Venice masks

Monday 31 May 2021

Vertigo 2 - Robert Schindel

I’m poleaxed by sleeping
So tired that I’m weeping
Stuck here in these stones
I won’t be escaping

Saturday 29 May 2021

Friday 28 May 2021

The True Prison - Ken Saro-Wiwa

It is not the leaking roof
Nor the singing mosquitoes
In the damp, wretched cell

Thursday 27 May 2021

Childhood Stories (extract) - José María Cuéllar

I was born in 1942 if for some reason my mother
has not lost her memory.

Wednesday 26 May 2021

The Children in the Moon - Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger

Hearken, child, unto a story! 
For the moon is in the sky, 
And across her shield of silver, 
See! two tiny cloudlets fly. 

Tuesday 25 May 2021

Stormy Night - Jean Lahor

The wind screamed, the wind howled its rages,
The ocean leaped the length of the cliff
And my soul, faced with those surges
Of black rolling waves, breathed with greater relief.

Monday 24 May 2021

British Merchant Service, 1915 - Cicely Fox Smith

Oh, down by Millwall Basin as I went the other day, 
I met a skipper that I knew, and to him I did say: 
"Now what's the cargo, captain, that brings you up this way?" 

Sunday 23 May 2021

Saturday 22 May 2021

Friday 21 May 2021

While You Decline To Cry - Ō no Yasumaro

While you decline to cry,
high on the mountainside
a single stalk of plumegrass wilts.

Thursday 20 May 2021

To Aphrodite - Hesiod

I will sing of stately Aphrodite, gold-crowned and beautiful, 
whose dominion is the walled cities of all sea-set Cyprus.  

Wednesday 19 May 2021

Omri Kello - Wael Kfoury

Oh love go tell her
tell her I miss her so much,
if she wants my life
I'll give it away.

Tuesday 18 May 2021

Freedom - Arja Salafranca

Freedom is a man with one arm,
a happy smile showing perfect white teeth,
a man who answers the phone in Maintenance with a chirp in his voice.

Monday 17 May 2021

By the Margins of the Great Deep - George William Russell

When the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies,
All its vaporous sapphire, violet glow and silver gleam
With their magic flood me through the gateway of the eyes;
I am one with the twilight's dream.

Sunday 16 May 2021

a quanta with fidelity - Dhal Jirel 'Ravi'

I also do believe in God
But I do not call myself 
An Incarnation of God
A son of God
A messenger of God

Saturday 15 May 2021

Return - Phi Hoàng

Let me return the sunlight to the sky,
the cloud to the mountain, this life to the void.

Friday 14 May 2021

Youth and Love: I - Robert Louis Stevenson

Once only by the garden gate
   Our lips we joined and parted.
I must fulfil an empty fate
   And travel the uncharted.

Thursday 13 May 2021

Poetry and I - Mbarka Mint al-Barra’

The sin is that I wasn't a stone
     And the troubles of the world make me sleepless
And I shield myself with poetry
     And it keeps me company when I'm far from home

Wednesday 12 May 2021

The Black Streets - Emmanuel Moses

The soldiers on their way to lay siege to the mountain
stopped here to let blue wine blot out
steaming blood

Tuesday 11 May 2021

The Beggar - Carl Spitteler

He was my foe, and friend he was to none.
I read his death, unmoved, but yesterday.

Monday 10 May 2021

jumbo-jet vs jackdaw - S. Zaynub Kamoonpuri

I wish to fly like a bird that chirps or hoots
without any jet or parachutes.

Sunday 9 May 2021

Gazal - Zeyneb

Cast off thy veil, and heaven and earth in dazzling light array! 
As radiant Paradise, this poor demented world display! 

Saturday 8 May 2021

Epigram - Niels Hav

You can spend an entire life
in the company of words
not ever finding
the right one.

Friday 7 May 2021

The Shining Hours (V) - Emile Verhaeren

Each hour I brood upon your goodness, so simple in its depth, I lose myself in prayers to you. 

Thursday 6 May 2021

So I Am Persuaded - Jaime Saenz

Everyone lives in one
—I, you, they.
We all live in all, no one lives or dies, and each is on his own
—but nobody knows what happens.

Wednesday 5 May 2021

Peggy - Allan Ramsay

My Peggy is a young thing,
      Just enter'd in her teens,
Fair as the day, and sweet as May
Fair as the day, and always gay.

Tuesday 4 May 2021

Branches That Thirst - Limam Boicha

Beneath the shadow of a thorn tree
two naked people
are shuddering with thirst
while their oasis
lies half a desert away

Monday 3 May 2021

After History - Tawanda Mulalu

Has anyone managed to make a world.
After race, we turn to genetics, return
after to the archives for new history. Who
then determines when we’re from. Roots,

Sunday 2 May 2021

Sermon - Eveline Maedel

Sunday morning.

Poured molasses oration,
Drizzles onto milky white canvass.

Saturday 1 May 2021

Cold days have come - Samuel Hanagid

The month of ‘Av has ended even ‘Elul and their heat is gone;
Also Tishri is gathered in and like them has passed.