We present this work in honor of the poet’s 110th birthday.
Write as you will
In whatever style you like
Too much blood has run under the bridge
To go on believing
That only one road is right.
In poetry everything is permitted.
With only this condition of course,
You have to improve the blank page.
We present this work in honor of the Turkish holiday, Victory Day.
Up and sing! O anqa-natured nightingale!
High in every business doth thy worth prevail:
Sing! for good the words are that from thee proceed;
Whatsoever thou dost say is prized indeed.
Then, since words to utter thee so well doth suit,
Pity were it surely if thy tongue were mute.
Blow a blast in utt’rance that the Trusted One,
When he hears, ten thousand times may cry: “Well done!”
Up and sing! O bird most holy! up and sing!
Unto us a story fair and beauteous bring.
Let not opportunity slip by, silent there;
Unto us the beauty of each word declare.
Seldom opportunities like this with thee lie;
Sing then, for th’ occasion now is thine, so hie!
Lose not opportunities that thy hand doth find,
For some day full suddenly Death thy tongue shall bind.
Of how many singers, eloquent of words,
Bound have Death and Doom the tongues fast in their cords!
Lose not, then, th’ occasion, but to joy look now,
For one day thy station ‘neath earth seek must thou.
Whilst the tongue yet floweth, now thy words collect;
Them as meaning’s taper ‘midst the feast erect,
That thy words, remaining long time after thee,
To the listeners hearing shall thy record be.
Thy mementoes lustrous biding here behind,
Through them they’ll recall thee, O my soul, to mind.
Those who’ve left mementoes ne’er have died in truth;
Those who’ve left no traces ne’er have lived in sooth.
Surely with this object didst thou come to earth,
That to mind should ever be recalled thy worth.
“May I die not!” say’st thou, one of noble race?
Strive, then, that thou leavest here a name of grace.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 215th birthday.
I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o’er the ground
With his cane.
They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.
But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
“They are gone!”
The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.
My grandmamma has said—
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago—
That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow;
But now his nose is thin,
And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff,
And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.
I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!
And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 275th birthday.
Cover your sky, Zeus,
With cloudiness,
And try out your strength,
Like a boy beheading thistles,
On oaks and mountain tops;
You must leave standing
My earth
And hut not built by you,
And my hearth
Whose glow you envy.
I know nothing poorer
Under the sun than you, o gods!
You sparely nurture
Your majesty
On sacrificial tribute
And the breath of prayers,
And would starve
If children and beggars
Were not hopeful fools.
When I was a child
And had reached my wit’s end,
I turned my lost eye
To the sun, as if above it
Were an ear to hear my lament,
A heart like mine
To take pity on me in my straights.
Who helped me
Against the arrogant Titans?
Who saved me from death,
From slavery?
Did you not attain it all yourself,
Holy glowing heart,
And young and innocent, betrayed,
Radiated thanks for deliverance
To the sleeper up above?
I honour you? For what?
Have you ever soothed
The pain of the burdened?
Have you ever dried
The tears of the frightened?
Have not almighty time
And eternal fate,
My lords and yours,
Forged me into manhood?
Did you imagine
I would hate life,
Flee into deserts
Because not all
My dreams blossomed
Into fruition?
Here I sit, make men
In my image,
A race that shall be like me,
Suffer, weep,
Take pleasure and enjoy,
And ignore you,
Like me.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 125th birthday.
Was there a Garden or was the Garden a dream?
Amid the fleeting light, I have slowed myself and queried,
Almost for consolation, if the bygone period
Over which this Adam, wretched now, once reigned supreme,
Might not have been just a magical illusion
Of that God I dreamed. Already it’s imprecise
In my memory, the clear Paradise,
But I know it exists, in flower and profusion,
Although not for me. My punishment for life
Is the stubborn earth with the incestuous strife
Of Cains and Abels and their brood; I await no pardon.
Yet, it’s much to have loved, to have known true joy,
To have had — if only for just one day —
The experience of touching the living Garden.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 175th birthday.
Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.
Go, tell the Spartans, passerby,
That here, obedient to her laws, we lie.
We present this work in honor of National Senior Citizens’ Day.
Old man pushing seventy,
in truth he acts like a little boy,
whooping with delight when he spies some mountain fruits,
laughing with joy, tagging after village mummers;
with the others having fun stacking tiles to make a pagoda,
standing alone staring at his image in the jardiniere pool.
Tucked under his arm, a battered book to read,
just like the time he first set off for school.
We present this work in honor of the Moroccan holiday, Revolution Day.
1.
Some travelers measure the earth
with a patch of text
some philosophers go to
a carpenter to lathe a question
some poets head to a tailor
to escape the rips widening within them
As for me, I run towards the rubble of emptiness or a heap
of shade in order to erase what is.
2.
There is no grave that can contain
the flavor of death pouring forth from the wooden bed
no grave that can gather what is left of words
sticking to the lips of a dead body
no room that can absorb the cold solitude
of a paper from which a poem has turned away
3.
The narrator doesn’t walk in the funeral procession
but listens only to what is said at the dinner for the dead
and collects what falls from the crumbs of words.
4.
I didn’t understand then
how the head can be in the horizon
and the leg in the grave
or how the gate of a graveyard can lead
to the courtyard of a poem
5.
In the end
I felt the desert’s thirst
for the grapes of Dionysus
and the cries of the ruins for
the dying embers
and the sadness of gazelles for
the silence of poets
6.
Instead of fleeing the blackness in my chest
towards the white of the paper
I threw myself in a field of yellow daisies
and fell asleep.
We present this work in honor of St. Martin’s Day.
Liberty, ascend to your throne
Of glory on the buckler,
Waving noble palms,
Crowned with laurel.
Like the beautiful flower
With a gathered calyx,
That opens at the explosion
Of the destructive lightning,
The Fatherland, at the hoarse roar
Of the lightning of war,
In May gave to the earth
Its aroma and splendor.
Slave Buenos Aires
Moaned in disconsolation,
When the sun shone in the sky
Of freedom,
And among floating clouds
The star placing,
She said, surrounding her temple:
“Look at my flag!”
Liberty, ascend to your throne
Of glory on the shield,
Waving noble palms,
Crowned with laurel.
Giving the alarm cry
With a powerful echo,
The generous people
Bared their swords;
And destroyed chains,
And tore down crowns,
And conquered laurels
in opposite zones.
Liberty, ascend to your throne
Of glory on the shield,
Waving noble palms,
Crowned with laurel.
The heroes with their blood
Sealed the victory,
Falling with their glory
Beneath the sacred altar,
And the grateful people
Remember their names,
Which the May sun gilds
In the burial urn.
Raising green palms
Woven with the lily,
Glory and martyrdom
Receive your ovation;
And raising patriotic hymns
That fly through the air,
Raise Buenos Aires
Its undefeated flag.
Liberty, ascend to your throne
On the buckler of glory,
Waving noble palms,
Crowned with laurel.
Poets Corner 