20th Century Poems

Paths of the Mirror

In honor of Dia de la Memoria, we present this work by one of Argentina’s most poignant poets.

Alejandra Pizarnik
Argentine
1936 – 1972

 

And above all else, to look with innocence. As if nothing was happening, which is true.

But you, I want to look at you until your face escapes from my fear like a bird from the sharp edge of the night.

Like a girl drawn with pink chalk on a very old wall that is suddenly washed away by the rain.

Like when a flower blooms and reveals its heart that isn’t there.

Every gesture of my body and my voice aimed to make myself into the offering, the bouquet that the wind abandons on the porch.

Cover the memory of your face with the mask of who you will be and scare off the girl you once were.

The night of us both scattered with the fog. It’s the season of cold foods.

And the thirst, my memory is of the thirst, me underneath, at the bottom, in the hole, I drank, I remember.

To fall like a wounded animal in a place that was meant to be for revelations.

As if it meant nothing. No thing. Mouth zipped. Eyelids sewn. I forgot. Inside, the wind. Everything closed and the wind inside.

Under the black sun of silence the words burned slowly.

But the silence is true. That’s why I write. I’m alone and I write. No, I’m not alone. There’s somebody here, shivering.

Even if I say sun and moon and star I’m talking about things that happen to me. And what did I wish for? I wished for a perfect silence. That’s why I speak.

The night is shaped like a wolf’s scream.

Delight of losing one-self in the presaged image. I rose from my corpse, I went looking for who I am. Migrant of myself, I’ve gone towards the one who sleeps in a country of wind.

My endless falling into my endless falling where nobody waited for me –because when I saw who was waiting for me I saw no one but myself.

Something was falling into the silence. My last word was “I” but I was talking about the luminescent dawn.

Yellow flowers constellate a circle of blue earth. The water trembles, full of wind.

The blinding of day, yellow birds in the morning. A hand untangles the darkness, a hand drags the hair of a drowned woman that never stops going through the mirror. To return to the memory of the body, I have to return to my mourning bones, I have to understand what my voice is saying.

An Old Song Re-Sung

Padraic Colum
Irish
1881 – 1972

 

As I went down through Dublin city
At the hour of twelve of the night,
Who did I see but a Spanish lady
Washing her feet by candle light.
First she washed them,
Then she dried them,
All by a fire of amber coals,
In all my life I never did see
A maid so neat about the soles.

I asked her would she come a-walking,
And we went on where the small bats flew,
A coach I called then to instate her,
And on we went till the grey cocks crew.
Combs of amber
In her hair were,
And her eyes had every spell,
In all my life I never did see
A maid whom I could love so well.

But when I came to where I found her,
And set her down from the halted coach,
Who was there waiting, his arms folded,
But that fatal swordsman, Tiger Roache?
Then blades were out,
And ‘twas thrust and cut,
And never wrist gave me more affright,
Till I lay low upon the floor
Where she stood holding the candle light.

But, O ye bucks of Dublin city,
If I should see at twelve of the night,
In any chamber, such lovely lady
Washing her feet by candle light,
And drying o’er
Soles neat as hers,
All by a fire of amber coal
Your blades be dimmed! I’d whisper her,
And take her for a midnight stroll!

Let the Life Be Victorious

We present this work in honor of Bihar Divas.

Maithili Sharan Gupt
Indian
1886 – 1964

 

The fear of death is false
Victory is only for Life.

Setting up the root of Organisms
making new splendor eternally
This soul is everlasting
Victory is only for Life.

The world only gets a new life
the lifeless remains like the foolish
A seed creates a hundred plants
The creator is very kind
Victory is only for Life.

I die a hundred times over the life
Do I bury this money
If I do not use it properly
Then it is a great devastation
Victory is only for Life.

The Efficacy of Prayer

In honor of Human Rights Day, we present this work by one of 20th century South Africa’s cleverest poets.

Casey Motsisi
South African
1932 – 1977

 

They called him Dan the Drunk.
The old people refuse to say how old he was,
Nobody knows where he came from – but they all
Called him Dan the Drunk.
He was a drunk, but perhaps his name was not really Dan.
Who know, he might have been Sam.
But why bother, he’s dead, poor Dan.
Gave him a pauper’s funeral, they did.
Just dumped him into a hole to rest in eternal drunkenness.
Somehow the old people are glad that Dan the Drunk is dead.
Ghastly!
They say he was a bad influence on the children.
But the kids are sad that Dan the Drunk is no more.
No more will the kids frolic to the music that used to flow out of his battered concertina. Or listen to the tales he used to tell.
All followed him into that pauper’s hole.
How the kids used to worship Dan the Drunk!
He was just one of them grown older too soon.
‘I’m going to be just like Dan the Drunk,’ a little girl said to her parents of a night cold while they crowded around a sleepy brazier.
The parents looked at each other and their eyes prayed.
‘God Almighty, save our little Sally.’
God heard their prayer.
He saved their Sally.
Prayer. It can work miracles.
Sally grew up to become a nanny…

Happy Grass

Brendan Kennelly
Irish
b. 1936

 

Here, in their final quiet, the singers lie.
True to the dead, to the living true.
The grass is growing as it always grew
Drinking every human cry
Like the rain of summer reaching the repose
Of singers long out of sight.
Will we ever know what the grass knows
Flourishing in green wisdom, green delight?

When delusions of communication cease
And we are victims once again
Of rumors the gossip wind is bringing
We’ll celebrate the singers in their peace
Because above the graves of men
The happy grass is singing.

O.

Elena Garro
Mexican
1916 – 1998

 

All year is winter next to you,
King Midas of the snow.
The swallow hidden in the hair
fled.
The tongue did not produce any more rivers
passing through cathedrals nor eucalyptus
in the towers.
Through the crack the blue wave fled
at whose center swayed the dove.

The white sky descended to drown
the trees.
The bed is the glacier that devours
the dreams.
The ice dagger appeared
to meticulously sever
the small beauty that I defend.

The sun moves further away each day
from my orbit.
There is only winter next to you,
friend.

To a Rose

Emilia Bernal
Cuban
1884 – 1964

 

Oh rose, rose of mine! that once sprang sprightly up,
why do you bend double, flaccid, weak and sad,
your petals withered, your once-green calyx pale?
Do you tell the earth the sweetness of your past,
like the long secret story of dead hopes
a dying virgin whispers to her priest?

Thinking on what was, and to see how you decline,
I’d wish to raise the stalk on which you languish,
to give fresh strength to you; beauty, color;
to return, with a sigh, your perfumed breath
to bring you to my lips and in a long, long kiss
press upon you new, most softly, heat and fire.

In the Bush

We present this work in honor of Canberra Day.

Francis Kenna
Australian
1865 – 1932

 

A thousand miles and more to the westward,
Somewhere the city lies,
I strain mine eyes for the glare reflected
Up in the starlight skies.

I strain mine ears for the roll and roaring,
The laugh of the passers by,
But only the trees on the far horizon,
Only the open sky.

A plover’s call in the stillness rises,
A lamb in the marshes bleats—
But O! for the lights and the passing faces!
And O! for the city’s streets!