The silver trumpets rang across the Dome: The people knelt upon the ground with awe: And borne upon the necks of men I saw, Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.
Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam, And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red, Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head: In splendor and in light the Pope passed home.
My heart stole back across wide wastes of years To One who wandered by a lonely sea, And sought in vain for any place of rest: “Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest,
I, only I, must wander wearily, And bruise My feet, and drink wine salt with tears.”
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 110th birthday.
Edmond Jabès Egyptian 1912 – 1991
I’m looking for a man I don’t know, who’s never been more myself than since I started to look for him. Does he have my eyes, my hands and all those thoughts like flotsam of time? Season of a thousand wrecks, the sea no longer a sea, but an icy watery grave. Yet farther on, who knows how it goes on? A little girl sings backward and nightly reigns over trees a shepherdess among her sheep. Let us wrench thirst from the grain of salt no drink can quench. Along with the stones, a whole world eats its heart out, being from nowhere, like me.
Among them too are the Muses For everywhere To flute and string the young girls Are dancing, In their hair the gold leaves of the bay: The dance whirls them away: Age or disease, no toil, Battle or ill-day’s luck Can touch them, they Are holy, they Will outlast time, exempted From the anger of the Goddess And all decay.
Here the hero came With the head That shocked a royal house, turning King and all into stone: It was long long ago, if Time means anything; Long, long ago.
We present this work in honor of the 240th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Pietro Metastasio Italian 1698 – 1782
If every man’s internal care Were written on his brow, How many would our pity share Who raise our envy now? The fatal secret, when revealed, Of every aching breast, Would prove that only while concealed Their lot appeared the best.
Through endless ages, the mind has never changed It has not lived or died, come or gone, gained or lost. It isn’t pure or tainted, good or bad, past or future. true or false, male or female. It isn’t reserved for monks or lay people, elders to youths, masters or idiots, the enlightened or unenlightened. It isn’t bound by cause and effect and doesn’t struggle for liberation. Like space, it has no form. You can’t own it and you can’t lose it. Mountains. rivers or walls can’t impede it. But this mind is ineffable and difficult to experience. It is not the mind of the senses. So many are looking for this mind, yet it already animates their bodies. It is theirs, yet they don’t realize it.
We present this work in honor of the 115th anniversary of the poet’s death.
William Henry Drummond
Canadian
1854 – 1907
Bord á Plouffe, Bord á Plouffe, W’at do I see w’en I dream of you? A shore w’ere de water is racin’ by, A small boy lookin’, an’ wonderin’ w’y He can’t get fedder for goin’ fly Lak de hawk makin’ ring on de summer sky. Dat ‘s w’at I see.
Bord á Plouffe, Bord á Plouffe, W’at do I hear w’en i dream of you? Too many t’ing for sleepin’ well! De song of de ole tam cariole bell, De voice of dat girl from Sainte Angèle (I geev’ her a ring was mark “fidèle”) Dat ‘s what I hear.
Bord á Plouffe, Bord á Plouffe, W’at do I smoke w’en I dream of you? Havana cigar from across de sea, An’ get dem for not’ing too? No siree! Dere ‘s only wan kin’ of tabac for me. An’ it grow on de Rivière des Prairies- Dat ‘s what I smoke.
Bord á Plouffe, Bord á Plouffe, How go I feel w’en I t’ink of you? Sick, sick for the ole place way back dere- An’ to sleep on ma own leetle room upstair W’ere de ghos’ on de chimley mak’ me scare I ‘d geev’ more monee dan I can spare- Dat ‘s how I feel.
Bord á Plouffe, Bord á Plouffe, W’at will I do w’en I ‘m back wit’ you? I ‘ll buy de farm of Bonhomme Martel, Long tam he ‘s been waitin’ a chance to sell, Den pass de nex’ morning on Sainte Angèle, An’ if she ‘s not marry -dat girl- very well, Dat ‘s w’at I ‘ll do.
We present this work in honor of the Ching Ming Festival.
Wang Bo
Chinese
650 – 676
By this wall that surrounds the three Qin districts, Through a mist that makes five rivers one, We bid each other a sad farewell, We two officials going opposite ways…. And yet, while China holds our friendship, And heaven remains our neighbourhood, Why should you linger at the fork of the road, Wiping your eyes like a heart-broken child?
Old with a young heart, witty, kind, whose mind, dipped in much honey with now gall, imparted nothing bitter in your whole life. Nepotianus, comfort to my heart, partaking as much in games as serious work: when silent, you’d outdo Amyclas in speechlessness: Ulysses—who left the Sirens singing their enchantments— could not leave you when you were talking: honest and modest, moderate, thrifty, abstemious, eloquent, in style yielding place to no orator: debater approaching the Stoic Cleanthes: knowing well by heart Scaurus and Probus, your memory greater than Cineas’s of Epirus: friend table-companion and frequent guest— too seldom, for you stimulated my mind. No one gave counsel with so pure a heart or hid confidences with deeper secrecy. With the honor of an illustrious governorship conferred, having lived through the changes of ninety years, leaving two children, you meet your death, with much grief to your family, as to me.
This morning I woke up saddened. This land can’t give any Wonder. Is it impossible for this Insanityland to grow a little bit (a little green corner) of Wonder? This land is sadder than a woman asking for sugar. This morning I woke up downright depressed. And I have 35 reasons. Someone has to be guilty of planting the bombs around this Wonderlessland. Without poetry readers these bombs are invisible, they don’t make noise, don’t cause panic. These are perfect bombs that kill soundlessly. These are the modern bombs that man invented, they kill like falling leaves. But leaves in the forest, they aren’t, falling are bombs. In the cities, every day, every hour, and people think that it’s winter arriving. Why would they plant so many bombs in this Wonderlessland and in so many countries like this one, Wonderless. Is it that they are filled with wonder seeing how their bombs explode over our houses, on the heads of our children, onto our beds and tables; our chairs become matches. And what will happen to the people of this Land who don’t react? The people of this land are living in the bombs’ ruins and don’t react and don’t even try to wake up sad, at the very least, like I do, this January morning. You go out onto the street and no one hears the bombs, they don’t see the mutilated children wrapped in the aura of their own pain, I don’t know if no one sees them or hears them or if they don’t want to see or listen. These are the modern bombs that humanity has invented, bombs against hearing, against listening. Bombs that destroy everything with the greatest possible sensibility and diplomacy. Peaceful bombs that burn, mutilate, uproot the tree trunks and turn the butterflies from Patagonia’s Eden of dreams into wild monsters. They invented their silent pacifist bombs that day after day they shoot at us with their missile launchers and no one hears, or sees, or feels anything. This is Insanityland, no Wonder no green, no red kiss, no flow of children across a field, this is the land of total destruction, of catastrophe approaching all that is possible. I go into the street and scream: Hey, you! Hey, you! Hey you, Dominicanne! But no one hears or sees or feels anything, I go through the streets and the bars and all the hang outs showing people a mutilated child and they don’t see him, they don’t see him. Don’t you see this child who I have by the hand? I say to some friendly beer drinkers at a downtown bar. Where? Where? they say, and keep drinking. The world is a beerzy lane. I prefer to think that nobody hears anything because the noise from bombings across the land doesn’t let them think.
Poets Corner 