I have a little dog of water
It is just a little peg
my dog of water
Do you see it
so worn down across the field
nosing low in the bended grasses?
It is my dog of water.
Each leaf of grass dips a scarf into its passing.
Even the grass today is running.
Even the grass today touches the dog of water.
1
Distilled from all my hopes and dreams,
This Wine is yours, my Dearest Dear;
To you I proffer now the Cup
Unsullied, and the liquor clear;
Before it goes to every nation,
My House of Wine shall honour you
Before the thirsty crowd draws near.
2
Should you be thirsty, I will fire
The world, distil its sap away,
The I will lift the Cup for you
And like a handmaid dance and play.
In lavish showers of tender sweetness
I drained my life for your completeness:
Now as an offering at your feet
This world, your House of Wine, I lay.
3
Beloved, you are Wine to me
And like an empty Cup I pine,
But I am filled with you and thus,
A drinker, you your lips incline;
I am your Goblet overbrimming;
You drink me up with senses swimming;
We are together mutually
Yes, each to each a House of Wine.
4
I have pressed the Wine of images
From my emotions’ tender vine;
The poet is the Handmaid now
Who offers many a flowing line;
And in the Cup where millions drink
The Wine I press can never sink.
My readers are my thirsty Guests,
My book of Verse a House of Wine.
5
Still more sweet Wine from my sweet thoughts
I daily press as I have pressed;
With this sweet Wine I fill the Cup,
That thirsty Cup, my heart’s unrest;
Where my imagination lingers
It lifts the Cup in magin fingers;
I drink; and lo! I am myself
The House, the Handmaid and the Guest.
6
The drinker leaves his home to find
The House of Wine, but does not know
The way, and fears achievement must
Be but for an instructed few;
And each from whom he asks the way
Has something new and strange to say;
In fact, you reach the House of Wine
By any path you may pursue.
7
Alas! how much of life has gone
Seeking the House of my intent!
But as I walk, the guides I meet
Still speak of distant merriment!
I scarcely dare pursue my yearning
But want the courage for returning;
The House of Wine is still remote
And leaves me in bewilderment.
8
Go on with endless faith, invoking
Wine honeyed, potent, sweet and clear;
The glorious Cup, and do not fear;
Imaginary Wine receiving,
Create the Saki by believing;
Press on, O wayfarer, and then
The House of Wine will soon appear.
9
When thirst itself is Wine, and when
The lips create the Cup they crave,
When reverie constructs in flesh
The long-desired Maiden-slave,
There in the pilgrim heart’s desire
The piercing pang becomes a spire;
Where is no Handmaid, Wine or Cup,
The mind sustains an architrave.
10
Listen! the gurgling in the Cups,
The sounds of drunken merriment!
The Saki moves to music, shakes
Each tinkling golden ornament.
Now we are near the destination
And hear the merry conversation;
Listen! and now we can perceive
The House of Wine, the drifting scent.
11
When two convivial Goblets kiss
We hear the chiming jal-tarang;
The Girl with tinkling ornaments
Moving creates a Veena’s twang;
Sometimes the Pakhavaj is heard
When riot earns reproachful word;
And thus the Wine can fire our hearts
Sooner amid the lively clang.
12
Studded with gems, the Cup is held
In red-stained palm; and on her head
The golden-sunburnt Maiden wears
A scarf of silk like Wine, deep red;
The Guests are bright in varied hue
In purple turbans, gowns or blue;
Here, rivalling the stormy bow,
The spectrum of the House is spread.
13
Reluctantly the Cup will come
Into your hands, and at the brink
All woman-like, the Wine retreats
Before the longing lips may drink
Often before she tilts the vial
The Saki mocks with soft denial;
Be not surprised, O traveler,
When House and Handmaid seem to shrink.
14
This Wine resembles fire, and yet
Do not refer to it as flame
Nor call the bubbles at the brim
Blisters of frustrated love and shame:
Where your dead memories serve and languish
This Wine will make you drunk with anguish;
And can a man take pleasure thus,
My House of Wine is for that same.
15
My Goblet is not cool, O Guest,
Nor is it cooling Wine within;
Refreshment dwells not here, as in
The Cups and Wine that worldlings win!
The Cup, my heart of hot desire!
My burning words, the Wine of fire!
And he is welcome to my House
Who does not fear a scalded skin!
16
Behold, the Wine is blazing now
Which we, the Guests, have seen in flow;
The Goblet will not cool your lips
But burn them with its ardent glow;
Yet give two drops! for such my yearning
I care not though my bones are burning!
The drunkards who must haunt this House
Are those who were created so.
17
He who has calcined all the creeds
With fire from his burning breast,
Who quits the temple, mosque and church
A drunken heretic, unblest,
Who sees the snares, and now comes running
From Pandit’s, Priest’s and Mullah’s cunning,
He, and he only, shall today
Be in my House a welcome Guest.
18
Who has not kissed with trembling lips
The juice of apple-tree and vine,
Who, drinking, has not felt such joy
That trembling was its outward sign.
Who has not drawn the Maiden, blushing,
Close and then closer still to crushing,
Wasting his fragile House of Life
Has never known the House of Wine.
19
The Saki seems to pray; the Wine
Seems water drawn at Ganga’s brink;
Like prayers upon a rosary
I hear the Goblets when they clink;
This is a mantra we are chanting,
“Thake this!” “take more!”—by which enchanting
Shiva incarnate moves in me,
This House his temple where I drink.
20
The temple gongs hung mute and still,
The image sat, unwreathed with rose,
And the Muezzin locked the mosque
And stayed at home for his repose;
The royal treasury and tower
Were robbed and razed by hostile powers;
The Guests were drinking in the House,
The House of Wine that would not close.
21
Great houses fail for heirs, until
None of their name is left to moan;
Palaces where the Handmaid danced
Stand joyless; hollow and alone;
Kingdoms collapse in anarchy
And kings may lose their destiny;
But men will always drink, and thus
My House is never overthrown.
22
Death as the Handmaid will remain
When earth and sky to crumbling quake;
The springs of feeling fail, but Wine
And poison flow, our thirst to slake;
Although there is no festive laughter,
Unknown the ways of the Hereafter,
On burning ghats and in my House
Something will still remain awake.
23
Because the Goblem moves and leaps
Like youth, the world is cold with scorn;
It hates the reckless drunken one,
Her whom bright paint and gilt adorn;
No one in harmony has seen them!
There was no love-match made between them!
The world grows old, the House of Wine
Is fresh, eternally reborn.
24
Who has not tasted Wine at all
In this my House, will mock. He raves.
But once he tastes, those lips are locked;
Rebellious once, he falters, craves
The Wine and Goblet like the others;
Rebels and slaves are then as brothers;
My House has overcome the world
And all mankind shall be its slaves.
25
The Wine-shop welcomes cheerfully;
The world is chilly outside air;
And in its fog, Muharram lowers
While here the fires of Holi flare;
Wine knows no earthly troubles, given
Direct, unstained, from highest heaven;
Plaints of Muharram fill the world
But Id is celebrated there.
Lately, I’ve become accustomed to the way
The ground opens up and envelopes me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus…
Things have come to that.
And now, each night I count the stars.
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.
Nobody sings anymore.
And then last night I tiptoed up
To my daughter’s room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there…
Only she on her knees, peeking into
Her own clasped hands
In honor of the Mexican holiday, Constitution Day, we present this work by one of Mexico’s great poets.
When you will be gone
The shadows will envelop me,
When you will be gone,
I will be alone with my pain.
I will evoke this idyll
During my blue hours
When you will be gone
The shadows will envelop me.
And in the darkness
Of the small bedroom
Where during a warm afternoon
I stroked all of you
My arms will look for you
My mouth will kiss you
And I will inhale from the air
That smell of roses.
When you will be gone
The shadows will envelop me.
In the dim light of the crescent moon,
I strode the high hills of Ercildoune.
Through the lakes and the waters’ song
Soft words they whispered ‘Buninyong’.
In honor of National Freedom Day, we present this work by a poet who had her freedom taken from her.
I
Lo! for this dark terrestrial ball
Forsakes his azure-paved hall
A prince of heav’nly birth!
Divine Humanity behold,
What wonders rise, what charms unfold
At his descent to earth!
II
The bosoms of the great and good
With wonder and delight he view’d,
And fix’d his empire there:
Him, close compressing to his breast,
The sire of gods and men address’d,
“My son, my heav’nly fair!
III
“Descend to earth, there place thy throne;
“To succour man’s afflicted son
“Each human heart inspire:
“To act in bounties unconfin’d
“Enlarge the close contracted mind,
“And fill it with thy fire.”
IV
Quick as the word, with swift career
He wings his course from star to star,
And leaves the bright abode.
The Virtue did his charms impart;
Their G—! then thy raptur’d heart
Perceiv’d the rushing God:
V
For when thy pitying eye did see
The languid muse in low degree,
Then, then at thy desire
Descended the celestial nine;
O’er me methought they deign’d to shine,
And deign’d to string my lyre.
VI
Can Afric’s muse forgetful prove?
Or can such friendship fail to move
A tender human heart?
Immortal Friendship laurel-crown’d
The smiling Graces all surround
With ev’ry heav’nly Art.
Whether we like it or not,
We have only three choices:
Yesterday, today and tomorrow.
And not even three
Because as the philosopher says
Yesterday is yesterday
It belongs to us only in memory:
From the rose already plucked
No more petals can be drawn.
The cards to play
Are only two:
The present and the future.
And there aren’t even two
Because it’s a known fact
The present doesn’t exist
Except as it edges past
And is consumed…,
like youth.
In the end
We are only left with tomorrow.
I raise my glass
To the day that never arrives.
But that is all
we have at our disposal.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 130th birthday.
Now I’ve come to know—
I am a woman of weakness.
My soft beauty of winds
Makes me lose to everyone.
But why does my heart
Itself grows so tender?
And why do my dusky eyes
Well up suddenly with tears?
To lose myself fully,
To trust the shades of a tall tree,
To lie down there silently,
Why do my longings grow in the web of love?
Woman, you are love incarnated
Under the silver mountain of faith.
Keep on flowing like a river of nectar
On the beautiful bed of life.
I always remember your beautiful flowers
And the beautiful kimono you wore
When you sat on the couch
With that tigerish crouch
And told me you loved me no more.
What I cannot remember is how I felt when you were unkind
All I know is, if you were unkind now I should not mind.
Ah me, the power to feel exaggerated, angry and sad
The years have taken from me. Softly I go now, pad pad.
Those who painted my portrait painted me
With cup in hand
When they saw I was drunk on the wine of love,
They drew me as a drunkard
If the zâhid were wise, he wouldn’t ask me
to give up pleasure
What a shame! They have portrayed me as crazy,
and him as sane!
What you see in the eye of the lover
in not the shadow of her eyelash
They have drawn the darkness of her cheek-down
onto the white of the weeping eye
I am that lover whose fame in humility
has taken the entire city
Those who wrote the story of Mejnûn
have written it in vain!
Oh Nef’î, from the way you speak we see
Yyur heart is burning
When they write your verse, their pens
shall burst in flame!
Poets Corner 