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!