We present this work in honor of the 125th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Love, said the rose, is a perfume.
Love is a murmur, said the water.
Love is a sigh, said the zephyr.
Love, said the light, is a flame.
Oh, how you have lied!
Love is a tear.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 70th birthday.
My name is February.
I was sold
my breasts, private parts and eyes
my brain
are not mine yet
like the São José
I am ruined
often sank by another storm
no Jesus walking on water for me.
My name is February
I am searching for the rod of the steering wheel
Because the family lies at the bottom
The child stitched to a mother’s dress
Mother’s hand locked in father’s fist
How deep down are they lying, on which side?
My name is February
auctioned, sold, the highest bidder
disposed of my real name
paid no compensation
for that, my name, stolen, sunked
underwater it still lies
with the family
wrecks of the São José
ran aground by a wind
furious waves that decided
the future of the loot
smashing the profit against the embankment.
My name is February
the Masbieker on the São José
that’s how I was called
when my mother tongue of here came into being
when tongues started to form a bond
and letters started walking freely
in a desperate attempt at survival and hope
that forces should not strip this identity too
I became the Masbieker, only a name
born under a different sky
and deeply filled with shame.
My name is February
I rearranged this landscape.
my hands wove the patterns of the vineyards
my feet pressed the grapes
and I was paid with the wine.
I carry Alcohol-Foetal Syndrome children on my back.
My name is February.
I still march on the eve of December one,
I walk the cobblestones of this city
when I cry in desperation,
“remember the emancipation of the slaves!”
My name is February.
two hundred years after the São José
I was given the vote,
they said I was free
But do you see how often I am submerged,
weighed down?
I am the sunken, the soiled,
forgotten
and yet memory will not leave me!
My name is February,
stranded at Third beach
but no one comes to look for me,
no one waves from the dunes,
no bridges back to Mozambique.
My name is February.
I will be resurrected,
brought to the surface
unshackled, unchained, unashamed!
My name is February!
We present this work in honor of the 90th anniversary of the poet’s death.
I forgive you almost all your sins
Only two of them I can’t allow:
Poetry you whisper to yourself,
And you kiss out loud.
Sin, have fun, and blossom with the years.
Only heed my mother advice —
A kiss, my darling, isn’t for the ears,
Music, my angel, isn’t for the eyes.
You used to love my Cypress Rafter Terrace,
But now you dote upon her Bright Yang Palace.
I know my place, take leave of your palanquin.
Hold in my feelings, weep for a cast-off fan.
There was a time my dances, songs, brought honor.
These letters and poems of long ago? Despised!
It’s true, I think–your favor collapsed like waves.
Hard to offer water that’s been spilled
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 130th birthday.
Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I’d been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
The steed of mind speedeth over the sky,
And, in the twinkling of the eye,
A hundred thousand leagues traverseth he.
Yet a man of discrimination can control
the curvetting steed,
And, on the wheels of praana and apraana, guide
his chariot aright.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 75th birthday.
What are you going to do in a dusty landscape
they asked seeing me leave hastily
with a longing for escape
I would like – I replied –
to lose myself inside the Parthenon
to become his image
to defy death
as he has
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 80th birthday.
Hold my hand
Hand in hand
Handshake
Hand signal
Hand-some
Hand to hand-combat
Handful
Handiwork
Hands-on experience
Hand job
Pass through my hands
Rose, as in secondhand
Hands-off
Hand-over
A dab hand is at hand
I heard at third hand
Helping hand
Hands up
Heavy-handed
Hand over fist.
According to the hand book
It’s a hand made
Hand grenade
And I’ve got to hand it to you
You were just a hand’s breadth
From doing a hand stand
Give the little girl a great big hand
She’s got a hand gun
And she’s likely to use it.
We present this work in honor of the Japanese holiday, Mountain Day.
To speed my brother
Parting for Yamato,
In the deep of night I stood
Till wet with the dew of dawn.
The lonely autumn mountains
Are hard to pass over
Even when two go together-
How does my brother cross them all alone!
We present this work in honor of the 155th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Where is the promise of my years;
Once written on my brow?
Ere errors, agonies and fears
Brought with them all that speaks in tears,
Ere I had sunk beneath my peers;
Where sleeps that promise now?
Naught lingers to redeem those hours,
Still, still to memory sweet!
The flowers that bloomed in sunny bowers
Are withered all; and Evil towers
Supreme above her sister powers
Of Sorrow and Deceit.
I look along the columned years,
And see Life’s riven fane,
Just where it fell, amid the jeers
Of scornful lips, whose mocking sneers,
For ever hiss within mine ears
To break the sleep of pain.
I can but own my life is vain
A desert void of peace;
I missed the goal I sought to gain,
I missed the measure of the strain
That lulls Fame’s fever in the brain,
And bids Earth’s tumult cease.
Myself! alas for theme so poor
A theme but rich in Fear;
I stand a wreck on Error’s shore,
A spectre not within the door,
A houseless shadow evermore,
An exile lingering here.
Poets Corner 