Venice masks

Sunday 31 March 2024

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.

Saturday 30 March 2024

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,

Friday 29 March 2024

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.

Thursday 28 March 2024

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!

Wednesday 27 March 2024

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. 

Tuesday 26 March 2024

Monday 25 March 2024

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

Sunday 24 March 2024

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.

Saturday 23 March 2024

Kabirau, my Anointing Oil - Ueantabo Fakaofo

KABIRAU, KABIRAU
Sweet and pleasant is your scent
I seek to break my evil spell

Friday 22 March 2024

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,

Thursday 21 March 2024

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.

Wednesday 20 March 2024

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.

Tuesday 19 March 2024

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,

Monday 18 March 2024

Sahara - Mohammed Ebnu

What lies behind
those walls
inscribed with your name

Sunday 17 March 2024

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; 

Saturday 16 March 2024

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.

Friday 15 March 2024

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.

Thursday 14 March 2024

An awakening - Alice Furlong

O Spring will waken the heart of me 
With the rapture of blown violets! 

Wednesday 13 March 2024

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—

Monday 11 March 2024

Since then I go - Birago Diop

Since then I go
I follow the pathways
the pathways and roads

Sunday 10 March 2024

Wilt thou love God as He thee? - John Donne

Wilt thou love God as He thee? then digest,
My soul, this wholesome meditation,

Saturday 9 March 2024

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

Friday 8 March 2024

News Paper - Laxmi Prasad Devkota

Newspaper covers world news
Also expresses its own views
But tilts like leaning tower of Pisa.

Thursday 7 March 2024

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:

Wednesday 6 March 2024

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

Tuesday 5 March 2024

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

Monday 4 March 2024

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.

Sunday 3 March 2024

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!

Saturday 2 March 2024

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?

Friday 1 March 2024

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.