January, 2014
Words
POSTED IN contemporary poetry January 19, 2014
Words
We are so interconnected,
not just you and I,
but everyone in the world,
that most of the time
our words interfere
with those connections.
In our silence,
we recognize one another,
no matter
where we live
in time or space,
no matter
our personalities or cultures.
In our words,
we create names
and assign quantities
that veil us from one another.
Garnet Shaw Robbie
Games of Solitaire
POSTED IN contemporary poetry January 18, 2014
Games of Solitaire
Amid the salmon and the apricot
dipped in a bowl of midnight ink,
Your tongue cuts to the quick
spelling out the fable upon which
you tell me I have set the table
of my life’s journey:
You speak of mysteries beckoning
an audience with me
but my dreams line games of
solitaire between orange moons
hung stealthily in the african sky:
I wonder which equinox it was
you first discovered my soul sleeping
soundly on the slatted kitkat bench
and moved on into the silence
so as not to wake a sleeping universe?
I remember your passing
this way once before
It was a twilight heart of Cabaret Voltaire
The dish had runaway with the silver spoon
and I midstep
a Cha-Cha with Appolinaire
caught your shadow kissing Time
and heard you whisper
“she.
is mine!
Guillaume and I played cards till morning
and found a sunrise dressed for War!
The blood cycle
left front doors well-dressed
and troubled.
Minds and art fled to meagre exiles.
Fixed on other tongues
You forgot her name
and caution:
blood thirst monologues
drove you underground
a warlord ravaging your soul
A Tale of Two Cities,
shredded across your bed,
raided your enemies
trivia hunted you down in
a fine-fisted cranium full of threats.
but the memory sat cross-legged
upon your heart and the dearth of uneasy slaughter;
her seagreen eyes reflected piecemeal
arrows in your soul: melancholy stole the text
and read to you
of an undressed Sargasso Sea
wherein you saw her again
play games of solitaire with an ancient man
they used to call Apollinaire…
redroom.com/member/renee–sigel
Renée Sigel
Without Me
POSTED IN contemporary poetry January 18, 2014
Without Me
I made a promise to myself – To become famous:
Not for money, but for Art….
The wanting has grown long sinuous roots and become Ancient;
a deep tree from which Words Cascade – brief and delicate.
Springblossoms breathlessly summon parables,
Settling as dust does on one’s skin; unfolding
an Unforgettable gaze of beautiful eyes.
I will not let you go.
You promised me the art of the possible
I gave you desires enough to fill the Universe.
Intimacy?
An engrossing challenge for a world in which it now
Plays to virtual galleries –
A meditative climax: No more than the trading of stenches
Kinships crafted by a shared toothbrush…
You approach heartbreak with a precision tool
And inseparably utter the cascading syntax
Of an emotional truth: You cannot love me.
It is an absurd discourse of alienation,
which collapses between squeezed embraces of relative strangers-
On what are relative matters of love and
Endurance!
Full blooded, full-bodied and lascivious with Rage,
Step with me into the twilight of kisses, where conjugating
A mental breakdown, we may taste each other’s authenticity
– Just one more time.
I am not afraid of death, not afraid of that fractured blue hour of Being;
Incarcerated at birth, I was caught by Life and dangled: a
Cameo fiction between image and idea
– A feast for photographers of moral disaster.
We all carry with us portable kisses, sunk to the bottom of haphazard intentions;
Unclothed, even God would want the Emperor’s new clothes…
What are you looking for?
Me?
I was re-issued on double-cassette and got sifted out with the rest
Of life’s technological redundancies –
I have given up Staying Alive just as
Others have given up cigarettes.
You’re laughable with your misdemeanours and
European imagination.
I prefer death from poverty.
I have no voice remotely connected to the human heart.
What’s done is done in life’s book of love.
Marauding, unearthing – ours is a dying language
Yet, I will eat your sins
Were you to promise:
“To never live Without Me?”
http://redroom.com/member/renee-sigel/writing
Renée Sigel
The Muse
POSTED IN contemporary poetry January 17, 2014
The Muse
To find a holy one upon my path,
to see a vision that transforms me,
to hear a muse within my soul
speak until I must, at last,
gain freedom from the poet’s wrath.
Garnet Shaw Robbie
To Mrs. M.B. On Her Birthday
POSTED IN classic poetry January 17, 2014
To Mrs. M.B. On Her Birthday
Oh be thou blest with all that Heav’n can send,
Long Health, long Youth, long Pleasure, and a Friend:
Not with those Toys the female world admire,
Riches that vex, and Vanities that tire.
With added years if Life bring nothing new,
But, like a Sieve, let ev’ry blessing thro’,
Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o’er,
And all we gain, some sad Reflection more;
Is that a Birth-Day? ’tis alas! too clear,
‘Tis but the funeral of the former year.
Let Joy or Ease, let Affluence or Content,
And the gay Conscience of a life well spent,
Calm ev’ry thought, inspirit ev’ry grace.
Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face.
Let day improve on day, and year on year,
Without a Pain, a Trouble, or a Fear;
Till Death unfelt that tender frame destroy,
In some soft Dream, or Extasy of joy,
Peaceful sleep out the Sabbath of the Tomb,
And wake to Raptures in a Life to come.
Alexander Pope
Kevättä / Primavara
POSTED IN translated Finnish-Romanian January 16, 2014
Kevättä
Eräs on – on eräs – eräs on,
lahja liian rikas kohtalon,
eräs, jonka vuosi katu tää
rakas on ja rakkahaksi jää.
Viheriöi, oksa keväinen!
Viheriöi, pyydän, rukoilen!
Kuule: kasvat kadun varrella,
jota eräs saattaa kulkea.
Puhkee kukkiin, oksa vihreä!
Ilahutajoka sydäntä
kevättuoksuasi tulvien
mutta erästä, ah, eniten.
Eila Kivikkaho
Primavara
Este unul – unul – numai unul.
Dar ce mi l-a dat Destinul bunul.
Unul, pentru care strada vaga
draga este, si ramane draga.
Inverzeste creanga-n primavara!
Te implor, te rog , fii verde iara!
Haide, cresti la margine de strada
poate “unul” meu o sa te vada!
Infloreste creanga verde cruda!
Fiecare inima surada.
Varsa crud miros de Primavara.
Pentru “unul” meu fii verde iara.
Traducere in Limba romana Maria Magdalena Biela
Kevättä / Springtime
POSTED IN translated Finnish-English January 16, 2014
Kevättä
Eräs on – on eräs – eräs on,
lahja liian rikas kohtalon,
eräs, jonka vuosi katu tää
rakas on ja rakkahaksi jää.
Viheriöi, oksa keväinen!
Viheriöi, pyydän, rukoilen!
Kuule: kasvat kadun varrella,
jota eräs saattaa kulkea.
Puhkee kukkiin, oksa vihreä!
Ilahutajoka sydäntä
kevättuoksuasi tulvien
mutta erästä, ah, eniten.
Eila Kivikkaho
Springtime
There is one and only one there is,
gift too rich from my Fate quite a tease
One, because of whom, this humble street.
Dear it is and dear will be heartbeat.
Blossom green, you, springly branch fragile!
Blossom green, I beg you, for a while!
Listen: you are growing near the street
where one day the only one you will meet.
Dress with flowers, branch forever green!
Delight every heart with spring unseen
before your crude, vernal scent is gone!
Yet, oh, most of all, delight the One!
English version by Maria Magdalena Biela
Roman
POSTED IN classic poetry January 16, 2014
Roman
On n’est pas sérieux, quand on a dix-sept ans.
– Un beau soir, foin des bocks et de la limonade,
Des cafés tapageurs aux lustres éclatants !
– On va sous les tilleuls verts de la promenade.
Les tilleuls sentent bon dans les bons soirs de juin !
L’air est parfois si doux, qu’on ferme la paupière ;
Le vent chargé de bruits – la ville n’est pas loin –
A des parfums de vigne et des parfums de bière….
II
-Voilà qu’on aperçoit un tout petit chiffon
D’azur sombre, encadré d’une petite branche,
Piqué d’une mauvaise étoile, qui se fond
Avec de doux frissons, petite et toute blanche…
Nuit de juin ! Dix-sept ans ! – On se laisse griser.
La sève est du champagne et vous monte à la tête…
On divague ; on se sent aux lèvres un baiser
Qui palpite là, comme une petite bête….
III
Le coeur fou Robinsonne à travers les romans,
Lorsque, dans la clarté d’un pâle réverbère,
Passe une demoiselle aux petits airs charmants,
Sous l’ombre du faux col effrayant de son père…
Et, comme elle vous trouve immensément naïf,
Tout en faisant trotter ses petites bottines,
Elle se tourne, alerte et d’un mouvement vif….
– Sur vos lèvres alors meurent les cavatines…
IV
Vous êtes amoureux. Loué jusqu’au mois d’août.
Vous êtes amoureux. – Vos sonnets La font rire.
Tous vos amis s’en vont, vous êtes mauvais goût.
– Puis l’adorée, un soir, a daigné vous écrire…!
– Ce soir-là,… – vous rentrez aux cafés éclatants,
Vous demandez des bocks ou de la limonade..
– On n’est pas sérieux, quand on a dix-sept ans
Et qu’on a des tilleuls verts sur la promenade.
Arthur Rimbaud
The Stolen Child
POSTED IN classic poetry January 16, 2014
The Stolen Child
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we’ve hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he’s going,
The solemn-eyed:
He’ll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than he can understand.
W.B. Yeats
Brucia la Terra
POSTED IN classic poetry January 12, 2014
Brucia la terra
Brucia la luna n’cielu
E ju bruciu d’amuri
Focu ca si consuma
Comu lu me cori
L’anima chianci
Addulurata
Non si da paci
Ma cchi mala nuttata
Lu tempu passa
Ma non agghiorna
Non c’e mai suli
S’idda non torna
Brucia la terra mia
E abbrucia lu me cori
Cchi siti d’acqua idda
E ju siti d’amuri
Acu la cantu
La me canzuni
Si no c’e nuddu
Ca s’a affacia
A lu barcuni
Brucia la luna n’cielu
E ju bruciu d’amuri
Focu ca si consuma
Comu lu me cori
L’anima chianci
Addulurata
Non si da paci
Ma cchi mala nuttata
Lu tempu passa
Ma non agghiorna
Non c’e mai suli
S’idda non torna
Sicilian Ballad
