lord, will e'er that daybreak shine,
Which of thy grace shall quite my soul assure?
These fearful doubtings which I yet endure
Toward my best Father, — tempt me to repine.

Saturday 4 April 2020

Tissue - Imtiaz Dharker

Paper that lets the light
shine through, this
is what could alter things.
Paper thinned by age or touching,

Friday 3 April 2020

Those Who I Love - Chung Ho-seung

I do not love those who do not have their shades.
I do not love those who do not love their shades.

Thursday 2 April 2020

Guinea Woman - Lorna Goodison

Great grandmother
was a guinea woman
wide eyes turning
the corners of her face
could see behind her
her cheeks dusted with
a fine rash of jet-bead wars
that itched when the rain set up.

Wednesday 1 April 2020

Song of noble grief - Migjeni

Oh, noble grief of the suffering soul
That bursts out in the free verses...
Did you hope the world to console
And prettify life's reverses?