Storm - Enrique Santos Discépolo

Howling amidst lightning,

lost in the storm

of this endless night,

oh Lord! I seek your name…

6 A.M. - Svetlana Cârstean

Good morning, workers!

Forgotten - Enrique Cadícamo

They killed poor Contreras!

They had just gotten married—can you believe it?

let our skins - Inger-Mari Aikio

let our skins

Warm weather - Dostena Angelova-Lavergne

The warm weather

Grows old

The stones: rings

Around the gnawed bones

Of lovers

The Untied Shoelaces - Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Like a ghost in a crowd

I don't leave any traces.

I am snagged in the web

of untied shoelaces...

Each one of the shoelaces

it's owner chases...

Mortis Portis Fractis Fortis - Peter the Venerable

Lo, the gates of death are broken, 

And the strong man arm'd is spoil'd, — 

Of his armour, which he trusted. 

By the stronger arm despoil'd. 

Vanquish'd is the prince of hell, 

Smitten by the Cross he fell. 

O brook - Moses ibn Ezra

O brook, whose hurrying waters go

To the far land that holds my friend,

By thee, my greeting let me send;

A little fool lies here - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

A little fool lies here

Whom I held dear—

A starling in the prime

Of his brief time

Vessel - Boris Ryzhy

Enamel bedpan

Window, nightstand, and a bed

Life is hard and uncomfortable

But it's nice to die

The Queen comes to our City - Nina Živančević

"Among the purple feathers

Constance cuts an arresting figure."

As simple as that. I repeat.

the singapore i love - john tiong chunghoo

the Singapore i love is 

when the city holds up

its clouds, playing pom 

pom girls postponing

a drizzle so that the trees 

in the lanes and streets

- with their intermittent 

swinging branches and 

leaves - could hum songs 

Writing - Laura Cesarco Eglin

A phrase is repeating itself. I don’t

yet know what it is

I can hear it coming it’s settling in

Thank you, Lord, for all your goodness - August L. Storm

Thank you, Lord, for all your goodness

Through the years of yesterday;

Thank you, too, for present mercies

And your blessing on my way.

The Collapse of Power - Saw Wai

under this sha-manic sky

with its favourable spirits and forks of lightning

why do unknown numbers

dance into obscurity?

Armstrong! oh Armstrong!

are there multi-coloured cauldrons

in the centre of your iris?

how sublime your iris!

truly 

in this most totemic of pressure-cookers

there is: 

 no Thomas Edison

 no Kanaung prince

 no Thein Pe Myint

 no Jack London

 no Vincent Van Gogh

 no Paw Oo Thet

 no Saya Zawgyi

 no Rabindranath Tagore

 no John Lennon

 no Myoma Nyein

 no collegian Ne Win

 no Robert Redford

 no Harold Robbins

 no Ahtoutthaw Hla Aung

 no Thakhin Aung San

 no nothing is there

 no nothing 

 no 

 everything

look!

(in the cauldron of dreamtime)

how these bubbling mists

of a jungle imagination

are demented and embellished

by the red of

first light

---

Saw Wai [U Saw Wei] (20th century) Myanmar

Translated by Niall McDevitt.

Source: National Poetry Library (From The Wolf No 17 (Spring 2008))

Old Surrealist Ballad - José Lezama Lima

When the rivulet swells with lashing

snaketails and the piano with its backside turned

displays its shoes shining like the night

Duet - Trish Harris

I became an old woman

age eleven

The Chicken-seller - Han Dong

He's got the knack for killing chickens quick, so

He became a chicken-seller, that way

He doesn't need to kill people. Even though he acts

Calm and gentle, and never beats his wife

Whoever Comes From The Earth - Nelly Sachs

Whoever

comes from the Earth

reaching for the moon

or

other heavenly mineral flower –

will soar high

The Emigrant - Ndue Ukaj

He has only questions, his answers so very timid

In dirty pockets with concreted nostalgia.

He has only memories that surround his neck

Like the millstone they shake him one step forward and a few backward,

While caressing in torrential waterfall,

And kidnapping the time which he never sees.

I Have forgotten - Milarepa

May I be far removed from contending creeds and dogmas.

Ever since my Lord’s grace entered my mind,

My mind has never strayed to seek such distractions.

Accustomed long to contemplating love and compassion,

I have forgotten all difference between myself and others.

Joe - Ana Célia da Silva

Down the street

there goes Joe,

sad and tired

My Mother - Franco Leoni

She was beautiful, my mother, just 23, that 29th September.

Her face was gentle, calm, my beautiful mother.

Dear African Woman - Brenda Dokmah Bakomora

Dear African Woman

If I haven’t told you that you are beautiful, you are

If I haven’t told you that your smile is lovely, it is

If I havent told you that your dark skin

is more beautiful than the night sky, it is

when a child talks of heartbreak - Philip C. Abonyi

when a child talks of heartbreak

she is a room of combating shadows

broken utensils

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (Quatrains XIII - XXIII) - Omar Khayyám

Look to the Rose that blows about us — 'Lo, 

Laughing' she says, 'into the World I blow; 

At once the silken Tassel of my Purse 

Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.' 

Valleys on the Road to Dalvik - Alan Gould

From green to indigo

the valleys intermarry

shoulders, rumps and laps.

All Gisli's kids were poets,

all Egil's sons were dolts.

Ghazal - Bâḳî

'Tis love's wild sea, my sighs' fierce wind doth lash those waves my tears uprear; 

My head, the bark of sad despite; mine eyebrows twain, the anchors here. 

The Courtesan Speaks to Her Lover - Kshetrayya

I'm seeing you at last.

It's been four or five months,

Muvva Gopala!

Child cry of war - Onam Liduba

I was found along the road side in open ash air

I grew like a child of leach

No mother and no father