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