The Great Humanity

The great humanity is the deck-passenger on the ship
third class on the train
on foot on the causeway
the great humanity.
The great humanity goes to work at eight
marries at twenty
dies at forty
the great humanity.
There is enough bread for all except the great humanity
it is the same for rice
for sugar
for cloth
for books
there is enough for all except the great humanity.
The great humanity has no shade on his soil
no lamp on his road
no glass on his window
but the great humanity has hope
you can’t live without hope.

Nâzım Hikmet Ran


(Picture: Night at sea, Marcus Larson)

Walk Alone

If they answer not to your call walk alone

If they are afraid and cower mutely facing the wall,

O thou unlucky one,

open your mind and speak out alone.

If they turn away, and desert you when crossing the wilderness,

O thou unlucky one,

trample the thorns under thy tread,

and along the blood-lined track travel alone.

If they shut doors and do not hold up the light when the night is troubled with storm,

O thou unlucky one,

with the thunder flame of pain ignite your own heart,

and let it burn alone.

Rabindranath Tagore

(Picture: Has been in desert, Vasily Polenov)

If You Forget Me

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

You

  You are my enslavement and my freedom
You are my flesh burning like a raw summer night
You are my country
You are the green silks in hazel eyes
You are big, beautiful and triumphant
And you are my sorrow that isn't felt

    the more I feel it.

 

Nâzım Hikmet Ran 

(Picture: fifty days at iliam - the fire that consumes all before it, cy twombly)

Our Life

 

We’ll not reach the goal one by one but in pairs

We know in pairs we will know all about us

We’ll love everything our children will smile

At the dark history or mourn alone

Paul Éluard

translated by Tony Kline

(Picture: A couple with their heads full of clouds, Salvador Dali)

The Last Toast

Whether we like it or not,
We have only three choices:
Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

And not even three
Because as the philosopher says
Yesterday is yesterday
It belongs to us only in memory:
From the rose already plucked
No more petals can be drawn.

Hating Love

I don't believe in angels
but the moon is now dead for me.
The last glass of wine is gone
before the thirst I'm suffering from.
The blue grass lost its way
running away from your sails.

The butterfly setting her colour
on fire was made of ashes.
The morning fires off
dewdrops and silent birds.
I feel ashamed of being naked
and as vulnerable as a child.

Without your hands my heart
is the enemy in my chest.

Roque Dalton


(Picture: Fire Painting-f31, Yves Klein)

Thou hast made me endless

Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.

This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.

You

You came –
determined,
because I was large,
because I was roaring,
but on close inspection
you saw a mere boy.
You seized
and snatched away my heart
and began
to play with it –
like a girl with a bouncing ball.

The "Perfect World"

God of lost souls, thou who art lost amongst the gods, hear me:

Gentle Destiny that watchest over us, mad, wandering spirits, hear me:

I dwell in the midst of a perfect race, I the most imperfect.

I, a human chaos, a nebula of confused elements, I move amongst finished worlds -- peoples of complete laws and pure order, whose thoughts are assorted, whose dreams are arranged, and whose visions are enrolled and registered.

Their virtues, O God, are measured, their sins are weighed, and even the countless things that pass in the dim twilight of neither sin nor virtue are recorded and catalogued.

Only Breath

 

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim,

not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen.

Not any religion or cultural system.

I am not from the East or the West,

not out of the ocean or up from the ground,

not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all.

I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or in the next,

did not descend from Adam and Eve,

or any origin story.

The Strangest Creature on Earth

You're like a scorpion, my brother,
you live in cowardly darkness
    like a scorpion.
You're like a sparrow, my brother,
always in a sparrow's flutter.
You're like a clam, my brother,
closed like a clam, content,
And you're frightening, my brother,
    like the mouth of an extinct volcano.

Faces

I have seen a face with a thousand countenances,

and a face that was but a single countenance

as if held in a mould.

I have seen a face whose sheen I could look

through to the ugliness beneath, and

a face whose sheen I had to lift to see how

beautiful it was.