We present this work in honor of the poet’s 390th birthday.
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 35th birthday.
This poem is titled
sailor of the Gulf,
and if I begin to remember
it’s called tiger hand.
When I sit on the floor
thinking of the shoes I used as a little girl
it’s called grandfather of smoke,
It’s also called this
when I find a box
of Raleigh on the floor.
This poem is called the incomplete story,
it’s called returning, the gift of memory.
When I hear the seagull cry
this poem is called blue boat,
it’s called uprooting press mill.
When I think of the future
this poem is called the invincible past,
it’s called knowing myself through your stories.
This poem has a thousand faces
and when I come across it, it tells me,
“There is no fire that burns more than distance”
And the memory sinks its hand in my burning heart.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 130th birthday.
I play
I play pores
cables
keys
coves I play
on subjects of nerves
wharves
weavings that play upon me
scars
cinders
tropical bowels I play
only only
undertows
hangovers
heavy breathing
I play and moreplay
and nothing
Prefigures of absence
inconsistent tropes
what a you
what a what
what a flute
what loot
what hollows
what masks
what empty lonely reaches
what a yes what a no
what a yesno fate putting me out of tune
what reflexes reflect
what deeps
what wizard material
what keys
what nocturnal ingredients
what frozen shutters that do not open
what a nothing I play
wholely
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 255th birthday.
I’ve made a vow, I’ll keep it true,
I’ll never married be;
For the only ane that I think on
Will never think o’ me.
Now gane to a far distant shore,
Their face nae mair I’ll see;
But often will I think o’ them,
That winna think o’ me.
Gae owre, gae owre noo, gude Sir John,
Oh, dinna follow me;
For the only ane I ere thocht on,
Lies buried in the sea.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 250th birthday.
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.
In honor of Allegiance Day, we present this work by one of modern Morocco’s finest poets.
I rise from under the ruins
Climb my pride
And reach to the surface…
The zenith of pain
From memory I build up a fortress
…and from monotony.
I wrap myself in expectations from above
Before I resume…
My falling.
I love this body of mine that has lived life,
its hip flask outline, its softness of water,
the spurting of hair that crowns my cranium,
the crystal glass of a face, its delicate base
that ascends faultless from shoulders and collarbone.
I love my back, gullible to turned-off stars,
my revealed hills, fountains of the chest
that provide the first sustenance of the species.
Coming out of the ribs, mobile waist
overflowing and warm vessel of my stomach.
I love the moon curve of my hips,
moulded by alternate pregnancies,
the vast roundness of the wave of my gluteals,
and my legs and feet, foundations and support of the temple.
I love the handful of dark petals, the hidden fleece
that stores the dawning mystery of paradise,
the humid cavity where blood flows
and living water shoots out.
This hurting body of mine that gets sick,
that festers, that coughs, that perspires,
secretes moods, feces, saliva,
and that gets tired, exhausted, and withers.
Living body, link that assures
the infinite chain of successive bodies.
I love this body made of the purest mud:
seed, root, sap, flower, and fruit.
We present this work in honor of World Elephant Day.
On Ganges banks roams the tiger,
And lion rules by the Niger,
Hunder heard shrill cry of peacocks,
In Indian jungles go in flocks.
And he saw tiger crouch and spring,
To crush a bird with beauteous wing,
But the tiger missed his aim,
And he hung his head with shame.
Then there came a mighty crush,
Of elephants rush through the bush,
The tiger cat-like crouched on ground,
And elephants rushed in with bound.
In front was baby elephant,
To crush its bones did tiger want,
But mother saw fierce forest ranger,
And she gave a cry of danger.
Leader of herd he madly rushed,
Resolved the tiger should be crushed,
But tiger strove to run away,
Willing to relinquish prey.
But when he found that he must fight,
On elephant’s back he strove to light,
But elephant struck him with his foot,
And then with tusks he did him root.
So now once more must praise be sung,
To beasts who nobly fight for young,
And grateful feelings were now stirred,
Towards the leader of the herd.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 90th birthday.
Tomorrow, a God I don’t know
will offer me salvation if I don’t blindfold my soul
as your shadow passes by.
Tomorrow, a mist
will rise from the cornfields
and we’ll know another season is upon us
because our clothing will stick to our ribs,
and you’ll depart forever
like those visitors from the city
who don’t know the sense of belonging or the scent of rotting leaves
—or even less—
the desolation of the hillsides
after an infernal rain.
Tomorrow I’ll be silent,
turned toward my solitary pillow
like a schoolgirl punished in the farthest corner of the world,
while the nettles at the back of the garden
will open their milky buttons in the midst of this silence
when it’s all much too late.
In honor of Muharram, we present this work by one of Islam’s great medieval poets.
Look at the beautiful sun:
as it rises, it shows one golden eyebrow,
plays miser with the other one,
but we know that soon
it will spread out a radiant veil
over all.
A marvelous mirror that appears in the East
only to hide again at dusk.
The sky is saddened
when the sun leaves
and puts on mourning robes.
I believe that falling stars
are nothing more
than sky’s gem-hard tears.
Poets Corner 