We present this work in honor of the South African holiday, Youth Day.
Ingrid Jonker South African 1933 – 1965
I am with those who abuse sex because the individual doesn’t count with those who get drunk against the abyss of the brain against the illusion that life once was good or had beauty or sense against the garden parties of falsehood against the silence that beats into the temples with those who poor and old race against death the atom-bomb of the days and in shacks count the last flies on the walls with those stupefied in institutions shocked with electric currents through the cataracts of the senses with those who have been depraived of their hearts like the light out of the robot of safety with those coloured, african dispossessed with those who murder because every death confirms anew the lie of life And please forget about justice it doesn’t exist about brotherhood it’s deceit about love it has no right
The banner of your body floats in the Brandenburg wind. An old woman wants to come in, I can see her through the door, her red felt hand pressing in vain on the latch, scraps of her cries come at me like the barbaric song of a violin mending the night; I’m going to slip a rose under the door a black-blooded rose, maybe she’ll go away? And I could wallow in the bramble hammock but her voice hiccups: Ophelia My name is Ophelia, open the door, O-phe-lia… —What do I care about her grotesque distortions What lie will she bring me? Why doesn’t she extend it to me through the sheets of sand the way she extends her name… Ophelia Ophelia, her shadow ricochets in the aura of my dusk. Ophelia, her voice grates like a leper’s rattle, philia, figlia…
We present this work in honor of the 35th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Humberto Costantini
Argentine
1924 – 1987
It simply happens I have become immortal. The city buses respect me, they bow before me, like lap dogs they lick my shoes.
It simply happens I am no longer dying. There’s no angina worth anything, no typhus, cornice, war, or cannon, cancer, knife, or flood, no Junín fever, no vigilantes. I’m on the other side, Simply, I’m on the other side, from this side, fully immortal.
I move among Olympus, gods, ambrosias, I laugh, or sneeze, or tell a joke And time expands, expands like a crazy foam. How marvelous existing like this, immortal celebrating birth every five minutes, being a million birds, an atrocious leavening. What a scandal, caramba! this swarm of life, this plague called by my name, excessive, increasing, fully immortal.
I used to suffer, sure, from flus, fears, budgets, Idiot bosses, indigestion, homesickness, solitude, bad luck… But that was a century ago, twenty centuries, when I was mortal. When I was so mortal, so stupid and so mortal, that I didn’t even love you, you have to understand.
Here I will never hear the cuckoo’s call. Here trees will never wear the shtreimel-snow. Yet here in the pine’s shade I can hear all My childhood, brought to life from long ago.
The needles chiming: Once upon a time “Home” was the word I gave to snow, not sand, And the brook-fettering ice- a greenish rime Of my song’s language in a foreign land.
Perhaps the voyaging birds alone who find Their own route hanging between the sky and earth, Know how I pine between two lands of birth.
In you I was transplanted, O my pine. In you I branched into myself and grew Where disparate landscapes split one root in two.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 90th birthday.
Naguib Surur Egyptian 1932 – 1978
There will be anger Followed by the deluge. We know we will be among the drowned. But we will take the devil with us down To the deepest of deeps: Our end will be his… But slowly… What will be said Of us when they look back on it all? What will be said Of us after the deluge, After the coming drowning, after the coming anger, What will be said of us poets and writers? Were we men in truth, Half-men Or mere shadows? Fear, Fear of the sword, Made of us something unspeakable — Except in the vulgar tongue.
What will be said? Will it be said we chose silence For fear of death? The letter has an edge like a sword, Can turn against its speaker.
What will be said? Will it be said that we chose to speak in symbols, Whispers, silent gestures, In all the arts of coded speech? We said it all — in vino veritas, But people Had other concerns: Their daily bread, A kilo of meat.
Maqrizi, You who always come after the deluge: A plague is a plague — It always comes on the tail of a famine. It snatched your daughter, and many other daughters As the wolf was standing guard.
I hereby solemnly swear, Maqrizi, Not to leave this world Without scandal. I ask no one for justice: True justice is not to be begged. Our judges are high priests, Our high priests are distant And all are traitors. Let someone else write poetry, I am writing the Chronicles of Maqrizi.
I drink, day And night I drink. Sinking… I sink into my depths. There I see him, In my heart a holy pearl, Unbreakable, Even if a giant mountain falls upon it. When I sober up, I float to the surface, lose my pearl. Was it lost? No. It was me who was lost— When I sobered up I floated to the surface. For sure the pearl is down there in the depths… No. It is between two thighs, trampled under feet Shod in military or civilian boots, Under the wheels of petro-dollar cars.
Usually I drink from two glasses… My comrade in the madhouse died. He used to share my drink And share my grief. We had no time for joy: He used to share my past anger, And present anger — and that to come. Usually I drink from two glasses, The second to toast him. But tonight I drink from one glass: It seems my friend, upon his death, Had given up drinking; Or maybe it was me who gave up. Then let me drink to giving up drinking Until the last of all the Noahs’ arks has left With all those who will be saved from the coming deluge.
I sink and sink And see in my glass Monkey fornicating with rat Or rat fornicating with wolf Or wolf with owl.
Maqrizi’s daughter is lost In the plague And the plague always comes on the tail of a famine, When prices are measured against a kilo of meat, Even the price of writers, novelists, poets, Artists and scientists, When the stuff of the dreams of the poor is meat; And fuul beans, Fruit for the masters.
I recall a poet’s saying: I shall sleep not to see My country being bought and sold.
Then drink from two glasses, Or, if you wish, drink from one. If my death cannot be driven away, Then let me engage with it With what I have at hand.
We present this work in honor of the 90th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Pascual Contursi Argentine 1888 – 1932
Bandoneon of the slum, old deflated bellow I found you like a baby that a mother abandoned, at the door of a convent without plaster on the walls, under the light of a little lamp that at night it illuminated you.
Bandoneon, because you see that I am sad and I can no longer sing, you know that I carry in the soul branded a pain.
I took you to my room, I cuddled you against my cold chest, I was also left abandoned in my digs. You have wanted to console me with your rasping voice and your painful note increased my illusion.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 90th birthday.
Linda Pastan
American
b. 1932
This landlocked house should grace a harbor: its widow’s walk of grey pickets surveys an inland sea of grass; wind breaks like surf against its rough shingles.
In summer the two grown sons tie up here for a while. The daughter with her mermaid hair sits on a rock: her legs will soon be long enough to carry her away.
Sometimes the woman lies awake watching the fireflies bobbing like ship’s lights, the bats with their strict radar patrolling the dark.
The man will leave too, one way or another, sufficient as an old snail carrying his small house on his back. She will remain, pacing
the widow’s walk. At dusk she’ll pick the milky flowers that grow by the porch stair; she’ll place them in the window, each polished petal a star for someone to steer home by.
We present this work in honor of National Missing Children’s Day.
Juan Gelman Argentine 1930 – 2014
crestfallen my burning soul dips a finger in your name / scrawls your name on the night’s walls / it’s no use / it bleeds dangerously /
soul to soul it looks at you / becomes a child / opens its breast to take you in / protect you / reunite you / undie you / your little shoe stepping on the
world’s suffering softening it / trampled brightness / undone water this way you speak / crackle / burn / and love / you give me your nevers just like a child
We present this work in honor of the 55th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Langston Hughes
American
1902 – 1967
I could take the Harlem night and wrap around you, Take the neon lights and make a crown, Take the Lenox Avenue busses, Taxis, subways, And for your love song tone their rumble down. Take Harlem’s heartbeat, Make a drumbeat, Put it on a record, let it whirl, And while we listen to it play, Dance with you till day— Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.
Poets Corner 