Kidnap Poem

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 80th birthday.

Ever been kidnapped
by a poet
if i were a poet
i’d kidnap you
put you in my phrases and meter
You to jones beach
or maybe coney island
or maybe just to my house
lyric you in lilacs
dash you in the rain
blend into the beach
to complement my see
Play the lyre for you
ode you with my love song
anything to win you
wrap you in the red Black green
show you off to mama
yeah if i were a poet i’d kid
nap you

I press my head down

I press my head down
It’s the result of insomnia oppressing me
I press my head to you and to my miserable memoirs
The night is pressing me too
But I’m so tough

Now it’s the sound of your scream coming
And there is blood
And there is the smell of tear and tear gas
A soldier is pressing my head down by his boots
Someone is pulling the trigger
Now there is a gun between my eyebrows
I feel the blood pressure in my head
The cowards have run
I press a cold hand in my cold hand

Someone was calling my name all the night
I feel the pressure of a lump in my throat
My throat is wounded
And I hear you screaming in the ear of someone who is all dead
I feel the pressure of life
And its wounds
And its marks
And I feel the pressure of the graves upon the solitude of dead
bodies

I press my fists to the wall and I swallow my cry
You are still screaming in the wild howls of the wind
I press my head down
A vessel is pressing a nerve
And I press a bottom to flash my life back
To go back to a scene where I’m opening a window towards light
Where everybody rise out of the graves
Where I hold a warm hand in my hand
And we are laughing in our homes and in our rooms
There I hear the sound of peace
And my heart beats normally
And that’s a better day with a green background

Translated by Mohammad Hoseini Moghaddam

To find a kiss of yours

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 125th birthday.

Federico Garcia Lorca
Spanish
1898 – 1936

To find a kiss of yours
what would I give
A kiss that strayed from your lips
dead to love

My lips taste
the dirt of shadows

To gaze at your dark eyes
what would I give
Dawns of rainbow garnet
fanning open before God—

The stars blinded them
one morning in May

And to kiss your pure thighs
what would I give
Raw rose crystal
sediment of the sun

Translation by Sarah Arvio

Pool

We present this work in honor of the 90th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Deep down, the night has massed again
My darling smiles in her wonted place
My darling who doesn’t come by day
Appears at night by the pool.

The moonlight a sash for her waist
The heavens her secret veil
The stars roses in her hand.

Translation by Murat Nemet Nejat

Wild Flowers

Fair children of nature! a fragrance is round them,
Derived from the parent who first gave them birth,
And who, in her ceaseless affection, hath crowned them,
The simplest and sweetest adornments of earth.

In shadow and sunshine they blossom and flourish,
On high, hanging cliff—in the forest’s deep gloom;
The wildest of mountains their loveliness nourish,
And dark, hollow caves are their cradle and tomb.

But e’en as we gaze on the flower, ‘tis faded—
Its beauties are fleeting, and live but a day;
Too quickly the leaves by death’s colours are shaded,
Till lowly it droops its fair head to decay.

‘Tis an emblem of life, for an infancy’s hours
We know not its thorny and dangerous road—
Our tears fall as lightly as dew from the flowers,
And leave the heart gay as if ne’er they had flowed.

But when the rough blasts of misfortune assail us,
Or frosts of unkindness fall chill on the heart,—
When friends we have loved, in adversity fail us,—
‘Tis then that the tear-drops of sorrow will start.

Too often, alas! the bright visions we cherish
Of friendship and faith, fade away from our sight,
And the fond dreams of hope in their infancy perish,
At the withering touch of ingratitude’s blight.

The Long March

We present this work in honor of the 45th anniversary of the poet’s death.

I am the final point of a novel that begins
Let us not forget everything above level zero
I sustain my romance intact between my eyes
Then, denying nothing, I set out once again
I am the final point of a novel that begins
No need to distinguish the horizon from the dance
And within my burnous my house survives
I am the final point of a novel that begins
Of my two Saharas I compose my song
I sustain my romance intact between my eyes
I am in the truth the pupil and the lesson

Often I recall having been a shepherd…
Then in my eyes there’s that long-suffering look
Of a fellah who watches in his unbreakable hands
The history of a country where the orange tree will be born
Often I recall having been a shepherd
I have sliced the galette
I have parted the figs
My daughter
I have married well
It has no equal
To the gun
To the task
Than my eldest son
My wife was the finest in the valley.
Among us the word fatherland has a taste of anger
My hand has caressed the heart of palm trees
The handle of my ax opens an epic
And I have seen my grandfather Mokrani
Finger his beads watching eagles pass
Among us the word fatherland possesses a taste of legend

Daddy !
Why have you deprived me
Of fleshly music
see:
Your son
Learning to speak in another tangue
Words that I have known
Since I was a shepherd lad

Ah my God The night so much night in my eyes
Mummy calls herself Ya Ma while I say Mother
I have mislaid my burnous my gun my pen
And I bear a first name falser than my deeds
Ah the night my God but what’s the good of whistling
Fear You’re afraid Fear You’re afraid Fear You’re afraid
Since a man stalks you like some frightful mirror
Your school friends and the streets the jokes
But since I tell you I’m a Frenchman
just look at my clothes my accent my house
I who turn a race into a profession
Saying Tunisian when I mean “tradesman”
I who think of a Jew as some wretched homegrown
soldier? Come on then, my sister wears no veil
And in the Lycee didn’t take all the prizes for french?

Ah my God the night so much night in my eyes

Translation by Robert Fraser

Sea Fever

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 145th birthday.

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea’s face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way, where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

Time

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 250th birthday.

So she wanders in the eternally same circle,
The time, in its old way,
Deaf and blind on their way.
The impartial human child
Always expecting from the next moment
An unexpected strange new happiness.
The sun goes and returns
Comes the moon and the night falls,
The hours guide the weeks down
The weeks bring the seasons.
From the outside nothing ever again.

My Art