Awake—I tremble before thee - Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

Awake—I tremble before thee;

Asleep—I may dare to behold thee:

So, life of my life, let me watch

While thou sleepest.

The Duration of Love - Ferdinand Freiligrath

Oh, love as long as you can love,

Oh, love as long as love you may!

The hour will come, the hour will come:

By graves lamenting you will stay.

The Full Moon - Marie Under

Bursting full is the moon,

its weight bends the trees.

The waters desire to be turned 

to wine,

they are so restless.

The Mirror - Dulce María Loynáz

The mirror hanging on the wall,

where I sometimes see myself in passing…

is a dead pond brought

into the house.

The Bathtub - Duy Quang Mai

instead, the poem begins when

the bathroom light brims my hands

High in the Sky - Anonymous

High in the sky a star is aglow,

cast ing bright beauty here below. 

A wave of salvation comes with the dawn:

born of a virgin is the Son.

Heaven and earth sing 

‘Alleluia! Jesus is born! Gloria!’

Mma - Tshifhiwa Itai Ratshiungo

You asked me not to make my words beautiful,

yet you told me of gods who ate butterflies gilded

with honey. I could imagine it, the taste of something

so delicate consecrated by those we give libation.

Under the Sycamores - Zeineb Yassin

I’m burning

To boil you

Las Posadas at Que Pasa - Lucille Sambo

With our hands intertwined we walked in the frosty night,

our feet crunching the left of tortilla leaves from autumn

and I remember you opened the door to Que Pasa

and my heart began to thaw, waters flowed from my skin,

Wings - Rajaa Bushara

In another life, I have wings.

In another life, I can write on the skies… write pieces during the day that’d be watered by the sun then watch them bloom at night… like that I know I can grow light.

Rome /1/10/73 - Víctor Valera Mora

This cigarette butt

This little bit of ground coffee

This cherry yogurt

These few grains of salt

Belizean Lullaby - Leo Bradley

Twilight's myriad hues are cov'ring

Windswept lands beside the sea;

While the lofty trees are bowing

Leafy heads about a caye

Where the loving voice of mother

Whispered lullaby to me.

My Country - Jose Lopes

It was... only God knows, how many thousands of years ago...

From out of Poseidon, the island or continet,

The marvel of the ancient oceans.

The Crying Game - Tanya Ko Hong

One November morning outside Saratoga Springs

over coffee at the Red Roof Inn you say

We’re leaving for Florida

No Need to Savor Youth - Na Hyeseok

Her flesh is soft, soft

her skin radiant

her hair silky black

her eyes sparkling, sparkling

Neighborhood Romance - Homero Manzi

First, a far-off April date—

your dark balcony, your old-fashioned garden.

Later on the feverish pulse of your letters—

lying with “no,” vowing that “yes…”

To a Girl beloved - Bernhard Severin Ingemann

What is it, dear maid, that enraptures me so? 

What holds my fond heart in a chain of control? 

Can the fragile attire of thy spirit below 

Be match'd with the glories that beam in thy soul? 

An Old Cat’s Dying Soliloquy - Anna Seward

Years saw me still Acasto's mansion grace,

The gentlest, fondest of the tabby race;

Before him frisking through the garden glade,

Or at his feet in quiet slumber laid;

Ugly Things - Teresita Fernández

In an old worn out basin

I planted violets for you

and down by the river

with an empty seashell

I found you a firefly.

God Is Not Mad At Me - Olufunke Kolapo

Never ask for much from Him

Just to fill my life with love and calm

Same I asked on this fateful day

That left a huge bump on my way

One moment was walking with my friends

Then the next was flat on my rear

The sun glaring down in all his might

Daylight burning with so much hate

Not one of my limbs I could stir

Just drifting in and out of here

As if undetermined to stay or depart

I knew then my life had taken a new turn

Once I caught a glimpse of my loves

The mask on their faces of fear and tears

This breaks my heart so but not a tear

My whole body been rid of all care

A terrible nightmare was my first thought

Or dead and beyond the blue for reward

Hoping I'd wake and have a good laugh

And return to my simple but stunning life

A great miracle I pulled through they said

Like all miracles mine was not exempted

I paid with endless pain and my freedom

My proof of womanhood torn to shred

Must have erred God was my waking notion

To be so wrath to act without compassion

Life behind bars and endless grief His verdict

Else He would shield me from this raging tempest

But then that He still loves me revived my soul

That He really cares made me whole

Could have been six feet beneath the earth

Then I know His plans surpass my thought

With abundant love He enriched my home

The strength and courage to stand the storm

The grace to look beyond this troubled race

And the faith to trust in His guidance

---

Olufunke Kolapo (born 1980) Nigeria

Source: Ujamaa Christian Poetry

Olufunke's web site is here

Omega - Tibor Babiczky

Street lamps on the closing curve,

off-white silk skirts

swish. It’s midnight.

Uninvited - Althea Mark-Romeo

She can’t say no

to armed hitchhikers

in military uniforms

when they wave her down.

In Istanbul at the Bosphorus - Safet Isović

in istanbul at the bosphorus,

the pasha lies sick.

his soul is on the decline,

and yearns for the black earth.

 

Jaguar - Humberto Ak'abal

Sometimes I’m a jaguar

running through ravines,

leaping boulders,

climbing mountains.

The drink sent down from Truth - Yunus Emre

The drink sent down from Truth, 

we drank it, glory be to God. 

And we sailed over the Ocean of Power, 

glory be to God.

On The News Of The Death Of Lady M.T. - Danilo Kiš

Oh very well done indeed, Death,

what an achievement,

to bring down such a fortress!

A Postcard from the Underworld - Sinan Antoon

I have never seen the Sun

It does not rise here

Lamentations - Funmilayo Omoniyi

Honesty is an essential quality 

But oh, what a rare commodity

In my community!

Home Truths - Sandile Ngidi

She says come in,

Feel at home

Her face a platter of unpretentious love

An African Girlchild - Christopher Kudyahakudadirwe

She wakes up early in the morning and works like a mother

Which she is not but only a child.

Nile - Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin

I am the first Earth Mother of all fertility.

I am the Source, I am the Nile, I am the African, I am the beginning!

Great bull with testicles - Apuk Jurwir Dinka tribesman

Great bull with testicles has been killed¹

It is Divinity

Urohs Sexy - Emelihter S. Kihleng

sexy is a popular word

throughout the world

like Coke

Hailli 1 - Pachacuti

O Creator, root of all,

Wiracocha, end of all,

Lord in shining garments

who infuses life

and sets all things in order,

Serenade (from Songs of Dzitbalche) - Anonymous

Oh to kiss

Your mouth

At the loose railing

Of the picket fence!

Sundjata’s Conception - Anonymous

After it had happened

That Sundjata’s mother had become pregnant,

When she had been pregnant for one year,

Susu Sumanguru Baamangana’s diviners by stones said to him,

‘The child who will destroy your kingship

Has been conceived within Manding.’¹ 

The warrior song of King Gesar (Part 1.I.i) - Anonymous

The white smoke of the juniper rises

Fragrant and dense from the burning coals,

Billowing into an empty shining sky,

A vast mirror-like expanse

Unclouded by the shadow or birth or fear of death.

Poem by the Emperor - Emperor Yūryaku

Girl with your basket,

     with your pretty basket,

with your shovel,

     with your pretty shovel,

gathering shoots on the hillside here.

Song of the Sea (שירת הים, Shirat HaYam) - Anonymous

“I will sing to the Lord,

For He has triumphed gloriously!

The horse and its rider

He has thrown into the sea!

Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring (The Iliad, book I) - Homer

Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring

Of woes unnumber’d, heavenly goddess, sing!

That wrath which hurl’d to Pluto’s gloomy reign

The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain;

Whose limbs unburied on the naked shore,

Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore.

Since great Achilles and Atrides strove,

Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove!

烈文 (Lie Wen) - Anonymous

Ye, brilliant and accomplished princess,

Have conferred on me this happiness.

Your favours to me are without limit,

Agni, or the Fire - Visvavârâ Âtreyî

1. 

Lighted Agni flames forth high, 

Flings a radiance on the sky, 

And his lustre, glorious, bright. 

Mingles with the morning light. 

And Visvavârâ chants her holy prayer, 

Faces the east, and brings her gifts to Fire! 

The Epic of Gilgamesh (Prologue) - Anonymous

He who has seen everything, I will make known to the lands.

I will teach about him who experienced all things, alike,

Anu granted him the totality of knowledge of all.

Commendation to Atum at Dawn - Anonymous

Recitation

Sun Atum, this Unis has come to you—an imperishable akh, 

lord of the property of the place of the four papyrus-columns.

Your son has come to you, this Unis has come to you. 

You shall both traverse the above, after gathering in the netherworld, 

and rise from the Akhet, from the place in which you have both become akh. 

To the Gishbanda Temple of Ningishzida (temple Hymn 15) - Enheduanna

Most ancient and terrible shrine,

set deep in the mountain,

dark like a mother's womb ...

What solitude you have - Carmen González Huguet

What solitude you have if you are asleep.

What dreadful silence in the night.

I peer into the mysterious abyss

Where there is no light, or name, or sound.

Vondel's Lucifer (Act II, lines 77-127) - Joost van den Vondel

Belzebub:

There hear I Lucifer and him behold.

Who from Heaven's face can drive the night away.

Gratitude for New Bounties - Li Yu

Beneath the moon, before the steps, all cherry blossom has fallen,

Enwreathed in smoke, she looks sorrowful lying in bed.

Portrait of José Cemí - José Lezama Lima

No combat did he unleash, as panting

was the custom set between his breath

and the breeze or tempest.

A bar of chocolate - Georgi Savchev

has it become a habit

rather a regular sail

between two

Order of the day - Marcel de Bruin

Don't give up this land

We're not

all dead yet

To My Father - Yazid I

Must then my failings from the shaft

Of anger ne'er escape?

And dost thou storm because I've quaff'd

The water of the grape?

Praise be to Thee, O Christ, the Creator - Godescalcus

Praise be to Thee, O Christ, the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Saviour.

Of the heaven, the earth, the sea, angels, and men.

Whom alone we confess to be God and Man.

Fortune - Laura Chalar

I dreamed that you were reading my palm,

in the same cotton shirt I last saw you in

The dead poet friend - Callimachus

They told me, Heracleitus, they told me you were dead; 

They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. 

Looking for your own face - Farīd ud-Dīn ʿAṭṭār

Your face is neither infinite nor ephemeral.

You can never see your own face,

only a reflection, not the face itself.

To the Memory of Sydney Dobell - John Stuart Blackie

And thou, too, gone! one more bright soul away

  To swell the mighty sleepers ’neath the sod;

The Lusiad (extract from Book I: Islands in the Indian Ocean) - Luís Vas de Camões

Whilst thus in heaven's bright palace fate was weigh'd

Right onward still the brave Armada strayed:

Right on they steer by Ethiopia's strand

And pastoral Madagascar's verdant land.

Before the balmy gales of cheerful spring,

With heav'n their friend, they spread the canvas wing,

The sky cerulean, and the breathing air,

The lasting promise of a calm declare.

Hope and Faith - Isaac Leib Perez

Hope! Not distant is the Springtime,

  Butterflies will soon be winging—

In new nests the merry songsters

  Their new songs will soon be singing.

On The Inexpressible Gift of the Holy Spirit - Catharine Regina vim Greiffenberg

You unseen lightning, flash of light in darkness,

 heart-filling strength, an Essence inconceivable.

 Something divine dwells in my spirit,

 stirring and moving me: I feel a rare light.

Winter - Seamus O'Sullivan

Why will you plague me with your loveliness? 

     Can you not see 

How vain is every grace and each caress? 

     Prithee let be. 

On Losing A Pencil In French River (Sonnet XIII) - George Jehoshaphat Mountain

Ah! river named of France, let reason judge,

  My silver-mounted implement to thee,

If I am greatly blameable to grudge,

  Seized, swallow'd, as by ocean, plunderer free;

October in New Zealand - Jessie Mackay

O June has her diamonds, her diamonds of sheen,

Meet for a queen’s neck, if Death had e’er a queen!

Sonnet - Domingos Maximiano Torres

Mariella, dear, but, O, ungrateful fair!

Look on the sea serene null calmly bright, —

A Chant on the Mustard Hut - Trần Minh Tông

The Mustard Hut is extremely small. Barely room for the knee.

Peaceful and drowsy, the day moves on by itself. 

Animals do not come. The spring day is tranquil. 

The page sat in the lofty tower - Jens Peter Jacobsen

The page sat in the lofty tower

Gazing at the distance,

Rhyming of a love song

On his love and longing,

News Has Come - Maironis

"News has just come in from Prussia:

  Saddle up your horse!

Knights are heading for our country

  With a mighty force.

An Australian girl - Ethel Castilla

She has a beauty of her own, 

A beauty of a paler tone 

   Than English belles. 

Pebbles - Marfuga Aitkhozha

How beautiful and rounded the pebbles are.

The water hides them beneath its waves.

The Nature of Heaven and Earth - Chu Hsi

When we speak of the Nature of Heaven and Earth 

we refer specifically to Law; 

when we speak of the Physical  Nature 

we refer to Law and Either combined. 

Song of Songs: I. The Poet’s Vision - Frauenlob

Listen! I saw a vision:

a Lady on a throne.

Great with child, that woman

wore a wondrous crown.

O soul, with storms beset - Solomon ibn Gabirol

O soul, with storms beset! 

Thy griefs and cares forget. 

Why dread earth's transient woe, 

When soon thy body in the grave unseen 

Shall be laid low, 

And all will be forgotten then, as though 

It had not been ? 

Evening - Stephen Lubega

Never has the death of a poet 

Been tolled by all the world,

God’s work on earth, though,

Has its universal funeral in the west, 

Recurrent grave of day’s mighty soul.

Alas! alas! when in a garden fair - Moschus

Alas! alas! when in a garden fair

  Mallows, crisp dill, or parsley yields to fate,

  These with another year regerminate;

Love in Kyiv - Natalka Bilotserkivets

More terrible is love in Kyiv than

Magnificent Venetian passions. Butterflies

Fly light and maculate into bright tapers –

Dead caterpillars’ brilliant wings aflame!

Night Thoughts While Traveling - Du Fu

A light breeze rustles the reeds

Along the river banks. The

Mast of my lonely boat soars

As always me - Shrinivási

As always me

farmer, peasant, kunukeru

admiring the annual growth rings

in the cross section cut of a tree trunk

revealing the good and bad years

Underside of Knowing - Soyini Forde

Branches draped elegiac,

possessive as lovers.

The Tomb of Anacreon - Simonides of Amorgos

Mother of purple grapes, soul-soothing vine,

Whose verdant boughs their graceful tendrils twine:

Season of the Northers - Jose-Maria de Heredia

The weary summer’s all-consuming heat

Is tempered now; for from the frozen pole

The freed north-winds come fiercely rushing forth,

Wrapt in their mantles, misty, dim, and frore,

While the foul fever flies from Cuba’s shore.

A Great and Mighty Wonder - Germanus of Constantinople

 A great and mighty wonder,

a glorious mystery:

a virgin bears an infant

who veils his deity.

Girl-Gladness - Zora Bernice May Cross

It’s holiday time on the hollyhock hills,

And I wish you would come with me laddie-love, now,

The butterfly-bells, from the Folly-fool rills,

Will ring if you listen, and drop on your brow.

My Mother’s Brain - Avinab Datta-Areng

The shrub billows and glows in heat.

Monkey shadows lead me on to an

Unremembered line in my mind.

Master or Slave - Björnstjerne Björnson

Lo, this land that lifts around it

Threatening peaks, while stern seas bound it,

With cold winters, summers bleak,

This island's parched - Clare Azzopardi

They fed her a scrap of bread —

and tendrils of injera clung to my fingertips

with stories

of sleepless nights in Safi cells

spent thumbing the darkness.

On his Friends - Meskin Aldaramy

With conscious pride I view the band 

Of faithful friends that round me stand, 

The Mind of Absolute Trust - Seng-Ts'an

The Great Way is not difficult

for those who have no preferences.

When love and hate are both absent

everything becomes clear and undisguised.

Corroboree - Nola Gregory

I can hear the chanting

Of the language loud and clear

I can hear them singing

Without prejudice or fear

Meet - Ryner Lai

Meet me by the river

When the sun sinks into the rising blue

When fatigue lines the faces of men

And the scent of home flickers to life

What's left - Hagop Djelalian

What’s left of the sunlit days of holidays?

Of the golden sun of a summer now complete?

Spirits - Birago Diop

Listen to Things

More often than Beings,

Hear the voice of fire,

Hear the voice of water.

Boy And The Unwinged Biped - Gitan Djeli

Wings broken we collapse on warm basalt hearts pumping under iridescent blazing ocean scapulars.

we still colour the skies of the nicobar isles and follow the currents sea and winds one storm thousand years ago we swirl loop low

Seeing - Teweiariki Teaero

anybody

can look

but artists

‘see’

Grace - U2

Grace, she takes the blame

She covers the shame

Removes the stain

It could be her name

Give Me Love - Dimash Kudaibergen

My heart carries a touch of sadness

Like the moon in a faint light

Please take me to the future,

Ladder of destiny,

 

A Little Toy City - Riak Marial Riak

at the tip of toy city

parades a thousand cadres

with helmets prehistoric to their coming

Water Rushes Like Memory - Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné

Notes of evening

            play upon sand,

                        scatter dried stars

                                    from treetops.

All Adam's race are members of one frame - Saadi Shirazi

All Adam's race are members of one frame;

Since all, at first, from the same essence came.

Love sonnet from the perspective of Rod, a jock mouse who lived on my animal crossing island for 3 months - Jiaqi Kang

My house is blue, inside and out, and I

a purple mouse. The sea and sky are blue

and fish, some bugs, my neighbor Stu: it’s true!!

The Grasshopper - Anacreon

Happy insect! what can be

In happiness compar'd to thee?

Fed with nourishment divine,

The dewy morning's gentle wine!

The noise of the lover - Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī

The noise of the lover is only up to

       the time when he has not seen his Beloved.

A Second Charles - John Wade

Our Age strange things hath brought to light,

And time hath chased away the night;

Now doth our Sun his beames display

And shows to us a lightsome day.

     England cheer up, do not repine,

     A second Charles his Sun shall shine.

There is a lady sweet and kind - Thomas Ford

There is a lady sweet and kind,

Was never face so pleas'd my mind;

I did but see her passing by,

And yet I love her till I die.

An Autumn - Kapardeli Eftichia

The seed of silence 

unites Heaven 

the earth 

Autumn and lost 

in that veil 

rain constellations 

True Person Manifest Throughout the Ten Quarters of the World - Dōgen

The true person is

Not anyone in particular;

Twilight - Hanne Bramness

I would

                lift up my eyes

            see the evening

sink down into the light

What a Smile Can Do - Erna Loraine Narcisso Walters

A smile is costless, but productive

It refreshes the ones to whom it is given.

Although it doesn't last for hours,

but maybe a minute.

Hide yourselves, you who search for knowledge - Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba

Hide yourselves, you who search for knowledge, this will save you from trials and sorrows,

have determination, thus you will surpass your generation.

The Beach - Theodor Storm

Towards the bay now flies the gull

And twilight gathers low,

Where, over watered mudflats,

Is reflected evening glow.

When I threw you out - Doris Kareva

When I threw you out.

Finally.

Pilgrims - Mvúra Mirávyo

Pilgrims shall the road end here

When the sun that rose has yet to set

Shall our rivers run dry this season

And its waters be for mourners' washing

Lamentations - Sunthorn Phu

Oh, how everything was against me then

Even white ants made their way to my bedroom.

They ate the mat and destroyed all my books.

My hat - Henry Parland

My hat

was run over

by a trolley

yesterday.

From Russia to Lithuania, a Strawberry - Laura Cesarco Eglin

The only Russia I know

is in klubnika – a strawberry

is not the same when I tear

the first layer of red skin

Claws - Rasha Omran

If I were a cat

I would wash my skin with my tongue

like this

The Pathway Finally Opened - Mahsati Ganjavi

When my heart came to rule

in the world of love,

it was freed

from both belief

and from disbelief.

When it Rains in Dharamsala - Tenzin Tsundue

raindrops wear boxing gloves,

thousands of them

come crashing down

and beat my room.

Under its tin roof

my room cries from inside

and wets my bed, my papers.

The Kinsman And Death - James O. Gaygay

It roves without guilt

And ceases breath charge

Dream betrays man’s quest —

The fulfilment of fortunes

Abreast to mortals met,

But he ought to be a stepping stone

For the trouble hearted

Sandpaper - Clara Burghelea

​I don’t want to give up longing,

these tines of invisible fork

that puncture the lungs.

My Home - Olga Berggolts

In the home where I lived many years,

From where I left the winter of the blockade,

A light once again appears in the evening windows.

It is pinkish, festive, elegant.

The Mitre, or the goby-fish bait - Richard Taylor

After we all shed our blood

To get rid of the French,

We consumed our riches, we suffered hunger

To put the English in government.

Take the maples - Michael Donhauser

Take the maples

how they let slip

that they rustle

The Land of Topsy-Turvy - Muktabai

An ant has leapt up to the sky 

And swallowed up the sun on high! 

Friendship - Santob de Carrion

What treasure greater than a friend

  Who close to us hath grown?

Blind fate no bitt’rer lot can send

  Than bid us walk alone.

An Address - Gopal Prasad Rimal

O lass, o damozel,

we have met as the sun meets the rain,

perhaps you remember –

we have cuddled like a cloud.

You, a red man, and I, a black man - Moses Cot

Our God is one.

Our grandfather is one.

Adam and Eve,

Adam and Eve,

Adam and Eve.

Possession - Juan Sánchez Peláez

The world weighs malicious and solemn in my roots.

I accept your hands, your joy, my delirium.

In Verona - Cyprian Kamil Norwid

1

O’er the abodes o’the Capulets and Montagues,

The gentle eye there in the spacious skies now views,

By thunder whipped and washed with rain —

Mountains of Ōmi - Ōtomo no Kuronushi

Mountains of Ōmi—

Ah, how it rises full upright,

The Mirror Mountain,

Living - Tukupashya Ally Kasongo

ls the exodus at birth?

ls it at conception

Or is it in the genes

By Wood and Wold - Adam Lindsay Gordon

Lightly the breath of the spring wind blows,

  Though laden with faint perfume;

’Tis the fragrance rare that the bushman knows,

  The scent of the wattle bloom.

Three Springs - Aleksandr Pushkin

Three springs in life’s unbroken joyless desert

Mysteriously issue from the sands:

Beautiful Girl in the Garden - Odysseus Elytis

You woke the waterdrop of day

Upon the start of the trees' song

Oh how lovely you are

With your joyful hair unbound

And with the fountain open in which you came

For me to year you passing by and living!

Is Truagh Gan Mise I Sasana - Thomas MacDonagh

'Tis a pity I'm not in England,

Or with one from Erin thither bound,

Out in the midst of the ocean,

Where the thousands of ships are drowned.

Sonnet - Desbabbeaux

Great God, thy judgments are supremely right; 

Thy joy is ever to forgive and spare: 

But such my guilt is, if thy goodness e'er 

Me pardon'd, it would wrong thy justice quite. 

A Poem from the World of Cats - Muthaffar al-Nawab

A dark wind bellowed out destruction

as a sweet street kitty awaited nightfall,

exposing one thigh and covering the rest—

may God protect the kitty and us—with the tail.

Pilgrim Of Amity - Bam Livinus Tal

We've come a long way

From town to town, we hoop for jobs

Tough times came, we managed and stayed

When the storm was still, we met at a joint

Like in a jungle, we shared, rejoiced and cracked jokes

Elegy Written in the Hot Weather - John Scott of Amwell

Three hours from noon the passing shadow shows,

  The sultry breeze glides faintly o'er the plains,

The dazzling ether fierce and fiercer grows,

  And human nature scarce its rage sustains.

Online - Sviatoslav Vakarchuk

Night - dominoes

With the setting sun, life will start anew

Who is asleep lying in their bed?

Someone else, not you

 

Eclogue II: Idas: Astacus: Thyrsis - Calpurnius Siculus

The virgin Crocale for long was loved by young Astacus and young Idas— 

Idas who owned a wool-bearing flock and Astacus a garden. 

Comely were both; and well-matched in tuneful song. 

These, upon a day when oppressive summer scorched the earth, met by a cooling spring— 

as it chanced, beneath the same shady tree; 

and made ready to contend together in sweet singing and for a stake. 

It was agreed that Idas, if beaten, should forfeit seven fleeces 

and Astacus the produce of his garden for the year. 

Icelandic lullaby - Halldór Kiljan Laxness

I shall wake and be good

to my friends small,

while fear runs red

the blue peaks flush

and Harpa sings a song of spring

on the grey harp leaf.

 

The Shadow of His Wings - Gerhard Tersteegen

The evening comes, the sun is sunk and gone,

And all things lie in stillness and in rest;

And thou, my soul, for thee one rest alone

Remaineth ever, on the Father's breast.

In the street I met while walking - Sophus Niels Christen Claussen

In the street I met while walking

Death ... a sight that pleased me so,

auburn locks that told of summer

fair maid’s skin as white as snow.

‘Let me live’ I death requested

in my young heart’s pangs of woe!

In Response to a Question - Özge Lena

What am I doing? Really?

Do you want the boring answer

Or the naked truth?

Women of Antigua! - Veronica Evanson Bernard

When at times

I sit and wonder

of my days in dear Antigua,

Visions of women

Seem to rise

Like a flood

Before my eyes.

Extremely Grateful, Yet Disappointed - Benedicta Mordedzi

Extremely grateful, yet disappointed

to all who cared enough to stick with her

to listen, to advise, to support —

your presence has been a blessing.

Boy - Loic Ekinga

After Olivia Gatwood’s “Girl, after Ada Limón”

I will not be shamed for falling apart

And sinking into my mattress.

My City - Jean D’Amérique

                                for a city whose wound is mine

the streets

are nameless

because of traveling crime

a tower of  flames at its back, my city binges on

fresh canons, sings of a life that sags on the page,

it watches humans fall as if it’s watching cascades

of piss

Refuge - Sarah Klassen

What song do we sing when the journey ends

and we find ourselves in another country

with our exhausted children, our pitiful possessions,

Aku - Chairil Anwar

If my time has come

I don’t want anyone to comfort me

Not even you

 

The Return - Edith Tiempo

It the dead years could shake their skinny and run

As once he had circled this house in thirty counts,

He would enter this door and these old friends would not shun

Him and his tales, tales that would bear more than the spare

Testimony of his willed wit and his grey hairs.

Landscape No. 2 - Lin Heng-t’ai

Lines of trees to break the wind

And beyond them other

Fly On O Crane! - Maung Swan Yi

Out from Hiroshima’s flames

thou hast winged, O Crane!

To Tigerland - Wang Gungwu

The lallangs leer at the breed of mosquitoes,

The parangs rust in their sheaths.

There the wood-smoke has turned to dust,

There the children make their wreaths.

Back - Hour Luy

I can’t cry but my heart is bleeding

Laughter sticks in my throat

They have said I must go home

I don’t want to.

A Man Is Dead - Somphavan Inthavon

Put on your most lovely white costume

And smile broadly

It is only a simple burial

The celebration of one who has departed.

Addicted - Angkarn Kalyanapong

Scoop up the sea, pour it in a bowl,

and dine on it and rice,

reach out, gather some stars,

and mix them with salt to eat.

Look at crabs and oysters dancing with joy

and playing nostalgic songs,

or chameleons and galley worms flying

to eat the sun and moon!

The Stone Dog - Le Thanh-tong

With a heavy paw he guards the frontier,

Squatting alone in the middle of the pass,

Purple - Chloe Ling

Wake before the dawn

and you will witness the

World's slowest embrace

Coordinating System - Daniela Andonovska-Trajkovska

all people know what the coordinates that I live in are

and what full stops my initials are leaning on

True Freedom - Agron Tufa

True freedom is a dark vial,

full of intertwined genies, pent up

from a cruel Piston

Blessed be the butterfly - Betsimar Sepúlveda

Blessed be the butterfly

wise enough to separate the flames from the fire

and to hurl itself, delirious, into the beauty of its center.

Ego Sum - Gaspar Octavio Hernández

Neither mother of Pearl’s complexion, nor locks of gold

Shall you see, like finery, adorning my frame;

neither sapphire’s light, celestial and pure,

trapped and shining, in the pit of my eyes

Fray - Clementina Suárez

I am a poet,

an army of poets.

Learner - Mahadai Das

I am the great learner.

I devour the apple but before that,

I halve, then quarter

and eighth it.

 

Communication - Yury Zavadsky

Surprising how feelings depend on blood pressure.

Electricity in my body prevents me from staying put.

And, still, I force myself not to move.

Nose - Alaíde Foppa

It's practically 

an appendage

to the face's 

serene geometry,

Position - Léon Damas

For  J.D.

The days themselves

have taken on the shape

of African masks

To my generation - Roberto Armijo

To Roque, to Argueta, to Cea, to Quijada Urias

In what station hotel

will our shadows touch the lips of the abyss

and stretched but on the iron bed

the flames of hell fall

in waves on our bodies

Living with the rain 1 - Yana Lucila Lema

Morning star comes by

and the hummingbirds fly around

Police Report - Alzira Rufino

The black woman is not stopped

by this brutish thing

by this lukewarm discrimination

I want to be one with you in the water - María Soledad Quiroga

I want to be one with you in the water

to feel in transparency

the body's weight,

Magic in the Moonlight - Edney Cain

There is magic in the moonlight

Where the breezes softly sigh;

There is wonder in the whisper

Spoken in your eye.

A Window in Winter - Sandro Chiri

Through this window

I have seen the rain and snow,

my distant children, an envious

scowl and, far away, a letter

from God on the ground ripped to shreds.

Fixed Stars - José Asunción Silva

When the soul

Has broken from the body

And sleeps in the tomb’s night,

Longer than any other,

Wait - Gladys Carmagnola

The Southern Cross comes to our appointment

every night, without fail.

Speaking of Gabriel - Rosario Castellanos

Like all visitors my son disturbed me,

taking a place that was my place,

existing unpropitiously,

making me divide every mouthful in two.

Sin - Carlos Bahr

I know not

whether this is forbidden;

if there’ll be forgiveness;

or if I’ll be carried to the brink of the abyss.

All that I know:

This is Love.

Pregonera by José Rótulo

Blonde and ivory princess, she was queen

of my idealistic youthful dreams:

the one who peddled flowers

on an April day,

Portrait of a Water Trough - Togara Muzanenhamo

It was here the old man drank and wiped his mouth,

cupped the cool water and bathed his face with a deep

exhale – his smooth balding scalp shining beneath

the sun like polished soapstone. The day had been long,

the search forlorn, whistling and clicking his tongue,

a small sack of boiled sweet potatoes slung back over

Love - Charles Mwewa

        I long, long                              truly for you

    I miss you,                                     and it is true

Tishuash - Badi

All that has been has gone,

(how great the living and everlasting God!)

but how beautiful this scene is!

My Home - Mulumba Matia

This is my home Uganda.

This is the land for me.

This is the place where my heart is at rest.

This is the land for all that is the best.

Here I am alive and free.

Grain of Beauty - Mansour M'henni

Hello! Grain of beauty

Waking at the fountain

Filled with the valley

Splitting the plain

The fate of women - Djeri Wapondi

Woman, I dream of you naked

I dream of your pretty body sculpted in the perfection of a dream

Despite this pretty and beautiful body,

Why is this world made like this

And why isn't it perfect?

Delinquent Flower - Neema Komba

Sometime ago,

Someone somewhere saw you

Soar above the grass

Sway in a light breeze 

Graceful and elegant

Like a giraffe. 

Butterflies of Meaning - Laila Neihoum

A poet's horizon

Is filled with butterflies

That’s Afaf

And Sakina, sending

her early morning messages

to my sleepy day,

I won’t bow my head for anyone - Stephen Ciec Lam

My brown ox has grown old like Wunbiel’s ox.

This dark ox has grown old like Wunbiel’s ox,

like the brown ox of my grandfather,

like Luanglei’s ox.

Glory Days - Bai T. Moore

wandered in the moonlit night

to view the glory of the past

Peace - Nyalunjoch mai Gatwech

Peace is a world without guns and bombs

Peace is world without locks and alarms

Peace is fresh water flowing down rivers and streams

Peace is sleeping without bad dreams

Memory - Tumello Motabola

The difference between a mountain and a ridge is in the way our bodies can sometimes press at night, the loneliness of the Caprivi

stretched in front of us like a sterile thumb. When we ran out of words,

choosing to communicate with memory, renaming every part of this town.

Wanting for our Fathers - Vuyi Qubeka

your lust

seeps into me

it forgets that I’m

your child

Utendi (The Book of Mwana Kupona) stanzas 12-21 - Mwana Kupona

12

The first thing is to hold fast to your religion,

not rejecting the ordinances and obligations of God,

and when possible it is your duty to follow the Traditions,

it is a must you obey.

Bitter and Sweet - Qaasim

Consider the aloe – how bitter is its taste!

Yet sometimes there wells up a sap so sweet

That it seems like honey in your mouth.

Dear Aspiring Politician - Christian Foli

Your charisma is outstanding beyond expression

Anyone who does not notice your charming vibrancy

Must have lost the function of their eyes

Of Hope and Dinosaurs - Syl Cheney-Coker

Always, we searched in the stone river,

while the slaughterhouse was waiting for us,

long before we turned the saccharin of words

into inflammable brawls. Full of ancient gluttony,

On Being Brought from Africa to America - Phillis Wheatley

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

Taught my benighted soul to understand

Little Orchard - Sizo Hlophe

Stand there tall beautiful orchard

Your green 

shine to dilate my visions

I have seen you wilt at your worst

And I have seen you ride the tide to flourish

Sleep, sleep, little one - Baka people

Sleep, sleep, little one, 

Close your eyes, sleep, little one! 

The departure of Hauwa al Kora - Muhammad al Fagīr

Hauwa al Kora, when the travelling party separated,

I was grieved and unwilling.

You have left Keilak the lake of wadis,

you have left the country of the lotus-flower and the papyrus.

Solace - Gebre Kristos Desta

Work in progress

growing continually

whiling away the days.

My Why in Life - Sarah Tut

Once upon a time my people were illiterate.

My ancestors never wrote their names.

They had no clue how old they were, which year they were born. 

They counted years by season, rainy and hot!

Education did not exist in my ancestor’s time!

Both of my parents never went to school!

Follow the Light - Arthur Vine Hall

A dewdrop in shade of slenderest blade;

A foam-flake on verge of mountainous surge;

Optic - Selam Kidane Woldu

I eye the eye

To observe the world that revolves around me

I eye the eye

Does it look out?

I am Somali - Yamyam

In these relentless days,

if you have been truly alive,

reflect on past times,

trace back the lines,

ask yourself:

Who is Somali?

My Picture - Muhammad Harbi

I copy texts from the excess of clouds

I am not a poet

all prophecies have concluded

I returned alone in a crippled ascension

Man against Man - Abdulai Walon-Jalloh

It's in those

Who fight them

To release that

Stored in venom

When Dawn Will Rise - William Joseph Faarax Syad

The distant plains of our loving land

Rise forth into the night

O'er the green vales a sad plaintive moan

Distinctly sounds the light

Countless Words In My Heart - Khuliso Musweswe

My Lord, Your works are wonderful

like the wind drives waves of the oceans

Your works drive millions of words out of my heart

like echoes of strong winds, Your works intensify every word uttered by my lips

Wild Veins - Amadou Lamine Sall

You came from the North

Where the sun is depleting its

Tears behind the bars of the sky

On the back of the lightning I know

Where you came down to sing

The Wind - Bernard Binlin Dadié

 The Wind

 over the mirror of river

     gathers

 the confidences of fishermen.

Congolese Eve - Jean Baptiste Tati-Loutard

I saw her when God created her on the Mountain:

It was a full night, the moon having reached

the fullest level of its light floods.

The Calling - Aaron Brown

I 

In three days, they took down the temple brick by brick:

the steel-toothed claws ripping apart tile and mortar, 

Peace need not be a dream - Natasha Muhoza

Peace need not be a dream,

A wish or child’s naïve illusion

It need not silently flow out of our bloodstream

Instead of flow in-

While feeding the bottomless greed

Of blind ambition,

Thirst for power

Lust for the fleeting things, mortal things,

Self-consuming, self-defeating things of a world in which

We are only passers by

Warriors of the radiant sun - Étienne Goyémidé

My hair has turned white in the shadow of the shields.

My eyes took on the colour of fair combat.

Pride - Gabriel Oluwatomiwa Eniola

He was fibbed to like a house on fire,

He was maligned and unjustly criticized, 

But, despite all that, he pocketed his pride.

He didn't hurl back because of the goal ahead,

And that is why his enemy is always abased.

I too sing Cameroon - Sarah Anyang Agbor

I too sing Cameroon¹.

I am the ninth and tenth provinces

Or is it regions?

I just want to be human,

Not superhuman

Accepted as a person

Staying at a distance is staying alive - Adelle Barry

Staying at a distance is staying alive

Water, soap, forty seconds

Between two palms of hands

Is stronger than the fear

that paralyses our five continents.

KIT Hub in Progress - Irakoze Jeanne

We hardly trust the youth,

Because on it,

We stuck the label of good for nothing;

But the truth is that one doesn't stay small or long

when they have big ideas!

From exile - Mvula Ya Nangolo

From exile when I return

I'm going to beg someone to touch me

Very, very tenderly

And gradually put me et ease

I wish to feel again how life feels

My father - Madeleine de Lallé

My father spoke little.

But on these evenings of sublime beauty

Suicidal Tendencies - Bongiwe Dlamini

I, am pretty.

I am pretty dark, pretty distorted

like those images on your TV Screen

when you lose the signal…pshhht!

Utendi (The Book of Mwana Kupona) stanzas 1-11 - Mwana Kupona

1.

Attend to me my daughter

unworthy as I am of God’s award

Heed my last instructions

for it may be that you will apply yourself to them.

Say to the Tomb - Bios Diallo

And

Say to the tomb, without pride

Here the poem ends

Skin lights - Louisa April

The street lights wink at me

their dim glow barely

illuminates my silhouette

my faulty being

my black skindedness

Where am I from? - Kadia Diarra

Where am I from?

I am from this city where lived ASKIAS¹ for centuries

Thirsting – Nicole Enwonwu

Take a sip from me

Sip from the depths of my wells.

Freedom - Elie Rajaonarison

You are spoken of

as if a streetwalker

on streets to nowhere

in city markets
so consciences may rest sleep

Asking - Deolinda Rodrigues

Cold-blooded murderer,

commie spy,

woman playing at politics,

whore.

Let my pen - Djibril Sall

Let my pen

gather the pollen

from SPIRIT’S flower:

This World Open - Mohamed Sehaba

After infinite abandonments this world open.

Nothing but the cold isthmus, nothing but the sea

that abandons everything and embraces only death.

Death - Leetile Disang Raditladi

When I heard that he is dead I was shocked,

My marrow melted, I dropped a tear,

The earth darkened, it rotated,

My eye shone like a star,

Outside Town - Yu Pangsŏn

I live close to town;

I do as I please: joy illimited!

The Old Woman's Message - Kumalau Tawali

Stick these words in your hair

and take them to Polin and Manuai

my sons:

the ripe fruit falls and returns

to the trunk - its mother.

Spring and Women - Walter von der Vogelweide

When the flowers in the grass are springing, 

Smiling up as if to greet the dawn, 

Early in the morn in time of May; 

And the merry birds are gaily singing 

In their sweetest wise, what joy is born 

For the world, to speed its happy day! 

To his Wife - Decimius Magnus Ausonius

Love, let us live as we have lived, nor lose

The little names that were the first night’s grace,

Easter Week - Charles Kingsley

See the land, her Easter keeping,

    Rises as her Maker rose.

Damætas - Lord George Byron

In law an infant, and in years a boy,

In mind a slave to every vicious joy;

Good Friday, A.D. 33 - Katharine Tynan

Mother, why are people crowding now and staring?

    Child, it is a malefactor goes to His doom,

To the high hill of Calvary He's faring,

    And the people pressing and pushing to make room

          Lest they miss the sight to come.

Graves of Meaning - Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen

A female forest is breaking off relations

In an ambiguous music and wearing red colors

Until I have ascertained that water

Partially represented my shape.

Lord of the Flies - Duy Quang Mai

10:07 at central station,

platform one, too many

overcoats. walked

wide steps. lord of the

flies, roslyn theatre.

Forget (Arua) Remember (Pakwac) - Gloria Kiconco

Forget how the rolling hills stopped rolling and began unfolding

into flatlands. You have left the badlands.

A Quiet Palm Sunday - Michelo Mweetwa

On a humble donkey he once rode

Thunderous crowds by the road

Liberation they craved or

A salvation he gave forth

Sacred Woman - Halima Xudoyberdiyeva

Your lovers have thrown flowers at your feet,

In solitude they have tasted honey from your lips,

And they have sold it to anyone at all,

You are sacred anyway, sacred woman.

Can You? - Nicolás Guillén

Can you sell me the air as it slips through your fingers

As it slaps at your face and untidies your hair?

Perhaps you could sell me fivepennyworth of wind

or more, perhaps sell me a storm?

No one is doing good - Prince Koloni

Jah will put them to shame for they don't call on Jah

They do not call on Jah name

Working all day, dreaming at night - Jit Narain

Working all day, dreaming at night –

Aja’s appearance is something like mine.

Recognize Blackman - Erwin Jones

Black man!

Take a Look

Take a Good Look!

Sketch #1 - Claudia Torres

Evening weaves its silence

along the narrow borders of the houses.

It conceals sharp edges

with the advancing sound of dense night.

Looking for Trouble - Roque Dalton

The night of my first political cell meeting it rained

my way of dripping was celebrated by four

or five characters straight out of a Goya painting

The kingdom of the Gandharaka ruler - Kunchan Nambiar

The kingdom of the Gandharaka ruler

Has turned into a mere desert.

Making Peace - Rafael Cadenas

Let’s come to an agreement, poem.

I’ll stop forcing you to say what you don’t mean

and you won’t resist my desires.

Managua 6:30 P.M. - Ernesto Cardenal

In the evening the neon lights are soft

and the mercury streetlamps, pale and beautiful …

The Existential Nothingness of Crabs - Lil Marie Herrera

I make verses in the air

they crackle toward the infinite prophecy.

Crackling.

Crackling.

Isolated breakfast - Mostafa Sarabzadeh

I see four nurses dressed in white

Four half breaths masked in blue

Helping who lying in street

Someone who about to leave

By the last deadline is received

Sun, Thunder, Daugava - Rainis

Latvia was put down by the Sun,

Where the ends came together.

White sea, green land.

Latvia had the key of the gate.

Which Daugava did protect.

Hymn for Tabernacles - Eleazar ben Jacob Kalir

Thy praise, O Lord! will I proclaim 

In hymns unto thy glorious name. 

O thou Redeemer, Lord and King, 

Redemption to thy faithful bring! 

Upon Naked Skin - Arabella Salaverry

Upon naked skin I write.

Upon the ardent expanse

which covers me

and accompanies me

throughout life’s journeys.

Of those things which are known as those things - Peter Macsovszky

So as every kind of harmony includes its own

opposite one - a firm and disintegrating seed

of confusion continuing in a secret growing -

so the confusion itself.

So the confusion (probably) contains

its soft, inner and freshly red juice of harmony.

Regrets only - Bill Nelson

You’ll take your grandfather roller skating,

watch from the edge of the rink.

At Palau Pacific Resort - Emelihter Kihleng

I wish I was staying here

eating the special fish of the month

drinking coffee

The Triumph of Rameses II [opening section] - Penta-our

The youthful king with the bold hand has not his equal. 

His arms are powerful, his heart is firm, 

His courage is like that of the god of war, Monthu, in the fight. 

He leads his warriors to unknown peoples. 

Stars - Ahmed ALajmi

While the night plays its thoughts,

Allowing the stars to dance naked,

We sit–me and my portable radio–

On an old table

The Mutability of all Earthly Things - Ōtomo no Yakamochi

Since the far natal hour of earth and heaven, 

          Men never cease to cry 

That ne’er to aught in this our world ’twas given 

          To last eternally. 

Development - Katrina Dybzynska

Our child would have uneven

teeth and a birthmark on the right

hip. The rest would be a fight

for domination: eyes that change

Living All By Herself Without You - Ziad Rahbani

Living all by herself without you

And without your love, my boy

Quit talking about your love for her

The whole country is laughing at you

hayfever - Jiaqi Kang

i don’t know the names of any flowers i’m sorry

except for this one time when i woke up in palo alto at 5am

untitled (I cross the edge) - Vasyl Stus

I cross the edge. Outside the rim I go.

This foot that I have raised to march ahead,

Reality, this naked empty hollow,

Ghetto - Guy Tirolien

Why should I confine myself

to the image

they would fix me in?

For pity's sake,

I'd suffocate

segregated as exotic.

Inside the Display Fridge it's Always Daytime - Valerina Tentoni

The things in there don’t complain, don’t ask any god

to turn out the light. They wait their turn.

A Night in Hospital - Akberen Yelgezek

Against my window, bat-wings lash.

Crows expectorate hacking caws.

The moon reddens, perched on the muzzle

of a dog that howls and bites the night wind.

 

Tonight is the last one again - Vagif Samadoghlu

Tonight is the last one again,

Tomorrow the last morning,

Once More I Will Greet the Sun - Forugh Farrokhzad

Once more I will greet the sun,

the stream that flowed in me,

the clouds which were my long thoughts,

Encounter - Jovan Dučić

An angel met a soul one time,

In the middle of the air,

A Healing Heart - Ndaba Sibanda

inner beauty is priceless

its twinkle is taintless

its hoot is humankind

its love is one of a kind

The Working Girl - Daniel Varoujan

Beneath my window, as each morning dawns,

You like a wandering ghost go flitting by,

And on your beauteous virgin head there fall

Tears from my rose vine, leafless now and dry.

The Birth of Poetry - Titsian Tabidze

1.

Sky and earth

make a bridge on Mt. Elbrus.

Vesper hymn to the Virgin - Hermann Contractus

Mother of majesty, 

God's love adorning, 

Thou that hast oped for man 

Open water! - Björnstjerne Björnson

Open water, open water!

All the weary winter's yearning

Bursts in restless passion burning.

Scarce is seen the blue of ocean,

And the hours seem months in motion.

The Love Song of Shu-Sin - Anonymous

Bridegroom, dear to my heart,

Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet,

Lion, dear to my heart,

Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet.

Lines to Fanon I - Jennifer Rahim

You insisted you spoke for your time.

Well, it is now, Fanon. Like foolish masons,

we build on the sand of false hierarchies,

The Cup - Abdellatif Laâbi

The cup is full

And here are the ingredients:

At the bottom a bit of despair

giving life

that after-taste of bitterness

Children’s Hair - Gabriela Mistral

Soft hair, hair that is all the softness of the world:

without you lying in my lap, what silk would I enjoy?

untitled - Taras Shevchenko

As the sun sets and hills grow dark,

as the birdsong ends and fields fall silent,

as the people laugh and take their rest,

I watch.

Who Will Buy Me Certainty? - Hanane Aad

I am the Eternally Anxious One

Who will buy me certainty?

Where can I obtain the serenity of silence?

Autumn - Giovanni

It’s morning time: leaves

lie restfully on the ground.

Guinea - Jacques Roumain

It’s the long road to Guinea

death takes you down.

Here are the boughs, the trees, the forest.

Listen to the sound of the wind in its long hair

            of eternal night.

My Dear Hina! - Peni Latu

I shall tell you so that all may know

Of the dream that appeared in my mind

My most precious bread cast upon the water

Drifting further afar and into oblivion

While walking up Back Street - Debra Providence

While walking up Back Street

in green tank, yellow mesh T-shirt

and loose blue jeans

a copper hails me from

the other side of the street,

The Word of the Cross - Paulinus of Nola

Look on thy God, Christ hidden in our flesh,

A bitter word, the cross, and bitter sight:

Hard rind without, to hold the heart of heaven.

The Cry of the Bird - Nimrod Bena Djangrang

I wanted to be overcome with silence

I abandoned the woman I love

I closed myself to the bird of hope

Don’t! - Santina

Don’t!

Don’t talk about justice

Picket Fence - Michael Donhauser

It is first of all, has been, here separates me picket by picket.

From you, if anything like "in back of: in front of" still existed.

My Tiger Stripes - Njabulo N.

My beautiful skin has marks,

Marks like the tiger stripes,

Forming uneven lines,

They may disgust you but they are fine.

Mt. Paektu (Prologue) - Jo Ki Chon

Friends and brothers! Thirty millions!

Today must my voice be heard!

Prologue - Hemayel Martina

Behold this naked harvest

Of unripe eyes

Ripening

On the gentle, gradual

Compass of time

The Heart's Desire - Namdev

O God, my cry comes up to thee,- 

How sad a cry is it ! 

What is this tragic destiny 

That fate for me has writ ? 

Those good old days - Erna Loraine Narcisso Walters

Tell me about those good old days

when there were railroads, sawmills and ways,

when there were jobs to pick and to choose,

where everyone gained no one lose.

the words that I give you - Daniel Maximin

the words that I give you imagine that you dream

Rosalina - Michael Slory

The beads of your eyes

are crystal clear,

clearer than rain water,

What I Am - Undjizuva Kaputjaza

The most precious present ever presented to me

Was this moment

In which I shed a frozen tear

While drowning in a golden sunset.

Let us not talk of the price - Amanda Aizpuriete

Let us not talk of the price.

You have beautiful eyes.

Such eyes can buy

half the world.

Terrifying Perfection - Alpha Chizuzu

Your little hand clings on to my finger 

Yearning for comfort

Your eyes open wide, your vision still blurry

Your face, not fully formed

Sinking like a rock in the sea - Feng-kan (Big Stick)

Sinking like a rock in the sea

drifting through the Three Worlds

Le spleen de Buja - Adams Sinarinzi

This country has nothing left for many

Other than this lyrical cry

A melancholy leading into an abyss

Maiden of the Rainbow (Rune VIII) - Elias Lönnrot

Pohyola's fair and winsome daughter, 

Glory of the land and water, 

Sat upon the bow of heaven, 

On its highest arch resplendent, 

In a gown of richest fabric, 

In a gold and silver air-gown, 

Weaving webs of golden texture, 

My Hand - Grand Master Masese

My hand,

My bread winner

I deeply feel your pain

Now that they catch you at night

In Mukuru

Seeking to get what you harvested

Fallen Leaves - Mariama Khan

The moon heaves under a scarlet night

Sorrow on her chest

Yesterday’s song was hollow and grey

Carmina Minora VII (LXXXVII) Statue of a Chariot - Claudian

Who had the skill to fashion so many figures 

out of one block of marble? 

All-Pervading Poetry (Kavitako Vyapti) - Balkrishna Sama

Picking up a huge basket, a holy man

ventured out to the forest to gather poetry.

Through hills and streams, pastures and fields,

he searched every waterfall, fruit and bush,

but nowhere could he find it,

so he decided such things were out of season,

at a loss he had set off home

when he came upon an aesthete.

Book of Arda Viraf, Part II, Chapter 3 - Anonymous

And the soul of Viraf went, from the body, to the Chinwad bridge of Chakat-i-Daitik, 

and came back the seventh day, and went into the body. 

Viraf rose up, as if he arose from a pleasant sleep, thinking of Vohuman and joyful.

Magic Suitcase - Shahnaz A'lami

I took with me a suitcase,

light, very light,

Two or three sets of baby clothes,

A white georgette dress,

An indistinct photograph of my mother,

wearing a headdress,

Alone? - Mary Electa Adams

The sunlight through the open door

Comes in, and streams along the floor,

The slant rays of a falling August sun

Well-nigh throughout its sultry circuit run;

And hushed is every sound of breeze or leaf or bird,

Save the low trill of insects, past the lattice heard,

        In the dry grass

        As the hours pass.

Kathmandu - Pushpa Ratna Tuladhar

Every morning in my bathroom, 

I submerge myself in meditation, 

cleanse my bowels

and attain fresh and anew.

I flush out all the dirt and dust

through the drainage

to the distant flowing river.

My darling, we sat together - Heinrich Heine

My darling, we sat together,

We two, in our frail boat;

The night was calm o'er the wide sea

Whereon we were afloat.

 

those who stitch - Tikum Azonga

I've done stitching all my life

I've stitched maths and even Einstein

Africa - Albert Chitsanzo

Dangling the follies of crossfire

Casting the mystery of presidential elections

An Address to the River of Creation - Anonymous

O thou River, who didst create all things, 

When the great gods dug thee out, 

They set prosperity upon thy banks, 

The Quest for Joy in a Modern World - Taiwo Hassan

these days, i’m a china on the tip of a cupboard,

one push away from breaking, peace in pieces.

i see the shattered shards already, a vessel after vertigo,

that split second of silence, i perceive the flames in me.

Offspring - Vizma Belševica

In this dream, I’m the bad mother sent for,

my words: unruly bairns,

hanked to my skirts, mouths blared shut

except for the babby,

my favourite, his trembling lips stammer

submission while his milk teeth cut a rage

that gnaws his tongue to a silence

that moves me to speak:

How the granite is covered in ice - Boris Ryzhy

How the granite is covered in ice,

and a frost lies on the ground –

This town, frosted with memories,

I want to leave it for ever.

The wind returns - Li Yu

The wind returns; my little courtyard is green and overgrown,

The willows seem to have grown again this spring.

Quiet - Petar Tchouhov

Our mothers are missing –

went out to buy

something delicious

and haven’t come back

Peasant Love Songs - George Cosbuc

I.

  He

In the garden of my sweetheart

Sing two birds beautifully,

And the sun proudly shines,

And my darling sits and dreams.

One Alone - Amir Hamzah

Formed in your heart, this was your will:

Rain in cataracts, hurricanes unleashed,

All foundering, engulfed—

Your luxuriant garden now a mere ruin.

The Water Mirror - Vicente Huidobro

My mirror, a current in the nights,

Becomes a brook and leaves my room.

Rain Rain Go Away - Farhan Ejat

Rain rain go away

Come again another day

Come in June or come in May

But please don’t come, not today

I Write with Words That Have Shadow but Don’t Shelter - Guillermo Sucre

I write with words that have shadow but don’t shelter

no sooner do I start this page insomnia burns it

Cannibal - Léon Laleau

This savage wish on certain days

To mingle blows and blood

With love's motions,

A Riddle - Tedi López Mills

Now they kill them:

see the corpse

bloated in the ditch.

Now they banish them from the city:

see them running towards the tollbooth

On the shore - Sándor Kányádi

The band's drum out-thumps the sea,

neon outshines all the stars;

Hail Thou the World's Salvation - Bernard of Clairvaux

Hail thou, the world's salvation, 

Hail Jesus kind and sweet, 

Before thy Rood in gratitude 

I bow and clasp thy feet. 

To the Princess Leonora When Forbidden by Her Physicians to Sing - Torquato Tasso

Oh! ’tis a merciless decree,

  That to the envied world denies

The sound of that sweet voice which we

  So much admire, so dearly prize!

Do you know - Helen Adamson

To you, who has fulfilled all my beautiful wishes,

I breathe slowly, because it doesn't feel real

this air around us, warmly touching your lips.

What am I feeling, what am I thinking, there is someone in my heart?

 

Chopstick Diplomacy - Mbuh Tennu Mbuh

Such dragon embraces 

of a postcolonial scam that insult

the memory of a people under twenty-first century noon, 

Book of the Beds of the Spices, Garden Bed IV:6 - Joseph ben Tanchum ha-Yerushalmi

Make no oath to torture me, my love,

for how I will turn you away.

Grammar and Medicine - Agathias Scholasticus

A thriving doctor sent his son to school 

To gain some knowledge, should he prove no fool; 

Your country - Antoine Abel

Your country

Is studded with mountains,

Life (Vita Nostra Plena Bellis) - Alain de L'Isle

A battle-field is life, 

Where sorrow comes and strife 

Our strength to try; 

Each morning dawns with fear, 

Each evening brings the tear, 

And death is nigh. 

The Blind Boy - Sagara Palansuriya

They say, flowers are gorgeous and are of lovely shades

The things they speak of as they can see

I don’t understand, mother, so here I am to learn

Please explain to me, I don’t know these