We present this work in honor of the Japanese holiday, Marine Day.
Scattered and drifted are
The leaves from the trees, and beneath is
A forgotten stream
How unclear it seems,
Appearing only now and then…
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 570th birthday.
Maidens, I found myself one morn serene
Of middle May within a garden green.
Violets bloomed round about and lilies too
In verdant grass and buds of every hue,
Azure and gold and purest white and red,
Whereat to gather them my fingers sped,
That I might deck therewith my flaxen hair
And weave a garland for my forehead fair
But when I’d well-night culled a lapful, lo,
I saw the roses multi-coloured, so
I ran to fill my skirts with them and they
Breathed such rare fragrancy that straight away
I felt awaken in this heart of mine
Tender desire and happiness divine.
To savour the sweet roses I was fain,
But to describe their loveliness were vain;
Some I beheld just bursting into flower,
Some still in bud, some who had spent their dower:
Then Love said unto me: “Go, gather them
Thou seest most sweetly blooming on the stem!”
When the rose every petal doth unfold,
When she is tenderest, fairest to behold,
Before her loveliness hath passed its prime,
To set her in a garland it is time.
So, maidens, let us go and pull the rose
When she most sweetly in the garden blows.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 150th birthday.
‘I charge thee, fling away Ambition.’ Thus
The puling Cardinal at Fortune’s end,
To Cromwell, daring still to be his friend,
Gave counsel futile. Nay, calamitous,
If men unwisely heeded. Dolorous
And flat this life of ours, could we not bend
Our energies with honour, and contend
For pride of place with those ahead of us.
Had Hobbs in mid career cried, ‘Hold enough;
The Doctor’s record cannot be o’erpassed,’
‘Ambition should be made of sterner stuff,’
Had well been said. Stand cricketers aghast
At this new record? Fie, I cry you, Shame!
Come, take your centre, bid for greater fame!
We present this work in honor of The Twelfth.
Stella and Flavia every hour
Do various hearts surprise;
In Stella’s soul lies all her power,
And Flavia’s in her eyes.
More boundless Flavia’s conquests are.
And Stella’s more confin’d;
All can discern a face that’s fair,
But few a lovely mind.
Stella, like Britain’s monarchs, reigns
O’er cultivated lands;
Like eastern tyrants Flavia deigns
To rule o’er barren sands.
Then boast not, Flavia, thy fair face,
Thy beauty’s only store;
Thy charms will every day decrease,
Each day gives Stella more.
We present this work in honor of the 420th anniversary of the poet’s death.
My charming murderer,
So quick to wound, but slow in healing me,
After a sighing vain,
A yearning, an insane delirium,
More handsome than ever turned his glance on me,
Then, like lightning, fled.
Thus my eyes he bedazzled—broke my heart.
Gracious Jesus, King of Zion,
Give thy help, give thy peace
To travel rightly the roads of the city
While I am this side of the grave.
Catch my head when I come to die,
Keep your gaze upon the land
That I was given with a promise
With the Father’s full contentment.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 110th birthday.
In the land of Longago we learned in books
To recognize a hero by his looks
Hector and Achilles and the rest
With hams and biceps of enormous girth
And measured tread that sounding shook the earth
And brow of brass and buckle-bursting chest.
So different these whom no descending god
Begot nor goddess succours as they plod
North through the ruins in a wool-soft rain,
Nineteen-year-olds, round-cheeked, whose innocent eyes
See danger with indifferent surprise.
The guns’ concussion jars the windowpane.
The sergeant-major chivvies them along,
Stolid and swift they march without a song
Bent stiffly forward underneath the load.
“Hector and Troy are gone beyond recall,
Perhaps there are no heroes after all.”
So thought we, staring up the muddy road.
We present this work in honor of Muharram.
When I saw Dawn come
shaking dew from her clear brow
I said to my love:
“I’m afraid the sun will discover
our secret,” but she said,
“Please God that my brother
not discover me!”
Translation by Cola Franzen
April 22nd. Incompetent
It’s seven o’clock:
throw two trash bags from the balcony.
Turn on the oven for the Middle Eastern food
and the book of Go down to the end of the night:
to the friend that dies at the hands of a madwoman,
nobody feels like closing his eyelids.
*
April 29th. Drinking spoiled wine
The fridge has always brought on
the passions that overflow the schedule.
The list disagrees with her stomach
that presupposes one problem per can:
the milk for the night, the cheese for the pillow,
the soy for the martyrdom of
the nation is inaugurated in us, the servants
*
May 1st. Wants to jump
There is a need to be clear
a voice that is as mature as it
is floating because the ball is rubber,
it resists when it’s pushed under water.
*
May 24th
Tomorrow is a holiday: the way the species suffers with
a snack, offers evidence.
There is no
pure milk and there is no bread:
The loneliness of the spirit
has hypotonic ideas.
*
May 25th
The epigonal holiday curses us
like a worn stanza
little revelations in the shape of a fold,
poorly sewn, compelling the shirt:
that time when the power went out and they didn’t propose
to use candles and crayons to paint,
the melancholy of making collages with magazines,
scissors and coating samples,
a family with aspirations of changing
the kitchen table set
*
June 24th. To polish, to scratch
He wipes with a cloth,
he makes symmetrical the wet parts that he wipes with the cloth
but leaves crumbs
every time he grabs a cookie.
Already at nine, he felt life
wasn’t going to make him less nervous.
Not knowing how to enjoy things is a slow blow, and he’s blind
the guest who does not even contribute
a pound of noodles per week
*
July 7th. We don’t live in the country
Each bus that goes by with its injury
wants to repeat with its engine:
“it’s not gonna happen,
no truck is going to kidnap us,”
that won’t take place without the body of the future.
The goat cannot be revived.
She died while we were biting the grass.
Translation by Carlos Soto Román
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 135th birthday.
I walk now questioning my steps:
maybe the earth can tell me my fate,
and only in a stormy wind
the double embrace of all parts of the lasso
it will be like a reunion for me.
And I will search no more for the fading
route of dreams, towards the setting sun.
Like the earth I have given my flower;
but I can still feel hurt
for the rod that wakes me up with its sound.
Poets Corner 