Venice masks

Sunday, 29 June 2025

The world is being run on time - Francis Brabazon

The world is being run on time, by time, for time, and at no time are we free
Just to sit and enjoy even the outward forms of the Beloved's beauty.

Saturday, 28 June 2025

Discourse with Mara - Sisupacala

Setting at Savatthi. Then, in the morning, the bhikkhuni Sisupacala dressed... she sat down at the foot of a tree for the day's abiding.

Friday, 27 June 2025

When night draws on - al-Khansāʾ

When night draws on, remembering keeps me wakeful 
And hinders my rest with grief upon grief returning 
For Ṣakhr. What a man was he on the day of battle, 
When, snatching their chance, they swiftly exchange the spear-thrusts! 

Thursday, 26 June 2025

Before there was a trace of this world of men - Bibi Hayati

Before there was a trace of this world of men,
I carried the memory of a lock of your hair,
A stray end gathered within me, though unknown.

Wednesday, 25 June 2025

Hymn to Adonis - Praxilla

The most beautiful thing I leave behind is the sun’s light; 
second, the shining stars and the moon’s face; 
also ripe cucumbers and apples and pears.

Tuesday, 24 June 2025

The sixth love - Beatrice of Nazareth

When the bride of our Lord has made progress 
and has climbed up to greater robustness, 
she experiences yet another way of love, 
more profoundly joined and with higher knowledge.

Monday, 23 June 2025

I long for the land that is not - Edith Södergran

I long for the land that is not,
For all that is, I am weary of wanting.
The moon speaks to me in silvern runes
About the land that is not.

Thursday, 19 June 2025

Longing - Juan Ramón Molina

Ah, that I had lived in times tested
by love, by war and by conquest,
when friars, soldiers and desperadoes
went off across unquiet seas
in search of distant lands,

Wednesday, 18 June 2025

Boko Haram - Iron Bender

Bandits Boko Haram, notorious religious discriminators
Organized by the so called defenders of Allah,
Killing and maltreating of human beings and
Opposing to modern civilization and human rights

Tuesday, 17 June 2025

They sold my soul - Alidou Tougma

Art is my part
Money is your giant bow
Jean of Arc is no longer alive but Jean of park is aiming at me

Monday, 16 June 2025

Beautiful Tears - Nametso Dorothy Phonchi

African tears are beautiful,
We were born crying before we knew time,
Our tears are beautiful like sun rays
like the moon and the stars,

Sunday, 15 June 2025

Ghazel 56 - Nesimi

Since from yonder lunar Visage now the veil is cast aside,
Lo! the glorious sun is risen and of gloom is past the tide.

Saturday, 14 June 2025

Rova Blues, My Queen's Palace - Voahanitriniaina Rabary-Andriamanday

The Queen's Palace of ancient times
has been renewed with christian rhymes;
And for the glory of new days,
Let's sing and shout as the Queen prays.

Friday, 13 June 2025

Anti-Grace - Paulin Joachim

I call anti-grace
first the offering up of life
as an unending battle waged to bring light 
(in this divided province where nothing happens
where no road goes up a mountain
where the sun itself now never rises out of the hollow of the sea) 

Wednesday, 11 June 2025

Tuesday, 10 June 2025

Linden tree whispers... - Pavlo Tychyna

You know how the linden tree whispers
In the springtime, at night, by the light of the moon?

Monday, 9 June 2025

Lament for a dead lover - Sraad Haad

You were the fence standing between our land and the descendants of ‘Ali,
(Now in your departure) you are the sky which gives no rain while mist shrouds the world,

Sunday, 8 June 2025

Pentecost - Malcolm Guite

Today we feel the wind beneath our wings
Today  the hidden fountain flows and plays
Today the church draws breath at last and sings
As every flame becomes a Tongue of praise.

Saturday, 7 June 2025

Epigram on Sultan Mahmoud - Ferdowsi

’Tis said our monarch’s liberal mind
Is like the ocean unconfined.

Friday, 6 June 2025

No Country to Own - Arathy Asok

What will people do,
Who have no city to call their own?
Whose houses are four corners they turned,
When life took them.

Wednesday, 4 June 2025

Night - Hermann von Gilm zu Rosenegg

From the thicket steps the night,
From the trees it steals so softly,
Spreads itself in widened circle,
Now, take care.

Tuesday, 3 June 2025

I Do Not Bow - Qassim Haddad

Naked I stand in the chilling wind
Alone
like the letter A
and I do not bow

Monday, 2 June 2025

In a Retreat among Bamboos - Wang Wei

Alone I am sitting under close bamboos,
Playing on my lute, singing without words.

Sunday, 1 June 2025

Not to - Tammy Stone Takahashi

Not to look to the ground, 
but to become the ground,
at times porous and trembling,
but more often than not,
steady, sturdy, nourishing.