That was such a beautiful poem, Stormy!
thanks for sharing!
tink
************************************************************
The Guy You Work With What you want more than anything
is to grab the zebra in your jaws.
Forget the job. Forget teamwork.
Roll the nature film,
You''ve seen your neighbor
in his flashy car.
You've heard the whispers
of bonuses for others
delivered behind locked doors
like secret Mason handshakes.
You just need five minutes or so
of stalking in the dry Savannah grass.
And then one good sniff of your prey
nibbling weeds by a small lagoon.
What better than a slow creep
up behind that unknowing striped back
as deliberate as sharpening a pencil.
And then the pounce,
the real law of the jungle,
you with your fangs around its rump,
it braying in agonizing terror.
What you want from life
is to trot back to your den in triumph,
zebra intestine flapping in your jaw
like spaghetti.
So they don't pay you as much as the next guy.
You're at the point now
that if they paid you in zebras
that would be enough.
John Grey ************************************************************
In Salutation to the Eternal Peace Men say the world is full of fear and hate,
And all life's ripening harvest-fields await
The restless sickle of relentless fate.
But I, sweet Soul, rejoice that I was born,
When from the climbing terraces of corn
I watch the golden orioles of Thy morn.
What care I for the world's desire and pride,
Who know the silver wings that gleam and glide,
The homing pigeons of Thine eventide?
What care I for the world's loud weariness,
Who dream in twilight granaries Thou dost bless
With delicate sheaves of mellow silences?
Say, shall I heed dull presages of doom,
Or dread the rumoured loneliness and gloom,
The mute and mythic terror of the tomb?
For my glad heart is drunk and drenched with Thee,
O inmost wind of living ecstasy!
O intimate essence of eternity!
Sarojini Naidu ***********************************************************
Answers I keep my answers small and keep them near;
Big questions bruised my mind but still I let
Small answers be a bulwark to my fear.
The huge abstractions I keep from the light;
Small things I handled and caressed and loved.
I let the stars assume the whole of night.
But the big answers clamoured to be moved
Into my life. Their great audacity
Shouted to be acknowledged and believed.
Even when all small answers build up to
Protection of my spirit, I still hear
Big answers striving for their overthrow
And all the great conclusions coming near.
Elizabeth Jennings***********************************************************
A Green Cornfield The earth was green, the sky was blue:
I saw and heard one sunny morn
A skylark hang betweent he two,
A singing speck above the corn;
A stage below, in gay accord,
White butterflies danced on the wing,
And still the singing skylark soared,
And silent sank and soared to sing.
The cornfield stretched a tender green
To right and left beside my walks;
I knew he had a nest unseen
Somewhere among the million stalks.
And as I paused to hear his song
While swift the sunny moments slid,
Perhaps his mate sat listening long,
And listened longer than I did.
Christina Rossetti***********************************************************
When Earth's Last Picture Is Painted When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it -- lie down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.
And those that were good shall be happy; they shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets' hair.
They shall find real saints to draw from -- Magdalene, Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!
And only The Master shall praise us, and only The Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They are!
Rudyard Kipling ***********************************************************
NOW, MY CO-MATES AND BROTHERS IN EXILE Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old customs make this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court!
Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,
The seasons difference; as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winters wind,
Which when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
This is no flattery; these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.
Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
I would not change it.
William Shakespeare***********************************************************
Debussy My shadow glides in silence
over the watercourse.
On account of my shadow
the frogs are deprived of stars.
The shadow sends my body
reflections of quiet things.
My shadow moves like a huge
violet-colored mosquito.
A hundred crickets are trying
to gild the glow of the reeds.
A glow arises in my breast,
the one mirrored in the water.
Federico Garcia Lorca Spanish TranslationDebussy Mi sombra va silenciosa
por el agua de la acecia.
Por mi sombra están las ranas
privadas de las estrellas.
La sombra manda a mi cuerpo
reflejos de cosas quietas.
Mi sombra va como inmenso
cínife color violeta.
Cien grillos quieren dorar
la luz de la cañavera.
Una luz nace en mi pecho,
reflejado, de la acequia.
Federico Garcia Lorca ***********************************************************
The Art of Poetry To gaze at a river made of time and water
and remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.
To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.
To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.
To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadnesssuch is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.
Sometimes at evening there's a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.
They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.
Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.
Jorge Luis Borges ***********************************************************
DISCURSO DE EVA Hoy te saludo brutalmente:
con un golpe de tos
o una patada.
¿Dónde te metes,
a dónde huyes con tu caja loca
de corazones,
con el reguero de pólvora que tienes?
¿Dónde vives:
en la fosa en que caen todos los sueños
o en esa telaraña donde cuelgan
los huérfanos de padre?
Te extraño,
¿sabes?
como a mí misma
o a los milagros que no pasan.
Te extraño,
¿sabes?
Quisiera persuadirte no sé de qué alegría,
de qué cosa imprudente.
¿Cuándo vas a venir?
Tengo una prisa por jugar a nada,
por decirte: «mi vida»
y que los truenos nos humillen
y las naranjas palidezcan en tu mano.
Tengo unas ganas locas de mirarte al fondo
y hallar velos
y humo,
que, al fin, parece en llama.
De verdad que te quiero,
pero inocentemente,
como la bruja clara donde pienso.
De verdad que no te quiero,
pero inocentemente,
como el ángel embaucado que soy.
Te quiero,
no te quiero.
Sortearemos estas palabras
y una que triunfe será la mentirosa.
Amor...
( ¿Qué digo? estoy equivocada,
aquí quise decir que ya te odio. )
¿Por qué no vienes?
¿Cómo es posible
que me dejes pasar sin compromiso con el fuego?
¿Cómo es posible que seas austral
y paranoico
y renuncies a mí?
Estarás leyendo los periódicos
o cruzando
por la muerte
y la vida.
Estarás con tus problemas de acústica y de ingle,
inerte,
desgraciado,
entreteniéndote en una aspiración del luto.
Y yo que te deshielo,
que te insulto,
que te traigo un jacinto desplomado;
yo que te apruebo la melancolía;
yo que te convoco
a las sales del cielo,
yo que te zurzo:
¿qué?
¿Cuándo vas a matarme a salivazos,
héroe?
¿Cuándo vas a molerme otra vez bajo la lluvia?
¿Cuándo?
¿Cuándo vas a llamarme pajarito
y puta?
¿Cuándo vas a maldecirme?
¿Cuándo?
Mira que pasa el tiempo,
el tiempo,
el tiempo, I
y ya no se me aparecen ni los duendes,
y ya no entiendo los paraguas,
y cada vez soy más sincera,
augusta...
Si te demoras,
si se te hace un nudo y no me encuentras,
vas a quedarte ciego;
si no vuelves ahora: infame, imbécil, torpe, idiota,
voy a llamarme nunca.
Ayer soñé que mientras nos besábamos
había sonado un tiro
y que ninguno de los dos soltamos la esperanza.
Este es un amor
de nadie;
lo encontramos perdido,
náufrago,
en la calle.
Entre tú y yo lo recogimos para ampararlo.
Por eso, cuando nos mordemos,
de noche,
tengo como un miedo de madre a quien dejaste sola.
Pero no importa,
bésame,
otra vez y otra vez
para encontrarme.
Ajústate a mi cintura,
vuelve;
sé mi animal,
muéveme.
Destilaré la vida que me sobra,
los niños condenados.
Dormiremos como homicidas que se salvan
atados por una flor incomparable.
Ya la mañana siguiente cuando cante el gallo
seremos la naturaleza
y me pareceré a tus hijos en la cama.
Vuelve, vuelve.
Atraviésame a rayos.
Hazme otra vez una llave turca.
Pondremos el tocadiscos para sIempre.
Ven con tu nuca de infiel,
con tu pedrada.
Júrame que no estoy muerta.
Te prometo, amor mío, la manzana.
Carilda Oliver LabraEve's Discourse, English Translation Today, I brutally greet you
with a grunt
or a kick.
Where are you hiding,
where have you fled with your wild box
full of hearts,
and your stream of gunpowder?
Where are you now;
in the ditch where all dreams are finally tossed,
or in the jungle's spidery web
where fatherless children dangle?
I miss you,
you know I do--
as myself
or the miracles that never happen--
you know I do?
I'd like to entice you with a joy I've never known,
an imprudent affair.
When will you come to me?
I'm anxious to play no games,
to confide to you: "my life"--
to let thunder humble us
to let oranges pale in your hand.
I want to search your depths
and find veils
and smoke,
that will vanish at last in flame.
I love you truly
but innocently
as the transparent enchantress of my thoughts,
but, truly, I don't love you,
though innocently
as the confused angel that I am.
I love you,
but I don't love you.
I gamble with these words
and the winner shall be the liar.
Love!. . .
(What am I saying? I'm mistaken,
because here, I wanted to write, I hate you.)
Why won't you come to me?
How is it possible
you let me pass by without requiting our fire?
How is it possible you're so distant, so paranoid
that you deny me?
You're reading the newspapers
passing through
death
and life.
You're with your problems
of groans and groin,
listless,
humiliated,
entertaining yourself with an aspiration to mourning.
Even though I'm melting you,
even though I insult you,
bring you a wilted hyacinth
approve your melancholy;
call forth the salt of heaven,
stitch you into being:
what?
When are you going to murder me with your spit,
hero?
When are you going to overwhelm me again beneath the rain?
When?
When are you going to call me your little bird,
your whore?
When are you going to profane me?
When?
Beware time that passes,
time,
time!
Not even your ghosts appear to me now,
and I no longer understand umbrellas?
Every day, I become more honest with myself,
magnificently noble. . .
If you delay,
if you hesitate and don't search for me,
you'll be blinded;
if you don't return now,
infidel, idiot, dummy, fool,
I'll count myself nothing.
Yesterday, I dreamt that while we were kissing,
a shooting star exploded
and neither of us gave up hope.
This love of ours
belongs to no one;
We found it lost,
stranded
in the street.
Between us we saved it, sheltered it.
Because of that, when we swallow each other
in the night,
I feel like a frightened mother left
alone.
It doesn't matter,
kiss me again and over again
to come to me.
Press yourself against my waist,
come to me again;
be my warm animal again,
move me, again.
I'll purify my leftover life,
the lives of condemned children.
We'll sleep like murderers
who've saved themselves
by bonding together in incomparable blossoming.
And in the morning when the rooster crows,
we will be nature, herself.
I'll appear like your child asleep in her cradle.
Come back to me, come back,
penetrate me with lightening,
Bend me to your will.
We'll turn the record player on forever.
Bring me that unfaithful nape of your neck,
the blow of your stone.
Show me I haven't died,
my love, and I promise you the apple.
Carilda Oliver Labra************************************************************
Biography The window born of a desire for sky
has stationed itself in the black wall like an angel:
it's friend to man,
a carrier of air.
It converses with pools of the earth,
with childlike mirrors of houses,
and tiled roofs on strike.
From high up, windows,
with their diaphanous diatribes,
face the multitudes.
The maestro window
diffuses its light into the night.
It extracts the square root of a meteor,
totals columns of constellations.
The window is the gunwale of earth's ship;
a surf of clouds peacefully surrounds it.
The captain Spirit, eyes washed
by blue tempests, searches for the island of God.
The window distributes to everyone
a quart of light, a bucket of air.
The window, plowed by clouds,
is the small property of the sky.
Jorge Carrera Andrade
