April, 2013
I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
POSTED IN classic poetry April 30, 2013
I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there; and let him thence escape
If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape
Flood, fire, and demon — his adroit designs
Will strain to nothing in the strict confines
Of this sweet order, where, in pious rape,
I hold his essence and amorphous shape,
Till he with Order mingles and combines.
Past are the hours, the years of our duress,
His arrogance, our awful servitude:
I have him. He is nothing more nor less
Than something simple not yet understood;
I shall not even force him to confess;
Or answer. I will only make him good.Edna St. Vincent Millay
Hyvää yötä / Noapte buna
POSTED IN translated Finnish-Romanian April 28, 2013
| Hyvää yötä
Vine clipa asteptata, Bune nopti trimit spre tine, Ceasul beznei e curand, |
Noapte buna
Saapuu hetki toivottuni, Hyvät yöni heitän sulle, Jo on hetki pilkko-pimeen; |
L. Onerva
Romanian version by Magdalena Biela
If / Jos
POSTED IN translated English-Finnish April 28, 2013
|
If If you can keep your head when all about you if you can dream – and not make dreams your master; if you can make one heap of all your winnings if you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, |
Jos Jos säilytät sun pääsi, kun kaikki ympärilläs’ jos haaveilet, mut’ ei johda sinua haveet jos uskallat vain heittää voittosi yhteen kasaan jos puhut ihmisille ja pysyt puhtaana |
RUDYARD KIPLING
Finnish version by Magdalena Biela
I Don’t Know How Many Souls I Have
POSTED IN classic poetry April 25, 2013
I don’t know how many souls I have.
I’ve changed at every moment.
I always feel like a stranger.
I’ve never seen or found myself.
From being so much, I have only soul.
A man who has soul has no calm.
A man who sees is just what he sees.
A man who feels is not who he is.Attentive to what I am and see,
I become them and stop being I.
Each of my dreams and each desire
Belongs to whoever had it, not me.
I am my own landscape,
I watch myself journey—
Various, mobile, and alone.
Here where I am I can’t feel myself.That’s why I read, as a stranger,
My being as if it were pages.
Not knowing what will come
And forgetting what has passed,
I note in the margin of my reading
What I thought I felt.
Rereading, I wonder: “Was that me?”
God knows, because he wrote it.
Fernando Pessoa
one’s not half two. It’s two are halves of one
POSTED IN classic poetry April 25, 2013
one’s not half two. It’s two are halves of one:
which halves reintegrating, shall occur
no death and any quantity; but than
all numerable mosts the actual moreminds ignorant of stern miraculous
this every truth-beware of heartless them
(given the scalpel, they dissect a kiss;
or, sold the reason, they undream a dream)one is the song which fiends and angels sing:
all murdering lies by mortals told make two.
Let liars wilt, repaying life they’re loaned;
we(by a gift called dying born)must growdeep in dark least ourselves remembering
love only rides his year.
All lose, whole finde.e.cummings
WHY do we create a mask? Only to meet the mask of others?
The Fool Rings His Bells
POSTED IN classic poetry April 25, 2013
The Fool Rings His Bells
Come, Death, I’d have a word with thee;
And thou, poor Innocency;
And Love — a lad with broken wing;
And Pity, too;
The Fool shall sing to you,
As Fools will sing.
Ay, music hath small sense,
And a tune’s soon told,
And Earth is old,
And my poor wits are dense;
Yet have I secrets, — dark, my dear,
To breathe you all: Come near.
And lest some hideous listener tells,
I’ll ring my bells.
They’re all at war!
Yes, yes, their bodies go
‘Neath burning sun and icy star
To chaunted songs of woe,
Dragging cold cannon through a mud
Of rain and blood;
The new moon glinting hard on eyes
Wide with insanities.
Hush! . . . I use words
I hardly know the meaning of;
And the mute birds
Are glancing at Love!
From out their shade of leaf and flower,
Trembling at treacheries
Which even in noonday cower.
Heed, heed not what I said
Of frenzied hosts of men,
More fools than I,
On envy, hatred fed,
Who kill, and die —
Spake I not plainly, then?
Yet Pity whispered, “Why?”
Thou silly thing, off to thy daisies go.
Mine was not news for child to know,
And Death — no ears hath. He hath supped where creep
Eyeless worms in hush of sleep;
Yet, when he smiles, the hand he draws
Athwart his grinning jaws
Faintly their thin bones rattle, and . . . There, there;
Hearken how my bells in the air
Drive away care! . . .
Nay, but a dream I had
Of a world all mad.
Not a simple happy mad like me,
Who am mad like an empty scene
Of water and willow tree,
Where the wind hath been;
But that foul Satan-mad,
Who rots in his own head,
And counts the dead,
Not honest one — and two —
But for the ghosts they were,
Brave, faithful, true,
When, heads in air,
In Earth’s clear green and blue
Heaven they did share
With Beauty who bade them there. . . .
There, now! he goes —
Old Bones; I’ve wearied him.
Ay, and the light doth dim,
And asleep’s the rose,
And tired Innocence
In dreams is hence. . .
Come, Love, my lad,
Nodding that drowsy head,
‘T is time thy prayers were said!
by Walter de la Mare
Absolutely clear
POSTED IN classic poetry April 23, 2013
Absolutely Clear
Poet’ s Place
POSTED IN contemporary poetry April 22, 2013
Poet’ s PlaceThe heart is a sacred temple
In each and every thing
Where love is but a word
And words have no meaningIt is the door of the Absolute
The still Center of the Wheel
The silence of Eternal Om
The Place where eyes can’t seeIt is the heart that finally opens
When all other doors have closed
When grammar loses its savour
And there is nothing left to chooseThen knowing is but knowing
Faster than a beam of light
As reason follows behind
And poetry comes into sightDo not think the poet
Uses ways of clever men
The Poet is the speaker
Standing at the door to heaven
Answer To A Child’s Question
POSTED IN classic poetry April 18, 2013
Answer To A Child’s Question
Do you ask what the birds say? The sparrow, the dove,
The linnet, and thrush say, ‘I love and I love!’
In the winter they’re silent, the wind is so strong;
What it says I don’t know, but it sings a loud song.
But green leaves and blossoms, and sunny warm weather,
And singing, and loving, all come back together.
Then the lark is so brimful of gladness and love,
The green fields below him, the blue sky above,
That he sings, and he sings, and forever sings he–
‘I love my Love, and my Love loves me!’Samuel Taylor Coleridgeby Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Silver Willow Tree
POSTED IN contemporary poetry April 16, 2013
The Silver Willow Tree
when my soul is in pain and tears fall like rain
like a willow tree i bend but i don’t break ….
yet heaviness of strife causes my heart to ache
and darkness descends like an old familiar friend
i crawl back into the shadows to heal my ills
& within my mind’s eye a sliver of light appears
and a voice from without finds my inner ears …
… in silence it invades my space covers my face
opening up avenues of escape it reshapes …
a waning imagination creating new formations
releasing hope from within it becomes my friend
lifts the willow tree burden from the heavy rain
& the voice from without joins the one from within
reaches up to the heaven they begin to sang
… be ye not afraid of the heavy rain nor the pain
that it brings giving life to all dormant things …
Linda Jones Malonson
4/16/2013
Dedicated to Magdalena Biela
