Mother's Touch - Mariska Taylor-Darko

In the village compound
which was cleanly swept and tidy
a compound not easily accessible by road
a group of old women sat huddled together.
Sticks and pipes jutted out of their mouths
which occasionally moved in unison.
A sigh here and a look to the sky up here.
Some sat with their chins in their palms
a look of sadness about them
They spoke.

Flower snake - So Chong-Ju

A back road pungent with musk and mint.
So beautiful, that snake. . .
What huge griefs brought you to birth?
Such a repulsive body!

Light - Rutger Kopland

This evening I would like to say a few things
while actually there are no things to express them

A City with the Charm A Thousand Beloved - Bouchra Yassine

I am from there
Where quince blossom and chaos presides
Lasting peace ...

Come back home, Africa! - Awadifo Olga Kili

Come back home, Africa!
Mayibuye, grandma Africa!
Oh my Africa,I cherish the golden old days
Gifted with rays of glory and beauty of traditions
While decked with bronze, gold and ivory.

What vessel is that passing - Thomas Kingo

What vessel is that passing
Across the boundless deep,
On which the billows massing
In foaming fury sweep?
She seems in sore distress
As though she soon would founder
Upon the shoals around her
And sink without redress.

Once again - Velemir Khlebnikov

Once again, once again,
I am a star for
you.

Waiting - Necip Fazıl Kısakürek

The sick cannot not wait for morning
The grave cannot wait for the dead
The devil cannot wait for sin
Like I can wait for you.

A wall and a classroom of black students - Adeniran Joseph

to this end heaven comes for us
with open arms and a principle of
parables. nothing eats your bones so hard
than a stranger reading
meaning to your name. we are end of things here.

Teardrop - Samwiri Kisa Mukuru

                                 ●
                                 ●
                                 ●
                                 I
                               feel
                              like a
                            teardrop

I would enfold your death and mine - Pedro Requena Legarreta

I would enfold your death and mine, as close
As our two lives have been together bound;

Because I was brought low - Anonymous

I
Because I was brought low,
And sin had triumphed quite,
Thou God, all good, didst bow,
And seek me in the night.

Mother Sango - Otieno Amisi

To thee I come,
Mother Sango
Numbed

When Rain Speaks of War - Virgil Suarez

it sounds like the hiss of a viper,
green-brown in underbrush
by the lichen-riddled rocks,

Not all sweet nightingales - Luis de Góngora y Argote

They are not all sweet nightingales
That fill with songs the flowery vales;
But they are little silver bells,
Touched by the winds in the smiling dells;
Magic bells of gold in the grove,
Forming a chorus for her I love.

Belovèd - Francisca Stoecklin

Let yourself again and again
Be embraced by my words.
Let them lie around you
Like the coat
That you drape about me

Thou and I - Raffi

Would I were the lake, so blue and calm,
And thou, fair maiden, with reluctant pride,
Wouldst see thy picture, delicate and faint,
Thy sacred image, in my depths abide.

I Wish You Well - Juan Andrés Bruno

The rooster crowed the wake-up call,
a distant dog barked in response
and as the arrabal began to stir
to greet the new day,
far off, a car went on its way…
And like a sentinel’s end-of-watch signal,
the flickering light of a streetlamp
winked out, like a lamentation.

Undismayed by any fortune - Ambrosius Stub

Undismayed by any fortune
Life may have in store for me,
This, whatever be my portion,
I will always try to be.
If I but in grace abide,
Undismayed whate’er betide.

End and Repeat - Alexandru Vakulovski

the road stretches ahead
like a piece of paper
burnt at one end

me and my old woman - Neerav Patel

1.
Since fifty-sixty years, they shout and screech
But there is no stuff in their work
It’s hardly five years and lo they come
Asking for more votes!

Hopeless (Gypsy Song) - Elena Văcărescu

Into the mist I gazed, and fear came on me.
Then said the mist: “I weep for the lost sun.”

We sat beneath our tent;
Then he that hath no hope drew near us there,
And sat him down by us.

The Whale - Anonymous

i.
Now I wish to wordfully reveal a song
about a certain kind of fish,
yet with the craft of verse,
through the heart’s thoughts
and concerning the great whale.

Laughing Mary - John O'Brien

With cheeks that paled the rosy morn
    She bounded o’er the heather,
And romped with us among the corn
    When we were kids together.

What I Should Like to Do - Cecco Angolieri

If I were fire, I’d burn the world away;
    If I were wind, I’d turn my storms thereon;
    If I were water, I’d soon let it drown;

The Hearing Ear - Gerhard Tersteegen

O Holy and mighty and marvellous Word
That speakest ever to me;
As of old in the silence of Eden heard
In the shade of the sacred Tree—

Women Improve With the Years - Celeste Augé

I am worn out with diets—
those rain-worn, concrete goddesses
among the skinny streets.

This cardboard prison - Jeannie Leane

This cardboard prison they call an archive
is cold, airless and silent as death.

I've Lost You - Hussein Al-Jassmi

I've lost you my dearest
I lost the love and the beauty
Who do I have in this world like you if the absence continues
You've left and who remains with me to feel my laugh and my crying
And even the wounds in your absence invade me
Who do I have in this world like you if the absence continues