Poetry

Driving

You never say anything in your letters. You say,

I drove all night long through the snow

in someone else

Hard Life with Memory

by Wisława Szymborska

I

"I knew when I said

I love you

that I was inventing a new alphabet

for a city where no one could read

that I was saying my poems

in an empty theater

and pouring my wine

for those who could not

taste it."

Nizar Qabbani, Poems

YOU, BELOVED, WHO WERE LOST

You, beloved, who were lost

before the beginning, who never came,

I do not know which sounds might be precious to you.

No longer do I try to recognize you, when, as a surging wave,

something is about to manifest. All the huge

images in me, the deeply-sensed far-away landscapes,

cities and towers and bridges and un-

suspected turns of the path,

the powerful life of lands

once filled with the presence of gods:

all rise with you to find clear meaning in me,

your, forever, elusive one.

You, who are all

the gardens I've ever looked upon,

full of promise. An open window

in a country house—, and you almost stepped

towards me, thoughtfully. Sidestreets I happened upon,—

you had just passed through them,

and sometimes, in the small shops of sellers, the mirrors

were still dizzy with you and gave back, frightened,

my too sudden form.—Who is to say if the same

bird did not resound through us both

yesterday, separate, in the evening?

Rainer Maria Rilke

TWO RED BERRIES

behind autumn’s rusty pleasure

and the leaky old rowboat

that is hauled out of the river

year after year,

a dog barking through the morning

– sound check before the elk hunt

there ahead, beyond the forest,

awaits that which is called future

you are on your way there, with two

red berries in your hand,

one for yourself

and one for the world

against power you stand equipped

with the shining stubbornness of the heather,

you know that this won’t be sufficient

not even the four cardinal points

are enough

but your arms reach a dream

where time is not rushing and where

all children can speak all the world’s languages:

every tongue enjoys a freedom

which does not exist

you who don’t listen to the incomprehensible

will never understand anything

we are not only what we are

we become what we see

two red berries; there you stand

on the threshold of the world, you

walk on the air and the wind is blowing

in your hair

Bengt Berg

THE POEM AND THE BUTTERFLY (METAMORPHOSIS)

Find

But a crumb of light

And make a butterfly.

It will stay on your eye-lashes

For a long time

And then enter your blood.

Afterwards find

A thread of rainbow

And spin it around

Until it is husked.

Thus for a long time

It will trouble you.

In the end

You will want to name it

But from your blood

A butterfly

Will crawl out

And

Fly away

Mihail Rend

Every theory, every poem

Lasts longer than this flower.

But that’s like fog, which is unpleasant and damp,

And bigger than this flower...

Size, duration have absolutely no importance...

They’re only size and duration...

What matters is the flower lasting and having size...

(If true dimension is reality)

Being real is the only true thing in the world.

ALBERRTO CAEIRO

Be Not Sad

Be not sad because all men

Prefer a lying clamour before you:

Sweetheart, be at peace again -- -

Can they dishonour you?

They are sadder than all tears;

Their lives ascend as a continual sigh.

Proudly answer to their tears:

As they deny, deny.

James Joyce

Night Piece

Gaunt in gloom,

The pale stars their torches,

Enshrouded, wave.

Ghostfires from heaven's far verges faint illume,

Arches on soaring arches,

Night's sindark nave.

Seraphim,

The lost hosts awaken

To service till

In moonless gloom each lapses muted, dim,

Raised when she has and shaken

Her thurible.

And long and loud,

To night's nave upsoaring,

A starknell tolls

As the bleak incense surges, cloud on cloud,

Voidward from the adoring

Waste of souls.

James Joyce