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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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?

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

Michele Harvey

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

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

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

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