We present this work in honor of International Museum Day.
M.K. Joseph
Kiwi
1914 – 1981
Two clergymen, one long, one short, Stand before Greco’s Trinity: The tall one twirls a single thought Round some point in divinity; The short one mops his heated brows With a red handkerchief, dimly aspires To levitate among the clouds Upborn by incorporeal fires.
The desiccated blond inspects The pages of her Baedeker, Hoping that somehow culture and sex At last will coalesce for her. She who through Europe has pursued Delight still missed en troisi me noce, Beneath some vast exuberant nude Of Rubens, knows the pain of loss.
Fading with cup and mandolin, Goya’s country feast turns dark, But soon the firing-squads begin By lanternlight their bloody work. Before that last anger and despair At human folly, someone stands. It is oneself that cannot bear Those anguished eyes and famished hands.
Velazquez turns with easy stance To the princess and the maids of honour, Caught in a movement like a dance, And calms the dwarf’s indignant humour. Royalty in the looking glass Fears its heavy image less: The gift of water in a glass Forgives the human ugliness.
Equal and intellectual, Transcending flesh, transcending flame, This passionless light that hallows all Shall build us an eternal home.
We present this work in honor of Galician Literature Day.
Manuel Curros Enríquez Spanish 1851 – 1908
Once upon a night in the wheat fields By the reflected white light of the bright moon A young girl mourned without pause The disdain of an ungrateful beau.
And between plaints the poor girl said, “I have no one left in the world… I’m going to die and my eyes do not see The dear eyes of my sweet boon.”
Her echoes of melancholy Strolled on the wings of the wind And she kept repeating the lament, “I’m going to die and my boon doesn’t come!”
Far away from her, standing at the stern Of a rogue steamboat slaver, The unfortunate, forlorn lover Emigrates en route to America.
And upon watching the gentle swallows Cross toward the land he leaves behind, “Who could turn back,” he pondered, “Who could fly away with you…!”
But the birds and the vessel sped onward Without hearing his bitter laments, Only the winds kept repeating, “Who could fly away with you…!”
Clear nights of fragrances and moonlight: How much sadness you own since then For those who saw a young girl weeping, For those who saw a ship leave port…
Away from a heavenly, genuine love That is not shown by teardrops alone: A grave on a lookout And a corpse on the ocean floor!
Here lies, buried, precious treasure The future of our beloved land Pride of our fledgling nation Our youth, our joy, our hope, Now turned to sorrowing dust.
They were all young, but children, really In the full flush of youth Such promise for the hungry tomorrow Blessings betrayed and all rules Of nature turned upside down.
The girls gaily giggled The young men, boys, really, Whistled and winked as they strutted about It was all such fun, such youthful fun The words of parents paled beside.
The words of parents, mostly whispered; And even that by but a few. A whole nation looked on, but shirked duty As the future swiftly withered and died.
They were in school, but the teachers taught nothing. Some went to church, but the priests spoke little about daily living; Pie in the sky and peace and bliss hereafter, their only platform.
Gone too, the wisdom of the Old Foresaken, the knowledge of yesteryear That knew and accepted what is only natural Understood the folly that would block the swells of a surging river And knew how all children needed mothers and fathers; Embraced all thildren; charged every man and woman with their nurturing.
‘It takes a village’, belatedly, we now say; at last remembering Faded lessons, traditions hastily discarded in blind pursuit Of progress, of fashion, of assimilation. Now, finally seeing How we ran open-armed, embracing our annihilation. Now, sorrow jogs memory and we join empty hands As we frantically try once more to guide, To lead the new generation as before, To show the way to the House of Adulthood Leaving none behind, losing few as can be.
Eye turned back to a time long forgotten When the measure of a man Was not the fatness of his pocket But his deeds of glory; shunning abomination. When neighbour trusted neighbour; his safety secure at his presence His home, his folk, his property – all sovereign His neighbour, his best protection against all His children, insurance against old age and infirmity. But that was before the nation learnt to bury all its children; See its morrow fade, its treasure interred; The youth, its pride, its hope and joy obliterated. The nation’s tomorrow, no more – ah, sad day, When we buried our most precious treasures!
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 135th birthday.
Edwin Muir
Scots
1887 – 1959
Old gods and goddesses who have lived so long Through time and never found eternity, Fettered by wasting wood and hollowing hill, You should have fled our ever-dying song, The mound, the well, and the green trysting tree. They have forgotten, yet you linger still, Goddess of caverned breast and channeled brow, And cheeks slow hollowed by millennial tears, Forests of autumns fading in your eyes, Eternity marvels at your counted years And kingdoms lost in time, and wonders how There could be thoughts so bountiful and wise As yours beneath the ever-breaking bough, And vast compassion curving like the skies.
Welcome to this house your home, here you breathe the bitter cold of that absent breath. Welcome to this house of anger and tears, indeed you can sit where your footsteps run out where your skin dries. The house has changed a bit —you’ll forgive me— but I’ve avoided painting it so that the cracks of time will give it a little bit of that familiar tinge.
It is the same house, don’t be afraid, that same one that we built some time ago, waiting to be alone enough to live in it.
Time was, long before I met her, but longer still, since we parted, The east wind is powerless, for it has come and a hundred flowers are gone, And the silk-worms of spring will spin until they die And every night candles will weep their wicks away. In the morning mirror she sees her temple hair changing the color of clouds Chanting poems in the chill of moonlight. Oh, it is not so very far to Penglai O blue-birds listen, bring me what she says.
We present this work in honor of the 30th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Nikos Gatsos Greek 1911 – 1992
When you reach that other world, don’t become a cloud, don’t become a cloud, and the bitter star of dawn, so that your mother knows you, waiting at her door. Take a wand of willow, a root of rosemary, a root of rosemary, and be a moonlit coolness falling in the midnight in your thirsting courtyard. I gave you rosewater to drink, you gave me poison, eaglet of the frost, hawk of the desert.
We present this work in honor of the 20th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Nika Turbina
Russian
1974 – 2002
Heavy are my verses— Stones uphill. I will carry them up to the crag, The resting place. I will fall face down in the weeds, Tears will not do. I will rend my strophe— The verse will burst out crying. Pain cuts into my palm— Nettles! The day’s bitter taste turns All to words.
There was a month I called May. When I buried it in papers, passion streaming down, flooding the tiles of the rooms. Herds of gazelles searching for mercy lap it up…and I wander about in search of a knife to sharpen against my cheekbones, as I turn the pages of these moments. You are a stranger to me, and your eyes are the foam of distances running like rivers between us. Don’t ask me about my evaporating grief; perhaps it has become salt with which to doctor wounds, or maybe seeds I can scatter across the floor, to absorb the words that creep there in search of a story. Perhaps my sorrow was a bedsheet that couldn’t cover its old bed. Its only pretext was to gaze at the sky and snatch up stars. Thus, with no trace of treason. We were sitting on the couch casting glances into the horizon, arrows of light years. Waiting, we dified the hours. Our revolt…ashamed to wear a mask, its savage visage. Our feet stalked insects to crush them, while they flaunted themselves like naked words Determined to gasp their last breaths in our sight. Between us there are also silken buds, fluttering spring butterflies. Their clusters are like the sun’s bashfulness when it gathers the girl’s milk teeth, causing the seasons, and among them you, cunning Spring. Is what’s between us the empire of Ahmad Taha? Or those gleaming golden circles, panting behind steely eyes? I wish I were a leaf, with cells in rows. My splendor, seasons borne by sailboats. My ending the winter, when geckos hide away to dream of new plants growing. From your bandaged wounds, in salt and fog, soaring across riverbanks the morning of erupting promises, running from shore to quay like a short story collapsing breathless on the streets, Does anyone forbid fabrication?
Or might those cities that swallow fog conjure the word away too? The same palm outstretched to God, the same bare feet. The same eyes, sparkling with poetry’s delight. Is this why you tremble, dreading the city’s pages? Is this why you left the streets, to seek refuge in the nightmares of years? Will you take comfort in the disgrace of seasons, and the vagrancy of lone words on the sidewalks of meaninglessness?
Poets Corner 