We present this work in honor of April Fool’s Day.
W.T. Goodge Australian 1862 – 1909
“You talk of snakes,” said Jack the Rat, “But blow me, one hot summer, I seen a thing that knocked me flat – Fourteen foot long or more than that, It was a reg’lar hummer! Lay right along a sort of bog, Just like a log!
“The ugly thing was lyin’ there And not a sign o’ movin’, Give any man a nasty scare; Seen nothin’ like it anywhere Since I first started drovin’. And yet it didn’t scare my dog. Looked like a log!
“I had to cross that bog, yer see, And bluey I was humpin’; But wonderin’ what that thing could be A-lyin’ there in front o’ me I didn’t feel like jumpin’. Yet, though I shivered like a frog, It seemed a log!
“I takes a leap and lands right on The back of that there whopper!” He stopped. We waited. Then Big Mac Remarked: “Well, then, what happened, Jack?” “Not much,” said Jack, and drained his grog. “It was a log!”
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 140th birthday.
Angelos Sikelianos Greek 1884 – 1951
With her hair closely cropped up to the nape Like Dorian Apollo’s, the girl lay on the narrow Pallet, keeping her limbs stiffly frozen Within a heavy cloud she could not escape…
Artemis emptied her quiver—every arrow Shot through her body. And though very soon She’d be no virgin, like cold honeycomb, Her virgin thighs still kept her pleasure sealed…
As if to the arena, the youth came Oiled with myrrh, and like a wrestler kneeled To pin her down; and although he broke past
Her arms that she had thrust against his chest, Only much later, with one cry, face to face, Did they join lips, and out of their sweat, embrace…
My pain endures and my eyes shed tears every day; separation causes unbearable pain that has no reason to be! Her name’s engraved in my burning heart; I found no cure or counsel for my pain! My hair’s turning white, O lord, after separation from those I love and wish to be with again! Such separation’s made my heart bleed and tears run down my cheeks all day long! I miss them so much I’m wasting away in despair; my tears rage like ocean waves against these sad days! All this is so unfair I wasted my life wandering in lands of exile and feeling low!
We present this work in honor of Dia de la Memoria.
Leopoldo Marechal Argentine 1900 – 1970
Hummingbirds buzz in the morning’s red branch. Wonder of wonders!
Today, young gravedigger, I buried a hundred days and nights like dead birds. I yank this yoke of hours from my shoulders. And today, unfleeing heart, my hand destroys a hundred dawns withered as herbs pressed in your daybook.
An inscription scatters on the tomb of time.
This morning strands of road whip-cracked under my drunken heels. I come from night: like two green fruits my eyes dangle over the world.
Bell-ringer of distances: underfoot a path, faded away and avoided, sprouts like a fugue tree. And taut as a slingshot, it shoots pebbles from sleep into the fragile air.
Today the first morning of the world has risen between two nights. Who woke that lark, time harvested, that slept on your dry branch?
Oh, heart, red bobbin undone in the dripping day’s palm: a door, as yet unopened, creaked! And a king happier than the word sun fills our shoes with blue coins.
Happiness! A girl drinks up all the sky in the well. Her wind apron unclad her…
A spider-thrush appeared and tangled the whole hill in the threads of its songs.
There, where the iron stirrups are kept, Life! sang the reed-colored men…
My happiness escapes and trembles the light’s fresh branch.
Bare-heeled boy riding the flank of morning, my happiness, that digger of silence, will shake the tree that sprouts the most birds.
Ah, it is taller, the air’s dome, and it coins our voices, free-timbred, unique. My nerve-tree is end-rooted in morning.
I am the test of the unfledged world. My hands, fused to rudders of sun, guide this day under tender skies. My steps tie this net of roads.
Hand of the sling-shooting god, you were tossed like the nimblest stone from his sling. Long scream in the bracketed silence; companion of the curving night’s road, that is how you rise.
Wordless friend, let your voice unravel the oldest face.
My hands, hollowed by the rudders of sun, guide this day through the wind. I arrived from morning: like two green fruits my eyes dangle over the world.
I have seen distance on its knees like a god to whom no one brings gifts, and death, gentler than a llama skin, molds itself to the shape of our dreams…
Hunter of happiness: I tie a hundred bleeding birds to my waist.
Postumus, tomorrow you’ll live, tomorrow you say. When is it coming, tell me, that tomorrow? How far off, and where, and how will you find it? In Armenia, or Parthia, is it concealed then? Your tomorrow’s as old as Nestor or Priam. How much would it cost you, tell me, to buy? Tomorrow? It’s already too late to live today: He who lived yesterday, Postumus, he is wise.
We present this work in honor of Tunisian Independence Day.
Shams Nadir Tunisian b. 1940
A mask left me stranded at the beginnings of the world and my delible ashes for a long while swirled in the depths of Punic Tophets. And my powerless breath wore itself out, for a long time at the pediments of Roman glory. O my lifeblood, my Numidian vigor. There has always been roaming, always the wind, And the exultation of sands as vain armies of crystal. And the damp shelter of hillside caves in the steppes of exile. And bare tufts, always there, in the hollow of a summer brought forth. Always, always, the tenacious, fragile dream of a riverbank where to land is to be reborn naked, reconciled, and living at the pace of swaying palm trees.
We present this work in honor of the 50th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Austin Clarke Irish 1896 – 1974
Stop, stop and listen for the bough top Is whistling and the sun is brighter Than God’s own shadow in the cup now! Forget the hour-bell. Mournful matins Will sound, Patric, as well at nightfall.
Faintly through mist of broken water Fionn heard my melody in Norway. He found the forest track, he brought back This beak to gild the branch and tell, there, Why men must welcome in the daylight.
He loved the breeze that warns the black grouse, The shouts of gillies in the morning When packs are counted and the swans cloud Loch Erne, but more than all those voices My throat rejoicing from the hawthorn.
In little cells behind a cashel, Patric, no handbell gives a glad sound. But knowledge is found among the branches. Listen! That song that shakes my feathers Will thong the leather of your satchels.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 115th birthday.
Placido Cuban 1809 – 1844
Oh Liberty! I wait for thee To break this chain and dungeon bar; I hear thy spirit calling me Deep in the frozen North, afar, With voice like God’s, and visage like a star.
Long cradled by the mountain wind, Thy mates the eagle and the storm, Arise! and from thy brow unbind The wreath that gives its starry form, And smite the strength that would thy grace deform!
Yes, Liberty! thy dawning light, Obscured by dungeon bars, shall cast Its splendor on the breaking night, And tyrants, flying pale and fast, Shall tremble at thy gaze and stand aghast!
Poets Corner 