Venice masks

Wednesday 31 August 2022

The Beach - Theodor Storm

Towards the bay now flies the gull
And twilight gathers low,
Where, over watered mudflats,
Is reflected evening glow.

Monday 29 August 2022

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

Sunday 28 August 2022

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.

Saturday 27 August 2022

Friday 26 August 2022

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

Thursday 25 August 2022

Claws - Rasha Omran

If I were a cat
I would wash my skin with my tongue
like this

Sunday 21 August 2022

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.

Saturday 20 August 2022

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.

Friday 19 August 2022

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

Thursday 18 August 2022

Sandpaper - Clara Burghelea

​I don’t want to give up longing,
these tines of invisible fork
that puncture the lungs.

Wednesday 17 August 2022

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.

Tuesday 16 August 2022

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.

Monday 15 August 2022

Sunday 14 August 2022

The Land of Topsy-Turvy - Muktabai

An ant has leapt up to the sky 
And swallowed up the sun on high! 

Saturday 13 August 2022

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.

Friday 12 August 2022

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.

Thursday 11 August 2022

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.

Wednesday 10 August 2022

Possession - Juan Sánchez Peláez

The world weighs malicious and solemn in my roots.
I accept your hands, your joy, my delirium.

Tuesday 9 August 2022

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 —

Monday 8 August 2022

Mountains of Ōmi - Ōtomo no Kuronushi

Mountains of Ōmi—
Ah, how it rises full upright,
The Mirror Mountain,

Sunday 7 August 2022

Living - Tukupashya Ally Kasongo

ls the exodus at birth?
ls it at conception
Or is it in the genes

Friday 5 August 2022

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.

Wednesday 3 August 2022

Three Springs - Aleksandr Pushkin

Three springs in life’s unbroken joyless desert
Mysteriously issue from the sands:

Tuesday 2 August 2022

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!

Monday 1 August 2022

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.