Бесплатный фрагмент - Quotes from my Blog. Poetry
This book is a collection of quotes from poetry that was selected from the books I personally read, and republished on my blog from July 2017 to March 2021.
Cover image: Michal Jarmoluk (pixabay.com, free for commercial use)
Copyright © 2021 Tatiana Miller, all rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Poetry Quotes
«Every poem is a child of love…»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Every poem is a child of love,» translated from the Russian by Valentin Savin
«I had love once in the palm of my hand.
See the lines there.»
— John Wieners (1934—2002), from «A Poem for Painters,» in «Selected poems, 1958—1984″
«Your thighs, like evening,
go from light to shadow.»
— Federico García Lorca (1898—1936), from «Lucía Martínez,» in «Federico García Lorca. Selected Poems,» translated from the Spanish by Martin Sorrell
«I am your voice, the fever of your breathing,
I am the reflection of your face.»
— Anna Akhmatova (1889—1966), from «To the Many,» in «One Less Hope: Essays on Twentieth-Century Russian Poets» by Constantin V. Ponomareff
«Lie down with me, and hold me, tight. Touch me. Be
with me. Feel with me. Feel me to do right.»
— May Swenson (1913—1989), from «Feel Me,» in «Nature: Poems Old and New»
«You are surrounded by the alphabet of my pain.»
— Nacera Mohammedi, from «Diving into a Woman’s Sorrow,» translated from the Arabic by Seema Atalla
«I asked about me so I said: You.»
— Mansur Al-Hallaj (858—922AD), translated from the Arabic by Mahmoud Mostafa
«If separated from you, separation was my friend;
how true it seems that love and separation are one.»
— al Hallaj (858AD-922 AD), from «Tawasin of Pre-Eternity and Obscurity,» translated from the Persian by Adam Ahmed
«A poem is for the future, but love,
love has to be now:
you think of a cliff —
a melting cliff — you surrender
and slide.»
— Chen Yuhong, from «Improvisations on a Poem,» translated from the Chinese by Chenxin Jiang
«If only grief
could cure me,
and remorse recover
what has passed.»
— Ibn al-Farid (1181—1234), «From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint. Ibn al-Farid, His Verse, and His Shrine» by Th. Emil Homerin
«when everything is longing you end up longing nothing…»
— Sara Pujol Russell, from «My Being Naked is the Smell of Dreams,» in «The Poetry of Sara Pujol Russell,» translated from the Spanish by Noël Maureen Valis
«When I lie down to die,
I shall not curse my fate for long.
I’ll simply take to my bed,
Forgive everyone and
Forget everything.»
— Valentin Katayev (1897—1986), from «When I lie down to die …,«translated from the Russian by Bernard Meares, in «Twentieth century Russian poetry: silver and steel: an anthology»
«And he knew her name and he let her go»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «Jacob and the Angel,» in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alter
«yes
the dark matter
animated by your hand
it’s me.»
— Blanca Varela (1926—2009), in «Rough Song,» translated from the Spanish by Carlos Lara
«We created each other with strokes running hot and cold. In the territory of sound, I’m a flower reclining vertically. Blossoming before a fingertip. The word bosom melts and melds upon contact.»
— Lee Hyemi, from «Unexpected Vanilla,» translated from the Korean by So J. Lee
«And the leaves fell in the water of your soul.»
— Pablo Neruda (1904—1973), from «I remember you as you were last Autumn,» translated from the Spanish by Paul Weinfield
«I want the flower you are, not the one you give.»
— Fernando Pessoa (1880—1935), from «Richard Reiss,» in «Fernando Pessoa. A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems,» edited and translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith
«I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.
The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.
— Octavio Paz (1914—1998), from «Between Going and Staying,» in «The Poems Of Octavio Paz,″ translated from the Spanish by Eliot Weinberger
«I have not reached you my love
You are a distant star
It’s as though a wall of darkness
has risen up between us…
And I stand outside
I wait in the cold.»
— Alamin Mazrui, from «I Crossed,» translated from the Swahili by Katriina Ranne
«What enslaving cocktail have I sucked
from your full mouth…
to leave me so totally yours!»
— Walter Benton (1904—1976), from «This is My Beloved» (November 19 entry)
«Don’t ask how I’m doing, behind you —
Look at how you look, before me.»
— Ghalib, (1797—1869), from Ghazal #25, in «Ghalib. Selected Poems and Letters,» edited and translated from the Urdu by Frances W. Pritchett and Owen T. A. Cornwall
«You are still hidden
under my eyelids
and in the sun you are sun,
in the reaches you are particles,
in the void you are no thing.
I can’t dream anymore
for in that dissolution absorbed
is you. I can’t dream anymore.»
— Joseph Ceravolo (1934—1988), from «Real,″ in «Collected poems. Joseph Ceravolo,» edited by Rosemary Ceravolo and Parker Smather
«I am like one who is drowned and his hand is seen raised up for help»
— Mansur Al-Hallaj (858—922AD), translated by Mahmoud Mostafa
«The night was his mouth
his strength and his passion
was his serious eyes those those stones of darkness
falling in my eyes
and it was his love in me
invading so slowly
so mysteriously.»
— Idea Vilariño (1920—2009), from «The Night,» translated from the Spanish by J.L. Kercheval
«My loves are dying. Or is it that my love
is dying, day by day, brief life, brief candle,
a flame, flambeau, torch, alive, singing
somewhere in the shadow: Here, this way, here.»
— Phyllis Webb (born 1927), from «Water and Light: Ghazals and Anti-Ghazals»
«… and you, you have sunk to the bottom of the sea
so I couldn’t touch you»
— Alamin Mazrui (1933—2014), from «I Crossed,» translated from the Swahili by Katriina Ranne
«… the soul was silent at the edge of sound»
— Boris Poplavsky (1903—1935), from «Lanscape of Hell,» in «One Less Hope: Essays on Twentieth-Century Russian Poets» by Constantin V. Ponomareff
«My heart
Is like a wild alley cat
In heat»
— Hafiz (1315—1390), from «Among Strong Men,» in «The Subject Tonight Is Love. 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz,» translated by Daniel Ladinsky
«Self inside self. You are nothing but me.
Self inside self. I am only You.
What we are together
will never die.
The why and how of this?
What does it matter?»
— Lalla, from «Naked Song: Poems of Lalla,» translated by Coleman Barks, in «The Element book of mystical verse» by Alan Jacobs
«Mourning, split vision of a garden with broken statues. On the edge of dawn your bones hurt. You split apart. I warn you and I warned you. You break up. I tell you, I told you. You strip. You dispossess yourself. You unknot yourself. I foretold it. Suddenly it became undone: no birth. You carry yourself over. Only you know this broken rhythm. Now to gather you remains, one by one, oh so tedious, where to leave them. If I’d had it to hand, I’d have sold my soul in exchange for invisibility. Drunk on myself, on music, on poems, why didn’t I speak of absence’s void. In a ragged hymn my crying rolled down my face. And why don’t they sway something? And why this great silence?»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), from «The Cure of Folly,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«We have forgotten how to offer alms,
And meet the dawn, and breath the sea’s salt heavens,
And go in shops, and count from our palms
Our copper trash against the gold of lemons.»
— Nikolay Tikhonov (1896—1979), from «We have forgotten,» translated from the Russian by Michael Frayn, in «Twentieth century Russian poetry: silver and steel: an anthology»
«He is my diamond,
good days, and auspicious stars,
and evil planets, too.
He is ambrosia untasted,
butter in milk, juice in the fruit,
melody in song.»
— Appar (6—7th century), from «The Cosmic Person,» in «The Element book of mystical verse» by Alan Jacobs
«And it’s true I’ve woken in love’s place because when I heard its song I said: This is love’s place. And it’s true I’ve woken in love’s place because with my mourning smile I heard its song and told myself: This is love’s place (yet trembling yet phosphorescent).»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), from «The Dream of Death of the Place of Poetic Bodies,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«In my annihilation my annihilation perished
And in my annihilation I found you»
— Mansur Al-Hallaj (858—922 AD), translated from the Farsi by Mahmoud Mostafa
«Who can I tell, this sad evening
How bright the line of fate once was on my hand?»
— Noshi Gillani, from «There was a time when I loved alone,» in «Noshi Gilani. Poems,» translated from the Urdu by Lavinia Greenlaw
«You were like a black banner flying at the very edge.
You were like life returning, like
light flying into the deep
You stepped out into the air and left through it quietly,
And enormous snowy stars were flying down to meet You,
Surrounded You in great numbers and
kissed You.»
— Boris Poplavsky (1903—1935), from «The Black Madonna,» in «One Less Hope: Essays on Twentieth-Century Russian Poets» by Constantin V. Ponomareff
«I must do something,
no,
I must do nothing,»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), from «A Musical Hell,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«You confused my heart so much
That love shrank to riddle»
— Noshi Gillani, from «There was a time when I loved alone,» in «Noshi Gilani. Poems,» translated from the Urdu by Lavinia Greenlaw
«Walking to your place for a love feast
I saw at a street corner
an old beggar woman
I took her hand,
kissed her delicate cheek,
we talked, she was
the same inside as I am,
from the some kind.
I sensed this instantly
as a dog know by scent
another dog.
I gave her money,
I could not part her.
After all, one needs
someone who is close.
And then I no longer knew
Why I was walking to your place.»
— Anna Swir (1909–1984), «The Same Inside,» translated from the Polish by Czesław Miłosz and Leonard Nathan
«Although my feet are worn to shreds
My journey ended nowhere
Because I am incapable
I have neither a lamp or the ability
To search for a way ahead
This is all so difficult
Such strain that my eyes
Weep not tears but blood.»
— Noshi Gillani, from «Last Conversation With The Sky,» in «Noshi Gilani. Poems,» translated from the Urdu by Lavinia Greenlaw
«Our embrace lasted too long.
We loved right to the bone.
I hear the bones grind, I see
our two skeletons.
Now I am waiting
till you leave, till
the clatter of your shoes
is heard no more. Now, silence.
[…]
Do not come anymore.
I am an animal
very rarely.
— Anna Swir (1909–1984), from «I’ll open the window,» translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan
«Each night I go to bed
wishing you were the book I was reading‚—
the page I’d crease and leave unread
before turning off the lights.»
— Sunay Akin (born 1962), from «Face Cloth,» translated from the Turkish by Dilek Unsal
«I yelled to you: come, there is a renewal
in my madness, my pain that is
greater than pain: the severed
head, the arm, fly toward you
and our eyes meet again –»
— Sándor Csoóri, from «Postponed Nightmare,» translated from the Hungarian by Len Roberts and Laszlo Vertes, in «Shifting Borders. East European Poetries of the Eighties»
«Where does this writing lead? Into the dark, the sterile, the fragmented.»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), from «A Musical Hell,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«When you met
I felt that I could,
that I really could stand up now,
could open the door
and wake.
— Rana Al Tonsi, from «The Book Of Games,» translated from the Arabic by Sinan Antoon
«The ocean is peaceful and serene,
Palm fronds caressing and romancing,
The palace pool lush with water lilies,
and the bees showering flower buds with kisses.
Now I am elegant like never before,
more vigorous than vigor,
glittering in attire of new light.
So feast your eyes on me,
before the next tide drifts me away.»
— Mohammed El-Makki Ibrahim, in «Modern Sudanese Poetry: Anthology,» translated from the Arabic and edited by Adil Babikir
«When will dreams be recognized, and truth?
Even after waking, how can we know the truth
when everyone around is sleeping
the sleep of memory;
And obsessive tune fills my mind»
— Mohan Rana, from «An Obsessive Tune,» translated from the Hindi by Lucy Rosenstein
«Like a blade that cuts from inside,
is the way people feel loneliness»
— Joseph Ceravolo (1934—1988), from «Spirit,″ in «Collected poems. Joseph Ceravolo,» edited by Rosemary Ceravolo and Parker Smather
«Time is not a straight line, it’s more of a labyrinth, and if you press close to the wall at the right place you can hear the hurrying steps and the voices, you can hear yourself walking past on the other side.»
— Tomas Tranströmer (1931—2015), from «Answers to Letters,» in «The Great Enigma,» translated from the Swedish by Robin Fulton
«Do you know?
The wind, too, can change direction
The birds might leave their nests at dawn
And forget to find their way back»
— Noshi Gillani, from «The Wind, Too, Can Change Direction,» translated from the Urdu by Lavinia Greenlaw
«Coming at an end, the lovers
Are exhausted like two swimmers. Where
Did it end? There is no telling. No love is
Like an ocean with the dizzy procession of the waves’ boundaries
From which two can emerge exhausted, nor long goodbye
Like death.
Coming at an end. Rather, I would say, like a length
Of coiled rope
Which does not disguise in the final twists of its lengths
Its endings.
But, you will say, we loved
And some parts of us loved
And the rest of us will remain
Two persons. Yes,
Poetry ends like a rope.»
— Jack Spicer (1925—1965), «A Book of Music,» in «My vocabulary did this to me: the collected poetry of Jack Spicer»
«He never came because he never came. It’s like making autumn. You expected nothing from its coming. You expected everything. Life of your shadow, what do you want? The flow of a delirious party, a language without limits, a shipwreck in your own waters, how greedy.
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), from «The Cure of Folly,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«Like a rumored prophet’s advent
you slide from the ripe fruit of sleep
afire with ideas, your flashing wit»
— Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi (born 1969), from «Only,» translated form the Arabic by Sarah Maguire
«A bird enters spring
like a lance
Your eyes flash their secrets
A kiss grazes the rainbow
The rain rains»
— Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi (born 1969), «Prayer,» translated from the Arabic by Sarah Maguire
«Every step I take
across the desert of your absence,
tears spill from my eyes,
from the waters I have borne on my back.
Far from the shadow of its mate,
the disolate camel dies alone in the desert.»
— Sunay Akin (born 1962), from «Face Cloth,» translated from the Turkish by Dilek Unsal
«It arrives
when you least expect it —
in a park,
in a bookshop,
or right here where I’m standing:
love wraps round you
just like warm scarf
banishes the winter»
— Fariba Shadloo, «It Arrives,» translated from the Farsi by Alireza Abiz
«We are that ship which is going down,
And the one who sank it.»
— Georgy Rayevsky (1897—1962), from «You think,» translated from the Russian by Albert C. Todd, in «Twentieth century Russian poetry: silver and steel: an anthology»
«You’ll come to me with your voice scarcely coloured by an accent evoking an open door, the shadow of a beautifully named bird, the remnant of that shadow in my memory, and what is left when a young woman’s ashes blow away, the lingering traces on the paper after the drawing of a house, a tree, the sun, an animal have all been erased.»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), from «The Cure of Folly,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«Sing for me
No songs
No poems
No odes
Sing for me
Feelings, yours and mine»
— Shivji, from «Sing For Me,» translated from the Swahili by Ida Hadjivayanis
«I tried out all the words and then fell silent
I needed a new curse
words never spoken in vain
as old as the Stone Age
a cry
raging from here and there»
— Karin Karakaslı, from «Here and There,» translated from the Turkish by Canan Marasligil
«All alone,
Motionless at my window,
I watch the gathering shadows.
Fine rain sifts through the wu-t’ung trees.
And drips, drop by drop, through the dusk.
What can I ever do now?
How can I drive off this word —
Hopelessness?»
— Li Chʻing-chao (1084-c.1151), from «Autumn Love,» in «Li Chʻing-chao. Complete poems,» translated from the Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung
«Only making sacrifice cleanses the path
and speaks to the soul about the soul.»
— Alexander Ginger (1897—1965), from «Name,» translated from the Russian by Albert C. Todd, in «Twentieth century Russian poetry: silver and steel: an anthology»
«Silence, always silence, the gold coins of sleep.»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), from «The Cure of Folly,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«Search. Search. Seek. Seek.
Cold. Cold. Clear. Clear.
Sorrow. Sorrow. Pain. Pain.
Hot flashes. Sudden chills.
Stabbing pains. Slow agonies.
I can find no peace.
I drink two cups, then three bowls
Of clear wine until I can’t
Stand up against a gust of wind»
— Li Chʻing-chao (1084-c.1151), from «Autumn Love,» in «Li Chʻing-chao. Complete poems,» translated from the Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung
«Today, my heart, like the front door,
stands open for the first time in months»
— Raymond Carver (1938—1988), from «Bankruptcy,» in «All Of Us. The Collected Poems. Raymond Carver»
«I refuse to be. In
the madhouse of the inhuman
I refuse to live.
With the wolves of the market place
I refuse to howl»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Poems to Czechoslovakia,» translated by Elaine Feinstein, in «Bride of Ice. New Selected Poems» by Marina Tsvetaeva
«To have died in who you were and in who you loved and to have and not have swirled like a sky at once stormy and blue.»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), from «The Cure of Folly,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«A letter to infinity. — A letter
To eternity —
A letter into the void.»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Falling leaves over your grave,» translated from the Russian by Rolf W. Gross
«And God will start crying over my book:
these are not words — convulsions compressed into lumps»
— Vladimir Mayakovsky (1894—1930), from «And yet,» translated from the Russian by Maria Enzensberger
«And, Poetry, tonight I’ll squeeze you out
To make the thirsty paper flower.»
— Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), from «Spring, translated from the Russian by Jon Stallworthy and Peter France
«I’m not lonely
it’s the wind blowing back grateful
blowing forth complacent.»
— Shauna Barbosa, from «Not crazy just afraid to ask»
««Why do you sing so? I asked her
in the dream.
She answered
with a drunkard’s rosy smile,
«Because it is better than crying.»»
— Ishikawa Takuboku (1886—1912), from «Better Then Crying,» translated by Makoto Ueda, in «Modern Japanese Poets and the Nature of Literature» by Makoto Ueda
«Astonishment of being left and of choosing to leave»
— Jenny Xie, from «Alike, Yet Not Quite»
«But now that I am used to pain,
Its knuckles in my mouth the same»
— J.D. McClatchy (1945—2018), from «Pibroch,» in «Hazmat»
«Your image
Here
Fluttering like a stolen shirt
And I am in your hands
A painting not yet completed
The Artist died on his way to me»
— Abdullah al Ryami, from «The Speaking Hour,» translated from the Arabic by Atef Alshaer
«Sometimes I was passionately redeemed
by an anticipated teardrop in my hand.
Whose teardrop was it? I don’t know,
nor do I know where certain phrases
came from that I said aloud to the sky
or in the shadows on leaving the door ajar.»
— Silvina Ocampo (1903—1993), from «Autobiography of Irene,» in «Silvina Ocampo,» translated from the Spanish by Jason Weiss
«Listen to me then. Listen to me in the night
That runs our illusion of violent discoveries.
Listen to my last words under the galaxies of eyes
And tongues that lash at every promise I make
For you.»
— Carlos Bulosan (1911—1956), from «History of a Moment»
«I carry you in the rose of a thousand snares,
In the conformation of my desires,
in the seraphic passion of the dawn,
in the chosen and venerated flower,
in the happy vision of my outings.
And it’s only here in death I’ll find
the dazzling truth of love.»
— Silvina Ocampo (1903—1993), from «Autobiography of Irene,» in «Silvina Ocampo,» translated from the Spanish by Jason Weiss
«I remember that I used to talk only
with you about the loving siege
that death wages against our life,
and the two of us would talk, guessing,
making conjectures
composing questions, inventing answers,
only to end up
completely defeated,
dying in life from thinking about death.»
— Elías Nandino (1900—1993), «If It Was You,» in «Elías Nandino: Selected Poems,» translated from the Spanish by Don Cellini
«Give me attire
From dreams,
From the shadow of words,
So that I may conceal the silence of my spirit,
Sprinkle the Memory
With an alphabet
From the myths of evening….
Then I will fold the trip of coldness,
Pray behind my shadow
So that I may be able to sleep…!!»
— Bahija Massri Adelbi, from «I Pray behind my Shadow,» translated from the Arabic by Mohammad Yousef
«You were the hidden secret of my longing,
Hidden deep within my conscience, deeper than a dream.»
— Mansur Hallaj (c. 858—922), from «You went away but remained in me,» in «Islamic Mystical Poetry. Sufi Verse from the Mystics to Rumi,» translated by Mahmood Jamal
«Once you are soiled
You’ll never again be pure.»
— Bertolt Brecht (1889—1956), from «Song of Lost Innocence Folding The Linen,» in «Bertolt Brecht. Love Poems, translated from the German by David Constantine and Tom Kuhn
«I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff — and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.»
— Vladimir Nabokov (1899—1977), from «Pale Fire»
«It was a kiss that breathed life into me,
Slaked my breast’s deepest craving,
Come, darkness! intimately to benight me,
That my lips may suckle new delight.»
— Karoline von Günderrode (1780—1806), from «The Kiss In the Dream,» in «Poetic Fragments,» translated from the German by Anna C. Ezekiel
«I run down the path thinking
how you assume
I can be easily seduced by money
and little do you know
how I enjoy being alone, in my poverty.»
— Jimmy Santiago Baca (born 1952), from «Winter Poems Along The Rio Grande,» in «Selected Poems Of Jimmy Santiago Baca,» translated from the Spanish by Liz Fania Werner and Tomas H. Lucero
«I’ve wanted to tell you
that I can’t sleep
tonight, nerves like electric wires,
skin drawn painfully tight
wherever you touched it, every-
where. Send down a divine
narcotic, or enwrap this troublous
flesh in some invisible, fine-
stitched caul, some ghostly cradle
for this night. Or give me back
one shred each from our hundreds
of days — a forgotten word, or look —
that I might lie here counting
them, like sheep, waiting out the dark.»
— Greg Johnson, «Insomnia»
«I tried to invent beautiful things,
destinies and affectionate people,
but I recognized clearly
the essential difference that existed
between the forecast of the future
and the invention that was mine alone»
— Silvina Ocampo (1903—1993), from «Autobiography of Irene,» in «Silvina Ocampo,» translated from the Spanish by Jason Weiss
«Even in dreams
I do not want him to know
that it is me he is making love to,
for I am overcome with blushes
when I see my face in my morning mirror»
— Lady Ise (9—10th century), translated from the Japanese by Kenneth Rexroth, in «Women Poets Of Japan,» translated by Kenneth Rexroth
«Illumined memory, gallery where roams the shadow of what I await. It is not true that it will come. It is not true that it will not.»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), «To Aurora and Julio Cortázar,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«Since the «pillow knows all’
we slept without a pillow»
— Lady Ise (9—10th century), translated from the Japanese by Kenneth Rexroth, in «Women Poets Of Japan,» translated from the Japanese by Kenneth Rexroth
«The rows of wild geese are gone from the sky.
They could never carry all my thoughts to him»
— Li Chʻing-chao (1084-c.1151), from «Spring in the women’s quarter,» in «Li Chʻing-chao. Complete poems,» translated from the Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth
«Let’s talk barefoot on this silence, so no word is wounded»
— Nouri al-Jarrah (born 1956), from «Tablet,» translated from the Arabic by Camilo Gomez-Rivas
«The more I leave the door unlatched
The sooner love is gone,
For love is but unwound
Between the dark and dawn»
— W.B. Yeats (1865—1939), from «Crazy Jane And Jack The Journeyman»
«Longing for you,
loving you,
waiting for you,
the bamboo blinds were swayed
only by the autumn wind»
— Princess Nukada (7th century), in «Women poets of Japan,» translated from the Japanese by Kenneth Rexroth
«Evenings by the river in the dark heart of the bushes sometimes I see her face again, hers, the woman I loved, my woman, dead now.»
— Bertolt Brecht (1889—1956), from «The Eleventh Psalm,» in «Bertolt Brecht. Love Poems,» translated from the German by David Constantine and Tom Kuhn
«The silent language breeds fire. Silence spreads, is fire.
It was necessary to speak about water or simply just name it, so as to draw
the word in and extinguish the flames of silence.»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), from «Dirges,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«There is a nightingale who sings my see through thoughts,
sings back to the beginning of memory.»
— Farzaneh Khojandi (born 1964), from «Back Again,» translated from the Tadjik by Jo Shapcott
«And the man who had beaten her till he was tired said: My angel — »
— Bertolt Brecht (1889—1956), from «The Eleventh Psalm,» in «Bertolt Brecht. Love Poems,» translated from the German by David Constantine and Tom Kuhn
«I turn to You in longing and sorrow;
You for whom my heart is caught in the talons
Of a flying bird.»
— Mansur Hallaj (died 922), from «O You who are the object,» in «Islamic Mystical Poetry. Sufi Verse from the Mystics to Rumi,» translated by Mahmood Jamal
«My white skin glows,
Fragrant and smooth as snow.
I smile to my love and say,
«Tonight within the gauze curtains
Our pillows and mats will be cool’»
— Attributed to Li Chʻing-chao (1084-c.1151), from «To the tune «Picking mulberries,» in «Li Chʻing-chao. Complete poems,» translated from the Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth
«Here’s a dark picture.
Poverty painted over,
flowers in prison dress.»
— Tomas Tranströmer (1931—2015), from «Haiku,» in «The Great Enigma,» translated from the Swedish by Robin Fulton
«I am a candle. I burned at the feast.
Gather my wax when morning arrives
So that this page will prompt you
How to be proud, and how to weep,
How to give away the last third
Of happiness, and to die with ease—
And beneath a temporary roof
To burn posthumously, like a word.»
— Arseny Tarkovsky (1907—1989), from «My sight, which was my power…,» in «I Burned at the Feast: Selected Poems of Arseny Tarkovsky,» translated from the Russian by Philip Metres and Dimitri Psurtsev
«Death is a word. A word is a thing, death is a thing, a poetic body drawing its breath from the place of my birth. This way you will never encircle it. It speaks, from above a stage of ashes; it speaks, from the bottom of the river where death is singing. And death is she, my dream told me, the queen’s song told me. Death with crow-coloured hair, dressed in red, her terrible hands waving a lute and bird bones to beat my grave with, walked away singing and, from behind, she looked like an old beggar and children hurled stones at her.»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), from «The Dream of Death of the Place of Poetic Bodies,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«How wonderful were Life, would it but last!»
— Al-Burj of Tayyi, from «Translation of Ancient Arabic poetry. Chiefly Pre-Islamic,» translated from the Arabic, with an introduction and notes by Charles James Lyall
«I held her like a sweet dream in my arms
My pale love, and she was quiet with me.»
— Bertolt Brecht (1889—1956), from «Remembering Marie A.,» in «Bertolt Brecht. Love Poems,» translated from the German by David Constantine and Tom Kuhn
«He whom I love
holds me
spell-bound under his glance;
his beauty secludes him
and he turns away
hard to please, at times he comes near
only like a fleeting bird
to sip water. O his tender body
his pink, bedecked cheeks, covered with veils
but I cannot hold my ardent desire.»
— al-Tutili (d. 1127), from «The Andalusian and Troubadour Love Lyric. A Comparative Study» by Abdil M. Nouryeh
«Come to me again when the moon
Moves the flower shadows»
— attributed to Li Chʻing-chao (1084-c.1151), from «Thoughts from the women’s quarter,» in «Li Chʻing-chao. Complete poems,» translated from the Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth
«All night I wait for language to form me. And think of the wind that comes to me, stays in me. All night I have walked in the unknown rain.»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), from «L’Obscurité des Eaux,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«We are, you and me,
Like two pine needles
Which will dry and fall
But never separate»
— Anonymous, in «Written on the Sky. Poems from the Japanese,» translated by Kenneth Rexroth
«And the emptiness turns its face to us
and whispers,
«I am not empty, I am open.»»
— Tomas Tranströmer (1931—2015), from «Vermeer,» in «The Great Enigma,» translated from the Swedish by Robin Fulton
«Following the roads
Of dream to you, my feet
Never rest. But one glimpse of you
In reality would be
Worth all these many nights of love»
— Ono No Komachi, in «Written on the Sky. Poems From the Japanese,» translated by Kenneth Rexroth
«I wake up from a nap —
only the shadows
of tired things»
— Hōsai Ozaki (1885—1926), translated by Hiroaki Sato, in «The Big Sky»
The disorder of my hair
Is due to my lonely sleepless pillow.
My hollow eyes and gaunt cheeks
Are your fault.»
— Ono no Komachi (c. 825-c. 900), from «The Love Poems Of Marichiko,» translated by Kenneth Rexroth, Donald Keene, Jane Hirshfield and Michael R. Burch
«Into the white book of your quietnesses,
Into the wild clay of your yesses —
Quietly I cup the slant of my brow:
Since my palm — is life»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), in «A Russian Psyche. The Poetic Mind of Marina Tsvetaeva» by Alyssa W. Dinega
«Every morning, I
Wake alone, dreaming my
Arm is your sweet fiesh
Pressing my lips.»
— Ono no Komachi (c. 825-c. 900), from «The Love Poems Of Marichiko,» translated by Kenneth Rexroth, Donald Keene, Jane Hirshfield and Michael R. Burch
«Some music cannot be sung:
like infinite loves
cloistered is the recollection of its rules.»
— Silvina Ocampo (1903–1993), from «Autobiography of Irene,» in «Silvina Ocampo,» translated from the Spanish by Jason Weiss
«I knew you long before meeting you:
already I foresaw how I was going to forget you,
and I tried in vain to avoid your encounter.
I was forgetting you as I led you by the hand.»
— Silvina Ocampo (1903—1993), from «Autobiography of Irene,» translated from the Spanish by Jason Weiss
«You, me — nostalgic pilgrims»
— Paul Verlaine (1844—1896), from «The Faun,» in «One Hundred And One Poems by Paul Verlaine. Bilingual Edition,» translated from The French by Norman R. Shapiro
«… and you, love, had wildest childhood over my heart»
— Rainer Maria Rilke (1875—1926), from «To Lou Andreas-Salome,» translated from the German by A. Poulin
«For them the reward for loneliness
Is that someone must come their way»
— Vladimir Vysotsky (1938—1980), from «White Silence,» translated from the Russian by Nora Margaret Moseman
«you burn for love like a closed lily…»
— Alda Merini (1931—2009), from «Dream,» in «Love Lessons. Selected Poems of Alda Merini,» translated from the Italian by Susan Stewart
«Borne by the darkness.
I met an immense shadow
in a pair of eyes.»
— Tomas Tranströmer (1931—2015), from «Haiku,» in «The Great Enigma,» translated from the Swedish by Robin Fulton
«I will not suffer that she my suit deny,
My love remains undying, tho’ all things die.»
— Jamil, from «Oh, that youth’s flower anew might lift its head,» in «The Literary Heritage of the Arabs. An Anthology,» edited by Suheil Bushrui & James M. Malarkey
«O angel, if you with your holy glorified mind could not
understand these hard-wrought words as blood and tears
I pray for your mercy»
— Yang Mu (born 1940), from «To the Angel,» in «Hawk Of The Mind. Collected Poems Yang Mu,» translated from the Chinese by Li and Bramwell
«In the cold streets
your warm body.
In whatever room
your warm body.
Among all the people
your absence.
The people who are always
not you.»
— Jack Gilbert (1925—2012), from «Rain,» in Collected Poems»
«There is a prayer
written by no one
that I sometimes say,
and others in despair
will say as well:
«I promise to feel
no other pain
if I cease to feel
the one that’s killing me now’»
— Silvina Ocampo (1903—1993), «Illusion,» in «Silvina Ocampo,» translated from the Spanish by Jason Weiss
«I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head…»
— Margaret Atwood (born 1939), from «Variation on the Word Sleep»
«I’m going out again today
into life, into the marketplace,
to lead a regiment of songs
against the roar of rat and race.»
— Velimir Khlebnikov (1885—1922), from «Rue,» in «Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov. Volume III,» translated from the Russian by translated by Paul Schmidt
«My soul, beyond distant death
your image I see like this:
a provincial naturalist,
an eccentric lost in paradise.»
— Vladimir Nabokov (1899—1977), from «In Paradise,» translated from the Russian by the Author
«Maybe one day our fate will bring us
together
when we fail to meet.
If one denies his partner,
a stranger meets a stranger,
and each one goes his way,
never say it is our choice, but say it is our
misfortune!»
— Ibrahim Nagi (1898—1953), from «Farewell,» translated from the Arabic by Sayed Gouda
«The morning was as devastating as the annunciation
of madness and weighed down on the veins
of the leaves as if a cold sharp hand
would cleave the lovers’ double
life.»
— Alda Merini (1931—2009), from «The Raven,» in «Love Lessons. Selected Poems of Alda Merini,» translated from the Italian by Susan Stewart
«Sometimes the sound of his breathing
save my life — in and out, in
and out; a pause, a long sigh…»
— Jane Kenyon (1947—1995), from «Having It out with Melancholy,» in «Constance. Poems by Jane Kenyon»
«We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of other’s dreams.»
— Fernando Pessoa (1880—1935), from «35 Sonnets,» in «A Little Larger Than The Entire Universe: Selected Poems» by Fernando Pessoa, translated by Richard Zenith
«Can you not see?
Our eyes are fading and cold.
Can you not hear?
Our hearts are extinguished and blown
out.
Our silence is the echo of fearful warning,
sarcastic that we shall return:
strangers.»
— Nazik al-Malaeka (1923—2007), from «Strangers,» translated from the Arabic by Sayed Ghouda
«… for all I know, your influence falls on me, gently, like moonlight on a window seat.»
— Rainer Maria Rilke (1875—1926), from «To Lou Andreas-Salome,» translated from the German by A. Poulin
«Slowly and brightly
you bent your heavy brow to mine,
and your black fire
sank into my blue fire.»
— Anna Margolin (1887—1952), from «Slowly and Brightly,» in «Drunk from the bitter truth: the poems of Anna Margolin,» translated from the Yiddish by Shirley Kumove
«I find myself in the deep corridor
that would have been dark
if my right hand wasn’t shining like a torch.»
— Tomas Tranströmer (1931—2015), from «Codex,» in «The Great Enigma,» translated from the Swedish by Robin Fulton
«When we make love in the flower world
my heart is close enough to sing
to yours in a language that has no use
for clumsy human words»
— Joy Harjo, from «This Is My Heart»
«I work on silence
make it flame»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), from «Approximations. Buenos Aires 1956—1958,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«As I came from the
How bath, you took me before
The horizontal mirror
Beside the low bed, while my
Breasts quivered in your hands, my
Buttocks shivered against you.»
— Ono no Komachi (c. 825-c. 900), from «The Love Poems of Marichiko,» translated by Kenneth Rexroth, Donald Keene, Jane Hirshfield and Michael R. Burch
«Night’s color breeding darker blues
drifts over everything, all of it worthy of love,
and someone called out, the sound of it oppressive,
sobbing, full of the anguish of evening.»
— Velimir Khlebnikov (1885—1922), from «Sweet Talk,» in «Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov. Volume III,» translated from the Russian by translated by Paul Schmidt
«My eyes are sore from imagining»
— Fernando Pessoa (1880—1935), from «The Book of Disquiet,» translated by Richard Zenith and Orhan Tuncel
«I am working out the vocabulary of my silence»
— Muriel Rukeyser (1913—1980), from «The Speed of Darkness,» in «Collected poems by Muriel Rukeyser,» edited by Janet Kaufman and Anne F. Herzog
«Who will tell those who, by their leaving, attired us in a robe of sadness
that does not wear out with the seasons, though it wears us out,
That Time, which used to make us laugh convivially because of their
presence,
has come around to making us weep?»
— Ibn Zaydun (1003—1071), from «Nuniyya,» in «Abundance from the Desert. Classical Arabic Poetry» by Raymond Farrin
«Feelings come, so icy they’re taken for thoughts.»
— Tomas Tranströmer (1931—2015), from «Nineteen Hundred and Eighty,» in «The Great Enigma,» translated from the Swedish by Robin Fulton
«How long how long was it they wandered,
loving fearing loving,
fugitives whose dangerous only hidingplace
was love?»
— Robert Hayden (1913—1980), from «How long how long…»
«Come forth
From despair’s depth and the icy heights
From desire’s ruins and the ashes of patience
Come forth
Become me as I become you
I am your transparency.»
— Ounsi El Hage (born 1937), from «The messenger with her hair,» translated from the Arabic by Brandel France
«She lies, hip high,
On a flat bed
While the after —
Sun passes.
Plant, I breath —
O Clearly,
Eyes legs arms hands fingers,
Simple legs in silk.»
— George Oppen (1908—1984), «She lies, hip high»
«I beg pardon for being
the survivor.
Not for long, of course.
Set your minds at rest.
But I have to acknowledge, to confess,
I’m a survivor.»
— Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902—1987), from «Declaration In Court,» in «Multitudinous Heart: Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition,» translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith
«to want to stay wanting to leave»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), from «Approximations. Buenos Aires 1956—1958,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«The unanswered letters pile up, like cirrostratus clouds promising bad weather. They make the sunbeams lusterless. One day I will answer. One day when I am dead and can at last concentrate.»
— Tomas Tranströmer (1931—2015), from «Answers to Letters,» in «The Great Enigma,» translated from the Swedish by Robin Fulton
«How to do or undo
the undoable not-done?»
— Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902—1987), from «Declaration In Court,» translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith, in «Multitudinous Heart: Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition,» translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith
«It rains from a kiss»
— Ounsi El Hage (born 1937), from «The messenger with her hair,» translated from the Arabic by Brandel France
«And words, words, words
all over everything…»
— Charles Olson (1910—1970), from «The Songs of Maximus: SONG 1,» in «The Maximus Poems»
«Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill.»
— Theodore Roethke (1908—1963), from «In A Dark Time,» in «Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke»
«Here a word of terror, there one of regret.
Here I cried out, there in sorrow I paused.»
— Anna Margolin (1887—1952), from «In The Streets,» in «Drunk from the bitter truth: the poems of Anna Margolin,» translated from the Yiddish by Shirley Kumove
«My whole day is cool evening if, at the sun’s rising,
She returns my greeting with a smile.
And my whole night is enchantment
if the soft breeze carries Her perfume.
If She approaches my tent,
my whole year is temperate spring in luxuriant meadows.
If She approves of me,
my whole life is love-cheered youth.»
— Ibn al-Farid (died 1235), in «Abundance from the Desert. Classical Arabic Poetry» by Raymond Farrin
«Your hair is the undiscovered rootlet
of the tree of my vine.
Your hair is the strand from a miter
of fantasy that I lost!»
— Cesar Vallejo (1892—1938), from «Communion,» in «Cesar Vallejo. The Complete Poetry. Bilingual Edition,» translated from the Spanish by Josxe9 R. Barcia
«I fear nothing so much as ceaselessly being myself.»
— Dulce María Loynaz (1902—1997), from «Absolute Solitude,» translated from the Spanish by James O’Connor
«I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.»
— Theodore Roethke (1908–1963), from «In A Dark Times,» in «Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke»
«you’re lovely as a blossom born of cloud»
— Li Po (701 to 762), from «Thoughts of you unending,» in «Classical Chinese Poetry. An Anthology,» translated from Chinese by David Hinton
«People think I’m out of my mind,
but I’m only beaten up in memory.»
— Joseph Ceravolo (1934—1988), from «Hills,» in «Collected poems. Joseph Ceravolo,.» edited by Rosemary Ceravolo and Parker Smathers
«Her eyes, the blue angry fire»
— Bertolt Brecht (1889—1956), «Remembering my little teacher,» in «Bertolt Brecht. Love Poems,» translated from the German by David Constantine and Tom Kuhn
«Return sleep to my eyes —
perhaps your phantom
will visit my bed
in the darkness of dreams.»
— Ibn al-Farid (1181—1234), in «From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint. Ibn al-Farid, His Verse, and His Shrine»
«When it is fun with you
Sometimes I think then
If I could die now
I’d have been happy
Right to the end.»
— Bertolt Brecht (1889—1956), from «When it is fun with you,» in «Bertolt Brecht. Love Poems,» translated from the German by David Constantine and Tom Kuhn
«Naked is the earth,
and the soul howls to the pale horizon
like a famished shewolf. What do you seek,
poet, in the sunset?»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Naked is the earth,» in «Border Of A Dream. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Willis Barnstone
«Men hope to last a hundred years.
Flowers last just for a Spring.
Just one day for wind and rain,
And they are scattered on the earth.
If they know what was happening to them,
They would be as miserable as men.»
— Lu Kuei Meng, «To An Old Tune,» in «One Hundred More Poems From The Chinese: Love And The Turning Year» by Kenneth Rexroth
«Your tongue thrums and moves
Into me, and I become
Hollow and blaze with
Whirling light, like the inside
Of a vast expanding pearl.»
— Ono no Komachi (c. 825-c. 900), in «The Love Poems Of Marichiko,» translated by Kenneth Rexroth, Donald Keene, Jane Hirshfield and Michael R. Burch
«I fight and fight
when I’m away from you.»
— Joseph Ceravolo (1934—1988), from «Cold Night Alone,» in «Collected poems. Joseph Ceravolo,» edited by Rosemary Ceravolo and Parker Smathers
«Do not smile to yourself
Like a green mountain
With a cloud drifting across it.
People will know we are in love.»
— Sakanoe, in «One Hundred Poems From The Japanese,» translated by Kenneth Rexroth
«For I am not living — I burn! — and am shedding
A trail of grey ashes across a dim waste.»
— Peyo Yavorov (1878—1914), from «Two Souls,» translated from the Bulgarian by Peter Tempest
«for when all that’s left
to me is to think of your voice,
to imagine your face:
what is it calls itself lasting,
what omits itself anywhere…»
— C. O. Jellema (1936—2003), from «Always Blowing»
«This hope isn’t something I’ve sought. This silent wing of the Unknown University.»
— Roberto Bolaño (1953—2003), from «Prose from Autumn in Gerona,» in «Tres,» translated from the Spanish by Laura Healy
«A person caresses you, teases you, is sweet with you and then never speaks to you again. What do you mean, the Third War? The stranger loves you and then recognizes the slaughterhouse situation. She kisses you and then says that life’s about moving forward, acquiring nourishment and looking for more.»
— Roberto Bolaño (1953—2003), from «Prose from Autumn in Gerona,» in «Tres,» translated from the Spanish by Laura Healy
«When you go ten miles away
I’ll go along for nine miles.
Then I’ll leave you a hairpin
As a compass for your route.»
— Pao Yu, «Viaticum,» in «One Hundred More Poems From The Chinese: Love And The Turning Year» by Kenneth Rexroth
«You say, «I will come.»
And you do not come.
Now you say, «I will not come.»
So I shall expect you.
Have I learned to understand you?»
— Lady Ōtomo N Sakanoe, in «One Hundred Poems From The Japanese» by Kenneth Rexroth
«You wake me,
Part my thighs, and kiss me.
I give you the dew
Of the first morning in the world.»
— Ono no Komachi (c. 825-c. 900), in «The Love Poems Of Marichiko,» translated by Kenneth Rexroth, Donald Keene, Jane Hirshfield and Michael R. Burch
«This morning I will not
Comb my hair.
It has lain.
Pillowed on the hand of my lover.»
— Hitomaro, in «One Hundred Poems From The Japanese» by Kenneth Rexroth
«I am in pain. And in a hard day’s work of self-delusion,
and in the self-dissolving peace of rest,
and in the heat of busy day, the zest,
and in some otherworldly dreams of cold illusion,
and when I fly and when I fall — my self I kill…
I suffer still.»
— Peyo Yavorov (1878—1914), from «I am in Pain,» translated from the Bulgarian by Georgi Ivanov
«I wish I were close
To you as the wet skirt of
A salt girl to her body.
I think of you always.»
— Akahito, in «One Hundred Poems From The Japanese» by Kenneth Rexroth
«Show me a twilight that longs to plunge into night more
than I long for you
Show me a mirror that yearns to reflect you more than I
year for you
She me a desert that longs for its prophets more than I
long for you
She me a cry for help that yearns for hands
outstretched more than I yearn for you.»
— Ounsi El Hage (1937—2014), from «The messenger with her hair,» translated from the Arabic by Brandel France
«Your breath come and goes
In a tiny cloud in the frosty night.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «The Wheel Revolves,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«In the gray of the wall,
prison and bedroom
and in a future landscape
with only your voice and the wind.»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Other Songs to Guiomar,» in «Border of A Dream. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Willis Barnstone
«Oh, I know, I know. She is dark.
And do’s the coal before the spark
that make it burn like roses.»
— Asklepiados (320 BCE)
«Always on my lips, a wax seal.
Always in my no, that trauma/
Always in my love, sudden night.
Always in myself, my enemy.
And always in my always, the same absence.»
— Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902—1987), from «Buried Alive,» translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith, in «Multitudinous Heart: Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition,» translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith
«With you
I suffer.
Alone with myself
I’m in fear.
Where is my non-self?»
— Abbas Kiarostami (1940—2016), from «A Wolf Lying in Wait: Selected Poems,» translated from the Persian by Karim Emami & Michael Beard
«God gave me a love because I deserved it.
From all the loves I’ve had, or that had me,
the juice was squeezed to make a wine,
or perhaps this is a product of clotted blood.»
— Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902—1987), from «Buried Alive,» translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith, in «Multitudinous Heart: Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition,» translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith
«Do me a favor this morning. Draw the curtain and come
back to bed.
Forget the coffee. We’ll pretend
we’re in a foreign country, and in love.»
— Raymond Carver, from «The Road,» in «All of Us. The Collected Poems. Raymond Carver»
«God gave me a love when, late in the season,
fruit isn’t harvested, or tastes wormy.
God — or the Devil? — gave me this late love,
and I thank them both, because I have a love.»
— Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902—1987), from «Field Of Flowers,» translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith, in «Multitudinous Heart: Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition,» translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith
«Everything is what it isn’t.»
— Fernando Pessoa (1880—1935), from «Ruba’iyat,» in «Fernando Pessoa. A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe,» selected poems Edited and Translated by Richard Zenith
«No, my heart is asleep,
It is awake. Awake.
Not asleep or dreaming, it looks
with open bright eyes
at far signals and listens
on the shores of a great silence.»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Has my heart gone to sleep,» in «Border of A Dream. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Willis Barnstone
«A loved one make her demands at will!
But she who’s unloved has no say.»
— Anna Akhmatova (1889—1966), from «A loved one makes her demands at will,» translated from the English by Andrey Kneller
I do not think, I’m not complaining, do not argue.
I do not sleep.
I long not for the sun, nor the moon, nor for the sea,
Nor for a ship.
I do not feel the heat in these walls,
How green the garden is.
I do not long for the desired present
Do not wait.
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «I do not think, or argue, or complain,» translated from the Russian by Rolf W. F. Gross (ruverses.com)
«I am — a dancer on a tightrope slashed
And hewn.
I am — a shadow’s shadow: lunatic
Of two dark moons.»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «I do not think, or argue, or complain,» translated from the Russian by Ekaterina Rogalskaya
[…] do love me ever
For that I’ll have to die»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «The many fallen ones into the deepest Insatiable abyss!..»
«And if I was the source of pain
It only was because
I pitied those towards whom
One should have been unfeeling at the time,
Because I wasn’t willing
To exhaust to death
Those, who asking for compassion,
Begged wholeheartedly
For annihilation…»
— Maximilian Voloshin (1877—1932), from «Lunaria,» in «A somber adolescent, I roamed,» translated from the Russian by Constantine Rusamov
Every poem is a child of love,
А рооr bastard by birth.
A Firstling — the sky above.
Left to all winds on the earth.
Heart’s left to hell and an altar,
Heart has a bless and a grief
Who is his father? A tsar?
May be a tsar, or a thief.
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), «Every poem is a child of love,» translated from the Russian by Valentin Savin
«I do not pray, «O God, make to vanish
Torment of coming day!»
Oh no, «Oh God, send to him about me
A dream,» I pray.»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Contact Through Dreams,» translated from the Russian by Ilya Shambat
«Today I can see that your features are strikingly sad,
Your arms on your knees are as thin as dandelion stalks.
But listen, in far-away lands that surround lake Chad
A graceful giraffe softly walks.»
— Nikolay Gumilyov (1886—1921), from «Giraffe,» translated from the Russian by Alexey Tkachenko-Gastev
«Come closer. So close I feel you,
how easily you breathe.»
— Karl Krolow (1915—1999), «Ten Lines,» in «Field,» no. 78, Spring 2008, translated from the German by Stuart Friebert.
«You told me of all things — so early!
I guessed them so late!»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Teasing and tempting and playing,» translated from the Russian by Ilya Shambat
«And isn’t the past inevitable,
now that we call the little
we remember of it «the past»?»
— William Mathews, from «Flood»
«You can shape your life however you like,
It was already shaped before you lived it.
Why do you wish to trace on the ground
The fleeing shadow of the passing cloud?»
— Fernando Pessoa (1880—1935), from «Ruba’iyat,» in «A Little Larger Than The Entire Universe: Selected Poems,» translated by Richard Zenith
«Tell me, will you come with me to see the soul?
A caress struck my heart.»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «From the doorsill of a dream,» in «Border of A Dream. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Willis Barnstone
«I thought my fire was out,
and stirred the ashes….
I burnt my fingers..»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Moral Proverbs and Songs,» in «Border of A Dream. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Willis Barnstone
«She undresses in the paradise
of her memory
he is unaware of the fierce
fate of her visions
she fears not knowing how to name
what does not exist.»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), «To Aurora and Julio Cortázar,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«Pay attention now:
a heart that’s all by itself
is not a heart.»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Moral Proverbs and Songs,» in «Border Of A Dream. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Willis Barnstone
«Do not cry over me.
I said do not cry.
If you wish, remember that my wings
are water
and there is no water without waves
and no waves without a shore where they crash.»
— Saadi Youssef, from «The Bird’s Last Flight,» translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
Like the sea-tangle,
My heart is tossed by fancies.
Like the early star,
I must start, and search it out,
Be it in the hole
Where toads lie in murky haunts,
Or hidden beneath
Those darksome clouds lingering
Near the horizon,
Where land and sky come together.
— Ryōkan (1758—1831), from «Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf: Zen Poems of Ryokan,» translated from the Japanese by John Stevens
«This is the kind of Friend
You are —
Without making me realize
My soul’s anguished history,
You slip into my house at night,
And while I am sleeping,
You silently carry off
All my suffering and sordid past
In Your beautiful
Hands.»
— Hafiz (1315—1390), «Beautiful Hands,» in «The Subject Tonight Is Love. 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz,» translated by Daniel Ladinsky
«How to forget, give up loving, when love seeks more sharply to grieve me?
Night, come, eternal and deep! О that night would make haste to receive me!»
— Aleksey Apukhtin (1840—1893), from «Flies,» in «The waggon of life and other lyrics by Russian poets of the nineteenth century,» translated from the Russian by Sir Cecil Kisch
«Winds that do not blow in the evening,
and winds that do not blow at dawn
have burdened me with a book of boughs.
I see my cry in the silence.»
— Saadi Youssef, from «Silence,» translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
«The girl in the bed sleeps just like a poem»
— Dato Magradze (born 1962), from «Sleeping poem»
«If you go far, hang my dream
on the chest of drawers, a souvenir of you or of me.»
— Mahmoud Darwish (1941—2008), from «The Seven Days of Love,» in «Why did you leave the horse alone?» translated from the Arabic by Jeffrey Sacks
«Here you are, my love, preceded by the wind»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Homecoming Of Love On The Summits Of The Wind,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«I know I shall remember
You for many, many years.
Your vision in my memory
Will teach and guide my vision,
Like the contemplation of
The deep heart of a jewel.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «For the Chinese Actress, Gardenia, Chang,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«I don’t know about birds,
nor about the history of fire.
But I think my solitude should have wings.»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), «Lack,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«Your image lights my every way:
sweet ghost, you’re constantly beside me,
both when the midnight shadows hide me
and through the golden hours of day»
— Alexander Pushkin (1797—1837), from «Message To Yudin,» in «Lyrics and Shorter Poems. Volume 1. Boyhood and School Years 1809–17»
«I have been born so much
and twice as much have suffered
in the memory of here and there.»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (193 -1972), from «To Aurora and Julio Cortázar,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«Awful: not to die in summer
under a bright sky
when the rich dirt
falls easily from the shovel.»
— Gottfried Benn (1886—1956), from «This is Bad,» translated from the German by Harvey Shapiro
«You gave me back my life; this was your blessed gift.
From now on I shall breathe you only,
Even the hour of torment will seem sweet to me,
And love will be my dissolution.»
— Konstantin Batyushkov (1787—1855), from «Convalescence,» translated from the Russian by Peter France, in «Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry. Konstantin Batyushkov»
«Beloved pain,
we deified you in the drowsiness of dawn
bowed our heads at your silvery altar
burned the seeds of sesame and flax
offered sacrifices
sang verses to Babylonian tunes.
We built for you a temple with strange walls
And anointed the ground with oil, pure wine,
And burning tears.»
— Nazik al-Mala’ika (1923—2007), from «Five Hymns to Pain,» in «The Literary Heritage of the Arabs. An Anthology,» edited by Suheil Bushrui and James M. Malarkey
«The dawn rises lovely but ill-fated
and full of grief…
Only this dawn will hear these sad words of love
which will chill even the unquenchable fire
and bring relief to all the damned in hell.»
— Luís de Camões (1524/25—1580), from «Dawn,» translated from the Portuguese by William Baer
«my hands grew to music
behind the flowers
but now
why do I seek you out, night?
why do I sleep with your dead?»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), «Blue,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi
«Get me out of this text… show me things clear and simple, clear and simple screams, fear, death»
— Roberto Bolaño (1953—2003), from «Prose from Autumn in Gerona,» in «Tres,» translated from the Spanish by Laura Healy
«Thoughts, like the blackest of flies through the night of all quiet deprive me;
Stinging and biting around my poor head to confusion they drive me!
One I expel from my mind; then another my heart has molested—
All my past life I recall — empty dreams that its course have invested»
— Aleksey Apukhtin (1840—1893), from «Flies,» in «The waggon of life and other lyrics by Russian poets of the nineteenth century,» translated from the Russian by Sir Cecil Kisch
«Friend whom my heart needs, friend who needs me,
are love and friendship merely dreams?»
— Alexander Pushkin (1797—1837), from «Message To Yudin,» in «Lyrics and Shorter Poems. Volume 1. Boyhood and School Years 1809–1817»
«Through absence you are making my face pale as gold; do not.
When you withdraw your face, the moon is darkened with
grief; you are intending the eclipse of the moon’s orb; do not»
— Rumi (1207—1273), in «Mystical poems by Rumi,» translated from the Persian by A.J. Arberry
«Never having had true peace,
tonight, too, I return to my ghosts,
listen to their hypnotic, craggy voices,
that, little by little, merge into one and pierce
the shutters, off-beat, relentless.»
— Massimo Morasso (born 1964), «Never having had true peace,» translated from the Italian by Moira Egan and Damiano Abeni
«Evening session: to lie on your belly in the dark,
bury your head in the pillow and, with your eyes closed,
to see stars more colorful, more lovely than those in the sky.»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «Conferences, Conferences: Malignant Words, Benign Speech,» in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichi,» edited by Robert Alter
«Darling, darling, astonished,
I see, above you,
a wooden angel,
with a wooden trumpet,
silently sounding,
a voice of desiccated wood,
and I do not hear the word
uttered by your desiccated lips…
The trumpet dies,
tears dry in the eye.
Rain streams down every twig,
the astonished angel is silent.»
— Natalya Gorbanevskaya (1936—2013), from «Darling, darling, astonished,» translated from the Russian by Daniel Weissbort
«It seems to me that the world was only made to help me evoke you, and the sun to serve me as a lantern over the rugged path.»
— Teresa Wilms Montt (1893—1921), from «In the Stillness of Marble,» translated from the Spanish by Jessica Sequeira
«Life, my life, allow yourself to fall, to hurt, my life, tie yourself to fire, to ingenuous silence, to green stones in the house of the night, allow yourself to fall and hurt, my life.»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), «To Aurora and Julio Cortázar,» in «Alejandra Pizarnik. Selected Poems,» translated by Cecilia Rossi»
«Smiling and breathless
I exhale the weak smoke of my last cigarette
to the enormous iron mask of the heavens.»
— Anna Margolin (1887—1952), from «Beautiful words of marble and gold,» in «Drunk from the bitter truth: the poems of Anna Margolin,» translated from the Yiddish by Shirley Kumove
«To reach you I would suffer the transformation into grass, bird, animal, sea, cloud, ether and, finally, thought. To reach you I would unite myself to the secret force that inflames the winds, and would cross the infinite like a meteor, though it were only to brush against you, like those celestial bodies brush the surface of the sky.»
— Teresa Wilms Montt (1893—1921), from «In the Stillness of Marble,» translated from the Spanish by Jessica Sequeira
«And when the sun spills out diamonds upon the world, then I breathe in all the flowers, I see you in all the trees, and I possess you tumbling, intoxicated with love, on the lawns of fragrant grass.»
— Teresa Wilms Montt (1893—1921), from «In the Stillness of Marble,» translated from the Spanish by Jessica Sequeira
«When did love strike?
From the very beginning, when he asked her:
«Did I hurt you?…»
And even if he had hurt her, this question had removed the effect of any pain, previous or forthcoming.»
— Rasha Omran (born 1964), from «We Are All Equally Far From Love,» translated from the Arabic by Suneela Mubayi
«Only fever and poetry provoke visions.
Only love and memory.»
— Roberto Bolaño (1953—2003), from «Dirty, poorly dressed,» in «The Romantic Dogs. 1980—1998,″ translated by Laura Healy
«I bear the No that you gave me
in the palm of my hand,
like a wax lemon
almost white.»
— Federico García Lorca (1898—1936), from «He Died at Dawn,» translated from the Spanish by W. S. Merwin
«grab your sweet smile
and carry it to my mouth.»
— Alda Merini (1931—2009), from «Elegy,» in «Love Lessons. Selected Poems of Alda Merini,» translated from the Italian by Susan Stewart
«Now in some strange anxiety
I smoulder, blaze and feel a fire
run through my veins: it speaks to me
of tender passion, of desire…»
— Alexander Pushkin (1797—1837), from «Message To Yudin,» in “ Lyrics and Shorter Poems. Volume 1. Boyhood and School Years 1809–17»
«I am weary of what’s around me, weary of parts me, weary of my entire self.
I am weary of being a muse for poets, weary of the earth that is not up to
me, weary of the sky.»
— Hassan Najmi (born 1959), from «Bleeding,» translated from the French by Hassan Hilmy, in «Poems for the Millennium, Vol.4. Book of North African Literature,» edited by Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour
«My soul is like a fiery furnace; is that not enough for you?»
— Rumi (1207—1273), in «Mystical poems by Rumi,» translated from the Persian by A.J. Arberry
«On the dogs’ path, my soul came upon
my heart. Shattered, but alive,
dirty, poorly dressed, and filled with love.
On the dogs’ path, there where no one wants to go.»
— Roberto Bolaño (1953—2003), from «Dirty, poorly dressed,» in «The Romantic Dogs. 1980—1998,″ translated from the Spanish by Laura Healy
«Often, I hear weird footsteps.
Often, I think about the last exit»
— Anna Margolin (1887—1952), from «Beautiful words of marble and gold,» in «Drunk from the bitter truth: the poems of Anna Margolin,» translated from the Yiddish by Shirley Kumove
Desire is different:
desire is the moment before the race is run.
Murmur of all that is claspable, clabberable, clamberable,
against all that is not:
«Lover, open your two eyes and behold in yourself four streams — a stream of water, a stream of wine, streams of milk and honey»
— Rumi (1207—1273), in «Mystical poems by Rumi,» translated from the Persian by A.J. Arberry
«… my soul came upon my heart.
It was sick, it’s true, but it was alive.»
— Roberto Bolaño (1953—2003), from «Dirty, poorly dressed,» in «The Romantic Dogs. 1980—1998,″ translated from the Spanish by Laura Healy
«My new fingernails,
fragile, unaware of the void,
offer themselves to an unknown space.
I’d like to dig them into the flesh of your thoughts,
to make you scream out a curse»
— Monica Martinelli (born 1966), from «The Habitude Of The Eyes 54,″ translated from the Italian by Moira Egan and Damiano Abeni
«I’ve heard
nothing lovelier
than the melody of love
a keepsake
lingering
in this whirling
azure dome»
— Hafez, «Word Of Love,» in «Radical Love. Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition,» edited and translated from the Persian by Omid Safi
«If only I could express to you… but no,
not pressed into lines and narrow rhymes…
The heart is wider!»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Wires,» translated from the Russian by Alyssa W. Dinega, in «A Russian Psyche. The Poetic Mind of Marina Tsvetaeva»
«I am the rain that quenches the earth’s thirst,
a pregnant gift, no parturition.
The sound of happiness on rough stones,
the patter of heavy rain drops.
I am the wind that shakes the rain from the clouds
undressing, crumpling, knotting up souls.
I am the earth soaked with rain
where, clod after clump,
you place your tired, uneven steps.»
— Monica Martinelli (born 1966), from «The Habitude Of The Eyes 34,″ translated from the Italian by Moira Egan and Damiano Abeni
«Teach me to dissolve in the presence of joy
and be quiet…
Lead me to the childhood in things
that I may find solitude and silence.»
— Nacera Mohammedi, from «Diving into a Woman’s Sorrow,» translated from the Arabic by Seema Atalla (IJEMS Volume 4, 2011)
«The intellectual is all the time engaged in showing off; the lover is all the time becoming unselfed and distraught;
Intellectuals are running away, afraid of drowning; the whole business and trade of lovers is drowning in the sea.»
— Rumi (1207—1273), in «Mystical Poems by Rumi,» translated from the Persian by A.J. Arberry
«His eyes are so serene
one could be lost in them forever.
I know I must take care
not to return his look»
— Anna Akhmatova (1889—1966), from «To Alexander Blok,» in «Poems of Anna Akhmatova,» translated from the Russian by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward
And I despair for what we’ll never have
for what we have lost
and what we’ve secluded elsewhere.
— Monica Martinelli (born 1966), from «The Habitude of the Eyes 34,″ translated from the Italian by Moira Egan and Damiano Abeni
«Watching the night together,
I cannot understand what
You murmur, singing sweetly,
Softly, to yourself, in French.
0, lady, you are learned,
In your hands as they touch me,
In lips that sing obscurely,
In secret, your private songs.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Maximian Elegy V,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«He loved. And loves. And will love.
But he didn’t want his love
to be a prison for two,
a contract between yawns
and four slippered feet.»
— Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902—1987), from «The Table,» in «Multitudinous Heart: Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition,» translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith
«I live quite simply, a recluse
philosopher, yet with the same
light-hearted friend, my youthful Muse…»
— Alexander Pushkin (1797—1837), from «Message to Yudin,» in «Lyrics and Shorter Poems. Volume 1. Boyhood and School Years 1809–17»
«All I have
Is a flute’s melody
A brush to paint my dreams,
A bottle of ink.»
— Tawfiq Zayyad, from «All I have»
«I am created by a kiss
For me to dwell in you
Feeling my way along your shudders
As if we were sky and
Earth
…
…
This planet… our bed»
— Ouidad Benmoussa (born 1969), from «This Planet… Our Bed,» translated from the Arabic by Emma Hayward, in «Poems for the Millennium. Book of North African Literature,» edited by Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour
«I want to sing… to human beings who do not shed their memories
and who suffer more than those who shed everything.»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «Autumn, Love, Commercials,» in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alter
«You alone… control my history
And write your name on the first page
And on the third, and on the tenth,
And on the last.
You alone are allowed to sport with my days
From the first century of my birth
To the twenty-first century after love.
You alone can add to my days what you wish
And delete what you wish
My whole history flows from the palms of your hands
And pours into your palms.»
— Suad Al-Sabah, «You Alone»
«she couldn’t forgive herself
for her despondent mood,
so she went through life
with self-effacing steps.»
— Anna Margolin (1887—1952), from «Epitaph,» in «Drunk from the bitter truth: the poems of Anna Margolin,» translated from the Yiddish by Shirley Kumove
«Sitting
I hear two beats
Over her silence
I wipe her thin fingers
Her neck’s skin
Her fresh chest
With dark silk
Eyelash by eyelash,
Alluring, soft,
As if one pulse»
— Mohammed al-Ashaari (born 1951), from «A Vast Space… Where there’s no one,» translated from the French by Rosmarie Waldrop, in «Poems for the Millennium. Book of North African Literature,» edited by Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour
«Falling leaves over your grave,
And the smell of winter.
Listen to the dead, listen, my dear:
You are still mine.»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Falling leaves over your grave,» translated from the Russian by Rolf W. F. Gross
«My sorrow is so wide
I cannot see across it;
And so deep I shall never
Reach the bottom of it»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Andree Rexroth,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«I dreamt
I was lounging in a garden
all by myself
with a dark blue sky overhead
and grey flowers all around.»
— Abbas Kiarostami (1940—2016), in «A Wolf Lying in Wait: Selected Poems,» translated from the Persian by Karim Emami & Michael Beard
«I wrote you a farewell poem,
And long ago another,
A poem of peace and love,
Of the lassitude of a long
Spring evening in youth. Now
It is almost ten years since
You came here to stay.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Andree Rexroth,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«Each day gives me cause to hope
For what no day can ever give me.
Each day makes me weary from hoping…
But to live is to hope and to grow weary»
— Fernando Pessoa (1880—1935), in «Fernando Pessoa. A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: selected poems,» edited and translated by Richard Zenith
«My — so surely and so unalterably,
Like this hand.»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Falling leaves over your grave,» translated from the Russian by Rolf W. F. Gross
«And allow me to read the book of sin
Surely, it is the poem.»
— Nael Jaraba, from «The Psalms of Life & Eternity,» in «The Gateway To Modern Arabic Poetry,» translated from the Arabic by Munir Mezyed and Abdul-settar Abdul-Latif Al-Assady
«If you’re really my lover, compose
a song of songs for me, and etch my name
into the trunk of a pomegranate tree in the gardens of Babylon»
— Mahmoud Darwish (1941—2008), from «Night Overflowing the Body,» in «Why did you leave the horse alone?» translated from the Arabic by Jeffrey Sacks
«I have come like a butterfly
into the hall of human life,
and must spatter my dusty coat
as signature upon its bleak windows,
across fate’s windowpane.»
— Velimir Khlebnikov (1885—1922), from“I have come like a butterfly,» in «Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov. Volume III,» translated from the Russian by Paul Schmidt
«Jasmine on a July night. A song
for two strangers who meet on a road
leading nowhere…»
— Mahmoud Darwish (1941—2008), from «Night Overflowing the Body,» in «Why did you leave the horse alone?» translated from the Arabic by Jeffrey Sacks
«Usually
I let my memory graze on its own…
To forget the wound and remember the knife.»
— Qassim Haddad, from «Words From a Young Night,» translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa («Blackbird,» Fall 2010. Vol. 9, No. 2)
«I pass by your name. No army nor country
encircles me. As if I were the last of the guards
or a poet strolling within his thoughts…»
— Mahmoud Darwish (1941—2008), from «The Seven Days of Love,» in «Why did you leave the horse alone,» translated from the Arabic by Jeffrey Sacks
«O my words, the good and the bad,
the changing and the changed. O my words—
the malignant words, the benign speech.»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «Conferences, Conferences: Malignant Words, Benign Speech,» in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alter
«I have many secrets.
I stud them in my poems
and I toss them in the air of language.
Someone has to expose them.»
— Qassim Haddad, from «Words From a Young Night,» translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa («Blackbird,» Fall 2010. Vol. 9, No. 2)
«Our love is neither frivolity nor wisdom. It is
like that, always like that… like that
From one sky
to another
dreamers pass…»
— Mahmoud Darwish (1941—2008), from «From One Sky to Another Dreamers Pass,» in «Why did you leave the horse alone?» translated from the Arabic by Jeffrey Sacks
«Let your odorous hair fall across our eyes;
Kiss me with those subtle, melodic lips.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Floating,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«My soul is like a young doe-eyed maid
With lips still bruised from last night’s divine passion»
— Hafiz (1315—1390), from «Among Strong Men,» in «The Subject Tonight Is Love. 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz,» translated by Daniel Ladinsky
«Ah, drink, drink, drink till you forget
How and why, where from and where to!»
— Fernando Pessoa (1880—1935), in «Fernando Pessoa. A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe,» selected poems Edited and Translated by Richard Zenith
«As I undress you, your pupils are black, wet,
Immense, and your skin ivory and humid.
Move softly, move hardly at all, part your thighs,
Take me slowly while our gnawing lips
Fumble against the humming blood in our throats.
Move softly, do not move at all, but hold me,
Deep, still, deep within you, while time slides away,
As this river slides beyond this lily bed,
And the thieving moments fuse and disappear
In our mortal, timeless flesh.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Floating,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«Feverish and sweating,
I am rambling about you,
long desired and un-loved
who’s dear, who’s not.
I drop into an oblivious, nether world,
where only the body speaks,
while the wretched soul stays under lock and key.
And in those depths, that darkness,
you’re like a mirage,
and my voice calls softly.
The hot pillow against my cheek,
the cannon booming at noon,
a deafness gripping my throat,
a bitterness inundating my eyes.»
— Natalya Gorbanevskaya (1936—2013), from «Feverish and sweating,» in «Selected Poems,» translated from the Russian by Daniel Weissbort
«In The madhouse
of the inhuman
I refuse to live.
With the wolves of the market place
I refuse to howl.»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Poems to Czechoslovakia,» translated from the Russian by John MacKay, in «True Songs of Freedom. Uncle Tom’s Cabin in Russian Culture and society»
«And I still
cannot understand why all the rage
in your soul against a love so chaste.»
— Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922—1975), from «The Sonnet Hobby,» in «The Selected Poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini,» translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli
«Perhaps
For just one minute out of the day,
It may be of value to torture yourself
With thoughts like,
«I should be doing
A hell of a lot more with my life than I am—
Cause I’m so damn talented.»»
— Hafiz (1315—1390), from «Venus Just Asked Me,» in «The Subject Tonight Is Love. 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz,» translated by Daniel Ladinsky
«Softly, your mouth close to my cheek.
Let our thighs lie entangled on the cushions,
Let your breasts in their thin cover
Hang pendant against my naked arms and throat»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Floating,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«Only your face
like white lightning
in my dark night.»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Other Songs to Guiomar,» in «Border of A Dream. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Willis Barnstone
«see me punished in you:
guilty of having created you,
now I cannot forget you.»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Other Songs to Guiomar,» in «Border Of A Dream. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Willis Barnstone
«A body raving with love,
a soul neglected by death.»
— Qassim Haddad, from «Body,» translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
«Words shift, like mountains,
and, like a moth, I flutter
between the lines.»
— Natalya Gorbanevskaya (1936—2013), from «Curses! Joy! They write themselves!» in «Selected Poems,» translated from the Russian by Daniel Weissbort
«I alone see the melancholy desert
strewn, as we know, with miserable forms
I alone then see the light
which is nothing more than the blue of night fading
as it kindles with a hope of its own;
the same as mine, as I wander back and forth
to fight off sleep…»
— Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922—1975), from «Last Dreams before Dying,» in «The Selected Poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini,» translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli
«Light
Will someday split you open
Even if your life is now a cage,
For a divine seed, the crown of destiny,
Is hidden and sown on an ancient, fertile plain
You hold the title to.»
— Hafiz (1315—1390), from «In A Tree House,» in «The Subject Tonight Is Love. 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz,» translated by Daniel Ladinsky
«My heart in the east
and I at the farthest west»
— Yehuda Halevi, the Cantor of Zion (1075—1141), from «Yehuda Halevi’s Songs to Zion,» adaptation from the Hebrew by Charles Reznikoff, in «Poems for the Millennium. Book of North African Literature,» edited by Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour
«I desire you
as the white does all colors.»
— Qassim Haddad, from «Like the White,» translated from the Arabic by Sbarif Elmusa and Charles Doria
«A metallic mammal. Nocturnal.
Its face
appears eaten by acne.
Sputniks and sonnets.»
— Nicolás Guillen (1902—1989), «Moon,» translated from the Spanish by Robert Márquez, in «Poems for the Millennium. The University of Modern and Postmodern Poetry. Volume one: From Fin-de-Siecle to Negritude,» by Habib Tengour
«Time is limited, my body is empty, I travel, in the
moonlight, I carry man’s pact, I have the bitter taste
of the remedy, I wait to be cured, she passes in front
of my door, like a fugitive, she is a flash of lightning,
which throbs, and signals its irony, above the shoulder of my pain, she is a veil, which I lift, to raise
myself to pity, which was unknown to me, I tame the
wild beast, that is in me, so as not to perish, faced
with the slave-recluse, in her white fever, daughter
of the lamp, that lights up the face of the guest, who
knocks at night, and asks for rest, she is a sleeping
pearl, in the hollow of its shell, waiting for the diver,
who would reveal it to the light.»
— Abdelwahab Meddeb (1946—2014), from «Tombeau of Ibn Arabi,» in «Tombeau of Ibn Arabi and White traverses» by Abdelwahab Meddeb, translated from the French by Charlotte Mandel
«I do not promise happiness
And my footsteps have only mistakes for guidance.»
— Qassim Haddad, from «The Lantern,» translated from the Arabic by Bassam Frangieh
«… ride with me, as I go far, deep into you.»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Oh, Guadarrama range,» in «Border Of A Dream. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Willis Barnstone
«You are my life and my heart’s secret
Wherever I may be, you are.
You encompass everything with knowledge
All that I see is you»
— Mansur Al-Hallaj (858—922 AD), translated from the Farsi by Mahmoud Mostafa
«words issued from you like a reed tucked
between sadness and steel.»
— Qassim Haddad, from «Body,» translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa
«… no mouth, no way out, no body,
nothing but gut. All is gut.
All is vanity, all inanity, all is pain.»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Why Jerusalem?» in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alter
«Has anyone drunken with love like us,
seen love like we have seen it?…
After this nectar’s sweetness we awoke —
how I wished it had never been so!»
— Ibrahim Naji, from «Farewell»
«Open closed open. Before we are born, everything is open
in the universe without us. For as long as we live, everything is closed
within us. And when we die, everything is open again.
Open closed open. That’s all we are.»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «Open Closed Open,» in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alter
«That long cloud spread across the sky?
Perhaps you are watching it…
perhaps you are watching it.
My love is larger than that cloud…
it is larger.»
— Víctor Terán (born 1958), from «From the Palm of My Hand,» in «Words of the True Peoples. Anthology of Contemporary Mexican Indigenous-Language Writers,» edited by Carlos Montemayor and Donald Frischmann
««Leave me, my love, it’s time to part
this paradise is not my portion.
I had to cross a bridge of flame whenever
I visited this land of bliss.»
— Ibrahim Naji, from «Farewell»
«I want to kiss the bitter,
bitter blossom of your lips.»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Other Songs to Guiomar,» in «Border Of A Dream. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Willis Barnstone
«If I only have words and more words
to express my anguish, my eternal thirst,
and the words are desolate mirrors,
waters that cannot reflect an image.»
— Elías Nandino (1900—1993), from «Intimate Poem,» in «Elías Nandino: Selected Poems,» translated from the Spanish by Don Cellini
«Through my tears I bow down to you
and drink your dark life with uneasy lips.»
— Anna Margolin (1887—1952), from «With anxious hands,» in «Drunk from the bitter truth: the poems of Anna Margolin,» translated from the Yiddish by Shirley Kumove
«And then I call her: Hope, Hope, come here, and she
comes to me. I pet her, she eats out of my hand.
And sometimes she stays behind, near some other hope,
maybe to sniff out whatever was. Then I call her my Despair,
I call out to her: Hey, my little Despair, come here,
and she comes and snuggles up, and again
I call her Hope.»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Why Jerusalem?» in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alter
«Oh, names without people, people without names,
all those secondhand names.»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «… Open Closed Open,» in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alter
«Open closed open. Before we are born, everything is open
in the universe without us. For as long as we live, everything is closed
within us. And when we die, everything is open again.
Open closed open. That’s all we are.»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «Open Closed Open,» in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alter
«I desire him with the final contraction of my uterus.
And there is no such pit, and there is no such abyss (that could encompass her passion)
— my beloved, desired, pitied, painful one!»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Poems to Orphan,» in «A Russian Psyche. The Poetic Mind of Marina Tsvetaeva» by Alyssa W. Dinega
«сan we speak in flowers.
it will be easier for me to understand.»
— Nayyirah Waheed, in «Salt»
«You who remain out of reach in reality and in dream.
You who belong to me through my will to possess your illusion
but who brings your face near mine only if my eyes are closed in dream as well as
in reality.»
— Robert Desnos, from «Sleep Spaces,» translated from the French by Keith Hollaman
«This is our destiny: to spread unmeasured love
among treacherous or worthless things,
to give without limits to a total ingratitude,
and to search with hopeful patience, in love’s empty
shell, for still more love.»
— Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902—1987), from Love,» in «Multitudinous Heart: Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition,» translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith
«Nostalgia has hung
its hammock in my heart»
— Víctor Terán (born 1958), from «From the Palm of My Hand,» in «Words of the True Peoples. Anthology of Contemporary Mexican Indigenous-Language Writers,» edited by Carlos Montemayor and Donald Frischmann
«You, you are music,
rivers, firmaments, palaces, and angels…»
— Jorge Luis Borges (1899—1986), from «The Unending Rose,» translated from the Spanish by Alastair Reid, in «Selected Poems,» edited by Alexander Coleman
«I knew men’s bodies as travel
and my body as arrival and easy farewell.»
— Joumana Haddad (born 1970), from «Then I Lost Him,» translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa (IJEMS Volume 4, 2011)
«What can one creature among other creatures
do but love?
love and forget,
love and mislove,
love, unlove, love?
always, and with wide eyes, love?»
— Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902—1987), from «Love,» in «Multitudinous Heart: Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition,» translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith
«I feel so weary. As if I wrestled with the sea, as if the waves pummeled my body and hurled it against the rocks, and then I, in a sudden fury, grabbed it and tucked it under my arm.»
— Dulce María Loynaz (1902—1997), in «Absolute Solitude,» translated from the French by James O’Connor
«And feeling is a way of understanding.»
— Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902—1987), from «Disappearance Of Loisa Porto,» in «Multitudinous Heart: Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition,» translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith
«I have run off, like a horse
Whose rider has lost the bit.»
— OU YANG HSIU, from «READING THE POEMS OF AN ABSENT FRIEND,» in «One hundred poems from the Chinese» by Kenneth Rexroth
«Let your odorous hair fall across our eyes;
Kiss me with those subtle, melodic lips.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Floating,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«I love or I don’t — despair comes easily to me:
Though I will never be yours,
Nonetheless there’s such tenderness at times
In your eyes, as though I am loved.»
— Dmitry Merezhkovsky (1866—1941), from «She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not,» in «Twentieth century Russian poetry: silver and steel: an anthology»
«Ah, drink, drink, drink till you forget
How and why, where from and where to!»
— Fernando Pessoa (1880—1935), in «Fernando Pessoa. A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe,» edited and translated by Richard Zenith
«I knew that the arrival of me was a fentle flood
and their departure a temporary ruin.
I knew how to forget them even as they stormed the dust
of
memory.»
— Joumana Haddad (born 1970), from «I don’t remember,» translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa (IJEMS Volume 4, 2011)
«As I undress you, your pupils are black, wet,
Immense, and your skin ivory and humid.
Move softly, move hardly at all, part your thighs,
Take me slowly while our gnawing lips
Fumble against the humming blood in our throats.
Move softly, do not move at all, but hold me,
Deep, still, deep within you, while time slides away,
As this river slides beyond this lily bed,
And the thieving moments fuse and disappear
In our mortal, timeless flesh.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Floating,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«O women’s ageless, timeless cries:
«My dear one, what is it I’ve done?!»»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Just yesterday, you met my gaze,» translated from the Russian by Andrey Kneller
«Between my claws I hear the snake’s
last breath.
And yet, my heart is the heart of a compassionate angel.»
— Zahir Al-Ghafri, from «The Visitor,» translated from the Arabic by Salih J. Altoma and Margaret Obank («A Taste of Today’s Gulf Literature,» Vol. 9, 2016. Number 2. Supplement
«Pleading, raging, regretting,
now the last terrible note of life
blares forth, sinking into the dust.
And yet, O God, O Tormentor, I do believe:
With dying fingers, I will yet touch a star,
and I will hear an eternally profound,
an infinitely tender word.»
— Anna Margolin (1887—1952), from «In The Streets,» in «Drunk from the bitter truth: the poems of Anna Margolin,» translated from the Yiddish by Shirley Kumove
«How can I become like the hundreds of thousands of small waves in the great sea of love and lap forever against your shore?»
— Xuân Quỳnh (1942—1988), from «Waves,» in «An Anthology of Vietnamese Poems: From the Eleventh through the Twentieth Centuries,» edited and translated from the Vietnamese by Huỳnh Sanh Thông
«Softly, your mouth close to my cheek.
Let our thighs lie entangled on the cushions,
Let your breasts in their thin cover
Hang pendant against my naked arms and throat»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Floating,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«Love
is honey that runs from a tree;
sap of the new corn
picked at dawn;
sap that flows
in a woman’s private garden.»
— Víctor Terán (born 1958), from «Six Variations On Love,» in «Words of the True Peoples. Anthology of Contemporary Mexican Indigenous-Language Writers,» edited by Carlos Montemayor and Donald Frischmann
«Only your face
like white lightning
in my dark night.»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Other Songs to Guiomar,» in «Border of A Dream. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Willis Barnstone
«Still
My lewd heart yearns for the past.»
— OU YANG HSIU, from «SONG OF LIANG CHOU,» in «One hundred poems from the Chinese» by Kenneth Rexroth
«The living are often parted and never meet again.
The dead are together as pure souls.»
— MEI YAO CH’EN, from «IN BROAD DAYLIGHT I DREAM OF MY DEAD WIFE,» in «One hundred poems from the Chinese» by Kenneth Rexroth
«Who says that the dead do not think of us?
Whenever I travel, she goes with me.»
— MEI YAO CH’EN, from «IN BROAD DAYLIGHT I DREAM OF MY DEAD WIFE,» in «One hundred poems from the Chinese» by Kenneth Rexroth
«The poem is what lies between a between.»
— Mahmoud Darwish (1941—2008), from «Poetic Arrangements,» in «Why did you leave the horse alone?» translated from the Arabic by Jeffrey Sacks
«and touch me tenderly
and gather lilies for me»
— Mahmoud Darwish (1941—2008), from «Poetic Arrangements,» in «Why did you leave the horse alone?» translated from the Arabic by Jeffrey Sacks
«Your eyes open, your head turns.
Your lips nibble at my shoulder.
I feel a languid shudder run over your body.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Still on water,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«Take me to your orchards… Sprinkle me with basil water. Scatter me upon the silver cup. Brush me. Hold me captive in your name. Kill me with love… Burn me so that I’ll be born like a phoenix from my fire and yours!»
— Mahmoud Darwish (1941—2008), from «The Death of the Phoenix,» in «Why did you leave the horse alone?» translated from the Arabic by Jeffrey Sacks
«What’s the point of my waiting and yours?»
— Mahmoud Darwish (1941—2008), from «The Death of the Phoenix,» in «Why did you leave the horse alone?» translated from the Arabic by Jeffrey Sacks
«In the midst of whirling water,
The whirling iris perfume
Caught me in a vision of you»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Incarnation,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«The poem says:
Let’s wait»
— Mahmoud Darwish (1941—2008), from «Ivory Combs,» in «Why did you leave the horse alone?» translated from the Arabic by Jeffrey Sacks
«Your breasts’ very touch and smell;
The sweet secret odor of sex.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Incarnation,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«In the evening my day dead
Meets with your dead day
Only in sleep
We walk the same paths.»
— Vasko Popa (1922—1991), from «Kalenic,» translated from the Serbian by Anne Pennington, in «Vasko Popa. Selected Poems»
«I won’t destroy these cages
I won’t come out of my cocoon
but I’ll destroy the language in my chest
to love you more.»
— Ibrahim Mohammed Ibrahim (born 1961), «Cages 2,» translated from the Arabic by Fadhilal-Azzawi, in «Laisat al-Ardh li» («The Earth Is Not Mine»)
«All love is fantasy,
inventing the year, the day,
the hour and its melody.
It invents the lover, and even
the beloved. This proves nothing
against love, since the beloved
never existed anyway.»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Other Songs to Guiomar,» in «Border of A Dream. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Willis Barnstone
«I will write on your fan:
I love you to forget you,
to love you I forget you.»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Other Songs to Guiomar,» in «Border Of A Dream. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Willis Barnstone
«Your thigh’s exact curve, the fine gauze
Slipping through my hands, and you
Tense on the verge of abandon;»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Incarnation,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«There are hopes
Made out
Of hopelessness,
& the expression
Of them
Is a desolation.»
— Richard Bausch (born 1945), from «There are prayers,» in «These Extremes»
«Not what’s dead or eternal or divine,
just what lives: tiny, quiet, indifferent,
solitary life.
That’s what I seek.»
— Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902—1987), from «Lesser Life,» in «Multitudinous Heart: Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition,» translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith
«Solitude closes down around us
As we lie passive and exhausted
Solitude clamps us softly in its warm hand.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Still on water,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«Rings in a tree trunk reveal
how old the tree is, as tears tell the length of a human life.
And when was the last time you cried?»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «Jewish Travel: Change Is God and Death Is His Prophet»
in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alter
«And now I must leave again. I must return
to the cycle of remembering and forgetting. Farewell. We will meet
someday.»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «Jewish Travel: Change Is God and Death Is His Prophet,»
in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alter
«Let me at least fail at my life […] Let me fall
in love one last time»
— Jack Gilbert (1925—2012), from «I Imagine the Gods»
«I pardon all your sins —
but two I can’t abide:
You read poems in silence
and kiss aloud.
So sin, blossom, be merry —
but take my advice:
a kiss, my darling, is not for the ear,
and music is not for the eyes.»
— Sofia Parnok (1888—1933), translated from the Russian by Robert Chandler
«I want to sing, and to laugh, and to throw
to the wind
the sophisticated sarcasms, and the sobering proverbs.
And I want even more to get drunk —
you know about it — bizarre!»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Like Anacreonte,» in «Times Alone. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Robert Bly
«You stand like an ancient statue
leaning on a saber,
and I, a leaf from the maple tree,
drifted down to your stern feet.»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), in «A Russian Psyche: The Poetic Mind Of Marina Tsvetaeva» by Alyssa W. Dinega
«You beside me
Like a colt swimming slowly in kelp
In the nude sea
Where ten thousand birds
Move like a waved scarf
On the long surge of sleep»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Camargue,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«When over the paper the pen goes writing
in any solitary hour,
who drives the pen?»
— Octavio Paz (1914—1998), from «While I Write,» in «The Poems Of Octavio Paz,″ translated from the Spanish by Eliot Weinberger
«We wish to be dead, and refused by the graves.»
— Nazik al-Mala’ika, from «New Year,» translated from the Arabic by Rebecca Carol Johnson
«You are a green cage
where the ecstatic
white dove sleeps,
with beak beneath its wing.»
— Elías Nandino (1900—1993), «Magnolia Tree,» in «Elías Nandino: Selected Poems,» translated from the Spanish by Don Cellini
«Tell me do you know you who listen to me watch me do you know what it is that I don’t say won’t ever say so there it is between us like a night falling and hiding us in darkness.»
— Jacques Brault (born 1933), from «Visitation,» translated from the French by Jean Morris
«Why do we fear words
when among them are words like unseen bells,
whose echo announces in our troubled lives
the coming of a period of enchanted dawn,
drenched in love, and life?
So why do we fear words?»
— Nazik al-Mala’ika, from «Love Song for Words,» translated from the Arabic by Rebecca Carol Johnson
«Dear, give me words of trust
for you, my man, the only one I ever loved
in long years of stupid terror…»
— Alda Merini (1931—2009), from «Antique Lyric,» i: «Love Lessons Selected Poems of Alda Merini,» translated from the Italian by Susan Stewart
«Lean back. You are beautiful,
As beautiful as the folding
Of your hands in sleep.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «On What Planet,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«When a man is left
by his love, a round hollow spreads out
inside him like a cave
for wondrous stalactites. Slowly,
like the empty place kept within history
for meaning, for purpose and for tears.»
— Octavio Paz (1914—1998), from «When a Man Is Left,» in «The Poems of Octavio Paz″, translated from the Spanish by Eliot Weinberger
«The land that I inhabit is a marble tableau under ice.»
— Yves Préfontaine (born 1937), from «Population void,» translated from the French by Dick Jones
«And in and behind everything,
The inescapable vacant
Distance of loneliness.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «INVERSELY, AS THE SQUARE OF THEIR DISTANCES APART,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«When the executioners broke into
The loneliness of with my heart
They only found:
A light swing
Red clouds
Waiting for five o’clock Mail.»
— Boujema El Aoufi (born 1961), from «The White Befits Susan»
«Sleep is a long
parting from you.»
— Pedro Salinas (1891—1951), from «The Voice I Owe to You,» in «Memory in My Hands: The Love Poetry of Pedro Salinas,» translated from the Spanish by Ruth Katz Crispin
«Oh, sorrow of those who weep without a supporting shoulder!»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), in «A Russian Psyche: The Poetic Mind Of Marina Tsvetaeva» by Alyssa W. Dinega
«Night came into my house
with the roar of stars, flood, wings,
with the glow of swamps, dirt roads and mists.
I lay tense and miserable.»
— Anna Margolin (1887—1952), from «Night came into my house,» in «Drunk from the bitter truth: the poems of Anna Margolin,» translated from the Yiddish by Shirley Kumove
«Spring said nothing to me — it couldn’t.
Perhaps it was a loss for words.»
— Georgy Ivanov (1894—1958), from «Spring said nothing to me,» translated from the Russian by Daniel Weissbort, in «Twentieth century Russian poetry: silver and steel: an anthology»
«And I am a child in this madness of mine»
— Qassim Haddad, from «Epiphanies/ illuminations of Tarafah Ibn al-Wardah»
«The heart beats aloofly
And cannot be heard.»
— Fernando Pessoa (1880—1935), from «Magnificat,» in «A Little Larger Than The Entire Universe: Selected Poems,» translated by Richard Zenith
«Let it be but in verse,
in pacing the dark:
when you scribble,
Your soul lies bare and stark,
and your love becomes verse,
while in prose you are dumb.»
— Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893—1930), from «Christmas Eve,» in «Poems,» translated from the Russian by Dorian Rottenberg
«There is that in the soul which no words can reveal
Which is beyond the reach of both verse and prose»
— Ma’ruf bin Abdul Ghani al Rusafi (1875—1945), from «A Poet’s Thought»
«But the song is a straight line drawn crookedly inside me…»
— Fernando Pessoa (1880—1935), from «Maritime Ode,» in «A Little Larger Than The Entire Universe: Selected Poems,» translated by Richard Zenith
«Faint vertigo of confused things in my soul!»
— Fernando Pessoa (1880—1935), from «Maritime Ode,» in «A Little Larger Than The Entire Universe: Selected Poems,» translated by Richard Zenith
«Patiently, as stone is crushed,
Patiently, as one waits for death,
Patiently, as news ripens,
Patiently, as revenge is cherished —
I shall wait for you…»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Patiently,» translated from the Russian by Peter Norman, in «Passionate Minds. Women rewriting the World» by Claudia Roth Pierpont
«There are sparkles of rain on the bright
Hair over your forehead;
Your eyes are wet and your lips
Wet and cold, your cheek rigid with cold.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Runaway,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«the word burns serene and everything smells like silence.»
— Sara Pujol Russell, from «Everything Smells Like Silence,» in «The Poetry of Sara Pujol Russell,» translated from the Spanish by Noël Maureen Valis
Fool me… but fully, forever…
So I won’t wonder why, so I won’t recall —
when…
So I’ll believe the lie freely, without pondering,
To follow someone in the dark at random…
And not know who’s come, who tied on my blindfold,
Who leads me through a maze of unknown halls,
Whose breathing sometimes burns on my cheek,
Who presses my hand so firmly in their hand…
And on coming to, to see but night and brume…
Fool me, and you too believe the deception.»
— Maximilian Voloshin (1877—1932), translated from the Russian by Sibelan Forrester, in «Russian Silver age poetry,» edited by Sibelan E.S. Forrester and Martha M.F. Kelly
«A confused emotion, bluish like a fogged window,
Sings old songs in my poor grieving heart.»
— Fernando Pessoa (1880—1935), from «Maritime Ode,» in «Fernando Pessoa. A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe,» selected poems, edited and translated by Richard Zenith
«Hope says: Someday you will
see her, if you know how to wait.
Despair says:
She is only your bitterness now.»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Hope Says,» in «Times Alone. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Robert Bly
«I wanted to be different to people.
But even now I’m not ready
to love kin and kind.»
— Anna Margolin (1887—1952), from «Beautiful words of marble and gold,» in «Drunk from the bitter truth: the poems of Anna Margolin,» translated from the Yiddish by Shirley Kumove
«I walk and think various things,
For myself weave a funeral wreath,
And in this hideous world I am
A stylishly solitary man.»
— Georgy Ivanov (1894—1958), from «I walk and think,» translated from the Russian by Daniel Weissbort, in «Twentieth century Russian poetry: silver and steel: an anthology»
«In the end, I owe you nothing; you owe me what I’ve written.»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Portrait,» in «Times Alone. Selected poems of Antonio Machad, o» translated from the Spanish by Robert Bly
«A wanting to love you
moves and a dream of loving you is ended.»
— Sara Pujol Russell, from «Thinking Late Afternoon,» in «The Poetry of Sara Pujol Russell,» translated from the Spanish by Noël Maureen Valis
«Your grace is as beautiful as a sleep.
You move against me like a wave
That moves in sleep.
Your body spreads across my brain
Like a bird-filled summer;
Not like a body, not like a separate thing,
But like a nimbus that hovers
Over every other thing in all the world.
Lean back. You are beautiful,
As beautiful as the folding
Of your hands in sleep.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «When we with Sappho,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«I’m here. It’s chilly. I am here and it is chilly. My long thin fingers stiffen. It’s chilly. I am here. I am here and I don’t even know if she will show up. It’s chilly. It’s chilly. It’s chilly.»
— Mohammed Ismaïl Abdoun, from «Palma,» translated from the French by Jennifer Moxley («Souffles,» second and third trimester, 1968)
«I once saw a woman waiting
at a corner. I don’t know how long
she stood there, or whether the one who hadn’t come did come in the end, or not. But after her death, God will gently pry open her head, as He always does,
to look for the name of the one she truly loved.»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «In my life, On my life,» in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alter
«I yearn for other places where I can see you.
Grass where we might relax.
A thirsty tongue for drinking and to call your name.
I yearn for the night.
I yearn for other doubts to fill my days
and I yearn for you.
In the blueness of the evening, how I yearn
and how I don’t —
Oh! The trembling that comes with the cloud cover of night!»
— Hassan Najmi, in «The Blueness of the Evening,» translated from the Arabic by Mbarek Sryfi, Eric Sellin
«You feel no love or pity for me,
Is there something repulsive in my looks?
You turn aside, trembling with passion
Drape your arms around my neck.»
— Sergey Yesenin (1895—1925), from «You feel no love,» translated from the Russian by Daniel Weissbort, in «Twentieth century Russian poetry: silver and steel: an anthology»
«Take off your dress and stockings;
Sit in the deep chair before the fire.
I will warm your feet in my hands;
I will warm your breasts and thighs with kisses.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Runaway,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.
The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.»
— Octavio Paz (1914—1998), from «Between Going and Staying,» in «The Poems Of Octavio Paz,″ translated by Eliot Weinberger
«I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever»
— Li Bo (701—62), from «The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter,» translated from the Chinese by Ezra Pound
«I want to give myself to you.
I want to squander myself.
Like the holy saints of legend,
may my goodness rise over you
glowing and rich…»
— Anna Margolin (1887—1952), from «Beautiful words of marble and gold,» in «Drunk from the bitter truth: the poems of Anna Margolin,» translated from the Yiddish by Shirley Kumove
«Lean back in the curve of my body,
Press your bruised shoulders against
The damp hair of my body.
Kiss me again.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «When we with Sappho,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«… let the speech of someone’s singing hands
awake my own hands’ hearing.»
— Velimir Khlebnikov (1885—1922), from «Reflections of a Profligate,» in «Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov. Volume III,» translated from the Russian by Paul Schmidt
«Your face
is more delicate than delicate,
your hand
is whiter than white,
you live
in some far-away world
and everything
that’s you is inevitable.
Your sorrow
is inevitable
and your forever-burning
fingers,
and the gentle sound
of your voice,
which never gives up,
and the distance
in your eyes.»
— Osip Mandelstam (1891—1938), translated from the Russian by Alla Burago, Burton Raffel, Sidney Monas, in «Complete Poetry of Osip Mandelstam»
«You won’t believe this, but
I have suffered loss
from profit
and I profited
from loss.»
— Abbas Kiarostami (1940—2016), in «A Wolf Lying in Wait: Selected Poems,» translated from the Persian by Karim Emami & Michael Beard
«I’m resting my closed eyes
on your sleeping eyes
so I can sleep in your dream
and flee with you,
for the backwaters of air,
for timeless space.»
— Elías Nandino (1900—1993), from «On Your Sleeping Eyes,» in «Elías Nandino: Selected Poems,» translated from the Spanish by Don Cellini
«I loved too much! My sweet hope
was childish and without irony:
I granted my dreams not the slightest
respite, not the faintest smile…
And my unreturned kisses had the power
to distract me from a sure death.
And thus I set out on death’s path.»
— Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922—1975), «Language,» in «The Selected Poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini,» translated by Stephen Sartarelli
«certainly hope is not a coffee one sips upon a summer evening
it is not a wink at history
nor is it a palace on an intimate horizon
hope is more than a foundational idea
You cannot even speak of hope. You do not know what hope is.»
— Mohammed Ismaïl Abdoun, from «Dawn Of Tombstones,» translated from the French by Teresa Villa-Ignacio («Souffles,» 1968—1969)
«Why have you stayed
Away so long, why have you only
Come to me late at night
After walking for hours in wind and rain?»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Runaway,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«May your love for me be
like
the scent of the evening sea
drifting in
through a quiet window
so i do not have to run
or chase or fall
…to feel you
all i have to do
is
breathe.»
— Sanober Khan, from «A Thousand Flamingos»
«But what is it I wanted to tell you?
Is it possible that the words are so disconnected
or
I don’t know
lost between me and you
(allow me an unconscious metaphor)
like carrier pigeons that no-one can train…»
— Roberto Amato (born 1953), from «And Yet,» translated from the Italian by Matilda Colarossi
«And I am here,
feeling drunk.
And my words stagger.»
— Hassan Najmi (born 1960), from «The Inn,» in «The Blueness of the Evening. Selected poems by Hassan Najmi,» translated from the Arabic by Mbarek Sryfi and Eric Sellin
«Your body moves in my arms
On the verge of sleep;
And it is as though I held
In my arms the bird filled
Evening sky of summer.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «When we with Sappho,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«So many people you can take to bed
So few you feel like waking up with
[…]
We open our souls only to people of one kind
The one that makes us feel like waking up with…»
— Eduard Asadov (1923—2004), from «So many people you can take to bed,» translated from the Russian by Enn McKenzy
«You took away all the oceans and all the room.
You gave me my shoe-size with bars round it.
And where did it get you? Nowhere.
You didn’t take away my lips,
and they shape words, even in silence.»
— Osip Mandelstam (1891—1938), translated from the Russian by Clarence Brown and W.S. Merwin
«I, may I rest in peace — I, who am still living, say,
May I have peace in the rest of my life.
I want peace right now while I’m still alive
…
I want peace with all my body and all my soul.
Rest me in peace.»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «In my life, On my life,» in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alter
«Between us there is still a whole paragraph…
And so you are poised ten stanzas, ten lines away»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «An Attempt to Construct a Room,» in «A Russian Psyche: The Poetic Mind Of Marina Tsvetaeva» by Alyssa W. Dinega
«I had embraced you…
long before i hugged you.»
— Sanober Khan, from «A Thousand Flamingos»
«My chest
Tightens against me. I have
No one to turn to. Nothing,
Not even a shadow in a mirror.»
— MEI YAO CH’EN, from «Sorrow,» in «One hundred poems from the Chinese» by Kenneth Rexroth
«I am like a gull
Lost between heaven and earth.»
— Tu Fu, from «Night thoughts while travelling,» in «One hundred poems from the Chinese» by Kenneth Rexroth
«Into the white book of your quietnesses,
Into the wild clay of your yesses —
Quietly I cup the slant of my brow:
Since my palm — is life»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), in «A Russian Psyche: The Poetic Mind Of Marina Tsvetaeva» by Alyssa W. Dinega
«Poetry and letters
Persist in silence and solitude.»
— Tu Fu, from «Night in the house by the river,» in «One hundred poems from the Chinese» by Kenneth Rexroth
«it was absolutely necessary, precisely, to feel more pain in the rose
to love more, to say more and to know more in silence.»
— Sara Pujol Russell, from «Lotus and Rose in the Blue Flower,» in «The Poetry of Sara Pujol Russell,» translated from the Spanish by Noël Maureen Valis
«Kiss me with your mouth
Wet and ragged, your mouth that tastes
Of my own flesh. Read to me again
The twisting music of that language
That is of all others, itself a work of art.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «When we with Sappho,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«Take off your shoes and stockings.
I will kiss your sweet legs and feet
As they lie half buried in the tangle
Of rank-scented midsummer flowers.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «When we with Sappho,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«Wherever you might be — I’ll overtake you, suffer you out — and return you back.»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), in «A Russian Psyche. The Poetic Mind of Marina Tsvetaeva» by Alyssa W. Dinega
«I’m equally indifferent where
— Alone, entirely and wholly, —
I am…»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Poems to Czechoslovakia,» translated from the Russian by Andrey Kneller
«Happy is he who has not met you
On his life’s path.»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «I repeat on the eve of parting,» translated from the Russian by Rolf W. F. Gross
«Stop reading. Lean back. Give me your mouth.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «When we with Sappho,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«Dawn is a woman
who breaks your windows with her breasts
— reddened are the nipples
suckled on by tramps…»
— Linda Maria Baros (born 1981), from «In the snare of the nostrils,» translated from the French by Stephen Romer
«Out of the westbone snow shall come a memory
Floated upon it by my hands,
By my lips that remember your kisses.
It shall caress your hands, your lips,
Your breasts, your thighs, with kisses,
As real as flesh, as real as memory of flesh.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «The thin edge of your pride,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«I stand alone with ten thousand sorrows.»
— Tu Fu, from «Loneliness,» in «One hundred poems from the Chinese» by Kenneth Rexroth
«I like to think of you naked.
I put your naked body
Between myself alone and death.
If I go into my brain
And set fire to your sweet nipples,
To the tendons beneath your knees,
I can see far before me.
It is empty there where I look,
But at least it is lighted.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Between Myself And Death,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«And I’ll tear my heart out of my chest,
I’ll hack at it with my teeth
and I’ll sprinkle it with salt
extracted with a pick
from my tear ducts
and I shall hurl it
as one hurls a millstone,
so it breaks your tibia and your fibula
— into little pieces! —
so it buries deep in the oven
your ammoniac breath
and so it splits once and for all
your savage beastly head!»
— Linda Maria Baros (born 1981), from «Of Love and Cyanide!» translated from the French by Stephen Romer
«How do I hold everything if the body of love only lives
its intensity in the intensity of another body and its life in another life?»
— Sara Pujol Russell, from «Light Enters through Poetry,» in «The Poetry of Sara Pujol Russell,» translated from the Spanish by Noël Maureen Valis
«To think of you surcharged with
Loneliness. To hear your voice
Over the recorder say,
«Loneliness:’ The word, the voice,
So full of it, and I, with
You away, so lost in it
—
Lost in loneliness and pain.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «Loneliness,» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«Where does this tenderness come from?
These are not the — first curls I
have stroked slowly — and lips I
have known are — darker than yours
[…]
Where does this tenderness come from?
And what shall I do with it, young
sly singer, just passing by?
Your lashes are — longer than anyone’s.»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Where Does this Tenderness Come From?» translated from the Russian by Elaine Feinstein
«All night I lay awake beside you,
Leaning on my elbow, watching your
Sleeping face, that face whose purity
Never ceases to astonish me.
I could not sleep. But I did not want
Sleep nor miss it. Against my body,
Your body lay like a warm soft star.
How many nights I have waked and watched
You, in how many places. Who knows?
This night might be the last one of all.
As on so many nights, once more I
Drank from your sleeping flesh the deep still
Communion I am not always strong
Enough to take from you waking, the peace of love.»
— Kenneth Rexroth (1905—1982), from «She Is Away» in «Sacramental Acts. The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth»
«You are the fire of the forests
The water of the river
The secret of the fire
Half of you cannot be described
The other half: a priestess in the temple of Ishtar.»
— Abdulwahhab Al-Bayyatim, from «Secret of Fire,» translated from the Arabic by Bassam k. Frangieh
«Body of mine, you leave me constantly and yet remain.
How to hold on to you and flowers, how to hold you and not your shadows?
You are not enough, body of mine — the snow of skin and voice — you are
not enough…»
— Sara Pujol Russell, from «Closing the Cycle of Snow,» in «The Poetry of Sara Pujol Russell,» translated from the Spanish by Noël Maureen Valis
«And maybe
These words of mine
Are now close to those of Jesus.
So let us await the tears of heaven,
O beloved.»
— Mohamed Al-Maghout, from «From the Doorstep to Heaven,» translated from the Arabic by May Jayyusi and John Heath-Stubbs, in «Modern Arabic Poetry: An Anthology,» edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi
«For Nietzsche, hope was the beginning of loss.
But we can be even more radical:
the beginning of anything is the beginning of loss.
We all lose, but some lose more slowly
than others.»
— Harkaitz Cano (born 1975), from «Lost Things Found Hopes,» translated from the Spanish by Kristin Addis
«Do you know what sorrow the rain can inspire?
.
Do you know how gutters weep when it pours down?
.
Do you know how lost a solitary person feels in the rain?»
— Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, from «Rain Song,» translated from the Arabic by Lena Jayyusi and Christopher Middleton
«A difficult equation
To exchange a dream for an illusion»
— Adnan Al-Sayegh (born 1955), from «Under a Strange Sky» («Universal Colors,» issue #209)
«Tears burn my eyes until they glow red»
— Adnan Al-Sayegh (born 1955), from «Naïve,» translated from the Arabic by Ko Koomon («Universal Colors,» issue #209)
«Light enters my body, anguish, love and snow.
I move away from myself, come closer and it is always the same anguish,
the same love, the same light and snow… and a different body.»
— Sara Pujol Russell, from «Light Enters through Poetry,» in «The Poetry of Sara Pujol Russell,» translated from the Spanish by Noël Maureen Valis
«How do I live you more, feel you more, love, if all I have
are two dark eyes in the snow and hands in your dreams?»
— Sara Pujol Russell, from «Light Enters through Poetry,» in «The Poetry of Sara Pujol Russell,» translated from the Spanish by Noël Maureen Valis
«Dawn — when solitude
seems to you like a brain curdled on the walls.»
— Linda Maria Baros (born 1981), from «In the snare of the nostrils,» translated from the French by Stephen Romer
«The human heart can be transplanted.
Your heart can live in me.
My heart can live in you.
Imagine that.
Now can you feel the arrow?»
— Marilyn Murray, from «Imagine a Heart»
«I waited too long
tell me that you love me
I listen, I come.»
— Claude Esteban (born 1935), translated from the French by John Montague
«don’t leave me
on the road
lead me where words no longer scourge.»
— Claude Esteban (born 1935), from «Maybe he’ll come back,» translated from the French by John Montague
«And in your holy name I will kiss the evening snow»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Poems to Blok,» translated from the Russian by Ilya Shambat
«Your every glass — will be empty. You yourself — are an ocean for the lips.»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), in «A Russian Psyche. The Poetic Mind of Marina Tsvetaeva» by Alyssa W. Dinega
«Enter inside me! Make
My soul your weightless shadow!
And take me with you, away!»
— Fernando Pessoa (1880—1935), from «Slanting Rain,» in «Fernando Pessoa. A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe,» edited and translated by Richard Zenith
«You are a burning lamp to me, a flame
The wind cannot blow out, and I shall hold you
High in my hand against whatever darkness.»
— Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892—1950), from «The Lamp & The Bell»
«I see your face in every other face.
You are the sun that travels neither east nor west.
You neither wake nor sleep.
You are my resurrection and my fall.
You seam my sorrows.
You let my meteoring verses be the death of thorns.
You let me hold like wind the very planets in my hand
until they’re purified and lost.
No wonder I assault you with my heart
and know you, pore by pore.»
— Adonis (born 1930), in «Transformations Of The Lover,» translated from the Arabic by Samuel Hazo
«Why?
Because your whispering invites me.»
— Adonis (born 1930), in «Transformations Of The Lover,» translated from the Arabic by Samuel Hazo
«You will know love by its way of gathering lavender,
you will know the soul by its way of cutting through water»
— Sara Pujol Russell, from «Sometimes, Now Is,» in «The Poetry of Sara Pujol Russell,» translated from the Spanish by Noël Maureen Valis
«Succor my soul! (It’s impossible to succor our souls
without having touched the lips!) It’s impossible, falling upon the lips,
not to fall also upon Psyche, the fluttering guest of lips…
Succor my soul: which means, succor my lips.»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Phaedra,» in «A Russian Psyche. The Poetic Mind of Marina Tsvetaeva» by Alyssa W. Dinega
«night closes over her like water over a stone
like air over a bird
like two bodies closing to make love»
— Alejandra Pizarnik (1936—1972), from «Like Water Over a Stone,» translated by Dave Bonta, in «A genius for brevity: Alejandra Pizarnik»
«And I will not call you by your name, and I will not stretch my arms out to you…»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), in «A Russian Psyche. The Poetic Mind of Marina Tsvetaeva» by Alyssa W. Dinega
«It’s hard to guess where that pride of poets comes from,
when so often they’re put to shame by the disclosure of their frailty.»
— Czeslaw Milosz (1911—2004), from «Ars Poetica?» translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Lillian Vallee
«Sometimes people argue «You’re
just using me,» «you’re taking advantage.»
But lovers say the very same words with joy, with passion:
«I want it, take advantage of me,»»I
want it too — use me
up.»»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «The Language of Love and Tea with Roasted Almonds,» in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alter
«What does the drop of blood want in the corner of heaven
In that one-eyed corner of heaven.»
— Vasko Popa (1922—1991), from «Fugitive Stars,» translated from the Serbian by Anne Pennington, in «Vasko Popa. Selected Poems»
«Carve you features in the memory of my palms
And breathe the tigress lurking at the drop of the shoulders.»
— Joumana Haddad (born 1970), from «The return of Lilith,» translated from the Arabic by Henry Mathews (IJEMS Volume 4, 2011)
«I refuse to swim on the current of human spines.
To your mad world — one answer: I refuse.»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from «Poems to Czechoslovakia,» translated from the Russian by Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine
«Teach me the quiet gift — tell me that nothing has been futile —
teach me the light and I will accept the fire shovel of leaves that waits,
the memory that twists me, the pain that teaches me in the furrows of fields.»
— Sara Pujol Russell, from «White Wall, I Flow in the Voice Because of Your Silence,» in «The Poetry of Sara Pujol Russell,» translated from the Spanish by Noël Maureen Valis
«I flow in the voice because of your silence, in the shadow and light, light in
your light.»
— Sara Pujol Russell, from «White Wall, I Flow in the Voice Because of Your Silence,» in «The Poetry of Sara Pujol Russell,» translated from the Spanish by Noël Maureen Valis
«Many nights I spent with a glass of wine in my right hand
while my left kept squeezing a young budding breast
like an apple made from silver that was melted down
and then cooled in a perfectly round mold.»
— Yusuf Ibn Harun al-Ramadi (died ca. 1022), «Silver Breasts,» translated from the Arabic by Abdelfetah Chenni, in «Poems for the Millennium. Book of North African Literature,» edited by Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour
«Are you crying now? … In the golden poplars
far off, the shadow of love is waiting for you.»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Field,» in «Times Alone. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Robert Bly
«Sorrow, it is not true that I know you;
you are the nostalgia for a good life,
and the aloneness of the soul in shadow,
the sailing ship without wreck and without guide.»
— Antonio Machado (1875—1939), from «Sorrow, it is not true that I know you,» in «Times Alone. Selected poems of Antonio Machado,» translated from the Spanish by Robert Bly
«The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.»
— Czeslaw Milosz (1911—2004), from «Ars Poetica?» translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Lillian Vallee
«Teach my smile — weight of the world, lightness of the soul —
I do not want to live in vain and the weight is too great
for my lips, and the lightness very small for my shadows.»
— Sara Pujol Russell, from «White Wall, I Flow in the Voice Because of Your Silence,» in «The Poetry of Sara Pujol Russell,» translated from the Spanish by Noël Maureen Valis
«Come on let’s pretend that I’m dead.
You’ll call to me, and I won’t answer.
I still haven’t chosen a position.
In any case, it won’t be the pose of a victim.»
— Gali-Dana Singer (born 1962), from «Fragment of a poem,» translated from the Hebrew by Lisa Katz
«A kiss on the forehead — erases misery.
I kiss your forehead.
A kiss on the eyes — lifts sleeplessness.
I kiss your eyes.
A kiss on the lips — is a drink of water.
I kiss your lips.
A kiss on the forehead — erases memory.»
— Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), «A Kiss on The Forehead,» translated from the Russian by Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine
«I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.»
— Czeslaw Milosz (1911—2004), from «Dedication,» translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz
«The blurriness of joy and the precision of pain—
I want to describe, with a sharp pain’s precision, happiness
and blurry joy. I learned to speak among the pains.»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «The Precision of Pain and the Blurriness of Joy, in «The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alter
«Teach my smile — will your smile last in some body,
somewhere I cannot reach with my amnesia?»
— Sara Pujol Russell, from «White Wall, I Flow in the Voice Because of Your Silence,» in «The Poetry of Sara Pujol Russell,» translated from the Spanish by Noël Maureen Valis
«O explanation of my life,
you’ve remained, among stern idols,
beyond the pale of my irony,
like an object lost on the street.»
— Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902—1987), from «Verses on The Brink of Evening,» translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith
«Middle age unlearns
the lessons of childhood.
I no longer want words,
or need them…
I don’t even miss
what would complete me and is nearly always melancholy.»
— Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902—1987), from «Sadness In Heaven,» translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith
«May you sleep
on your tender girlfriend’s breasts»
— Sappho (c. 630–c. 570 BCE), «Sleep,» in «The Complete Poems Of Sappho,» translated from the Greek by Willis Barnstone
«with your soft hands take stems
of lovely anise and loop them in your locks.»
— Sappho (c. 630–c. 570 BCE), in «The Complete Poems Of Sappho,» translated from the Greek by Willis Barnstone
«And when the moon gives its humble blessing to men, I see you gigantic, silhouetted by the sharp edges of a lightning bolt; I see you enormous, confused with the immortal, scattering your indulgence over the world, soothing the desperation of so many suffering castaways; I breathe you in the atmosphere, I imagine you in the mystery, I extract you from nothingness.»
— Teresa Wilms Montt (1893—1921), from «In the Stillness of Marble,» translated by Jessica Sequeira
«I look for you in my limits, losing myself somewhere between knowing
and sadness;
I look for myself, finding the void where something ought to have happened
and did not happen, where something unlucky ought not to have happened
and happened»
— Sara Pujol Russell, from «Sometimes, Now Is,» in «The Poetry of Sara Pujol Russell,» translated from the Spanish by Noël Maureen Valis
«There’s longing everywhere.
The precision of pain and the blurriness of joy.»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «The Precision of Pain and the Blurriness of Joy,» in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alter
«Sometimes my soul wants to get out of my body for a little run,
like a dog, and return calmer to the body. But it worries
that it won’t find the way back.»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «The Precision of Pain and the Blurriness of Joy,» in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alte
«Dark as unfathomable
Dark of your eyes,
my tender one.
Where you sleep now, this night,
I imagined the bed.
The little stillnesses in your breath,
Each sigh like a wish.»
— Richard Bausch (born 1945), from «High Overhead,» in «These Extremes»
«you took the vowels
and I the consonants, and together we were of one language
and many words»
— Yehuda Amichai (1924—2000), from «Houses (Plural); Love (Singular),» in «The Poetry Of Yehuda Amichai,» edited by Robert Alter
Бесплатный фрагмент закончился.
Купите книгу, чтобы продолжить чтение.