tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-285467872024-03-14T02:15:34.722-07:00One Good PoemWhoever writes one good poem is immortalUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger374125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-23558484531249365302024-01-02T12:06:00.000-08:002024-01-15T12:10:53.152-08:00One Grass-Sewn Wound<i>from</i> <b>vesper</b> <div>By Iryna Shuvalova
<br /><br />...<br />
in the end every wound is simply a ditch<br />
a groove in the ground from which a long stubborn root has been torn<br />
a burrow from which a fox has been smoked and chased endlessly through rainy fields<br />
a rut carved by a helpless wheel in a sodden road<br /><br />
soon the wind the rain will come for it and the grass the grass<br />
the birch goosefoot dog-grass burdock hemlock will sew the uneven edges together<br />the earth will lick its grazed memory<br />
with its coarse green tongue<br /><br />
and so we too<br />
forget to hate as we sleep<br />
and simply grow like grass<br />
covering the earth<br />
with our clinging brittle<br />
superfluous<br />
love </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"> ~ Translated by Uilleam Blacker | <a href="https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2023-03/vesper-iryna-shuvalova-uilleam-blacker/" target="_blank">More</a></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-74884380913819661842023-08-12T10:29:00.002-07:002023-08-13T10:37:41.731-07:00One Townslept Night<b>What the lover said</b><div>By Allur Nanmullaiyar<br /><div><br /></div><div>If one can tell morning<br />from noon from listless evening,<br />townslept night from dawn, then one's love<br />
is a lie.<div><br />
If I should lose her <br />
I could proclaim my misery in the streets <br />
riding mock-horses on palmyra-stems in my wildness:</div><div>but that seems such a shame.</div><div><br /></div><div>But then,<br />living away from her,<br />living seems such a shame. <br />
<p>--Translated A.K. Ramanujan ~ <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Technicians-Sacred-Third-Poetries-America/dp/0520290720/">Book</a></p></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-25356706073077251092023-08-08T10:20:00.003-07:002023-08-13T10:22:56.640-07:00One Translated PrayerI prayed for relief from suffering; I received suffering. <br />
Who can say my prayers were not heard? They were<br />
Translated, edited--<div><br /><div>
…They were taken in, studied like ancient texts.<br />
Perhaps they <i>were </i>ancient texts.<div><br /></div><div> --Louise Gluck</div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-79252934686141022852023-06-20T09:24:00.005-07:002023-08-04T09:37:13.254-07:00One Collapsed Wall<i>from</i> <b>Genesis</b> <div>By Romeo Oriogun </div><div><br /></div><div>Within the first light of my birth <br />
I was named after a war.<br />
My mother placed a pinch of sugar on my tongue<br />
To sweeten every darkness I will walk through,<br />
Then she rubbed hibiscus flower on my palms,<br />
Which means <i>son be tender even after the collapse of my walls.</i></div><div><i><br /></i>....I have wished death on my shadow from behind the cover of bushes<br />& saw it die & still the earth keeps building</div><div>...<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-89730592620422117032023-04-11T02:06:00.009-07:002023-08-04T09:19:09.812-07:00One Contrived CollisionPicasso....like the best poets, loved
contriving collisions that forced new meanings to emerge. <div><br /></div><div>--Sebastian Smee</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-69563330701180172662023-03-28T03:23:00.001-07:002023-04-11T03:32:58.299-07:00One Labyrinthine Dance<i>from</i> <b>The Crane Dance</b><br />
By Yannis Ritsos<br /><br />
...at Delos they stopped, <br />
Theseus and the young Athenians, and stepped<br />
up to the altar of horns to dance a puzzle-<br />
dance, its moves unreadable except to those who'd walked <br />
the blank meanders of the labyrinth. <br />
And this was midday: a fierce sun, the blaze<br />
of their nakedness, the glitter of repetitions, a dazzle <br />
rising off the sea, the scents of pine and hyacinth...<br /> <br />
... Nowadays, we don't think much <br />
about Theseus, the Minotaur, Ariadne on the beach <br />
at Naxos, staring out at the coming years. <br />
But people still dance that dance: just common folk,<br />
those criss-cross steps that no one had to teach, <br />
at weddings and wakes, in bars or parks, <br />
as if hope and heart could meet, as if they might<br />
even now, somehow, dance themselves out of the dark.
<br /><br />-- Translated by David Harsent ~ <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Yannis-Ritsos/dp/1907587217/">Book</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-72303583393332933032023-02-21T09:33:00.000-08:002023-08-04T09:35:26.994-07:00One Blinding Ganglion
Looking for your light, <br />
I went out:<div><br />
it was like the sudden dawn<br />
of a million million suns,<br /><br />
a ganglion of lightnings<br />
for my wonder.<br /><br />
O Lord of Caves,<br />
if you are light,<br />
there can be no metaphor.<br /><br />
--Allama Prabhu, translated by A. K. Ramanujan</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-17945023786413696452023-01-17T05:03:00.005-08:002023-08-13T10:20:19.034-07:00One Hard Hive<i>from</i> <b>Inside the Apple</b><br>
By Yehuda Amichai<br><br>
I trust your voice <br>
because it has lumps of hard pain in it<br>
the way real honey<br>
has lumps of wax from the honeycomb.<br><br>
--Translated by Chana Bloch ~ <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Poetry-Yehuda-Amichai/dp/0374536589">Book</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-84840559923997190172022-11-14T05:08:00.001-08:002023-02-19T05:10:47.995-08:00One Heaven-Pushed Bolt<p><b>A Translation from Petrarch
(He is Jealous of the Heavens and the Earth) </b></p><p>By J. M. Synge </p><div><br /></div><div>What a grudge I am bearing the earth that has its arms about her, and is holding that face away from me, where I was finding peace from great sadness. </div><div><br /></div><div>What a grudge I am bearing the Heavens that are after taking her, and shutting her in with greediness, the Heavens that do push their bolt against so many. </div><div><br /></div><div>What a grudge I am bearing the blessed saints that have got her sweet company, that I am always seeking; </div><div><br /></div><div>and what a grudge I am bearing against Death, that is standing in her two eyes, and will not call me with a word.
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-36629522362177123302022-08-30T10:24:00.002-07:002023-08-13T10:27:58.986-07:00One Lasting Treegraftwhat matters is that you shape with care <br />
the clay on your humming potter's wheel (selah) <br />when the black plague then seeps in <br />
it comes too late
<br />
a couple of centuries go by and the girls <br />
will then enjoy the bright-colored bowl<div> <br />.... <br /><br /></div><div>
what matters is that you graft the right slip <br />
onto the right tree (selah) <br />
if the executioners then knock on the door <br />
they come too late <br />
a few ice-ages pass and the youngsters will then savor your delicious apricots <div><br /></div><div>....<div><br /></div><div> --Hans Magnus Enzensberger, translated by Edouard Roditi </div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-65662209502275815882022-07-19T06:14:00.001-07:002023-02-19T05:16:06.814-08:00One Pained Caterpillar<i>from</i> <b>One of the Butterflies </b><div>By W.S. Merwin
<br /><br /></div><div>...it seems I cherish <br />
only now a joy I was not aware of<br />
when it was here although it remains<br />
out of reach and will not be caught or named<br />
or called back and if I could make it stay<br />
as I want to it would turn into pain</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-24516939153192638772022-06-07T03:09:00.001-07:002023-04-11T03:10:33.520-07:00One Trillion ParticlesThe poet’s mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together. <div><br /></div><div> --TS Eliot</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-39374410892060910102022-04-26T15:16:00.009-07:002022-04-30T10:22:53.281-07:00One High-Stakes NegotiationEvery great poet lives between two worlds. One of these is the real, tangible world of history, private for some and public for others. The other world is a dense layer of dreams, imagination, fantasms. It sometimes happens--as for example in the case of W.B. Yeats--that this second world takes on gigantic proportions, that it becomes inhabited by numerous spirits, that it is haunted by Leo Africanus and other ancient magi.
<p>
These two territories conduct complex negotiations, the result of which are poems. Poets strive for the first world, the real one, conscientiously trying to reach it, to reach the place where the minds of many people meet; but their efforts are hindered by the second world, just as the dreams and hallucinations of certain sick people prevent them from understanding and experiencing events in their waking hours. Except that in great poets these hindrances are rather a symptom of mental health, since the world is by nature dual, and poets pay tribute with their own duality to the structure of reality, which is composed of day and night, sober intelligence and fleeting fantasies, desire and gratification. </p><p>
There is no poetry without this duality, though the second, substitute world is different for each outstanding creative artist.
</p><p>
--Adam Zagakewski, Introduction to <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-collected-poems-1956-1998/9780060783952">The Collected Poems of Zbigniew Herbert</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-31001537652651219282022-04-05T10:19:00.002-07:002022-04-30T10:30:22.747-07:00One Hidden Attic<p><i>
from</i> <b>Miguel</b>
</p><p>By Cesar Vallejo</p><p>
...I can hear Mama yell <br />
"Boys! Calm down!" We'd laugh, and off I'd go <br />
to hide where you'd never look...under the stairs, <br />
in the hall, the attic...Then you'd do the same.<br />
Miguel, we were too good at that game. <br />
Everything would always end in tears.<br /><br />
No one was laughing on that August night<br />
you went to hide away again, so late<br />
it was almost dawn. But now your brother's through<br />
with this hunting and hunting and never finding you.<br />
The shadows crowd him. Miguel, will you hurry <br />
and show yourself? Mama will only worry.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">--Translated by Don Paterson</span></p><p></p><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-68650446927091050702022-02-08T10:24:00.001-08:002022-04-30T10:29:44.880-07:00One Unlocked Snail<p>A gate made all of twigs</p><p>With woven grass for hinges</p><p>For a lock...this snail</p><p>Issa, translated by Peter Beilenson</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-56397349012344089112022-01-25T15:42:00.002-08:002023-08-04T09:20:20.053-07:00One Yoke-Yearning Horse<i> from</i> <b>Tithonus<br /></b>By Alfred, Lord Tennyson<div>
<br />Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals<br />From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,<br />And bosom beating with a heart renew'd.<br />Thy cheek begins to redden through the gloom,<br />Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,<br />Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team<br />Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,<br />And shake the darkness from their loosen'd manes,<br />And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-24428064540485926822021-11-09T16:27:00.005-08:002023-08-04T09:24:41.038-07:00 One Validated Witch<br />
Long Years apart - can make no Breach <div>A second cannot fill — </div><div>The absence of the Witch does not </div><div>Invalidate the spell — </div><div><br /></div><div> --Emily Dickinson</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-67088397412640895072021-10-26T16:31:00.011-07:002022-01-23T16:34:44.924-08:00One Loosened Leaf<div style="text-align: left;"><b>Day in Autumn </b></div><div style="text-align: left;">By Rainer Maria Rilke</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">After the summer's yield, Lord, it is time<br />to let your shadow lengthen on the sundials<br />and in the pastures let the rough winds fly.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />As for the final fruits, coax them to roundness.<br />Direct on them two days of warmer light<br />to hale them golden toward their term, and harry<br />the last few drops of sweetness through the wine.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Whoever's homeless now, will build no shelter;<br />who lives alone will live indefinitely so,<br />waking up to read a little, draft long letters, <br />and, along the city's avenues,<br />fitfully wander, when the wild leaves loosen.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">~Translated by Mary Kinzie</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-83039410533216029992021-10-12T16:36:00.001-07:002022-01-23T16:39:03.098-08:00One Enduring Rhyme<div style="text-align: left;">Je ne sais comment je dure,<br />Car mon dolent cœur fond d'ire,<br />Et plaindre n'ose, ni dire<br />Ma douloureuse aventure,<br />Ma dolent vie obscure.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Rien, hors la mort, ne désire;<br />Je ne sais comment je dure.<br />Il me faut, par couverture,<br />Chanter que mon cœur soupire<br />Et faire semblant de rire;</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Mais Dieu sait ce que j'endure.<br />Je ne sais comment je dure.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">--Christine de Pisan</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-73877549309648174502021-06-08T03:10:00.001-07:002023-04-11T03:14:24.693-07:00One Dominated Dream...men, finding in the raptures of the higher poetry a condition of exaltation, to which they have no parallel in their own experience, besides the spurious resemblance of it in dreams and fevers, impute a state of dreaminess and fever to the poet. But the true poet dreams being awake. He is not possessed by his subject, but has dominion over it.<div><br /></div><div>--Charles Lamb</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-51819202423678299232021-01-19T16:40:00.003-08:002022-01-23T16:47:59.568-08:00One Rent Rind<div style="text-align: left;">The pillar perish’d is whereto I leant,<br />The strongest stay of my unquiet mind;<br />The like of it no man again can find,<br />From east to west still seeking though he went,<br />To mine unhap. For hap away hath rent<br />Of all my joy the very bark and rind:<br />And I, alas, by chance am thus assign’d<br />Daily to mourn, till death do it relent.<br />But since that thus it is by destiny,<br />What can I more but have a woeful heart;<br />My pen in plaint, my voice in careful cry,<br />My mind in woe, my body full of smart;<br />And I myself, myself always to hate,<br />Till dreadful death do ease my doleful state.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">--Thomas Wyatt</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-53181025217261351742020-12-21T06:27:00.000-08:002020-12-21T06:27:41.673-08:00One Considered Crumbfrom <b>The Sparrows of Butyrka</b><div>By Irina Ratushinskaya
<br /><br />
...The sparrows – they know <br />
Who to ask for bread.<br />
Even though there’s a double grille on the windows –<br />
And only a crumb can get through.<br />
What do they care<br />
Whether you were on trial or not?<br />
If you’ve fed them, you’re OK.<br />
The real trial lies ahead.<br />
You can’t entice a sparrow –<br />
Kindness and talents are no use.<br />
He won’t knock<br />
At the urban double-glazing.<br />
To understand birds<br />
You have to be a convict.<br />
And if you share your bread,<br />
It means your time is done.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">--Translated by David McDuff</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-27819746975908385672020-12-21T06:01:00.004-08:002022-01-23T16:53:33.348-08:00One Disseminated Halo
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRD29AArcgp715BBS6Ej08wQ3I0hz4R6Z6j_Zsp-FaWBFKo-2pLmk_J9x4DY4uM2jdj_NM9IQkbNoZzMQ2DpW8uLqJ4azLQx7fgY-T1T3R5KVQ4NLzy8YTPIPIvIO3n1s8IoBXDr8TTm6TJ4md61rkJQOfcxcqalzoU9PurGWZ_lN3YWY1TC0=s525" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="442" data-original-width="525" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRD29AArcgp715BBS6Ej08wQ3I0hz4R6Z6j_Zsp-FaWBFKo-2pLmk_J9x4DY4uM2jdj_NM9IQkbNoZzMQ2DpW8uLqJ4azLQx7fgY-T1T3R5KVQ4NLzy8YTPIPIvIO3n1s8IoBXDr8TTm6TJ4md61rkJQOfcxcqalzoU9PurGWZ_lN3YWY1TC0=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br />The Poets light but Lamps —<br />
Themselves — go out —<br />
The Wicks they stimulate<br />
If vital Light<br />
<br />
Inhere as do the Suns —<br />
Each Age a Lens<br />
Disseminating their<br />
Circumference —<br />
<br />--Emily DickinsonUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-28779387455011392052020-10-13T06:03:00.002-07:002020-12-21T06:14:24.438-08:00One Long Weaving<i>from</i> <b>Some Advice to Those Who Will Serve Time in Prison</b><br />
By Nazim Hikmet
<br /><br />
If instead of being hanged by the neck<br />
you’re thrown inside<br />
for not giving up hope<br />
in the world, your country, and people,
<br /><br />
....it’s your solemn duty<br />
to live one more day<br />
to spite the enemy.
<br /><br />
....To think of roses and gardens inside is bad,<br />
to think of seas and mountains is good.<br />
Read and write without rest,<br />
and I also advise weaving<br />
and making mirrors.<br />
I mean, it’s not that you can’t pass<br />
ten or fifteen years inside<br />
and more—<br />
you can,<br />
as long as the jewel<br />
on the left side of your chest doesn’t lose its luster. <div><br /><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"> --Translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk</span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28546787.post-63233007574261892352020-10-06T06:09:00.005-07:002020-12-21T06:14:12.859-08:00One Shielding WoundLong-felt desires, hopes as long as vain <br>
— sad sighs — slow tears accustomed to run sad<br>
into as many rivers as two eyes can add,<br>
pouring like fountains, endless as the rain — <br><br>
cruelty beyond humanity, a pain <br>
so hard it makes compassionate stars go mad <br>
with pity: these are the first passions I’ve had. <br>
Do you think Love could root in my soul again? <br><br>
If he arched the great bow back again at me, <br>
licked me again with fire, and stabbed me deep<br>
with the violent worst, as awful as before,<br>
the wounds that cut me everywhere would keep<br>
me shielded, so there would be no place free <br>
for love. It covers me. It will pierce no more.<br><br>
--By Louise Labe, translated by Annie FinchUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0