It's Christmas day - Roland L. Gayle

I just woke up and it’s Christmas Day

Christ is born, Hip, Hip Hooray!

The bliss of Heaven - Anonymous

The bliss of Heaven,

I will worship you a thousandfold,

Revered fruit of a mature tree,

Long awaited by your people,

Protection of spiritual strength,

Heed my call.

Giddy-up, bull - Anonymous

Giddy-up, bull, little bull,

Little bull from the little pen.

You come down from the stars - Alfonso Maria de' Liguori

You come down from the stars

Oh, King of Heavens,

And You come in a cave in the cold, in the frost.

Oh, my Divine Baby

I see you trembling here,

Oh, Blessed God

Ah, how much it costs You, your loving me.

Longing (Garod) - Hagop Norashkharian

The years have passed and still pass…

Yet you seem to me only

Illusive and a far dream,

Like invincible mountain.

More than Anyone Else - Vagif Bayatly Oner

I can neither be the strongest man in the world,

Nor do I want to be.

I don't want anyone to be afraid of me.

Day by day, God’s gracious love surrounds me - Lina Sandell

Day by day, God’s gracious love surrounds me

As a balm to soothe my troubled heart.

Countless cares and worries that confound me

Fade away or quietly depart,

For His heart is kind beyond all measure,

And He comforts us as He knows best.

Know'st Thou The Way - Theodor Kjerulf

O littel bird! know'st thou the way

Which is unknown to me?

How swift thou flewest at break of day,

With heart all full of glee!

Flying Kites - Cicely Fox Smith

"It was them there flyin' kites of 'ers done it," said he,

"Runnin' down the Tropics a sight she was to see,

A pictur' to see with 'er sails both large and small,

An' 'er pretty skysails atop of 'em all."

No Pain Like Our Pain - Rabbi Tamara Cohen

Dear God, help us look,

look closer so that we may see

our children in their children,

their children in our own. 

If I must die - Refaat Alareer

If I must die,

you must live

to tell my story

Who is Innocent? - Yahia Lababidi

If one were hard of heart

they might ask

is any Israeli innocent

Sleeping Porter (Nidrit Bhariya) - Laxmi Prasad Devkota

On his back a fifty-pound load,

his spine bent double,

six miles sheer in the winter snows;

naked bones;

with two rupees of life in his body

to challenge the mountain.

from: My Silent Confidant - Søren Kierkegaard

Where am I? 

What does it mean to say: the world?

What is the meaning of that word? 

Who tricked me into this whole thing and leaves me standing here?

The Colour of Life - Ssu-K’ung T’u

Would that we might for ever stay

The rainbow glories of the world,

The blue of the unfathomed sea,

The rare azalea late unfurled,

Poem of Your Oblivion - Aída Cartagena Portalatín

The soul in a mansion of snow,

The Beira Malaria - Thomas Craig

When you rise to greet old Phœbus with a booming in your head,

    And your temples throb and threaten straight to burst;

When your tongue feels like a doormat and your eyelids feel like lead,

    And your throat is dry and parched with burning thirst;

        When your eyeballs shun the light;

        And the sunshine seems a blight,

You may moan your luck, and wish you'd ne'er been weaned,

The Liberal says - Morris Winchevsky

The Liberal says, Jack must help him 

Because he is his friend. 

The Conservative says: My heart 

Opens to Jack today. 

The bubble in the wind - Christina S.

The bubble in the wind

flies gently by.

Over the trees

and into the sky.

The Valley Song - Gil Vicente

My lady now no more takes pleasure 

privily with me perpending — 

Alack for pains that are unending!

Fair Girls and Gray horses - Will H. Ogilvie

Fair Girls and Gray horses! A toast for you 

Who never went wide of a fence or a kiss: 

While horses are horses and eyes are blue 

There is never a toast in the world like this!

Yudhishthira's reply (The Hunter and the Hero - Book II) - Bhāravi

Listening to her speech so noble, —

Speech with force and sweetness graced,

Bhîma thus with words of wisdom

Virtuous Yudhishthir addressed.

Deep in a Vale - Gustaf Rosenhane

Deep in a vale where rocks on every side

Shut out the winds, and scarcely let the sun

Between them dart his rays down one by one,

Where all was still and cool in summer-tide,

And softly, with her whispering waves that sighed,

A little river, that had scarce begun

Guns of Peace - Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Ghosts of dead soldiers in the battle slain,

Ghosts of dead heroes dying nobler far

In the long patience of inglorious war,

Hymn to the Dawn - St. Cellach of Killala

Hail to the morning fair, that falls as a flame on the greensward;

Hail, too, unto Him who bestows her, the morn ever fruitful in blessings.

Peter Colbiornsen - Knud Lyne Rahbek

’Fore Fredereksteen King Carl he lay

With mighty host;

But Frederekshal, from day to day,

Much trouble cost.

To seize the sword each citizen

His tools let fall,

And valiant Peter Colbiornsen

Was first of all.

Mentem Mortalia Tangunt - Manmohan Ghose

Now lonely is the wood:

No flower now lingers, none!

The virgin sisterhood

Of roses, all are gone;

Now Autumn sheds her latest leaf;

And in my heart is grief.

The Stragglers - Carl Spitteler

"Have all the bell-notes come back to me?"

"All but the notes that stray farthest - three."

"And which are those that return so late?"

"The full-toned, the searching, the delicate."

You Had Given Your Word - Candan Erçetin

You had given your word to me

To stay here always by my me

We swore all this this didn't we?

That whatever happened, we would be together

Last Song of the Exile - Miguel Teurbe Tolón

I.

Hard my path on earth is closed;

Light is dead within my heart.

Star of Hope! thou art gone down;

Clay and spirit now must part!

The Deep Song - Georg Trakl

From deep night I was released.

My soul is astonished in immortality,

My soul listens over space and time

To the melody of eternity!

Divine creator of the light - Gregory the Great

Divine creator of the light, 

Who, bringing forth the golden ray, 

Didst join the morning with the night 

And call the blessed union day;

Poem V - Pablo Neruda

For you to hear,

my words

sometimes grow thin

as seagull tracks on the beach.

I have seen Yiddish words - Moyshe Kulbak

I have seen Yiddish words like small flames, like small flames,

like sparks, risen from dark ore.

When poetry opens her doors - Mario Benedetti

When poetry opens her doors

One feels like time embraces us

A gratuitous and novel truth

Breakfast - Dan Slobin

Making my breakfast

I look out through the kitchen window:

two deer

peacefully munching at my garden.

A list of questions to measure love - Katrina Dybzynska

I

I know you wash the clothes not by the color

but by the type of fabric. 

A celebration of peace (for Adam Curle) - Konai Helu Thaman

 today we come together

 to read and sing of peace

 lay aside our differences

 rise and greet the breeze

Longing Soothed - Friedrich Rückert

Bathed in the golden evening glow,

How solemn the forests stand!

Into the gentle voices of little birds

Breathes the wafted evening breeze.

A Masnavī Satirizing a Barber - Ghanī Kashmīrī

1. My every hair’s a tongue standing to order.

In verse I now describe a certain barber.

Litany for Dictatorships - Stephen Vincent Benét

For all those beaten, for the broken heads,

The fosterless, the simple, the oppressed,

The ghosts in the burning city of our time ...

Balige - Sitor Situmorang

I feel like nothing's changed 

in this small city 

though it's half a century since 

I first entered school here

There is slavery in Mauritania - Alexander K. Opicho

There are black slaves in Mauritania

Indentured Patel Slaves in India

Black Slaves in Mali

Black Slaves in Nigeria

Black Slaves in Niger

White Slaves in Russia

Muslim slaves in Senegal

There are black slaves in Mauritania.

Now we are writing dirges - Debebe Seifu

The fire blazing

Its tongue flowering

Called on us

Holy Spirit, come with light - N. F. S. Grundtvig

Holy Spirit, come with light,

Break the dark and gloomy night

With Thy day unending.

Help us with a joyful lay

Greet the Lord’s triumphant day

Now with might ascending.

The Master Brewer - Ladé Wosornu

There is a distillery in our brains

Its cane and malt, its hops and grains

Are the stuff our lives are made of.

Where I am from - Ammar AlShukry

I am from where kids smile sweet

And Niles meet, ⁣

Where the sun always shines

And grandfathers tell tales of golden times, ⁣

uncontained - Zaim Allal

turning for the door, tears began streaming	●●	tears as I crossed the threshold
tears till I felt tired	●●	and I walked on that asphalt

A to Z - Gaarriye

Caalin, listen, I'm going to travel

From A to Z carried by language -

The alphabet, alive on the page.

 

The First call / Army of Termites - Alinane ‘Naphi’ Mphande

Slowly I watched it grow

From a speck to a row

Mesmerized I watched as they came

One, two, three, four, scores and scores of them

Instructions on Survival - Suricia Yatiana Conteh

Arms outstretched so far it

embraces the Sahara desert,

not minding the scorching heat

as it tortures her like a thief.

Where naught is still - Bayo Akomolafe

Oh! to speak of worlds hidden in magic sight

Lost between a whisper and a sigh

Wooden Sculpture from the Sixteenth Century - João Miguel Fernandes Jorge

The father, the son, missing only the holy spirit.

maybe for this reason this Trinity in the museum of Angra

emits most passionately an aura of the divine Nazarene.

Mandjou - Salif Keïta

Mandjou, don’t cry

Son of Alpha Touré, don’t cry

Mandjou, don’t cry

Son of Mother Minata Fadiga, don’t cry

Mandjou, don’t cry

Andrée Touré’s husband, don’t cry

Mandjou, don’t cry

André Madou’s father, don’t cry

I’ve come with hope; it’s not yet time to cry

Mandjou, God knows you are right like gold.

Birä - Jeanne Dalena

war; what a chaos for my motherland

why do butterflies suddenly turn to bullets

and hope to lies?

In The Grey Hair of Soyinka - Adjei Agyei-Baah

There’s something mystical

About your grey hair, Baba

Not in its seductive whiteness

Your flower that continues

To bloom on high

Even in its twilight years.

Many A Cold Season - Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin

Many a flower has blossomed and plucked 

Since we last said good-bye 

Many a cold season has come and gone... 

No, it was not the good-bye that hurt 

Not the under breath curse we parted with but the question 

Whether or not we had parted at all. 

Batswana Land - Leetile Disang Raditladi

My heart is in the land of the Batswana 

To hunt steenbok and duiker; 

My heart is not really in the Western land, 

It is far away in the bushes.

And it was here — it was autumn - Vladimir Solovyov

And it was here — it was autumn —

When I told Her: “Divine Flower,

I feel Your touch! But why have you hidden Yourself

From my sight since I was a boy?”

This Is It, Your - Magdalena Horvat

poem without any aim or pretension

to be another source of your tension—

a post-apocalyptic poem that no one

will read anyway;

Fairy Tale - Aspazija

On a teensy weensy pony

rides the fairy tale;

Always in a big, big hurry,

wielding a golden whip.

The Farm, from Pan Tadeusz - Adam Mickiewicz

O Lithuania, my native land, 

you are like health--so valued when lost 

beyond recovery; let these words now stand

restoring you, redeeming exile's cost.

In winter - Maksim Bahdanovich

Hail, frosty evening, ringing, calling,

Hail, crunching crisp, soft spread of snow,

No snowstorm blows, the wind has fallen,

And freely the light sledges go.

Not a star - Grigore Vieru

Not a star is poor

As long as it is seen

Not a nation being needy

As long as it has a song, a speech.

This Humanity, a Tale - Ali Znaidi

This humanity, this diversity

like endless lightning through

the night.

He said, don't sleep - Dunash ben Labrat

He said, "Don't sleep. Drink old wine

with myrrh and lilies, henna and aloes,

in an orchard of pomegranates, palm, and vines

full of pleasant plants and tamarisks, to the hum of fountains

and the throb of lutes,

to the sound of singers, flutes, and lyres.

Charity - Ivan Blatný

Hearken, the rivers won’t be frozen this winter

or nearly any other winter for that matter

this is a milde climate

Have You Been at Carrick? - Edward Walsh

Have you been at Carrick, and saw my true-love there?

And saw you her features, all beautiful, bright, and fair?

The Surpassing of Danger - Yannis Ritsos

Every so often a star or a voice

falls so deep, that he supports himself

on the railing of the balcony or holding a hand

(if there is a hand) lest he collapse inside himself.

Zehaal-E-Miskeen - Amir Khosrow

Do not overlook my misery,

by blandishing your eyes and weaving tales,

My patience has over-brimmed, O sweetheart!

Full Moon - Fabio Fiallo

Over the green prairie, with hushed voices,

    We wandered, she and I.

The moon rose clear and bright above the mountain,

    The nightingale was singing to the sky.

Table talk - Manuel Magallanes Moure

The little old lady laughs like a little girl, going

On with the tale of this and that happy day.

Says the little old lady, “Oh, what times were they

When I fell in love without Grandmother’s knowing!"

Winter barley - Kim Su-yeong

My body hurts

So I stagger in the sun.

My body hurts

So I stagger in the sun.

Absurd - Bouchra Yassine

Soon ...

Very soon, my friend ...

We will discover that all the optimists

Are insane more than any absurdity.

I Don't Feel At Home Where I Am - Regina Derieva

I don't feel at home where I am,

or where I spend time; only where,

beyond counting, there's freedom and calm,

Since you attended my funeral, I’ll also attend yours - Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva

Since you attended my funeral, I’ll also attend yours

I’ll arrive just before the coffin

Enters the church

And join the line of weepers.

The room - Reinaldo Perez Só

The room

is

empty

How Many Kisses: to Lesbia - Catullus

Lesbia, you ask how many kisses of yours

would be enough and more to satisfy me.

Who knocks in the peace of the evening so light - Lina Sandell

Who knocks in the peace of the evening so light

At your heart's door?

Who comes then with healing so pleasant and bright

To cure the heart' s sorrow and much more?

Builders of ruins - Alice Meynell

We build with strength, the deep tower wall

That shall be shattered thus and thus.

And fair and great are court and hall,

But how fair—this is not for us,

Who know the lack that lurks in all.

To A Mountain Daisy - Robert Burns

Wee, modest crimson-tipped flow'r, 

Thou's met me in an evil hour; 

For I maun crush amang the stoure 

Thy slender stem: 

To spare thee now is past my pow'r, 

Thou bonie gem. 

A plea - Jeanie Donnan

Rouse ye, my men, are ye sleeping or waking? 

The Motherland calls you — but calls you in vain; 

Hark to the sob from a proud heart that's breaking, 

That still you can sleep while she writhes in her pain. 

Faith is a living pow’r from Heav’n - Petrus Herbertus

Faith is a living pow’r from Heav’n

That grasps the promise God hath giv’n,

A trust that cannot be o’erthrown,

Fixed heartily on Christ alone.

Another September - Thomas Kinsella

Dreams fled away, this country bedroom, raw

With the touch of the dawn, wrapped in a minor peace,

Hears through an open window the garden draw

Long pitch black breaths, lay bare its apple trees,

Ripe pear trees, brambles, windfall-sweetened soil,

Exhale rough sweetness against the starry slates.

The Door to Happiness - L. Onerva

A warm loving human heart

was beating once for me, I know,

the door to happiness was open,

inviting to feel its glow.

Hummingbird - Neema Komba

Every spring I open my petals

And let you sip my nectar

Romance - Robert Louis Stevenson

I will make you brooches and toys for your delight

Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.

I will make a palace fit for you and me,

Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

The Mind - Chu Hsi

The Mind is most spiritual. 

So fine is it that it penetrates the very point of a hair, 

or the smallest blade of grass, 

and I become conscious of them. 

A Tree - José Corazón de Jesús

Viewed from a distant vantage

I appear as a cross with arms outstretched;

As I stayed on my knees long enduring,

It seems that I am kissing God’s feet.

O Saviour, Fount of heavenly life - Rabanus Maurus

O Saviour, Fount of heavenly life, 

Assist us in our earthly strife; 

Thou pitying Virgin, hear our cries, 

And raise us from our miseries. 

Cupid Lost - Jakob Cats

The child of Venus, wanton, wild. 

The sliest rogue that ever smiled, 

Has lately strayed — where, who shall guess? 

His mother pines in sad distress; 

She calls the boy, she sighs, complains. 

But still no news of Cupid gains; 

For, though her sorrow grows apace. 

None knows the urchin's resting-place. 

She therefore vows the boy shall be 

Cried o'er the country publicly: 

Maji Maji - Yusuf O. Kassam

Sitting on a stool outside his mud hut,

The mzee scratched his head in a slow motion,

Trying to recall.

His dim grey eyes quiveringly stared into the distance

The Lusiad (extract from Book II: Arrival at Mombasa) - Luís Vas de Camões

The fervent lustre of the evening ray

Behind the western hills now died away,

And night, ascending from the dim-brow'd east,

The twilight gloom with deeper shades increas'd,

When Gama heard the creaking of the oar,

And mark'd the white waves length'ning from the shore.

From the Strand to the Never - Henry Lawson

Last glass of the last of our revels!

    Last song to be sung without ruth!

Let us give what is due to our devils

    Ere the curtain comes down on our youth!

Saturday night - Mary Caroline Colborne-Veel

Saturday night in the crowded town; 

Pleasure and pain going up and down, 

Murmuring low on the ear their beat, 

Echoes unceasing of voice and feet. 

Withered age with its load of care 

Come in this tumult of life to share, 

Childhood glad in its radiance brief, 

Happiest-hearted or bowed with grief, 

Meet alike, as the stars look down, 

Week by week on the crowded town. 

Vondel's Lucifer (Act II, lines 277-413) - Joost van den Vondel

Belzebub:

The Stadtholder now hears the meaning of

This proclamation grave so proudly blown

By Gabriel's trumpet bold. How well he showed

Thee God's design! whose purpose thou may'st scent:

Thus shall he clip the wings of thy great power.

Lucifer:

But not so easily: Ah! nay, forsooth;

I shall have care this purpose to prevent.

Let not a power inferior thus dream

To rule the Powers above.

Belzebub:

He maketh threat

Forthwith to crush Rebellion's head and crown.

Lucifer:

Now swear I by my crown, upon this chance

To venture all, to raise my seat amid

The firmament, the spheres, the splendor of

The stars above. The Heaven of Heavens shall then

My palace be, the rainbow be my throne,

The starry vast, my court, while, down beneath,

The Earth shall be my footstool and support.

I shall, then swiftly drawn through air and light,

High-seated on a chariot of cloud,

With lightning stroke and thunder grind to dust

Whate'er above, around, below, doth us

Oppose, were it God's Marshal grand himself.

Yea, e'er we yield, these empyrean vaults.

Proud in their towering masonry, shall burst

With all their airy arches and dissolve

Before our eyes: this huge and joint-racked Earth,

Like a misshapen monster, lifeless lie;

This wondrous universe to chaos fall.

And to its primal desolation change.

Who dares, who dares defy great Lucifer?

We cite Apollion.

Belzebub:

He is at hand.

Apollion:

O Stadtholder of God's unbounded Realm,

And Oracle within the Council of

The Gods subordinate, I offer thee

My service and await thy new commands.310

What now the word—what of thy subject would

Thy Majesty?

Lucifer:

It pleaseth us to hear

Thy sense and thy opinion of a grave

And weighty plan that cannot fail to win.

Tis our intent to pluck the proudest plume

From Michael's wings, that our attempt upon

His mightiness shall not rebound as vain.

With his own arm as many oracles

He founds, as ever God Himself hath hewn

From deathless diamond with His hand. Behold320

Now man exalted to the Heaven of Heavens,

Through all the circles of the spheres, then see

The Spirit world, so deep, so far below,

Even 'neath his footcloth there, like feeble worms

Already crawling in the dust. I joy

To storm this throne with violence, and thus

To hazard by one strong, opposing stroke

The glory of my state and star and crown.

Apollion:

An undertaking truly to be praised!

May it augment your crown and increase gain,330

Based on such resolution: so I deem

It honors me thus to advise, 'neath thee,

The prosecution of a cause so bold.

Let this result for better or for worse,

The will is noble, even though it fail.

But lest we strive in vain and recklessly,

How best shall we begin so bold a plan?

How safest meet the point of that resolve?

Lucifer:

We subtly shall oppose our own resolve.

Apollion:

Sooth, there is pith in that. But what, pray, is340

Our borrowed might, weighed in the scale against

The Power Omnipotent? Guard well thy crown;

For we fall far too light.

Belzebub:

Yet not so light,

But that the matter first shall hang in doubt.

Apollion:

By whom or how or where this plot begun?

Even such intent is treason 'gainst God's Throne.

Lucifer:

His Throne we'll not disturb; but cautiously

Mount up the steep incline, and those high peaks,

Ne'er blazed by path and ne'er ascended, climb.

Courage and prudence must, at length, o'ercome350

And dare all dangers brave.

Apollion:

But not the Power

Omnipotent, nor yet His crown: approach

Thou not too near, or learn in sorrow that

Repentance comes too late. The lesser should

Submissively unto the greater yield.

Lucifer:

The great Omnipotent is far beyond

Our aim. Set forces like with like together.

Then learn whose sword is weightiest. I see

Our enemies in flight, the Heavens all ours

By one courageous stroke; our legions, too,360

O'erladen with the spoil and glorious plunder.

Then let us further now deliberate.

Apollion.

Thou know'st what Michael, God's Field-marshal may:

'Neath his command are all God's legions placed.

He bears the key of the armoury here on high.

To him the watch is trusted, and he keeps

A faithful, sleepless eye on all the camps;

So that of all the galaxies of Heaven

Not even one star, in its celestial march,

Dare move itself the least, nor stir without

Its ranks. 'Tis easy to commence; but in

Such warfare to engage exceeds our might,

And drags a train of hardships in its wake.

"What ordnance and what martial enginery

Could e'er avail his legions proud to quell?

Should Heaven's castle ope its diamond port,

Nor stratagem, nor ambush, nor assault

Could bring it fear.

Belzebub:

But if our bold resolve

We strengthen with the sword, I see upon

Our standard, raised aloft, the morning-star

Defiance flashing till all Heaven's state

And rulership is changed.

Apollion:

The Fieldmarshal,

The valiant Michael, bears with no less fire

And pride God's wondrous name amid the field

Of his great banner, with the sun above.

Lucifer:

Though writ in lines of light, what boots a name?

Heroic deeds, as this, are ne'er achieved

With titles, nor with pomp; not by valor, spirit.

And subtle strokes in skill and cunning bred.

Thou art a master-wit with craftiness

The Spirits to seduce, them to ensnare,

To lead and to incite howe'er thou wilt.

Thou canst attaint even those among the watch

Of most integrity, and teach even those

To waver who had thought to waver never.

Begin, we see God's legions in two camps

Divided, lords and vassals roused to strife

And mutiny. The greatest part even now

Are blind and deaf, save to their own demands;

And one and all cry loudly for a chief.

If thou for us a fourth part canst allure,

"We'll crown thy craft and dexterous management

With place and honor. Go, this plot consider

With Belial, for it must be dark indeed,

Where he shall lose his way. His countenance,

Smooth-varnished with dissimulation's hue,

No master in such deep concealment owns.

My car I now ascend: think ye this over.

The Council hath convened, and now awaits

Our own attendance. We shall call you both

Within, as soon as ye shall come. And thou,

Chief Lord, guard with thy trusty followers

This mighty gate that to the palace leads.

---

Joost van den Vondel (1587 – 1679) The Netherlands

Translated by Charles Leonard van Noppen

Act II, lines 277-413

Source: Project Gutenberg: J. van Vondel's Lucifer A tragedy 1654

<< Previous            Next >> [Further lines from Act II will be posted...]

Eternal Trinity - St Catherine of Sienna

Eternal Trinity,

Godhead,

mystery deep as the sea,

you could give me no greater gift

than the gift of

yourself.

Consciousness of a Poem - Ihor Kalynets

from the indifferent dark 

as from a rock

oozed the breasts

of the fruit of knowledge

Christmas Eve - Deolinda Rodrigues

—7:00 PM

by the latrine.

Yeah, it’s all set up,

I didn’t miss a thing.

Meals for Men - Tamanda Kanjaye

Little Boy,

I know you’ve been fed a toxic meal 

Of toughening up and never caring 

Of taking every single blow

Without ever sharing.

Sermon - Emanuel Carnevali

Chao-Mong-Mu freely laid his hands over the sky:

You do not know how to lay your hands over the breasts of your beloved.

Bdin - Ivan Hristov

Dear mother,

I died

but I didn't go to heaven,

instead I arrived in Bdin¹.

Who Knows What is Going On - Juan Ramón Jimenez

     Who knows what is going on on the other side of each hour?

     How many times the sunrise was

there, behind a mountain!

Space - Qassim Haddad

I don't know how

I sit this way, my head the hat of the universe and my hands in a frenzy.

I am not tired or sad

I see whiteness, towers of chaos

What are you Nicaragua? - Gioconda Belli

What are you—

a little triangle of earth

lost in the middle of the world?

Babyfly - Tshifhiwa Itai Ratshiungo

Instinct told us to look out the window as quickly

as the babyflies came out of nowhere. The sun knew

to shed its glare on every curtain with the opening

of the clouds. Mothers did not shout at our eagerness

The sun’s tongue - Rec Puk

Jiok’s hide is as bright as moonlight,

bright as the sun’s tongue.

My Jiok shines like gold,

like a man’s ivory bracelet.

In the house a window - Aigerim Tazhi

In the house a window

In the window a pot

In the pot a twig

The life above, the life on high - St Teresa of Ávila

The life above, the life on high, 

Alone is life in verity; 

Nor can we life at all enjoy 

Till this poor life is o'er. 

The Gift of Speech - Mariya Avvakumova

The Gift of Speech

You have overcome so many trials . . .

Native Land - Olavo Bilac

Love your native land with faithful pride and care!

Child! you'll never see a land like this so fair!

See what skies! what rivers! forests! and what sea!

Streetlamp - Homero Expósito

A humble neighborhood with houses

that reflect its tin sorrow.

A human neighborhood

whose stories are sung in tangos

Aphorism - José Craveirinha

There once was an ant

sharing isolation with me,

we used to eat together.

Food - Katerina Stoykova

Tomatoes bring love.

Potatoes raise consciousness.

 

In Position - Lauris Dorothy Edmond

I want to tell you about time, how strangely

it behaves when you haven't got much of it left:

after 60 say, or 70, when you'd think it would

Green - Janet Lees

Green marks Ordinary Time,

but green is not at all ordinary.

Reading a Wife - Yotsumoto Yasuhiro

A wife is not composed of words, so

Unlike a novel that takes till dawn

To devour she cannot be read

through in a night

My Standpoint - Tsegay Mehari

Obeying my conscience

Giving no ears to my flesh

Feeding my soul

Wild-Peace - Yehuda Amichai

Not the peace of a cease-fire,

Not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb,

But rather

As in the heart when the excitement is over

And you can talk only about a great weariness.

The Story - Kamal Butros Nasser

I will tell you a story …

A story that lived in the dreams of people …

A story that comes out of the world of tents …

The choice of friends - Saadi Shirazi

One balmy day in gentle June,

While sporting in my bath so free, 

In came a friend with perfumed clay,

And gave the fragrant mass to me.

The Village Of Deceptions - Fakhira Batool

The world O! Friend,

Is a village of deceptions,

No deference is observed

Behind the pardas.

O unity of threefold light - Metrophanes of Smyrna

O unity of threefold light, 

Send out thy loveliest ray. 

And scatter our transgression's night, 

And turn it into day! 

The Amores: Elegy IX - Ovid

Nape, skilled at binding the straggling locks and arranging them in order, 

and not deserving to be reckoned among the female slaves; 

known, too, by experience to be successful in the contrivances of the stealthy night, 

and clever in giving the signals; 

An Egg and a River - Marial Awendit

Am I the best candidate to throw

A boiled egg into the Nile?

I remember breaking

A gourd full of water,

ln the past - Salif Keïta

ln the past, no one questioned to you

ln the past, no one questioned to me

ln the past, that‘s how it used to be

ln the past, whatever happened

ln the past, no one wanted to know

I thought of walking round and round a space - Seamus Heaney

I thought of walking round and round a space

Utterly empty, utterly a source

Where the decked chestnut tree had lost its place

In the Land of Art - Anselm Hollo

the artists

work on the art farm.

The Lord is an ocean of oneness - Sultan Bahu

The Lord is an ocean of oneness

in which lovers swim as they please, free of care.

One Year After - Claude McKay

I

Not once in all our days of poignant love,

Did I a single instant give to thee

My undivided being wholly free.

The myth of the streets - Tarik Sujat

Bearing countless tyre tracks on its chest

The songs of this city will cease one day.

For You - Agha Shahid Ali

Did we run out of things or just a name for you?

Above us the sun doubles its acclaim for you.

Expression no. 8 - Hakim H. Kassim

slightly expectant–

loosely hopeful,

investing in process.

slow.

Spirit of the Land - Makiuti Tongia

This land is my home

where the naked mountains caress

the sky

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.

When, in the morning, the light is breaking - Cesáreo Gabaráin

When, in the morning, the light is breaking,

My song is waking

with my Creator’s praise.

Contract-Workers - Arnaldo Santos

They are coming, in the distance

Merged together

A gust of murmurs on the horizon

Like deep echoes of a force.

Failed Copy? - Humberto Vinueza

The intelligent machine

—whose origin, cybernetic of no, is arcane by now—

A fish plays inside me - Tillaniso Nuryog’di

A fish plays inside me

Shaking her tail

She is thirsty,

thirsty.

I sprinkle libations - Byambyn Rinchen

I sprinkle libations on the black banner,

Beat the bullhide drum in loud manner.

Perchance - Amir Hamzah

Thou who slumber’st inside my heart

Vault of heaven yet filament fine

Wrapped large within the earth’s embrace

Sheltered small beneath an eyebrow’s span

To be word - Renato Sandoval

So,

in the word I have

no age, no more nor less,

neither skin nor open bone,

Those eternal bowers - John of Da­mas­cus

Those eternal bowers 

Man hath never trod, 

Those unfading flowers 

Round the throne of God, —

Who may hope to gain them, 

After weary fight? 

Who at length attain them, 

Clad in robes of white? 

Angel horn - Shake Keane

When I was bom

my father gave to me

an angelhom

With wings of melody.

That angel placed her lips

upon my finger-tips

and I became, became

her secret name.

Marrysong - Dennis Scott

He never learned her, quite. Year after year

that territory, without seasons, shifted

under his eye. An hour he could be lost

in the walled anger of her quarried hurt

or turning, see cool water laughing where

the day before there were stones in her voice.

The Coral Reef - Vivian Virtue

The sun discovers, probing the shingling sea,

A lurking down in the coral woods below

That merge, through hollows where the warm flow,

With bloom-like beast and flower pulsating free.

Marcel - Bernardo Ashetu

He climbed down off the roof

on tiptoe with his laces loose.

Someone Must Be Called Twilight - Jaime Saenz

Through the years the glow persists.

The horizon, where my steps echo and go out with the twilight, persists.

If you are seeking closeness to the Beloved - Shaikh Abu-Saeed Abil-Kheir

If you are seeking closeness to the Beloved,

love everyone.

I was born in a time of peace - Cai Yan

I was born in a time of peace,

But later the mandate of Heaven

Was withdrawn from Han Dynasty.

The Age in Your Eyes - Deborah Saki

The age in your eyes

Tells me that you have seen how the world revolves

You know that it turns to green, and then rolls round to face the dust

O spirit pure - António Ferreira

O spirit pure, purer in realms above 

Than whilst thou tarriedst in this vale of pain, 

Why hast thou treated me with cold disdain. 

Nor, as thou ought'st, returned my faithful love?

Song of the Berserks - Anonymous

Brown are our ships. 

But the Vauns admire 

The haunts of the brave; 

Horses of the sea. 

They carry the warrior 

To the winning of plunder.

Imagine, civilised being - Juan Rodolfo Wilcock

Imagine, civilised being, that you are the

Last man left on the earth and imagine:

All the diamonds have returned as stones

You are the King of America and of Russia

You can clean your arse with banknotes

But why now would you need to do so

Out of some scruple towards the worms?

Neither this nor that - Imam Ahmad Raza

Is His face the day or the Sun? 

It is neither this nor that. 

It His tress the night or the musk? 

It is neither this nor that. 

From Another Hill - Yahya Kemal Beyatli

I looked at you from another hill, dear Istanbul!

I know you like back of my hand, and love you dearly.

Come, come and sit on my heart's throne as long as I live

Just to love a district of yours is worth a whole life.

A Picture - Steen Steensen Blicher

I lay on my heathery hills alone;

  The storm-winds rushed o'er me in turbulence loud;

My head rested lone on the gray moorland stone;

  My eyes wandered skyward from cloud unto cloud.

The village schoolmaster - Willem Bilderdijk

There he sits; his figure and his rigid bearing

Let us know most clearly what is his ideal:–

Confidence in self, in his lofty standing;

Thereto add conceit in his own great value.

Certain, he can read–yes, and write and cipher;

In the almanac no star-group's a stranger.

The North wind and the Sun - Babrius

Betwixt the North wind and the Sun arose

A contest, which would soonest of his clothes

Strip a wayfaring clown, so runs the tale.

The Storm - Alcæus of Mytilene

Now here, now there, the wild waves sweep,

Whilst we, betwixt them o'er the deep,

In shatter'd tempest-beaten bark,

With laboring ropes are onward driven,

The Harvesters - Aleardo Aleardi

What time in summer, sad with so much light,

The sun beats ceaselessly upon the fields;

The harvesters, as famine urges them,

Draw hitherward in thousands, and they wear

The look of those that dolorously go

Song of the Brightness of Water - Karol Wojtyla

From the depth—I came only to draw water

in a jug—so long ago, this brightness

still clings to my eyes—the perception I found,

and so much empty space, my own,

reflected in the well.

Bearslayer: Canto II - Bearslayer is sent out into the world (Scene 2) - Andrejs Pumpurs

He is given the task of learning

"I give you now a colt with saddle fine,

Trim steed and sword of heavy metal true,

A spear, a shield and silver spurs once mine,

And headdress trimmed with fur of martens too.

Selene - Ashur Etwebi

to my father

Selene the Enchanting City

The sail gazes drenched with the water of the sea at Selene the enchanting.

Selene is imprisoned in walls of reticent sand,

A Sicilian sailor said in a port tavern:

We were in the three ships that skilled men built from the black forest,

The Proloug of the first Buik of Eneados - Gavin Douglas

Laude, honor, prasingis, thankis infynite

To the, and thi dulce ornate fresch endite,

Mast reverend Virgill, of Latyne poetis prince,

The Wanderer - Anastasia Shevchenko

This man was not clear to me,

He sits in the toilet and smokes,

And then he'd come to me through the window.

Sometimes he was clumsy and untidy,

And sometimes he wasn't recognizable at all.

Let springtime come - Jens Peter Jacobsen

Let springtime come then, when it will,

With verdure greenest,

With flutelike song of myriad birds,

The Gardens - Emile Verhaeren

The landscape now reveals a change;

A stair—that twinèd elm-boughs hold

Enclosed 'mid hedges mystic, strange—

Inaugurates a green and gold

Vision of gardens, range on range.

The Executioner of John the Baptist - Dubhghall Albanach mac mhic Cathail

Askelon, the royal seat,

In which the great deed was done;

There, not lasting was the fame,

John the noble was slain.

from The Physicians of Myddfai - Anonymous

Brindled cow, white speckled,

Spotted cow, bold freckled,

The four field sward mottled,

The Dwelling-places of Wisdom and of Unrighteousness (from The book of Enoch) - Anonymous

Wisdom found no place where she might dwell;

Then a dwelling-place was assigned her in the heavens.

Prayer against the evil spirits - anonymous

Destructive storms and evil winds are they,

An evil blast that heraldeth the baneful storm, 

An evil blast, forerunner of the baneful storm. 

The Ambush - Nimah Ismail Nawwab

He watched the old movie unfold,

The head-covered man bashing his van into a building,

Nodding his head: ‘Yes another one, they are terrorists,’

The calm way he uttered those words

The look in his young eyes,

Made me

           ache.

Gaucho’s Nest - Hector Marcó

With shining colors of hope,

the countryside puts on its plumage

and the wind’s chords throb

through the grasses

and the flowers.

Sonnet 5 - Dumitru Crudu

I set some water to boil

didn’t have anything to put in it

I was all alone in the house

the water slowly evaporating

The gaze to infinity - Pulchérie Abème Nkoghé

I know it,

I assure you,

I saw it

Oh, My Mother—Her Voice - O Yŏng-jae

Los Angeles and Taejon,

The Pacific in between.

The phone conversation between Mother and Chairman Yŏng-hŭi

Graciously sent to me;

Unwinding the cassette tape

I listen to Mother’s voice.

Black Port - Ch'on Yang-Hui

The tavern's red lamp bobs hoarse as if damp

and under the breakwater waves whimper all day long.

Because of the ever-changing waterways, or because of people,

the road that curves toward the port touches the village.

True knowledge - Panatattu

My God is not a chiselled stone, 

Or lime-block, so clear and bright: 

Nor is he cleaned with tamarind. 

Like images of bronze. 

Garlanding - Teweiariki Teaero

i woke up and went east

this early dawn

before the eastern sky becomes light

to pick bwabwaku from tabwakea's land

from the top of the uritangaroa tree

flowers that are nice and better than all others

wrapped in the fragrance and

newness of dawn

not holding back a word - Evi Kliemand

not holding back a word

on both sides of the ridge

spoken into the fog

National Anthem - Gulnazar Keldi

Our country so beloved,

Happy we are to see your dignity.

Let your joy and prosperity forever be.

We have reached this day since time immemorial;

Together aligned we stand under your flag, under your flag.

O You blood! - Étienne Goyémidé

O You blood! Red and ruddy blood,

Magical blood in eternal warmth,

You are the cradle of life that you carry and move in our human bodies, 

In the body of the animal and in the body of plants. 

Greetings, to our neighbours (Monaco National Anthem) - Louis Notari

Greetings, to our neighbours! 

Greetings, to all those who are watching us! 

It is important that you remember the following:

Guinea Bissau: A love poem - Anonymous

I.

I love you

I have returned

Our land is nice - where there is happiness. 

This place is sacred.

I love you so much . . . 

 

Malaise: Un-Sonnet - Debra Providence

My work stinks.

It reeks, actually, of failure intermingled with

putrid pretensions of deeper knowledge.

An Appeal - Hermann Ling

Remember thou the debtor art 

Of poor men who lack everything,

Stone Song - Vijf Gedichten

Words going backwards

are on their way to you:

so that you may hear

your ears are gone.

The Moon over Mtatsminda - Galaktion Tabidze

My eyes have never seen the moon so lovely as tonight;

In silence wrapt it is the breathless music of the night.

Moonbeams embroider shadows with fine thread of silver light;

O, eyes have never seen the sky so lovely as tonight!

The difference between you and myself - Nicolas de Chamfort

“The difference between you and myself,” said a friend to me, 

“is that you have said to all the masqueraders: ‘I know you,’ 

the sole survivor - Saba Hamzah

In the conversation that lasted until 3 AM, she questioned, "Has

not the hour come

to forge a means of connection

that would bridge the chasm between my life and your death?"

Indian Ocean - MAB Elhad

string of islands that I shell

I put so much hope in your name.

IOC!

He is the One in many - Namdev

He is the One in many,

countless are His shapes and forms.

He pervades all that exists;

wherever I look, He is there.

But very few perceive this reality,

for Maya ever enchants us

with her multiple reflections

of color and alluring beauty.

It’s Not Love… - J-Rae Tedtaotao

When I was 13 I experienced loss before love

and for that I never stepped up to love’s challenge

since then I have been running from it,

and now I can feel it catching up and

its breath on my neck

but I am too scared to turn around.

Ay Ay Ay de la Grifa Negra - Julia de Burgos

Ay ay ay, that I’m kinky-haired and pure black;

kinky hair, Kafir lips

and my flat nose Mozambiques.

I wish I was blind - Alesana Kleis Seluka

To see things truly

Of what and who they are

Lament the ability to see

Eyes that are ever so deceitful

To my own mind

Rio Grande de Loiza! - Julia de Burgos

Rio Grande de Loiza!... Elongate yourself in my spirit

and let my soul lose itself in your rivulets,

finding the fountain that robbed you as a child

and in a crazed impulse returned you to the path.

Got up wet - Delno L.A. Tromp

Yesterday the whole day I was walking around

Thinking about you

Love does not deceive me - José Afonso

Love does not deceive me

With his slightness

If of an old flame

badly lives, bitterness

De Gloria - Peter Damian

There nor waxing moon nor waning, 

Sun nor stars in courses bright; 

For the Lamb, to that glad city. 

Shines an everlasting light: 

There the daylight beams for ever, 

All unknown are time and night. 

Images - Juan Sánchez Peláez

I

You, who likewise

in the cup of your verb

overflow the liquid.

Water Buffalo Cobra and the Prisoner of War - U Sam Oeur

Work, work—hacking at trees, uprooting them, clearing bushes,

transplanting rice, no time to rest.

At noon, alone, as I cleared the canebrake,

a beautiful black cobra

opened his hood before me, displaying his power.

Apple - Grace Chia

                                  A

                                         P

          It's                        p               not

   that Adam didn't      l        know what he was

 in for when he took    e   a bite of it; he wanted

Another kind of Mathematics - Nichita Stãnescu

We know that one times one is one,

but an unicorn times a pear

have no idea what it is.

I am bold - Benina Nicolina Rangvanu

To wear makeup

or not to wear makeup?

To wake up

and put those strong chemicals in my hair

to have that sun silk asian hair.

This house we live has now become our home - Dennis Sobers

This house we live has now become our home

Despite the roof that leaks and walls tattered and is torn

Looking in the past at what this mansion once was

How has it come to be this way, what is the cause

My Love - Ryna.S

A suitable life partner is what all women hope and pursue

And a fairy tale handsome prince is usually how it starts

A tall, loving, suave and romantic prince charming

Is what we dream of..

Policemen - Mvula Ya Nangolo

Looking at me

That way

My baas?’

Prelude - John Millington Synge

Still south I went and west and south again,

Through Wicklow from the morning till the night,

And far from cities, and the sights of men,

Lived with the sunshine, and the moon's delight.

Poetry - Freedom T.V. Nyamubaya

One person said,

you are not a poet,

but forgot that,

poetry is an art and –

Art is meaningful rhythm.

No use fretting over gold, beauty or fame - Loy Ching-Yuen

No use fretting over gold, beauty or fame;

Nurturing these, how can we calm

Our fluttering heart?

The Poor - Roberto Sosa

The poor are many

and so—

impossible to forget.

 

I Don’t Have Time - Souad Massi

I have been told that life is beautiful

But me, I find it cruel sometimes

The dark smoke has taken the place of the sky

Bearslayer: Canto II - Bearslayer begins his life as a hero: The first heroic deed (Scene 1) - Andrejs Pumpurs

The slaying of the bear

Since ancient times, in fruitful Baltic lands,

Where flows the Daugava in its winding bed,

And in the fields the barley ripening stands,

A life of joy the Latvians all have led.-

Upon the bank once stood by Kegums town,

Of Lielvarde's Lord the famous halls.

There yet today a cataract pours down,

And through the cliffs into the river falls.

To Amoret. The sigh - Henry Vaughan

Nimble sigh, on thy warm wings,

    Take this message and depart ;

Tell Amoret, that smiles and sings,

At what thy airy voyage brings,

    That thou cam'st lately from my heart.

The Man Next Door - Ernest O'Ferrall

Fragments of song around me lie,

Fair ballads of delight,

Sweet things an editor would buy

And treasure at first sight;

All broken now, they're but a heap

Of paper on the floor.

(Some night, armed with an axe, I'll leap

Upon the fiend next door!)

The Disavowal - Muthaffar al-Nawab

My son, when your rib supported mine

you restored it and set it straight

My son, take me to the feast in your arms

Count the white hairs I reaped from your life

A world there is for those in love - Mahsati Ganjavi

A world there is for those in love with mines of precious stones,

But bards select a different world as setting for their thrones.

Rain - Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger

You go. And the asphalt is suddenly wet,

The green on the trees suddenly new,

And a scent as if of fresh hay

Strikes you in the face that, warm and pale,

Has long awaited the rain.

Field In Spring - Nichita Stãnescu

Green rings around the eyes, this grass in vibrant motion

arcs tenderly about you, at a distance-

you summon it, then fling it round, broken

by your laugh of youth and innocence.

The Unfinished - Hermana Ramarui

You introduced to us

The world you know.

Why not with proper plan?

I think it rains - Wole Soyinka

I think it rains

That tongues may loosen from the parch

Uncleave roof-tops of

the mouth, hang

Heavy with knowledge

Chromaphagite - León Gil

Today I breakfasted on red

violet blue yellow and green

Volt - Tristan Tzara

The inclined towers the oblique skies

The cars descending into the void of roads

The creatures along the country lanes

Branches covered with hospitable virtues

Brothers, my peace is in my aloneness - Rabi’a of Basri

Brothers, my peace is in my aloneness.

My Beloved is alone with me there, always.

Bekita - Elis Juliana

Lady Bekita lifted up her skirt

And stalked into the ballroom

With a smile, with coquetry

With calculated steps

And complete body control

Bekita, Bekita,

Bekita, Bekita.

The Adieu - Abou Mohammed

The boatmen shout, "'Tis time to part,

No longer can we stay;"—

'Twas then Maimuna taught my heart 

How much a glance could say.

Mama you've done well - Erwin Jones

I was first, a thought in your precious mind,

Until I became a living cell.

In the darkness of your motherly womb,

It took me nine long months to be fully groomed.

And Mama, you've done well.

At a Refugee Camp - Julius Chingono

After bouts of kachasu

we sleep drunk

to wake up in running battles

with hangovers

that seek refuge

in our heads.

My Bosnia, Devastated - Safet Isović

My Bosnia, devastated

My country, unplowed

Four summers fallow

 

In the Circle of the Veranda, 14 - Ivar Ivask

How could I reach back that far,

how could I become one with the old

churchyard in Rongu, daydreaming here

in these Bitterroot woods, blue enamel mug

in hand? A mug brimful with raspberries

And YHVH spoke to me when I saw His name - Rabbi Abraham Abulafia

And YHVH spoke to me when I saw His name

spelled out and merged with the blood in my heart,

separating blood from ink and ink from blood:

On the Massacre - Chayim Nachman Byalik

Ye heavens, pray for mercy on my head!

If God abides in you, and if a way

To Him exists, which yet I have not found,

Do you my prayers unto His ear convey!

Eclogue - Vicente Huidobro

                                    Sun about to die

The car broken down

And a smell of spring

Remains as the air sweeps by

Kiss The Earth - Thích Nhat Hanh

Walk and touch peace every moment.

Walk and touch happiness every moment.

Sonnet 148 - Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Celia saw a rose which in happy self-praise

flaunted its pomp and vanity in the field,

cosmetics of carmine and cochineal

merrily smeared over its delicate face;

 

The waves on the shore - Bedros Adamian

The day is bright June weather,

The cool north wind blows free;

Why swells thy breast, old ocean?

Horses wade in the Nemunas - Bernardas Brazdzionis

horses wade in the Nemunas

they drink flowing fog

they drink the morning

Dear Lord - Azim Razak

Dear Lord

Why is it that those closer to you than me

They who pray five times a day

Every day, without fail

The Postman - Buland Al-Haydari

What do you want postman?

I am far away from the world

with no doubt you are mistaken...

since there is nothing new

that the world can bring to this fugitive.

After I Ate An English Thesaurus - Khayelihle Bongiswa Gamedze

I accidentally ate, consumed, chew in,

A thesaurus, a synonymopedia.

And ever since then, at that moment, by that time,

My words, vocabulary, sayings just sublime.

Skarphedinn among the flames - Hannes Hafstein

Booming and quaking.

Cracking and breaking,

Down crashed the rafters

And roofbeams sturdy.

A Camel - Murō Saisei

In thin shade

a camel that is fastened,

like an aged man,

Fascioners of Progress - Kendel Hippolyte

Because you do not heed the voices of Imagination,

neither the tongues of trees nor the voices of poets,

earth will erupt in a conspiracy of poetry and nature.

On Spring - Lâmiî Çelebi

From the pleasure, joy, and rapture of this hour,

In its frame to hold its soul earth scarce hath power.

Rent its collar, like the dawning, hath the rose;

From its heart the nightingale sighs forth its woes.

Ode 4 - Odysseus Elytis

A solitary swallow	*	and Spring's great worth is found
It takes a lot of work	*	to make the sun tum round
Their shoulders to the Wheels	*	it takes a thousand dead
It also takes the living	*	to offer up their blood.

To say you and I - Eduardo Milán

To say you and I is to enter the circus

there the lion, there the circle of monkeys,

You do not Want Me? - Gahuan-Beyg

You do not want me, Zohrah.

Is it because I am maimed?

Yet Tamour-leng was maimed,

Going on crippled feet,

And he conquered the vast of the world.

Come, my beloved! - Muhammad din Tilai

Come, my beloved! And I say again: Come, my beloved!

The doves are moaning and calling and will not cease.

  Come, my beloved!

Poetic Human Operation - Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta

I write to you, you read me, 

in the most distant strangeness, 

under the skin and inside it, 

blind lovers clinging to the signs. 

Loneliness without remembering - Hérib Campos Cervera

Oh, cloud voice! Oh, Velvet! 

Giving a name to your moss music 

African Presidents - James O. Gaygay

Your empty promises surge our expectations

We swallow the lies your tongue preached

Our bellies became conceived by your deceits

Frustration, disappointment, and regrets are our sons and daughters

They play in the vicinity of our minds

You poli-tricked our minds with your political games

Moral reflections (Sonnet XXI) - Vincenzo da Filicaja

Hebe once wild streams of false delight their source 

Betray'd, this feeble heart inundating; 

Turbid with eddies which vain passions bring; 

Sense their dark fount; my breast their barren course.

Kabirau, my Anointing Oil - Ueantabo Fakaofo

KABIRAU, KABIRAU

Sweet and pleasant is your scent

I seek to break my evil spell

Childhood was Mud-Play and Dirty Fingernails - Liyou Libsekal

I was born to a woman whose hands are washed with ritual

balancing act

temperatures and tempers

home grown versus raised afar,

Brown Girl in the Ring - Linisa George

For most of my childhood,

I wanted to be the brown girl,

The pretty brown girl in the ring.

I knew I could never be the white girl,

So I dreamt and wished to be the brown girl.

On the Green Hill Summit - Tembong Denis Fonge

Atungong

Step by step and gently I ascend

The Green Hill hoping to step on the summit,

I rock, twist and painfully pull upward,

To this spot all day long,

For, from this point, I long,

And I aspire to survive.

We are the sons of Rizēg - Muhammad al Fagīr

We are the sons of Rizēg, our nickname is "handful of dust".

They destined us for destruction, behold we are alive,

Sahara - Mohammed Ebnu

What lies behind

those walls

inscribed with your name

The Unity of Faith - Vemana

Kine are of divers colours, but they all milk the same; 

Altar flowers are not alike, but worship is one flame; 

From: The Divine Pymander - Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus

A book have I written —

Not mine, but the book of the world;

For her sake

And the sake of her God,

Have I written these things.

Lust is loss - Kimbi Bismark

Lust has fathered children, who are lost

In nature, they infect the land like locust,

They have assaulted this gorgeous grape

And other fruits, without mercy, they rape.

An awakening - Alice Furlong

O Spring will waken the heart of me 

With the rapture of blown violets! 

If my father were to speak at last - Loic Ekinga

Son, 

I never imagined anything I planted 

On my way here would grow as tall as you did

Let glory return to God—

Since then I go - Birago Diop

Since then I go

I follow the pathways

the pathways and roads

Wilt thou love God as He thee? - John Donne

Wilt thou love God as He thee? then digest,

My soul, this wholesome meditation,

Poplar Trees - Jovan Dučić

Why tonight the poplars rustle that way?

So passionately, so strange? Why they rustle so?

The yellow moon slowly sets behind the hills,

Distant and black, like a foreboding; and dreams

News Paper - Laxmi Prasad Devkota

Newspaper covers world news

Also expresses its own views

But tilts like leaning tower of Pisa.

The Soul Has a Message - Alemtsehay Wodajo

From the time she arrives, until the time she leaves her borrowed body,

the soul has a message, a role to perform and the means to perform it:

My Dearest Mommie - Lord Cam

She is dead now...but I wish she was still here

To celebrate Mother's Day with her loving son

School - Briceida Cuevas Cob

And the ants that sing, laugh, dance

and play in circles, began to cry.

She was born a woman, one on whom they

threw boiling water when she appeared

in the kitchen.¹

El Charro - José Santos Chocano

A coat of silk, cheap jewels he loves to flaunt,

Some tawdry lace that serves him for a frill:

He grasps a pistol butt, and seems to taunt

The world and grip it in his ugly will.

Fouzti, prayer poem - Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba

O you my Lord may glad tiding forever be on Jesus and on His Mother Mary throughout this Poem. 

O You Who Said: Make no distinctions between any of My Prophets!

Love Song For Words - Nazik al-Malaika

Why do we fear words

when they have been rose-palmed hands,

fragrant, passing gently over our cheeks,

and glasses of heartening wine

sipped, one summer, by thirsty lips?

Sleeping on the Street - Yi Byeong-Ryul

Removing your clothes like old newsprint

I lay you down raw on a damp mattress and look down on you.

Ode to mediocrity - Eqrem Basha

We the mediocre

Were born somewhere in the middle

Cried in mezza voce

Were wrapped in medium-quality swaddling clothes

Neither expensive

Nor cheap

Descendants - Elisaveta Bagyrana

No portraits of my grandfathers are kept

fixed in a family picture-book.

I know nothing of the testaments they left,

The lives they led, their souls, their looks.

I question you - Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni

Ténéré, can you tell me of anything better

Than to have your friends and your mount,

And a brand new goatskin, watertight,

Fierce from love - Delmira Agustini

Made fierce by love, I’m starving for hearts.

Pigeon, vulture, dun deer or lion,

no meat tempts me more with exotic flavors.

Who will serve Thee? - Kabir

O Lord Increate, who will serve Thee?

Every votary offers his worship to the God of his own creation each day he receives service–

None seek Him, the Perfect: Brahma, the Indivisible Lord.

The Water Drop - José Emilio Pacheco

The water drop is a model of conciseness,

the entire universe

locked in a pin-point of water.

Letter From A Park - Otieno Amisi

I got your letter the other day

Sweet memories flooded my demented mind

recreated those sugary times no more shared

By the park ere we bade a tearful bye

I relived those endless nights

of wakeful emptiness

that threatened my sanity

I got your letter the other day.

Magic Moments - Jose Warden

Magic moments - are times remembered

Moments that are special not to be forgotten

Like, as a small child going home with a

Precious cargo in a small box.

Holding 6 day old chicks or ducklings'

Listening to their 'Cheep, cheep' or 'quack'.

Master builders all - J.L. Blackett

Each one or us a Master Builder is,

Each in his place pressing onward still

With main and might, with brawn and brain;

Each builds to spread the Nation‘s fame.

The Temple of Fragrance - Hồ Xuân Hương

Who could have fashioned this marvel?

The mountain cracks into a wide, hollow cave.

Flaw - Nadd Mahmud

I can’t promise that

I would always be there

each time you need me.

Three words of strength - Friedrich von Schiller

There are three lessons I would write, — 

Three words as with a burning pen, 

In tracings of eternal light. 

Upon the hearts of men.

Finlandia - Veikko Antero Koskenniemi

Finland, behold, thy daylight now is dawning,

the threat of night has now been driven away.

The May Star - Halldór Kiljan Laxness

Oh how light is thy shoe-sound

oh how long I abode thee

there is spring snow on window

bitter wind that whines

The Sound of the Wind - Porfirio Barba Jacob

The sound of the wind in the arcade

holds within it the key to myself:

I am a strengthened puissance,

I am a lamentation of the abyss.

Fast Phrases - Caroline Anande Uliwa

Sun bleached white door curtain invites rest,

To the hours spent on my butt now numb.

Ducks waddling defecating the backyard

Us on a mat them centimeters apart

Eight hands are expertly pinching extensions to my scalp

Island Treasure - Barbados! - Deighton R. Alleyne

​Beautiful Barbados, our tropical paradise

With grilled fish in Oistins, the food is nice

A Caribbean gem the place for leisure

See Harrison's Cave our national treasure.

a stone - Indah Widiastuti

A heart is sliding on a shiny surface

The pearl inside these eyes.

Can you see?

The Alleluiatic Sequence - Notker Balbulus

Come, let us all sing out the song of praise, 

Swelling in thanks to our eternal Lord, 

Alleluia!

The Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels - Bert Beros

Many a mother in Australia,

When the busy day is done,

Sends a prayer to the Almighty

For the keeping of her son,

The calves are everywhere - Gudugwe Mlilo

The Reverend Shepstone? Really!

The fence consumes the gourds!

Nihil - Frigyes Karinthy

Recitative

 

As a last act, I visited my former lover

And we had a conversation in the stairwell:

We went inside as the wind was savage

And heavy drops were falling.

 

from: Medea, Act 1 - Franz Grillparzer

Come! First the veil, and then the goddess' staff.

I shall not need them more; here let them rest.

Dark night, the time for magic, is gone by,

And what is yet to come, or good or ill,

Must happen in the beamy light of day.

The legend of Sargon - Anonymous

Sargon, the mighty king, king of Agade, am I.

My mother was a high priestess, my father I knew not. 

The brothers of my father loved the hills.

The answer - Jalal al-Din Rumi

"Allah, Allah!" cried the sick man, racked with pain the long night through; 

Till with prayer his heart grew tender, till his lips like honey grew.

Nocturne - Eino Leino

The corncrake's song rings in my ears,

above the rye a full moon sails;

this summer night all sorrow clears

and woodsmoke drifts along the dales,

I do not laugh or grieve, or sigh;

Child of war - Salomėja Nėris

O child of war, preserve your weapon,

For future children let it stay,

For they will come and ask their question

What was the world like in our day?

Lay she naked in the sea - Anonymous

Lay she naked in the sea

All the salt would sweetened be.

Showed she in the sunset West

Eastward-praying Christian even

Would look back and think it best

So to gaze and lose his heaven.

I Saw Her Wandering - Francisco Pérez Perdomo

I saw her wandering 

amid the trees that swayed 

and fanned her pale beauty 

O lovely maid! - Bessiki

O lovely maid, all splendours fade before thy grace!

Soft ringlets deck thy ivory neck and godlike face.

In dreams I kiss thy lips, and bliss my bosom sways.

O radiant eyes, sweet heaven lies beneath your gaze!

Forget me ne'er, O maiden fair of sunlike rays!

Praise compared to vapour drawn upwards, and then descending in rain - Jalal al-Din Rumi

Though water be enclosed in a reservoir,

Yet air will absorb it, for 'tis its supporter;

It sets it free and bears it to its source,

Little by little, so that you see not the process.

Things That Give a Clean Feeling - Sei Shōnagon

An earthen cup. 

A new metal bowl. 

Dilemma - Emmanuel Monychol

Walking by the riverside, 

Imagining dark eyes, 

Tiny fish in Blue Ocean, 

Crocodiles struggling to feed, 

Hippos in the deep, 

Three dimensions - José Craveirinha

In the cabin …

the god of the machine

in cap and overalls

holds in his hand the secret of the pistons.

Jacaranda Crown - Zvisinei C. Sandi

In the burning heat of September

Amid the rank smell of garbage

Anger, the acrid smoke of racing cars

The Jacaranda, a glorious royal crown, blooms

A lavender crown over the Sunshine City

The singer - Anonymous

The singer 

And player.

The sanctified day 

Begins

Word in the Belly of the Word - Kewulay Kamara

Ignorance of the word

is ignorance of wisdom.

A Reminder to Myself - Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö

At the feet of the father guru, I pay homage.

Embrace me at all times with compassion!

This body, a borrowed house of the four elements,

Does not last beyond a moment but swiftly perishes.

Life is as impermanent as a dewdrop upon the grass.

The enemy, the ferocious, demonic Lord of Death,

Waits before me even now, ready to receive me.

The Rowers - Sudesh Mishra

Inclement weather. We’re rowing between two rocks

For a third which is palpable yet unreachable.

The sculpture - Aminur Rahman

From the mist's dense cape

I carve your body's shape --

gendy sculpting, all morning.

Description of the Trees Beside an Unseen Reservoir - Ibrahim Sharif

misty dew hangs amongst the trees

that stand outside, by the reservoir

a little ocean in the middle of the ground,

Night settles on this mountain village - Ch'ŏn'gum

Night settles on this mountain village;

a dog barks way over there.

His robe was white like milk - Abu Nuwas

His robe was white like milk,

His eyes love-heavy underneath blue lids.

His cheeks the shadow of wine-coloured silk 

Thrown upon snow.

The Coming Judgment of the Wicked - Anonymous

The First Parable.

When the congregation of the righteous shall appear,

And sinners shall be judged for their sins,

And shall be driven from the face of the earth:

True Riches - Hesiod

Far richer he who dines on simple herbs,

And knows the sweet delight of perfect health,

Mirage - Ferdinand Freiligrath

All o’er the harbor gay with flags my restless eyes a-wandering go;

But thine, with laughing glances, seek the plume that droops across my brow!

“Fain of thy deserts I would hear, while waves are gurgling round the boat;

Come, paint me something of the land from whence that ostrich tuft was brought!”

Why, impious Herod - Coelius Sedulius

Why, impious Herod, shouldst thou fear

Because the Christ is come so near?

He who doth heavenly kingdoms grant

Thine earthly realm can never want.

Mailman - Buland al-Haidari

O mailman,

What is your desire of me?

I am far removed from the world,

Kuokkala - Benedikt Livshits

Roses in silken bouillon:

Opening onto the azure silk

A line of cabins on a yellow bed -

Shells of Aphrodite.

She - Bedros Tourian

Were not the rose’s hue like that which glows

On her soft cheek, who would esteem the rose?

When I want a shapeful dream - Balkrishna Sama

When I want a shapeful dream I write poetry,

And when I want a dreamlike shape I paint;

When I want you to speak to me I write poetry,

And when I want you to smile with me I paint;

The New Year - Anonymous

I am the little New Year, ho, ho! 

Here I come tripping it over the snow.

Shaking my bells with a merry din –

So open your doors and let me in!