Surrounded

Suddenly my suburb is surrounded by churches

In every direction. We are hemmed in by Love

Like Sunday, Sunday every day of the week.

The modern steeples, coppery and chic

The formstone walls, the abstract garish glass

Draw to their their side the sabbath-enamelled cars.

Formerly we were just a collection of medium-priced

Houses on a middleclass prairie.

Now we are a community in Christ.

And, the last day being come, Man stood alone

And, the last day being come, Man stood alone

Ere sunrise on the world’s dismantled verge,

Awaiting how from everywhere should urge

The Coming of the Lord. And, behold, none

Did come,—but indistinct from every realm

Of earth and air and water, growing more

And louder, shriller, heavier, a roar

Up the dun atmosphere did overwhelm

Mother

 

















Your love was like moonlight

turning harsh things to beauty,

so that little wry souls

reflecting each other obliquely

as in cracked mirrors...

beheld in your luminous spirit

their own reflection,

transfigured as in a shining stream,

and loved you for what they are not.

Interim

The earth is motionless

And poised in space...

A great bird resting in its flight

Between the alleys of the stars.

It is the wind's hour off....

The wind has nestled down among the corn....

The two speak privately together,

Awaiting the whirr of wings.

Lola Ridge 

(Picture: A rocky coastal landscape in the aegean,Ivan Aivazovsky)

Mind without fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by

narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the

dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening

thought and action -

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Rabindranath Tagore 

(Picture: Ci meurent les cardinaux, Max Ernst)

A woman speaks

Moon marked and touched by sun  

my magic is unwritten

but when the sea turns back

it will leave my shape behind.  

I seek no favor

untouched by blood

unrelenting as the curse of love  

permanent as my errors

or my pride

I do not mix

love with pity

nor hate with scorn

and if you would know me

look into the entrails of Uranus  

where the restless oceans pound.

Sympathy

If I were only a little puppy, not your baby, mother dear,

would you say “No” to me if I tried to eat from your dish?

Would you drive me off, saying to me,

“Go away, you naughty little puppy”?

Then go, mother, go! I will never come to you when you call me,

and l will never let you feed me any more.

If I were only a little green parrot, and not your baby,

mother dear, would you keep me chained lest I should fly away?

An Agony. As Now.

I am inside someone

who hates me. I look

out from his eyes. Smell

what fouled tunes come in

to his breath. Love his

wretched women.

Slits in the metal, for sun. Where

my eyes sit turning, at the cool air

the glance of light, or hard flesh

rubbed against me, a woman, a man,

without shadow, or voice, or meaning.

Soledades

La soledad no es una gayola
es tan sólo un cultivo
una emancipación
un duro aprendizaje

la soledad no es una clausura
es un espacio libre
un césped sin historia
un crepúsculo púrpura

Greed

 When it was day they came into my house and said, `We shall

only take the smallest room here.'

They said, `We shall help you in the worship of your God and

humbly accept only our own share in his grace'; and then they

took their seat in a corner and they sat quiet and meek.

But in the darkness of night I find they break into my sacred

shrine, strong and turbulent, and snatch with unholy greed

the offerings from God's altar.

Rabindranath Tagore

(Picture: Altar, Luc Tuymans)

Obsessions

When you die, I won’t be there
To keep your feet warm
Between my antiquated breast
To recite poems dedicated
To the living air and say:
“Your legs, your lies
The tufts of your hair, all so well made!”
But when you die you’ll find me
Having carpeted long ago
The corridor leading to the next room – life

Couvre-feu

Que voulez-vous la porte était gardée

Que voulez-vous nous étions enfermés

Que voulez-vous la rue était barrée

Que voulez-vous la ville était matée

Que voulez-vous elle était affamée

Confusion of the senses

Moonlight fills the laurels

like music. The moonlit

air does not move. Your white

face moves towards my face.

Voluptuous sorrow

holds us like a cobweb.

Like a song, a perfume, the moonlight.

Your hair falls and holds our faces.

Your lips curl into mine.

Your tongue enters my mouth.

Power

The difference between poetry and rhetoric

is being ready to kill

yourself

instead of your children.

I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds

and a dead child dragging his shattered black

face off the edge of my sleep

blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders

is the only liquid for miles

and my stomach

churns at the imagined taste while

L'étranger

Qui aimes-tu le mieux, homme enigmatique, dis? ton père, ta mère, ta soeur ou ton frère?

Je n'ai ni père, ni mère, ni soeur, ni frère.

Tes amis?

Vous vous servez là d'une parole dont le sens m'est resté jusqu'à ce jour inconnu.

Ta patrie?

J'ignore sous quelle latitude elle est située.

La beauté?

Je l'aimerais volontiers, déesse et immortelle.

L'or?

Je le hais comme vous haïssez Dieu.

Eh! qu'aimes-tu donc, extraordinaire étranger?

J'aime les nuages... les nuages qui passent... là-bas... là-bas... les merveilleux nuages!

Charles Baudelaire

Conscientious Objector

I shall die, but
that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;
I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,
business in the Balkans,
many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle
while he cinches the girth.
And he may mount by himself:
I will not give him a leg up.

Liberté

Sur mes cahiers d’écolier
Sur mon pupitre et les arbres
Sur le sable sur la neige
J’écris ton nom

Sur toutes les pages lues
Sur toutes les pages blanches
Pierre sang papier ou cendre
J’écris ton nom

Sur les images dorées
Sur les armes des guerriers
Sur la couronne des rois
J’écris ton nom

Song for Baby-O, Unborn

Sweetheart

when you break thru

you’ll find

a poet here

not quite what one would choose.

I won’t promise

you’ll never go hungry

or that you won’t be sad

on this gutted

breaking

globe

Όσο Mπορείς

Κι αν δεν μπορείς να κάμεις την ζωή σου όπως την θέλεις,
τούτο προσπάθησε τουλάχιστον
όσο μπορείς: μην την εξευτελίζεις
μες στην πολλή συνάφεια του κόσμου,
μες στες πολλές κινήσεις κι ομιλίες.

Μην την εξευτελίζεις πηαίνοντάς την,
γυρίζοντας συχνά κ’ εκθέτοντάς την
στων σχέσεων και των συναναστροφών
την καθημερινήν ανοησία,
ώς που να γίνει σα μια ξένη φορτική.

Κ.Π. Καβάφης

The Snow Fairy

I

Throughout the afternoon I watched them there,

Snow-fairies falling, falling from the sky,

Whirling fantastic in the misty air,

Contending fierce for space supremacy.

And they flew down a mightier force at night,

As though in heaven there was revolt and riot,

And they, frail things had taken panic flight

Down to the calm earth seeking peace and quiet.

I went to bed and rose at early dawn

To see them huddled together in a heap,

Each merged into the other upon the lawn,

Worn out by the sharp struggle, fast asleep.

The sun shone brightly on them half the day,

By night they stealthily had stol'n away.

Bond and Free

Love has earth to which she clings 

With hills and circling arms about— 

Wall within wall to shut fear out. 

But Thought has need of no such things, 

For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.

 

On snow and sand and turf, I see 

Where Love has left a printed trace 

With straining in the world’s embrace. 

And such is Love and glad to be. 

But Thought has shaken his ankles free.