Friday, August 6, 2010
WHY
WHY POETRY?
Why poetry?
Why?
Why sunsets?
Why trees?
Why birds?
Why seas?
Why you?
Why me?
Why friends?
Why families?
Why laugh?
Why cry?
Why hello?
Why good-bye?
Why poetry?
That’s why!
Lee Bennett Hopkins
(Reprinted with permission of Curtis Brown Ltd.)
Good Books, Good Times
Good books, good times
Good stories
Good rhymes
Good beginnings
Good ends
Good people
Good friends
Good fiction
Good facts
Good adventures
Good acts
Good stories
Good rhymes
GOOD books
GOOD times
(Lee Bennett Hopkins)
encontrado no blog Abrupto
Why poetry?
Why?
Why sunsets?
Why trees?
Why birds?
Why seas?
Why you?
Why me?
Why friends?
Why families?
Why laugh?
Why cry?
Why hello?
Why good-bye?
Why poetry?
That’s why!
Lee Bennett Hopkins
(Reprinted with permission of Curtis Brown Ltd.)
Good Books, Good Times
Good books, good times
Good stories
Good rhymes
Good beginnings
Good ends
Good people
Good friends
Good fiction
Good facts
Good adventures
Good acts
Good stories
Good rhymes
GOOD books
GOOD times
(Lee Bennett Hopkins)
encontrado no blog Abrupto
Thursday, August 5, 2010
cane
Eventually you’ll need a cane to walk around…
The beautiful chick walking next to your favorite neighbor
Will be her granddaughter, but then you won't pay much attention.
You will look puzzled at football cards “- What’s this for ?...” and you won't notice either
That another World championship has come and gone.
You will sit at a favorite bench not noticing that you are alone
Rummaging through the same conversation, day in day out
Eventually you’ll need a cane to walk around…
One day people will carry you and you will worry no more
(as if you still did…)
The beautiful chick walking next to your favorite neighbor
Will be her granddaughter, but then you won't pay much attention.
You will look puzzled at football cards “- What’s this for ?...” and you won't notice either
That another World championship has come and gone.
You will sit at a favorite bench not noticing that you are alone
Rummaging through the same conversation, day in day out
Eventually you’ll need a cane to walk around…
One day people will carry you and you will worry no more
(as if you still did…)
Reality demands
Reality demands
Reality demands
we also state the following:
life goes on.
It does so near Cannae and Borodino,
at Kosovo Polje and Guernica.
There is a gas station
in a small plaza in Jericho,
and freshly painted
benches near Bila Hora.
Letters travel
between Pearl Harbor and Hastings,
a furniture truck passes
before the eyes of the lion of Cheronea,
and only an atmospheric front advances
towards the blossoming orchards near Verdun.
There is so much of Everything
that Nothing is quite well concealed.
Music flows
from yachts near Actium
and couples on board dance in the sunlight.
So much keeps happening,
that it must be happening everywhere.
Where stone is heaped on stone,
there is an ice cream truck
besieged by children.
Where Hiroshima had been,
Hiroshima is again
manufacturing products
for everyday use.
Not without its charms is this terrible world,
not without its mornings
worth our waking.
In the fields of Maciejowice
the grass is green
and on the grass is -- you know how grass is --
transparent dew.
Maybe there are no fields other than battlefields,
those still remembered,
and those long forgotten,
birch woods and cedar woods,
snows and sands, iridescent swamps,
and ravines of dark defeat
where today, in sudden need,
you squat behind a bush.
What moral flows from this? Maybe none.
But what really flows is quickly-drying blood,
and as always, some rivers and clouds.
On the tragic mountain passes
the wind blows hats off heads
and we cannot help--
but laugh.
Translated from Polish by: Joanna Maria Trzeciak
Reality demands
we also state the following:
life goes on.
It does so near Cannae and Borodino,
at Kosovo Polje and Guernica.
There is a gas station
in a small plaza in Jericho,
and freshly painted
benches near Bila Hora.
Letters travel
between Pearl Harbor and Hastings,
a furniture truck passes
before the eyes of the lion of Cheronea,
and only an atmospheric front advances
towards the blossoming orchards near Verdun.
There is so much of Everything
that Nothing is quite well concealed.
Music flows
from yachts near Actium
and couples on board dance in the sunlight.
So much keeps happening,
that it must be happening everywhere.
Where stone is heaped on stone,
there is an ice cream truck
besieged by children.
Where Hiroshima had been,
Hiroshima is again
manufacturing products
for everyday use.
Not without its charms is this terrible world,
not without its mornings
worth our waking.
In the fields of Maciejowice
the grass is green
and on the grass is -- you know how grass is --
transparent dew.
Maybe there are no fields other than battlefields,
those still remembered,
and those long forgotten,
birch woods and cedar woods,
snows and sands, iridescent swamps,
and ravines of dark defeat
where today, in sudden need,
you squat behind a bush.
What moral flows from this? Maybe none.
But what really flows is quickly-drying blood,
and as always, some rivers and clouds.
On the tragic mountain passes
the wind blows hats off heads
and we cannot help--
but laugh.
Translated from Polish by: Joanna Maria Trzeciak
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Vaga de calor no Leste
Uma vaga de calor assola o Leste,
Antigas florestas são devoradas em instantes pelas chamas
manchas escuras devassam as estepes trágicas.
Na terra foram cavados sulcos para drenar as águas
Na terra cavam-se regueiras para guiar as águas
Verdes ou palha as searas agitam-se ao sabor da estação
Um irmão liga, empertigamos o corpo e a voz
Escondemos a ternura e o afecto
Debaixo da capa da justa medida.
Antigas florestas são devoradas em instantes pelas chamas
manchas escuras devassam as estepes trágicas.
Na terra foram cavados sulcos para drenar as águas
Na terra cavam-se regueiras para guiar as águas
Verdes ou palha as searas agitam-se ao sabor da estação
Um irmão liga, empertigamos o corpo e a voz
Escondemos a ternura e o afecto
Debaixo da capa da justa medida.
Heatwave in the East
A heatwave roams the East
giant flames eat up ancient forests,
tragic Slavic air fills the lonely steppes,
dark shadows spread all over.
In the land someone dug sulks to drain the waters
In the land someone dug sulks to guide the waters
grass or hay the fields move to the rhythm of the seasons
A brother calls, we stiffen body and voice
hiding tenderness and affection,
under the cover of good measure.
giant flames eat up ancient forests,
tragic Slavic air fills the lonely steppes,
dark shadows spread all over.
In the land someone dug sulks to drain the waters
In the land someone dug sulks to guide the waters
grass or hay the fields move to the rhythm of the seasons
A brother calls, we stiffen body and voice
hiding tenderness and affection,
under the cover of good measure.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
Yellow
Found these lines in Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels : "You're many years late,/ How happy I am to see you". I googled for the entire poem and found this :
Broad and yellow is the evening light, by Anna Akhmatova (1915)
Broad and yellow is the evening light,
The coolness of April is dear.
You, of course, are several years late,
Even so, I'm happy you're here.
Sit close at hand and look at me,
With those eyes, so cheerful and mild:
This blue notebook is full, you see,
Full of poems I wrote as a child.
Forgive me, forgive me, for having grieved
For ignoring the sunlight, too.
And especially for having believed
That so many others were you.
Broad and yellow is the evening light, by Anna Akhmatova (1915)
Broad and yellow is the evening light,
The coolness of April is dear.
You, of course, are several years late,
Even so, I'm happy you're here.
Sit close at hand and look at me,
With those eyes, so cheerful and mild:
This blue notebook is full, you see,
Full of poems I wrote as a child.
Forgive me, forgive me, for having grieved
For ignoring the sunlight, too.
And especially for having believed
That so many others were you.
As long as nothing can be known for sure...
The Ball
As long as nothing can be known for sure
(no signals have been picked up yet),
as long as Earth is still unlike
the nearer and more distant planets,
as long as there's neither hide nor hair
of other grasses graced by other winds,
of other treetops bearing other crowns,
other animals as well-grounded as our own,
as long as only the local echo
has been known to speak in syllables,
as long as we still haven't heard word
of better or worse mozarts,
platos, edisons somewhere,
as long as our inhuman crimes
are still committed only between humans,
as long as our kindness
is still incomparable,
peerless even in its imperfection,
as long as our heads packed with illusions
still pass for the only heads so packed,
as long as the roofs of our mouths alone
still raise voices to high heavens--
let's act like very special guests of honor
at the district-firemen's ball
dance to the beat of the local oompah band,
and pretend that it's the ball
to end all balls.
I can't speak for others--
for me this is
misery and happiness enough:
just this sleepy backwater
where even the stars have time to burn
while winking at us
unintentionally.
~ Wislawa Szymborska ~
(Monologue of a Dog: New Poems, translated by C. Cavanagh and S. Baranczak)
As long as nothing can be known for sure
(no signals have been picked up yet),
as long as Earth is still unlike
the nearer and more distant planets,
as long as there's neither hide nor hair
of other grasses graced by other winds,
of other treetops bearing other crowns,
other animals as well-grounded as our own,
as long as only the local echo
has been known to speak in syllables,
as long as we still haven't heard word
of better or worse mozarts,
platos, edisons somewhere,
as long as our inhuman crimes
are still committed only between humans,
as long as our kindness
is still incomparable,
peerless even in its imperfection,
as long as our heads packed with illusions
still pass for the only heads so packed,
as long as the roofs of our mouths alone
still raise voices to high heavens--
let's act like very special guests of honor
at the district-firemen's ball
dance to the beat of the local oompah band,
and pretend that it's the ball
to end all balls.
I can't speak for others--
for me this is
misery and happiness enough:
just this sleepy backwater
where even the stars have time to burn
while winking at us
unintentionally.
~ Wislawa Szymborska ~
(Monologue of a Dog: New Poems, translated by C. Cavanagh and S. Baranczak)
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