We present this work in honor of the 95th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Bitter and wild — the smell of the earth:
The fields are o’ergrown with dark carnations!
Having flung my garments onto the grass,
I burn, like a candle, in the evening field.
Running into the distance, my steps are moist,
Tenderly naked, I blossom by the water.
Like white coral in an overgrowth of vines,
I am scarlet in the scarlet of my scarlet hair.
We present this work in honor of the 10th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Who are they and who are we?
They are the princes and the Sultans
They are the ones with wealth and power
And we are the impoverished and deprived
Use your mind, guess…
Guess who is governing whom?
Who are they and who are we?
We are the constructing, we are the workers
We are Al-Sunna, We are Al-Fard
We are the people both height and breadth
From our health, the land raises
And by our sweat, the meadows turn green
Use your mind, guess…
Guess who serves whom?
Who are they and who are we?
They are the princes and the Sultans
They are the mansions and the cars
And the selected women
Consumerist animals
Their job is only to stuff their guts
Use your mind, guess…
Guess who is eating whom?
Who are they and who are we?
We are the war, its stones and fire
We are the army liberating the land
We are the martyrs
Defeated or successful
Use your mind, guess…
Guess who is killing whom?
Who are they and who are we?
They are the princes and the Sultans
They are mere images behind the music
They are the men of politics
Naturally, with blank brains
But with colorful decorative images
Use your mind, guess…
Guess who is betraying whom?
Who are they and who are we?
They are the princes and the Sultans
They wear the latest fashions
But we live seven in a single room
They eat beef and chicken
And we eat nothing but beans
They walk around in private planes
We get crammed in buses
Their lives are nice and flowery
They’re one specie; we are another
Use your mind, guess…
Guess who will defeat whom?
We present this work in honor of the 95th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Vibrating cicada: with your lyrical efforts
summers you sang in the blue distance,
and at the trembling of your resonant wings, it shone
all the sun in my eyes and in the smiling valley.
And you were silent when you saw me on the edge of the pampas
wander, when the dying ray of the day,
with the blonde palm trees that the afternoon swayed
I had loves, and the plain taught me dreams.
Today when languid mists dressed the prairie,
My soul awaits something without knowing what it awaits:
May the sun shine, may you return and soar in the light!
Not even a cloud over the eternal wasteland…
Since you no longer sing, winter has come
and the mute mists turn the mountains gray.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 125th birthday.
By and by Man will try
To get out into the sky,
Sailing far beyond the air
From Down and Here to Up and There.
Stars and sky, sky and stars
Make us feel the prison bars.
Suppose it done. Now we ride
Closed in steel, up there, outside
Through our port-holes see the vast
Heaven-scape go rushing past.
Shall we? All that meets the eye
Is sky and stars, stars and sky.
Points of light with black between
Hang like a painted scene
Motionless, no nearer there
Than on Earth, everywhere
Equidistant from our ship.
Heaven has given us the slip.
Hush, be still. Outer space
Is a concept, not a place.
Try no more. Where we are
Never can be sky or star.
From prison, in a prison, we fly;
There’s no way into the sky.
You are so forgetful! Yesterday you left behind
here, over the piano that you no longer play,
a bit of your ailing girl soul:
a book, forbidden, of tender memories.
Intimate memories. I opened it, carelessly,
And knew, smiling, your deepest woe,
The sweet secret that I will not tell:
That you mention me no one wants to know.
…Come, take the book, you faraway, full
of light and daydreams. Crazy romantic…
Leaving all your loves here, over the piano!…
You are so forgetful, absent-minded!
We present this work in honor of the 25th anniversary of the poet’s death.
I’m sad and I do not know why;
I’ve drunk love,
and I’m still thirsty.
I’m alone… and I don’t know why
I would like to know, but I won’t tell…
I’m alone and I don’t know why,
I would like to kiss, and I don’t know who.
I’m in love… and I don’t know what.
I would like to know… and it can’t be.
I’m sad and lonely… and I don’t know why.
We present this work in honor of the 95th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Who could fall asleep, as a child falls asleep;
smile between dreams to the dream of pain;
and dream of friends and dream of affection;
and slowly sink into a greater dream.
And walk through life sleepwalking,
eyes wide open on an inner world,
with sealed lips, eternally mute,
attentive only to the rhythm of your own heart…
And go through life without leaving a trace…
To be the poor stream that evaporates in the sun…
and lose one night, as a star dies,
that burned thousands of years, and that nobody saw it…
Ever since he was a very young boy, he would jump for joy
when the cool rain fell from the heavens.
Jets from the roofs, your rumor had
the divine silence of melancholy.
The children with their hands covered their ears,
and listening with astonishment to the deep sounds
of the heart, which sounds as if it were the sea,
they felt a supreme desire to cry.
And as by the rain, everything was interrupted,
things were bathed in a color of oblivion.
And their minds wandered in a divine leisure,
very propitious to the tales of Sinbad the Sailor.
The rains of my land taught me lessons…
with Ali Baba, the forty thieves pass.
And they sang my dreams in the rainy night:
Aladdin’s lamp, miraculous lamp!
And as the rain falls, the oldest maid
he recounted his stories in an ambiguous way.
Another of the miracles that I sing about in the rain
is that, when its lymph falls, my city puts on a new mantle
, that when it is washed… I think of one of those
austere and impeccable Dutch cities:
a washed city, without dust , brand new,
where the cleanliness of his blessed prayer reads…
All roads are like a flower of adventure
for the sweet Quixote of the Sad Figure.
We present this work in honor of the 10th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Oh Cherry trees you are too white for my heart,
And all the ground is whitened with your dying,
And all your boughs go dipping towards the river,
And every drop is falling from my heart.’
Now if there is justice in the angel with the bright eyes
He will say ‘Stop!’ and hand me a bough of cherry.
The bearded angel, four-square and straight like a goat
Lifts a ruminant head and slowly chews at the snow.
Goat, must you stand here?
Must you stand here still?
Is it that you will always stand here,
Proof against faith, proof against innocence?
When you were a kid we celebrated
your graces and ups and downs; as a little man
your ingenious good taste and daring.
Now that you use your Cervantes,
your French, your Péguy, everything you previously
learned, heard and wrote
in praise of tyranny,
let us celebrate your crime.
Poets Corner 