We present this work in honor of the Egyptian holiday, Revolution Day.
Oh Egyptian,
Why to loosen up your arm while the universe is all yours
The beautiful and dulcet Nile is yours
It heals the burns
God created Macedonia and Sardinia
Thus, don’t be so bleak when others goof off in life
We present this work in honor of the 45th anniversary of the poet’s death.
A night of rain. A perfume sad
Exhales from the moistened ground.
My pensive heart, with fragrance come
From thee, was wrapped around.
Beneath the shade, thy glance so full
Of understanding deep,
That used to fall like music soft
Upon my dreams in sleep.
A rainy night. With the voice of the rain
Thy voice conjoined would come,
A loving cradle song to soothe
Old yearnings for my home.
Good night. What tenderness, so full
Of pity and of grief untold,
Thy hands gave me, as we took leave,
Thy little hands, ice-cold!
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 150th birthday.
‘I charge thee, fling away Ambition.’ Thus
The puling Cardinal at Fortune’s end,
To Cromwell, daring still to be his friend,
Gave counsel futile. Nay, calamitous,
If men unwisely heeded. Dolorous
And flat this life of ours, could we not bend
Our energies with honour, and contend
For pride of place with those ahead of us.
Had Hobbs in mid career cried, ‘Hold enough;
The Doctor’s record cannot be o’erpassed,’
‘Ambition should be made of sterner stuff,’
Had well been said. Stand cricketers aghast
At this new record? Fie, I cry you, Shame!
Come, take your centre, bid for greater fame!
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 110th birthday.
In the land of Longago we learned in books
To recognize a hero by his looks
Hector and Achilles and the rest
With hams and biceps of enormous girth
And measured tread that sounding shook the earth
And brow of brass and buckle-bursting chest.
So different these whom no descending god
Begot nor goddess succours as they plod
North through the ruins in a wool-soft rain,
Nineteen-year-olds, round-cheeked, whose innocent eyes
See danger with indifferent surprise.
The guns’ concussion jars the windowpane.
The sergeant-major chivvies them along,
Stolid and swift they march without a song
Bent stiffly forward underneath the load.
“Hector and Troy are gone beyond recall,
Perhaps there are no heroes after all.”
So thought we, staring up the muddy road.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 135th birthday.
I walk now questioning my steps:
maybe the earth can tell me my fate,
and only in a stormy wind
the double embrace of all parts of the lasso
it will be like a reunion for me.
And I will search no more for the fading
route of dreams, towards the setting sun.
Like the earth I have given my flower;
but I can still feel hurt
for the rod that wakes me up with its sound.
We present this work in honor of Independence Day.
What did he do except lie
under a pear tree, wrapped in
a great cloak, and meditate
on the heavenly bodies?
Venerable, the good people of Baltimore
whispered, shocked and more than
a little afraid. After all it was said
he took to strong drink.
Why else would he stay out
under the stars all night
and why hadn’t he married?
But who would want him! Neither
Ethiopian nor English, neither
lucky nor crazy, a capacious bird
humming as he penned in his mind
another enflamed letter
to President Jefferson—he imagined
the reply, polite and rhetorical.
Those who had been to Philadelphia
reported the statue
of Benjamin Franklin
before the library
his very size and likeness.
A wife? No, thank you.
At dawn he milked
the cows, then went inside
and put on a pot to stew
while he slept. The clock
he whittled as a boy
still ran. Neighbors
woke him up
with warm bread and quilts.
At nightfall he took out
his rifle—a white-maned
figure stalking the darkened
breast of the Union—and
shot at the stars, and by chance
one went out. Had he killed?
I assure thee, my dear Sir!
Lowering his eyes to fields
sweet with the rot of spring, he could see
a government’s domed city
rising from the morass and spreading
in a spiral of lights…
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 85th birthday.
If you want to study its essence, its purpose,
its usefulness in the world,
you’ve got to see it as a whole. Salt
isn’t the individuals who make it up
but the solidary tribe. Without it
each particle would be like a fragment of nothingness,
dissolving in some unthinkable black hole.
Salt surfaces from the sea. It’s petrified
foam.
It’s sea baked by the sun.
And so finally worn-out,
deprived of its great water force,
it dies on the beach to become stone in the sand.
Salt is the desert where there once was sea.
Water and land
reconciled,
matter of no one.
It’s why the world tastes of what it is to be alive.
Translation by Katherine M. Hedeen and Víctor Rodríguez Núñez
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 135th birthday.
My words, where are you now? What say you to me?
Come to my rescue, I’m delirious, don’t let me be.
What benefit can fulfill this hand’s goal
To claims due of nourishment for my soul.
But all minds of men appear to be in retreat
Faced with a gesture of solidarity so discrete.
In my hands it feels like a budding sheath,
Other times I behold a Gladiola wreathe.
In my mouth, at times it is a cheek so vermillion
Other times it is a kiss, like none in a million.
And my heart, oh my words! What lies within unseen?
Call upon the heavens and see if gods will intervene.
Or remain quiet, because to have silence is better
But then, come! Give! You can do nothing greater!
When I walked
down the road,
I’d hear Aunt Sue’s voice,
“How you doing, dear heart?”
Or “There goes me sunshine girl!”
Uncle Joe would call from his cart.
Here in the big city,
thousands pass me by.
No sweet voices like rain
sprinkle me with care.
No one knows or calls my name.
We present this work in honor of the Canadian holiday, National Aboriginal Day.
my soul sank
deep into the blood
of this land
I extended a hand
looking for help
sinking fast back
into history
time traveling
through layers
to the core
an innocent beginning
swam in the sweat
of my ancestors
back stroked
my way
to safety
a time
of strength
without racism
and floated there
basking in liquid love
skin love
Indian love
so true
so real
shaking your belief
in anything
less
Poets Corner 