Wednesday, September 30, 2009

John Keats


When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charactry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love; -- then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink

Monday, September 28, 2009

Jose Carlos Becerra

THE DROWNED
.
an iron hook
is pulled
contradicting hi size as he emerges
the water dripping
moves
him
from
the
threads
of his entrance onto the stage
on the dock the crowd
was watching that bundle
where everyone’s eyes awaited
the body’s lost passage
drop by drop the body fell
into God’s pool,
someone asked for an iron hook
to hoist him,
careful — said one of the onlookers —
the tide is dragging him under
the dock,
an iron hook
we had to fasten him with a hook
we had to tell him something with a hook
while the dirty floating bundle
fell
drop
by
drop
from where the missing
would fling a stone upon us.
.
Mexico







































Jorge Luis Borge


SHINTO
When sorrow lays us low
for a second we are saved
by humble windfalls
of the mindfulness or memory:
the taste of a fruit, the taste of water,
that face given back to us by a dream,
the first jasmine of November,
the endless yearning of the compass,
a book we thought was lost,
the throb of a hexameter,
the slight key that opens a house to us,
the smell of a library, or of sandalwood,
the former name of a street,
the colors of a map,
an unforeseen etymology,
the smoothness of a filed fingernail,
the date we were looking for,
the twelve dark bell-strokes, tolling as we count,
a sudden physical pain.
.
Eight million Shinto deities
travel secretly throughout the earth.
Those modest gods touch us—
touch us and move on.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Homero Aridjis


Sometimes you touch a body and it awakens
spending the night by opening a
pulsation sensitive marine arm
.
and as we love the sea
like a naked song
as its the only summer
.
We say light as they say now
tell him it was yesterday's and other parties
.
so filled with corpses and bodies
Gulls are our gulls
.
We'll climb tip to tip
with banks and ceilings and door handles
.
and liaison with hotels and memories and
landscape and weather and asteroids
.
it filled him with us and our soul
necklace of islands and soul
.
Sorry, everyday life is
beautiful but a sorry shade.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Aurelio Arturo


CLIMATE
.
This green poem, leaf by leaf,
is rocked by the fertile, southwest wind;
this poem is a country that dreams,
a cloud of light and a breeze of green leaves.
.
Falls of water, stones, clouds, leaves
and an agile breath in everything, they are the song.
There were palms, palms and the breeze
and a light like swords through the atmosphere.
.
The loyal wind that rocks my poem,
the loyal wind that the song impels,
rocked the leaves, rocked the clouds, happily
rocking white clouds and green leaves.
.
I am the voice that gave songs to the wind
pure songs west of my clouds; my heart in every palm,
a broken date tree, united the multiple horizons.
And in my country herding clouds,
.
I put my heart in the south, and to the north
like two rapacious birds, my eyes
pursued the flock of the horizons.
life is beautiful, a hard hand, shy fingers
.
as they create the fragile vase
of your song, fill it with your joy or with
the hidden honeys of your crying.
This green poem, leaf by leafs rocked by a fertile wind,
.
a slender wind that loved the grass and skies of the south,
this poem is the country of the wind.
Under a sky of swords, dark earth,
green trees, green gibberish of the small leaves
.
and the tardy wind moves the leaves and the days.
Let the wind dance and let the green distances
call me with secret, hidden rustles: a docile woman,
her breast filled with honey, she loved under the
palms of my songs
.
Colombia

Lina Zeron

THERE, WHERE
.
Inside the soft cavity of my body,
you burn.
In the space where the night reigns,
you tremble.
In the shadows where the demented pray for mercy,
you kneel.
In the depth of the broken dream,
you appear.
In the name of the Teacher who came to save us,
you beg.
.
There, where oblivion arrives in ragged clothes,
you throb.
There, where your memory has no peace,
I exist.
There, where the bewildered soul binds one to another,
we lie together.
There, where I press my heart before the flood of tears
shames me,
I don’t know you.
There, where the thinness of my silence questions you,
I forgive you.

Joseph Brodsky

BELFAST TUNE
.
Here's a girl from a dangerous town
She crops her dark hair short
so that less of her has to frown
when someone gets hurt.
.
She folds her memories like a parachute.
Dropped, she collects the peat
and cooks her veggies at home they shoot
here where they eat.
.
Ah, there's more sky in these parts than, say,
ground. Hence her voice's pitch,
and her stare stains your retina like a gray
bulb when you switch
.
hemispheres, and her knee-length quilt
skirt's cut to catch the squall,
I dream of her either loved or killed
because the town's too small.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Carlos Bedoya


I SECOND GUESS THE BLINKING
.
Everything is a dangerous drug
save reality which is unbearable.
Cyril Connolly.
.

It is always eternity
floating in the dark
forever more
perpetual armor
of a dream
inciting us to forget
while we drink like insomniac
madmen
smoking every other minute
in this bar
that amongst other complications
liberates
miserable drunken
miracles lapsus calami
without hope.
.
Alone my body levitates
drowning among visions
avid for nothingness
asking for its turn to dance
to be shipwrecked anew.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Ancient Mayan Ritual


THE SONG OF THE MINSTREL

This day there is a feast in the villages.
Dawn streams over the horizon,
south north east west,
light comes to the earth, darkness is gone.
Roaches, crickets, fleas and moths
hurry home.

Magpies, white doves, swallows,
partridges, mockingbirds, thrushes, quail,
red and white birds rush about,
all the forest birds begin their song because
morning dew brings happiness.

The Beautiful Star
shines over the woods,
smoking as it sinks and vanishes;
the moon too dies
over the forest green.

Happiness of fiesta day has arrived
in the villages;
a new sun brings light
to all who live together here

Monday, September 21, 2009

Antonio Machado


LAST NIGHT AS I WAS SLEEPING
.
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?
.
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.
.
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.
.
Last night as I slept,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Blanca Varela


I haven't looked
customarily if I hear a bird's song
I say (to nobody) Hey: a bird
!or I say, what color was it.
and the color really isn't important
but the space in which an enormous, nameless
flower moves
the space full of a nameless splendor
and my eyes, fixed, nameless.
.
Peru

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Percy Bysshe Shelley


ART THOU PALE FOR WEARINESS
.
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

Friday, September 18, 2009

Vincente Huidobro

HOURS.
.
A small town
A train stopped on the plain
Deaf stars sleep
in every puddle
And the water trembles
Curtains to the wind
Night hangs in the grove
A lively drizzle
From the flower-covered steeple
Bleeds the stars
Now and then
Ripe hours
Drop on life

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Ryokan


At dusk I often climb
To the peak of Kugami.
Deer bellow,
Their voices Soaked up by
Piles of maple leaves
Lying undisturbed at
The foot of the mountain

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Jaime Saenz


High Above the Dark City
One night on a rain-glistened road high above the dark city
with its noise now distant
it's certain she will sigh
I will sigh
holding hands for a very long time within the grove
her eyes clear as the comet passes
her face come from the sea her eyes in the sky my voice inside her voice
her mouth in the shape of an apple her hair in the shape of a dream
in each pupil a look never seen
her eyelashes in a trail of light a torrent of fire
everything will be mine somersaulting with gladness
I'll cut off a hand for each of her sighs
I'll gouge out an eye for each of her smiles
I'll die once twice three times four times a thousand times
just to die on her lips
with a saw I'll cut through my ribs to hand her my heart
with a needle I'll draw out my best soul to give her a surprise
on Friday evenings
with the night air singing a song I propose to live for three hundred years
in the loveliness of her company.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Maria Del Carmen Paiva

SADNESS
.
It is sufficient.
It's already fainted --
that accidental word
that usually sketches itself out in farewells,
and that you bring since who knows when;
or perhaps
it came close
one day
and started the bad habit of nurturing it.
.
Time wears out things,
and although you keep on under those separate stars
and the sun, with its overflowing wings of sulphur,
you keep on living in spite of all this
and what has already happened.
You deserve the name that life gives you
with its unforeseen and unknown impulse.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Rosario Costellanos


DESTINY
.
We kill that we love. The rest never lived.
No one is as close to us. No other is so hurt
by forgetfulness, absence, mere nothingness.
We kill that we love. Enough choking breath,
of breathing through another’s lungs!
The air is not enough
for both, nor the earth
for our bodies entwined.
Hope's ration is small
and sorrow cannot be shared.
.
Man is made of solitudes,
a deer in flight, bleeding,
pierced by an arrow.
.
Ah, but hatred,
its insomniac glare of glass:
repose and menace.
.
The deer lowers its head to drink,
discovers a tiger image in the water.
The deer drinks the water, the image. It becomes
before devoured (astonished accomplice)
equal to its enemy.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Miguel Hernandez


I HAVE A NEED FOR YOUR VOICE
.
I have a need for your voice,
a longing for your company,
and an ache of melancholy
for the absence of signs of arrival.

Patience requires my torment,
the urgent need for you, heron of love,
your solar mercy for my frozen day,
your help, for my wound, I count on.

Ah, need, ache and longing!
Your kisses of substance, my food,
fail me, and I’m dying with the May.

I want you to come, the flower of your absence,
to calm the brow of thought
that ruins me with its eternal lightning

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Gary Snyder




For Lew Welch In A Snowfall


Snowfall in March:
I sit in the white glow reading a thesis
About you. Your poems, your life.
.
The author's my student,
He even quotes me.
.
Forty years since we joked in a kitchen in Portland
Twenty since you disappeared.
.
All those years and their moments
—Crackling bacon, slamming car doors,
Poems tried out on friends,
Will be one more archive,
One more shaky text.
.
But life continues in the kitchen
Where we still laugh and cook,
Watching snow.

Friday, September 11, 2009

St. Teresa of Avila

I WILL JUST SAY THIS


We
bloomed in Spring.

Our bodies
are the leaves of God.

The apparent seasons of life and death
our eyes can suffer;

but our souls, dear, I will just say this forthright:
they are God
Himself,

we will never perish
unless He
does.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Juan Ramon Jimanez


"I pulled on the reins"
.
I pulled on the reins,
I turned the horse
of the dawn,
and I came in to life, pale.
Oh how they looked at me,
the flowers of my dream,
insane,
lifting their arms to the moon!

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Derek Walcott


Love After Love
.
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
.
And say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
.
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
.
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Tomas Transtromer


Despondency breaks off its course.
Anguish breaks off its course.
The vulture breaks off its flight.
.
The eager light streams out,
even the ghosts take a drink.
.
And our paintings see daylight,
our red beasts of the ice-age studios.
.
Everything begins to look around.
We walk in the sun in hundreds.
.
Each man is a half-open door
leading to a room for everyone.
.
The endless ground under us.
.
The water is shining among the trees.
.
The lake is a window into the earth.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Porfirio Mamani Macedo


THE FOREIGN I
.
One night
and then one more night
everything to find your eyes
and your tears, embalmed existence.
.
That your eyes clear
that the winds blow
that will stay with me.
.
You who gives me
an ocean in your eyes
also scattered
are your dreams
in my singing.
.
How not to feel the sun
through the window of your soul
that brings me a river
of hope in your eyes.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Percy Bysshe Shelley


Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Ching- yuan


Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains
as mountains, and waters as waters.
When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge,
I came to the point where I saw that mountains are
not mountains, and waters are not waters.
But now that I have got its very substance
I am at rest.For it's just that I see mountains
once again as mountains, and waters
once again as waters

Friday, September 4, 2009

Michele Harvey



he tells me
of his new conquest
on the hill
a neighbor's tom
grooms himself in the sun

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Juan Ramon Jimenez



“I Am Not I”
by Juan Ramón Jiménez
.
I am not I.
I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
who remains calm and silent while I talk,
and forgives, gently, when I hate,
who walks where I am not,
who will remain standing when I die

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Richard Eberhart


The Eclipse
.
I stood out in the open cold
To see the essence of the eclipse
Which was its perfect darkness.
.
I stood in the cold on the porch
And could not think of anything so perfect
As mans hope of light in the face of darkness

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Ernesto Cardenal


DAWN
.
Now the roosters are singing
. Natalia, your rooster's already sung, sister,
Justo, yours has already sung,
brother.Get up off your cots, your bed mats.
I seem to hear the congos awake on the ohter coast.
We can already blow on the kindling - throw out the pisspot.
Bring an oil lamp so we can see the faces.A dog in a hut yelped
and a dog from another hut answered.
Juana, it's time to light the stove,
sister.The dark is even darker because day is coming.
Get up Chico, get up Pancho.There's a horse to mount,
we have to paddle a canoe.
Our dreams had us separated, in folding
cots and bed mats (each of us dreaming our own dream)
but our awakening reunites us.
The night already draws away followed by its witches and ghouls.
We will see the water very blue; right now we don't see it. -
Andthis land with its fruit trees, which we also don't see.
Wake up Pancho Nicaragua, grab your machete
there's a lot of weeds to cut grab your machete and your guitar.
There was a owl at midnight and a hoot owl at one.
The night left without moon or any morning star.
Tigers roared on this island and those on the coast called back.
Now the night bird's gone, the one that says:
Sc-rewed, Sc-rewed.
Later the skylark will sing in the palm tree.
She'll sing: Compañero
Compañera.
Ahead of the light goes the shade flying like a vampire.
Wake up you, and you, and you.(Now the roosters are singing.)
Good morning, God be with you