watcheroo42
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Post by watcheroo42 on Feb 16, 2016 21:46:48 GMT -5
This one appropriate to the moment I think:
WINTER WIND
Rattling all the windows, tugging at the thatch, Rampaging around the house, can't quite lift the latch. Whistling through the soffits, luring us outside, But we’re cozy here indoors, by the fireside, Munching buttered crumpets, quaffing cocoa too - So bluster yourself inside out, make hullabaloo! Rage through apple orchard, shake and split the boughs, Swirl the leaves in vortices, round and round the house. Raise ructious commotion, vent pernicious spite, Dash the ships upon the rocks, douse the watchman's light; Whirl the sails of windmills, topple panel trucks. Drag the legs from under the trestle viaducts.
Transplant our old toolshed, uproot warning signs. Crash computer systems by downing power lines. Do your worst, you tempest, because, when you're done, With a myriad bursting buds spring will have begun.
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Post by beth on Feb 17, 2016 10:21:01 GMT -5
This one appropriate to the moment I think: WINTER WIND Rattling all the windows, tugging at the thatch, Rampaging around the house, can't quite lift the latch. Whistling through the soffits, luring us outside, But we’re cozy here indoors, by the fireside, Munching buttered crumpets, quaffing cocoa too - So bluster yourself inside out, make hullabaloo! Rage through apple orchard, shake and split the boughs, Swirl the leaves in vortices, round and round the house. Raise ructious commotion, vent pernicious spite, Dash the ships upon the rocks, douse the watchman's light; Whirl the sails of windmills, topple panel trucks. Drag the legs from under the trestle viaducts. Transplant our old toolshed, uproot warning signs. Crash computer systems by downing power lines. Do your worst, you tempest, because, when you're done, With a myriad bursting buds spring will have begun. This is as familiar to me as a song lyric. My mother was a big poetry fan so kept us supplied with books of poetry. This one was read over and over. Good memories! Do you know who wrote it?
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watcheroo42
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Post by watcheroo42 on Feb 18, 2016 14:41:27 GMT -5
I can't say Beth - I don't see it on the Internet. 'Panel trucks', 'computer systems' and 'warning signs' suggests it was written towards the end of the 20th century (or more recently).
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Post by beth on Feb 18, 2016 15:06:11 GMT -5
Yes, it does. The first two verses are the ones that strike a familiar chord with me. Oh well ... I'll file it away and keep a watch out for it.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Mar 27, 2016 15:26:22 GMT -5
This was written back in the days when the Nazis were the imminent danger to peace and freedom and civilisation.
To me it seems every bit as relevant now as it was then.
Written by one of the greatest ever English poets, David Gascoyne.
Ecce Homo
Whose is this horrifying face, This putrid flesh, discouloured, flayed, Fed on by flies, scorched by the sun? Whose are these hollow red-filmed eyes And thorn-spiked head and spear-stuck side? Behold the Man: He is Man’s Son.
Forget the legend, tear the decent veil That cowardice or interest devised To make their mortal enemy a friend, To hide the bitter truth all His wounds tell, Lest the great scandal be no more disguised: He is in agony till the world’s end,
And we must never sleep during that time! He is suspended on the cross-tree now And we are onlookers at the crime, Callous contemporaries of the slow Torture of God. Here is the hill Made ghastly by His spattered blood
Whereon He hangs and suffers still: See, the centurions wear riding-boots, Black shirts and badges and peaked caps, Greet one another with raised-arm salutes; They have cold eyes, unsmiling lips; Yet these His brothers know not what they do.
And on his either side hang dead A labourer and a factory hand, Or one is maybe a lynched Jew And one a Negro or a Red, Coolie or Ethiopian, Irishman, Spaniard or German democrat.
Behind his lolling head the sky Glares like a fiery cataract Red with the murders of two thousand years Committed in His name and by Crusaders, Christian warriors Defending faith and property.
Amid the plain beneath His transfixed hands, Exuding darkness as indelible As guilty stains, fanned by funereal And lurid airs, besieged by drifting sands And clefted landslides our about-to-tbe Bombed and abandoned cities stand.
He who wept for Jersualem Now sees His prophecy extend Across the greatest cities of the world, A guilty panic reason cannot stem Rising to raze them all as He foretold; And He must watch this drama to the end.
Though often named, He is unknown To the dark kingdoms at His feet Where everything disparages His words, And each man bears the common guilt alone And goes blindfolded to his fate, And fear and greed are sovereign lords.
The turning point of history Must come. Yet the complacent and the proud And who exploit and kill, may be denied, Christ of Revolution and of Poetry, The resurrection and the life Wrought by your spirit’s blood.
Involved in their own sophistry The black priest and the upright man Faced by subversive truth shall be struck dumb, Christ of Revolution and of Poetry, While the rejected and condemned become Agents of the divine.
Not from a monstrance silver-wrought But from the tree of human pain Redeem our sterile misery, Christ of Revolution and of Poetry, That man’s long journey May not have been in vain.
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Post by beth on Jul 3, 2016 22:05:22 GMT -5
Conjunctions by Neil Gaiman
Jupiter and Venus hung like grapes in the evening sky, frozen and untwinkling, You could have reached and up and picked them.
And the trout swam.
Snow muffled the world, silenced the dog, silenced the wind...
The man said, I can show you the trout. He was glad of the company. He reached into their tiny pool, rescued a dozen, one by one, sorting and choosing, dividing the sheep from the goats of them.
And this was the miracle of the fishes, that they were beautiful. Even when clubbed and gutted, insides glittering like jewels. See this? he said, the trout heart pulsed like a ruby in his hand. The kids love this. He put it down, and it kept beating. The kids, they go wild for it.
He said, we feed the guts to the pigs. They're pets now, They won't be killed. See? We saw, huge as horses they loomed on the side of the hill.
And we walk through the world trailing trout hearts like dreams, wondering if they imagine rivers, quiet summer days, fat foolish flies that hover or sit for a moment too long. We should set them free, our trout and our metaphors:
You don't have to hit me over the head with it. This is where you get to spill your guts. You killed in there, tonight. He pulled her heart out. Look, you can see it there, still beating. He said, See this? This is the bit the kids like best. This is what they come to see.
Just her heart, pulsing, on and on. It was so cold that night, and the stars were all alone. Just them and the moon in a luminous bruise of sky.
And this was the miracle of the fishes.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Nov 30, 2016 16:16:13 GMT -5
The Negro Speaks Of Rivers by Langston Hughes
I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Nov 30, 2016 16:18:40 GMT -5
Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes
Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed— Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek— And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean— Hungry yet today despite the dream. Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers! I am the man who never got ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream In the Old World while still a serf of kings, Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, That even yet its mighty daring sings In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned That's made America the land it has become. O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home— For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore, And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa's strand I came To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me? The millions on relief today? The millions shot down when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay? For all the dreams we've dreamed And all the songs we've sung And all the hopes we've held And all the flags we've hung, The millions who have nothing for our pay— Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again— The land that never has been yet— And yet must be—the land where every man is free. The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME— Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose— The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back our land again, America!
O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath— America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain— All, all the stretch of these great green states— And make America again!
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 1, 2016 13:10:25 GMT -5
Another poem by Langston Hughes. He wrote this one as a tribute to Martin Luther King.
Like all his poems, Texas prisons refuse to allow inmates to read them though they're happy to give them Mein Kampf and even pornography to read.
As I Grew Older by Langston Hughes
It was a long time ago. I have almost forgotten my dream. But it was there then, In front of me, Bright like a sun— My dream. And then the wall rose, Rose slowly, Slowly, Between me and my dream. Rose until it touched the sky— The wall. Shadow. I am black. I lie down in the shadow. No longer the light of my dream before me, Above me. Only the thick wall. Only the shadow. My hands! My dark hands! Break through the wall! Find my dream! Help me to shatter this darkness, To smash this night, To break this shadow Into a thousand lights of sun, Into a thousand whirling dreams Of sun!
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 8, 2016 15:01:05 GMT -5
A Song of a Young Lady to Her Ancient Lover
By John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
Ancient person, for whom I All the flattering youth defy, Long be it ere thou grow old, Aching, shaking, crazy, cold; But still continue as thou art, Ancient person of my heart.
On thy withered lips and dry, Which like barren furrows lie, Brooding kisses I will pour Shall thy youthful heat restore (Such kind showers in autumn fall, And a second spring recall); Nor from thee will ever part, Ancient person of my heart.
Thy nobler part, which but to name In our sex would be counted shame, By age’s frozen grasp possessed, From his ice shall be released, And soothed by my reviving hand, In former warmth and vigour stand. All a lover’s wish can reach For thy joy my love shall teach, And for they pleasure shall improve All that art can add to love. Yet still I love thee without art, Ancient person of my heart.
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Post by annaj26 on Dec 25, 2016 19:40:08 GMT -5
This is such a good article about the writings of one of my favorite poets.Why Walt Whitman Called America the “Greatest Poem” Shocked at the election of their next president, many Americans at the end of 2016 turned to social media, petitions, polls, and the streets in protest. A century and a half ago, shocked at the assassination of the sitting president who oversaw the reunification of a divided nation, Walt Whitman turned to poetry. In “O Captain! My Captain!”, Whitman famously eulogized Abraham Lincoln as the fallen leader of the great ship of America, which he called a “vessel grim and daring.” But for Whitman, poetry wasn’t just a vehicle for expressing political lament; it was also a political force in itself. In his preface to the first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855), Whitman claimed of the United States, “Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as their poets shall,” echoing Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous dictum in 1840’s Defence of Poetry: “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Shelley was referring to the role that art and culture play in shaping the desires and will of people, which eventually come to be reflected in the law. But Whitman went even further in his preface. “The Americans of all nations at any time upon the earth have probably the fullest poetical nature,” he wrote. “The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.” Whitman’s claim stemmed from a belief that both poetry and democracy derive their power from their ability to create a unified whole out of disparate parts—a notion that is especially relevant at a time when America feels bitterly divided. Notably, Whitman’s grammar (“the United States are”) signals his understanding of the country as a plural noun—not one uniform body, but a union of disparate parts. Whitman was centrally concerned with the American experiment in democracy and its power to produce “out of many, one,” even at as great a cost as the Civil War and the faltering Reconstruction. Whitman thus celebrates in his work the many kinds of individuals that make up a society as well as the tensions that bring individuals together in a variegated community. In “I Sing of America,” he writes, I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deck-hand singing on the steamboat deck ... The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else … Whitman is perhaps America’s first democratic poet. The free verse he adopts in his work reflects a newly naturalized and accessible poetic language. His overarching themes—the individual, the nation, the body, the soul, and everyday life and work—mirror the primary values of America’s founding. Then and now, his poetry is for everyone. As Whitman asserts later in the preface to Leaves of Grass: The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors … but always most in the common people. In his self-published first edition of Leaves of Grass, Whitman included a drawing of himself, the poet. He is wearing the loose, casual garb of the laborer. He is neither the ruffled courtly bard of a previous age, nor the tweedy and erudite Oxford author of a later age. (Successive editions depict Whitman as more urbane.) He asserts himself, at least initially, as a poet of the modern world: rude, raw, and representative of the common man. Whitman links the essence of poetry, which is unity-within-diversity, to the essence of democracy. Former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend’s prescient words about Whitman, published five years ago in The Atlantic, could easily have come from this year’s post-election analysis: Today’s politicians and pundits seem to have forgotten the unemployed in their endless debates about wealth creation, capital gain reduction, and high corporate taxes. How rarely we hear about the factory worker, the contractor, the construction worker whose lives have been upended by the prolonged economic disaster … Mostly they’re forgotten and ignored. But Whitman wouldn’t have forgotten them… He knew that the fate of each one of us is inextricably linked to the fate of all. The notion that the fate of each one of is tied to the fate of all is the essence of democracy, and of Whitman’s poetry. Even while staking out his place as a common man, Whitman saw for the poet a special role within democracy. In “By Blue Ontario’s Shore” (first published in 1856 but revised many times until its final version in 1867), Whitman asserts, “Of these States the poet is the equable man.” The equable person is one who both sees and acts justly. The poet does this better than the politician because, Whitman says: [The poet] bestows on every object or quality its fit proportion, neither more nor less, He is the arbiter of the diverse, he is the key, He is the equalizer of his age and land, He supplies what wants supplying, he checks what wants checking, In peace out of him speaks the spirit of peace, large, rich, thrifty, building populous towns, encouraging agriculture, arts, commerce, lighting the study of man, the soul, health, immortality, government …. He judges not as the judge judges but as the sun falling round a helpless thing, As he sees the farthest he has the most faith … He sees eternity in men and women, he does not see men and women as dreams or dots. This role Whitman assigns the literary imagination in shaping the standards of judgment essential to democracy is a “startling claim,” says the American philosopher and legal scholar Martha Nussbaum. In Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life, Nussbaum argues that “the ability to imagine vividly, and then to assess judicially, another person’s pain, to participate in it and then to ask about its significance is a powerful way of learning what the human facts are and of acquiring a motivation to alter them.” In other words, poetry constitutes the practice of what robust pluralism requires. Recommended: Forget Fad Diets, Embrace 'Healthy-ish' A literary imagination, Nussbaum writes, “promotes habits of mind that lead toward social equality in that they contribute to the dismantling of the stereotypes that support group hatred.” Thus, although Whitman’s racist views of blacks, shaped in part by the bad science of the day, were contradictory and at times ambivalent, his poetic vision forged a way past his own hidebound limitations toward greater justice. In “To Foreign Lands,” Whitman claims his poems offer the world the very definition of America: “I heard that you ask’d for something to prove this puzzle the New World / And to define America, her athletic Democracy, / Therefore I send you my poems that you behold in them what you wanted.” An “athletic democracy” is made so not by politicians, Whitman claims, but by poetry. For the poetic mind is a mind attuned to justice. In her work On Beauty and Being Just, the Harvard professor of aesthetics Elaine Scarry describes the importance of multiple viewpoints, arguments, and counterarguments to “political assembly,” wondering how “will one hear the nuances of even this debate unless one also makes oneself available to the songs of birds or poets?” The basis of poetry is precisely those connections forged between different elements, different voices, and different perspectives. In envisioning the United States as “the greatest poem,” Whitman links the essence of poetry, which is unity-within-diversity, to the essence of democracy. Within the epic poem that is America, a president is but one figure. www.yahoo.com/news/why-walt-whitman-called-america-120000756.html
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Jan 25, 2017 18:09:47 GMT -5
As today is Burns Night I have to post a poem by Robert Burns!
A man's a man for a' that: Robert Burns
Is there for honest poverty That hings his head, an' a' that; The coward slave - we pass him by, We dare be poor for a' that! For a' that, an' a' that, Our toils obscure an' a' that, The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that.
What though on hamely fare we dine, Wear hoddin grey, an' a' that? Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, A man's a man for a' that. For a' that, an' a' that, Their tinsel show, an' a' that, The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor, Is king o' men for a' that.
Ye see yon birkie ca'd a lord, Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that; Tho' hundreds worship at his word, He's but a coof for a' that. For a' that, an' a' that, His ribband, star, an' a' that, The man o' independent mind He looks an' laughs at a' that.
A prince can mak a belted knight, A marquise, duke, an' a' that; But an honest man's aboon his might, Gude faith, he maunna fa' that! For a' that, an' a' that, Their dignities an' a' that, The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth, Are higher rank than a' that.
Then let us pray that come it may, (As come it will for a' that,) That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth, Shall bear the gree, an' a' that. For a' that, an' a' that, It's comin yet for a' that That man to man, the world o'er, Shall brithers be for a' that.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Jan 27, 2017 17:10:26 GMT -5
As today is Holocaust Day (we call it the Porajmos in Romanes to commemorate our victims of Nazi genocide)I'm posting two poems - in Romanes and with my English translations.
Gazisarde Romengi Violina Rasim Sejdic
Gazisarde romengi violina acile ognjište romane e jag o dimo ando oblako vazdinjalo.
Idžarde e Romen cavoren restavisarde pe datar e romnjen pe romendar idžarde e Romen.
Jasenovco perdo Roma pangle pala betonse stubujra pale lantsujra pe prne pe va ando balto dzi ke cang.
Acile ando Jasenovco lenge kokala te pricin, o nemanušengim djelima zora vedro osvanisarda i Romen o kam pre tatarda.
Their Boots Crushed The Gypsy Violin By Rasim Sejdic
Their boots crushed the Gypsy violin all that remains of us now is Gypsies' ash the fire the smoke rising up to heaven.
They carted away the Roma children ripped away from their mothers wives from their husbands they carted away the Roma.
Jasenovac — packed with Roma tied to cement pillars they can't budge their hands and feet loaded with heavy shackles down in their knees in mud and slime.
There in Jasenovac remain their bones as witness to testify against man's inhumanity
Dawn breaks anew, the sun warming the Roma as it has always done.
In Auschwitz there is a Great House by Ruzena Danielova Ausvicate hi kher bro Odoj besel mro pirano Besel, besel gondolinel Te pre mande pobisterel O tu kalo cirikloro Lidza mange mro lilro Lidza, lidza mra romake Hoj som phandlo Ausvicate
Ausvicate bokha bare Te so te chal amen nane Ani oda koter maro O blokris bibachtl In Auschwitz there is a great house And there my husband is imprisoned He sits and sits and laments And thinks about me Oh, you black bird! Carry my letter! Carry it to my wife For I am jailed in Auschwitz
In Auschwitz there is great hunger And we have nothing to eat Not even a piece of bread And the block guard is bad
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on May 11, 2017 17:37:02 GMT -5
This is a poem by one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, Anna Akhmatova. I've given the Russian original along with my English translation.
Посвящение
Перед этим горем гнутся горы, Не течет великая река, Но крепки тюремные затворы, А за ними "каторжные норы" И смертельная тоска. Для кого-то веет ветер свежий, Для кого-то нежится закат - Мы не знаем, мы повсюду те же, Слышим лишь ключей постылый скрежет Да шаги тяжелые солдат. Подымались как к обедне ранней, По столице одичалой шли, Там встречались, мертвых бездыханней, Солнце ниже, и Нева туманней, А надежда все поет вдали. Приговор... И сразу слезы хлынут, Ото всех уже отделена, Словно с болью жизнь из сердца вынут, Словно грубо навзничь опрокинут, Но идет... Шатается... Одна... Где теперь невольные подруги Двух моих осатанелых лет? Что им чудится в сибирской вьюге, Что мерещится им в лунном круге? Им я шлю прощальный свой привет.
Dedication (from the Russian of Anna Akhmatova)
The mountains bow down before this sorrow, The mighty river stops flowing, But the locks of the prisons are strong, The cells of the convicts secure behind them, And a sadness like death.
The fresh wind is blowing for somebody, And for someone at least the sun is shining. We know nothing, we are all the same, Knowing only the hateful jangling of keys, The leaden footsteps of our jailers
We rose as if going to church, And went through the barbarous capital, Where we used to meet, though deader than corpses.
While the sun had sunk, the Neva lay shrouded in mist, But with the faint songs of hope still chanting in the distance. Guilty! And the tears start up at once. One woman, who already dwelt in solitude, As if the heart had been ripped out of her body, As though she had been punched and kicked to the floor, Still keeps on walking, stumbling, in her loneliness.
What are my chances now, my friends Of surviving two years in hell? What do they see in the snows of Siberia? What comes to them in the circle of the Moon? Farewell is all the greeting I can find.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on May 13, 2017 13:27:12 GMT -5
Here is a poem from the Turkish poet Oktay Rifat. I've given the Turkish original along with my English translation.
VAZİFE
Rengi üzümden kara Beli iğneden ince Bu yükle çıkılır mı Yokuşlardan karınca Nedir bu dünya hali Nedir bu bozuk düzen Dün çıktı yumurtadan Bugün sevdalı kumru Kaşla göz arasında Şahin kapar kırlangıcı Ceylân kanına girer Su başında canavar Bütün yük benim üstümde Düşünmek lâzım hepsini ayrı ayrı Dünyasından habersiz Dünyaya gelen yavru Güneşin şarktan doğmasını sağlamalı Şaşırmaya gelmez Sonra bana düşer tasası Çocuğu soksa arı Ayağı kanasa tilkinin Bir hal olsa kuzuya Oktay şu kurdun kuşun Sana lâzım mı derdi
Duty
Oktay Rifat
Darker than any grape, waist slimmer than a needle, how can the ant climb the hills with its heavy load?
Look at this world of ours, look at its order in ruins, conceived yesterday, today the dove of passion
In a momentary glance the hawk sweeps down on the swallows. When the predator is by the waterside the gazelle is drenched with blood
The whole burden is on my shoulders. I have to think about all of them, the youngsters entering the world in total ignorance
The sun rises in the east – that’s true – no surprises there. Then I have to worry myself sick when a bee stings a child.
The fox’s paw drips with blood – the lamb its victim. What’s the point, Oktay, of paint for wolves and birds?
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