Mania in the Post-Colony - Siyanda Qoto

I.

It is the morning

that I dread.

Vaslap across the face

razor sharps

run riot on my head.

Masks - Michellan Sarile-Alagao

Mother goes out

with a mask on

buys fruit

comes home

says it is alright

see, we have santol

we eat the bitter lining

with salt

Grapes - Julius Chingono

Today I was fortunate

to stumble upon a vendor

sorting out grapes for sale.

Inside my Zulu hut - Oswald Mtshali

It is a hive

without any bees

to build the walls

with golden bricks of honey.

The Longest-Running Show on Television - Göran Printz-Pählson

The longest-running show on television

Is the one in which the moderator is also the chairman of The board of your company.

Cactus - Bantu Mwaura

Sand,

Dater-less, and

Dry, drry

Dust

That's the environ

Cattle Egret - Okot p' Bitek

My children gather stars

Into their soft songs

And woo the young moon

With their white teeth.

Number 106 - Imtiaz Dharker

We are waving to you from up here,

from the fourth floor to say

don’t worry about us, we are fine.

Where am I? - Parveen Shakir

Where am I

in your life?

In This World Where We Forget - Fernando Pessoa

In this world where we forget

we are shadows of who we are,

and the true expressions we form

in that other where, souls, we live,

are here grimaces and signs.

Beautiful Ferns - Catherine Richardson

Beautiful, delicate, fairy-like things!

Ye bend where the forest its deep shadow flings—

Where the long dank weeds weep their dews all day,

And there falls not a sunbeam to chase them away.

The Horse's Face - Nikolay Alekseyevich Zabolotsky

Animals don't sleep. In the dark after nightfall

They stand over the world like a stone wall.

Obeah Woman - Eileen Hall

So lef’ me, ef you waan’a feel

How p’isin sting from manchineel.

Is my dream true? - Takarai Kikaku

Is my dream true?

Basket - No‘u Revilla

She brings her host a basket:

earrings, mats, testimony

This basket, she says, is medicine.

Santo Domingo - Frank Báez

Theseus reeled in Ariadne’s thread

seeking an exit from the labyrinth

Doubts - Reina María Rodríguez

Today I’d like to write about what I need—

not to waste time

or throw words down into gulleys

descending into my depths

naked and alone

Eyes so tristful - Diego de Saldaña

Eyes so tristful, eyes so tristful, 

Heart so full of care and cumber, 

I was lapped in rest and slumber. 

In the Armenian Mountains - Hovhannes Tumanian

The way was heavy and the night was dark,

And yet we survived

Both sorrow and gloom.

Through the ages we go and gaze at the stark

Steep heights of our land—

The Armenian Highlands.

Beautiful planet Earth! - Bernhard Severin Ingemann

Beautiful planet Earth!

Splendid the heav'ns above!

Lovely the road we as pilgrims take.

Through earth's great kingdoms we

march, singing joyfully,

till we in Paradise awake.

If Love should render me myself - Gaspara Stampa

If Love should render me myself, someday,

And, from that heartless Lord thus release me,

A Woman to Her Lover - Annamayya

Don't you know my house,

garland in the palace of the Love God,

where flowers cast their fragrance everywhere?

The Fickleness of Himalayan Tigers or the Ballad of Human Courage - Mukhtar Shakhanov

Terrible to admit,

almost all of us

should be afraid

of ourselves above everything…

Sailing to Byzantium - William Butler Yeats

That is no country for old men. The young

In one another's arms, birds in the trees

- Those dying generations - at their song,

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unageing intellect.

Hallucination - Zohra Mansouri

I emerge from myself, like an exotic bird.

I absorb the strangeness of the place,

Drawing a sea with the bones of men.