*Poem of the day thread

[Sirena]

Gretel in Darkness

This is the world we wanted.
All who would have seen us dead
are dead. I hear the witch's cry
break in the moonlight through a sheet
of sugar: God rewards.
Her tongue shrivels into gas . . .

Now, far from women's arms
and memory of women, in our father's hut
we sleep, are never hungry.
Why do I not forget?
My father bars the door, bars harm
from this house, and it is years.

No one remembers. Even you, my brother,
summer afternoons you look at me as though
you meant to leave,
as though it never happened.
But I killed for you. I see armed firs,
the spires of that gleaming kiln--

Nights I turn to you to hold me
but you are not there.
Am I alone? Spies
hiss in the stillness, Hansel,
we are there still and it is real, real,
that black forest and the fire in earnest.

Louise Glück

 

[phildwyer]

"September 1913"

What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone;
For men were born to pray and save;
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet they were of a different kind,
The names that stilled your childish play,
They have gone about the world like wind,
But little time had they to pray
For whom the hangman's rope was spun,
And what, God help us, could they save?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread
The grey wing upon every tide;
For this that all that blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died,
And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,
All that delirium of the brave?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet could we turn the years again,
And call those exiles as they were
In all their loneliness and pain,
You'd cry `Some woman's yellow hair
Has maddened every mother's son':
They weighed so lightly what they gave.
But let them be, they're dead and gone,
They're with O'Leary in the grave.

-- WB Yeats

 

[Autochthonous1]

STARFUCKS IN STARBUCKS

The queue was eight minutes long,
So I had plenty of time to look;
The back of her wavy silk hair,
Her most excellent hips and arse,
Occasionally, the side of her face.
I knew her name;
It was written on her cup,
Unless she's like me,
And says a different one each day,
Just for kicks.
Today I was Sandra.
But only because they got it wrong.
Maybe Hannah has identity issues too.

By Autochthonous1, October 2013

 

[maya]

The Hand That Signed The Paper

The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,
The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
A goose's quill has put an end to murder
That put an end to talk.

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand the holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.

The five kings count the dead but do not soften
The crusted wound nor pat the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.


- Dylan Thomas

 

[Greebo]

Mud

By candle light anger flickers
Children raised by children fight
To lift them selves from ashes
Hopes and fears of a new life drive

A revolution
A rebellion

Under velvet water chains drown
Chewed free by desperation
Every old habit dies hard
All dreams are held down by something

A miracle
A spark

Light your fires
Let your eyes awake
Everything cast a shadow
Every shadow has a light
There is no such thing as fear
Only lack of adventure
Let go
Breathe

Hot wind blows down dominance
Your not needed to reach down
Try to lift us up no more
Raising our selves is what we’ve done

Our hands
Our will

From the mud a smile shines bright
Freedom playing in its new ears
No shame have they learned, no hate
New eyes search for ways to improve

A life
A love

Light your fires
Let your eyes awake
Everything cast a shadow
Every shadow has a light
There is no such thing as fear
Only lack of adventure
Let go
Breathe

The flames still glare as a passion
Chains still drown and hot winds swirl
Mud is dirt and decay mixed with
Pain and suffering, shoe imprints
Sky water

What’s left
From the ashes
From the dirt
From the rain

Comes mud

Azlynn Jane Andrews

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

Mad Girl's Love Song
by Sylvia Plath

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

 

[idumea]

An Arundel Tomb
Philip Larkin

Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd–
The little dogs under their feet.

Such plainess of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.

They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends could see:
A sculptor’s sweet comissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.

They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
Their air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they

Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,

Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone finality
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

 

[Greebo]

Unfastidious

I'd love to flirt/charm/be proactive,
I find you sweet/funny/attractive,
You're far too absent/distant/out of sight,
I wish you'd come over/call me/write.

Meghan Marie

 

[dessiato]

This is one of my favourites, mainly for the last five lines, and for the lines about The Pirates.

Steps
How funny you are today New York
like Ginger Rogers in Swingtime
and St. Bridget's steeple leaning a little to the left

here I have just jumped out of a bed full of V-days
(I got tired of D-days) and blue you there still
accepts me foolish and free
all I want is a room up there
and you in it
and even the traffic halt so thick is a way
for people to rub up against each other
and when their surgical appliances lock
they stay together
for the rest of the day (what a day)
I go by to check a slide and I say
that painting's not so blue

where's Lana Turner
she's out eating
and Garbo's backstage at the Met
everyone's taking their coat off
so they can show a rib-cage to the rib-watchers
and the park's full of dancers with their tights and shoes
in little bags
who are often mistaken for worker-outers at the West Side Y
why not
the Pittsburgh Pirates shout because they won
and in a sense we're all winning
we're alive

the apartment was vacated by a gay couple
who moved to the country for fun
they moved a day too soon
even the stabbings are helping the population explosion
though in the wrong country
and all those liars have left the UN
the Seagram Building's no longer rivalled in interest
not that we need liquor (we just like it)

and the little box is out on the sidewalk
next to the delicatessen
so the old man can sit on it and drink beer
and get knocked off it by his wife later in the day
while the sun is still shining

oh god it's wonderful
to get out of bed
and drink too much coffee
and smoke too many cigarettes
and love you so much

Frank O'Hara

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

You would have understood me, had you waited
By Ernest Christopher Dowson

You would have understood me, had you waited;
I could have loved you, dear! as well as he:
Had we not been impatient, dear! and fated
Always to disagree.

What is the use of speech? Silence were fitter:
Lest we should still be wishing things unsaid.
Though all the words we ever spake were bitter,
Shall I reproach you dead?

Nay, let this earth, your portion, likewise cover
All the old anger, setting us apart:
Always, in all, in truth was I your lover;
Always, I held your heart.

I have met other women who were tender,
As you were cold, dear! with a grace as rare.
Think you, I turned to them, or made surrender,
I who had found you fair?

Had we been patient, dear! ah, had you waited,
I had fought death for you, better than he:
But from the very first, dear! we were fated
Always to disagree.

Late, late, I come to you, now death discloses
Love that in life was not to be our part:
On your low lying mound between the roses,
Sadly I cast my heart.

I would not waken you: nay! this is fitter;
Death and the darkness give you unto me;
Here we who loved so, were so cold and bitter,
Hardly can disagree.

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

To A Lost Love
By Ernest Christopher Dowson

I seek no more to bridge the gulf that lies
Betwixt our separate ways;
For vainly my heart prays,
Hope droops her head and dies;
I see the sad, tired answer in your eyes.

I did not heed, and yet the stars were clear;
Dreaming that love could mate
Lives grown so separate;--
But at the best, my dear,
I see we should not have been very near.

I knew the end before the end was nigh:
The stars have grown so plain;
Vainly I sigh, in vain
For things that come to some,
But unto you and me will never come.

 

[Greebo]

Flirting with a Brick Wall

It's kind of like when you want something sweet
And all there is are a bunch of old bitter hard candies
Sitting in your grandma's rusted bowl
On the coffee table in the dim living room and
That candy probably isn't there for eating but just for
Decoration or something,
So you pick one out anyway and it's not all that great
Even though that's exactly what you'd expect

But that little part of you said
"Maybe this won't be
another rock solid butterscotch chew"
Because you hoped this time would be different
But you thought wrong
And you'll probably end up eating another
Because it's
Better than nothing

uhhhhhhh

 

[Dillinger4]

The following remains one of my favourite poems. If I remember correctly, I read it here first. It was posted by pickmans model about five years ago. It was one of a few things that really ignited my love of poetry (the other being Roberto Bolano) from something that I passively enjoyed as much as any person who reads into a bit of an obsession (thanks a lot pickmans for ruining my life with poetry) The last verse has stuck with me ever since. It really moves me. It is keeping with the decadent poet theme of the last few poems posted by shiftybaglady.

Stella Maris by Arthur Symons.

Why is it I remember yet
You, of all women one has met
In random wayfare, as one meets
The chance romances of the streets,
The Juliet of a night? I know
Your heart holds many a Romeo.
And I, who call to mind your face
In so serene a pausing-place,
Where the bright pure expanse of sea,
The shadowy shore's austerity,
Seems a reproach to you and me,
I too have sought on many a breast
The ecstasy of love's unrest,
I too have had my dreams, and met
(Ah me!) how many a Juliet.
Why is it, then, that I recall
You, neither first nor last of all?
For, surely as I see tonight
The glancing of the lighthouse light,
Against the sky, across the bay,
As turn by turn it falls my way,
So surely do I see your eyes
Out of the empty night arise,
Child, you arise and smile to me
Out of the night, out of the sea,
The Nereid of a moment there,
And is it seaweed in your hair?

O lost and wrecked, how long ago,
Out of the drownèd past, I know,
You come to call me, come to claim
My share of your delicious shame.
Child, I remember, and can tell,
One night we loved each other well;
And one night's love, at least or most,
Is not so small a thing to boast.
You were adorable, and I
Adored you to infinity,
That nuptial night too briefly borne
To the oblivion of morn.
Oh, no oblivion! for I feel
Your lips deliriously steal
Along my neck and fasten there;
I feel the perfume of your hair,
And your soft breast that heaves and dips,
Desiring my desirous lips,
And that ineffable delight
When souls turn bodies, and unite
In the intolerable, the whole
Rapture of the embodied soul.

That joy was ours, we passed it by;
You have forgotten me, and I
Remember you thus strangely, won
An instant from oblivion.
And I, remembering, would declare
That joy, not shame, is ours to share,
Joy that we had the will and power,
In spite of fate, to snatch one hour,
Out of vague nights, and days at strife,
So infinitely full of life.
And 'tis for this I see you rise,
A wraith, with starlight in your eyes,
Here, where the drowsy-minded mood
Is one with Nature's solitude;
For this, for this, you come to me
Out of the night, out of the sea.

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

That's beautiful.

 

[Dillinger4]

I am reading The Emergence of Social Space: Rimbaud and the Paris Commune by Kristin Ross:

The 1870s in France - Rimbaud's moment, and the subject of this book - is a decade virtually ignored in most standard histories in France. Yet it was the moment of two significant spatial events: France's expansion on a global scale, and, in the spring of 1871, the brief existence on the Paris Commune - the construction of the revolutionary urban space. Arguing that space, as a social fact, is always political and strategic, Kristin Ross has written a book that is at once a history and geography of the Commune's anarchist culture - its political language and social relations, its values, strategies, and stances. Central to her analysis of the Commune as a social space and oppositional culture is a close textual reading of Arthur Rimabaud's poetry. His poems - a common thread running through the book - are one set of documents among many in Ross's recreation of the Communard experience. Rimbaud, Paul Lafargue, and the social geographer Elisee Reclus serve as emblematic figures moving within and on the periphery of the Commune; in their resistance to the logic and economy of the capitalist conception of work, in their challenge to work itself as a term of identity, all three posed a threat to the existing order. Ross looks at these and other emancipatory notions as aspects of Communard life, each with an analogous strategy in Rimbaud's poetry. Applying contemporary theory, to a wealth of little-known archival material, she has written a fresh, persuasive, and original book.

Here's to the communards

Parisian War Song by Arthur Rimbaud

Spring is here, plain as day,
Thiers and Picard steal away
From what they stole: green Estates
With vernal splendours on display

May: a jubilee of nudity, asses on parade
Sevres, Meudon, Bagneux, Asnieries -
New arrivals make their way,
Sowing springtime everywhere.

They've got shakos, sabers, and tom-toms,
Not those useless old smouldering stakes
And skiffs "that nev-nev-never did cut..."
Through the reddening waters of the lakes.

Now more than ever we'll band together
When golden gems blow out our knees.
Watch as they burst on our crumbling heaps:
You've never seen dawns like these.

Thiers and Picard think they're artists
Painting Corots with gasoline.
They pick flowers from public gardens,
Their tropes traipsing from seam to seam...

Their intimates of the Big Man, and Favre,
From the flowerbeds where he's sleeping,
Undams an aqeductal flow of tears: a pinch
of pepper prompts adequate weeping...

The stones of the city are hot,
Despite all of your gasoline showers.
Doubtless an appropriate moment
To roust your kind from power...

And the Nouveau Riche lolling peacefully
Beneath the shade of ancient trees,
Will hear the boughs break overhead:
Red Rustlings that won't be leaves!

 

[Ceej]

O sweet spontaneous by e.e cummings

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked
thee
has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy
beauty .how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
thou answerest
them only with
spring)

 

[sojourner]

Beghilos

4.31 am.
The gas demanded 50p.
“god’s in every calculator”
sighed Mr Leary,
quietly,
into his gin.

Silence.
Felt his words bend and reverse,
remembering the beginning.
In the
was the
Word
and the Word was with
and the Word was

ESSO
ShELLOIL
gEESE and
gOOLIES
hELLO
ShOES
or a
BOOBLESS gOOSE
but

not god.
No ‘d’, see.​

“Mr Leary?”

5.33 am, numb.
Rummaged for hexagonal warmth.
Mr Leary laughed, refused to be drawn.
I ruminated on numerological representations of entities we cannot conceive or conceptualise; on the transformation of text.

6.06 am.
First bus home.
Fingered ‘dog’ in condensation.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Poema XV de Pablo Neruda -

Me gustas cuando callas...

Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente,
y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca.
Parece que los ojos se te hubieran volado
y parece que un beso te cerrara la boca.

Como todas las cosas están llenas de mi alma
emerges de las cosas, llena del alma mía.
Mariposa de sueño, te pareces a mi alma,
y te pareces a la palabra melancolía.

Me gustas cuando callas y estás como distante.
Y estás como quejándote, mariposa en arrullo.
Y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te alcanza:
déjame que me calle con el silencio tuyo.

Déjame que te hable también con tu silencio
claro como una lámpara, simple como un anillo.
Eres como la noche, callada y constelada.
Tu silencio es de estrella, tan lejano y sencillo.

Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente.
Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto.
Una palabra entonces, una sonrisa bastan.
Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto.


Translation:

I like for you to be still.

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
and you hear me from far away and my voice does not touch you.
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
and it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth.

As all things are filled with my soul
you emerge from the things, filled with my soul.
You are like my soul, a butterfly of dream,
and you are like the word Melancholy.

I like for you to be still, and you seem far away.
It sounds as though you were lamenting, a butterfly cooing like a dove.
And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you:
Let me come to be still in your silence.

And let me talk to you with your silence
that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring.
You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations.
Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid.

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
distant and full of sorrow as though you had died.
One word then, one smile, is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it's not true.

 

[Dillinger4]

America by Tony Hoagland

Then one of the students with blue hair and a tongue stud
Says that America is for him a maximum-security prison

Whose walls are made of RadioShacks and Burger Kings, and MTV episodes
Where you can't tell the show from the commercials,

And as I consider how to express how full of shit I think he is,
He says that even when he's driving to the mall in his Isuzu

Trooper with a gang of his friends, letting rap music pour over them
Like a boiling Jacuzzi full of ballpeen hammers, even then he feels

Buried alive, captured and suffocated in the folds
Of the thick satin quilt of America

And I wonder if this is a legitimate category of pain,
or whether he is just spin doctoring a better grade,

And then I remember that when I stabbed my father in the dream last night,
It was not blood but money

That gushed out of him, bright green hundred-dollar bills
Spilling from his wounds, and—this is the weird part—,

He gasped, "Thank god—those Ben Franklins were
Clogging up my heart—

And so I perish happily,
Freed from that which kept me from my liberty"—

Which is when I knew it was a dream, since my dad
Would never speak in rhymed couplets,

And I look at the student with his acne and cell phone and phony ghetto clothes
And I think, "I am asleep in America too,

And I don't know how to wake myself either,"
And I remember what Marx said near the end of his life:

"I was listening to the cries of the past,
When I should have been listening to the cries of the future."

But how could he have imagined 100 channels of 24-hour cable
Or what kind of nightmare it might be

When each day you watch rivers of bright merchandise run past you
And you are floating in your pleasure boat upon this river

Even while others are drowning underneath you
And you see their faces twisting in the surface of the waters

And yet it seems to be your own hand
Which turns the volume higher?

 

[Dillinger4]

Personal by Tony Hoagland

Don’t take it personal, they said;
but I did, I took it all quite personal—

the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;
the price of grapefruit and stamps,

the wet hair of women in the rain—
And I cursed what hurt me

and I praised what gave me joy,
the most simple-minded of possible responses.

The government reminded me of my father,
with its deafness and its laws,

and the weather reminded me of my mom,
with her tropical squalls.

Enjoy it while you can, they said of Happiness
Think first, they said of Talk

Get over it, they said
at the School of Broken Hearts

but I couldn’t and I didn’t and I don’t
believe in the clean break;

I believe in the compound fracture
served with a sauce of dirty regret,

I believe in saying it all
and taking it all back

and saying it again for good measure
while the air fills up with I’m-Sorries

like wheeling birds
and the trees look seasick in the wind.

Oh life! Can you blame me
for making a scene?

You were that yellow caboose, the moon
disappearing over a ridge of cloud.

I was the dog, chained in some fool’s backyard;
barking and barking:

trying to convince everything else
to take it personal too.

 

[sojourner]

Personal by Tony Hoagland

Don’t take it personal, they said;
but I did, I took it all quite personal—

the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;
the price of grapefruit and stamps,

the wet hair of women in the rain—
And I cursed what hurt me

and I praised what gave me joy,
the most simple-minded of possible responses.

The government reminded me of my father,
with its deafness and its laws,

and the weather reminded me of my mom,
with her tropical squalls.

Enjoy it while you can, they said of Happiness
Think first, they said of Talk

Get over it, they said
at the School of Broken Hearts

but I couldn’t and I didn’t and I don’t
believe in the clean break;

I believe in the compound fracture
served with a sauce of dirty regret,

I believe in saying it all
and taking it all back

and saying it again for good measure
while the air fills up with I’m-Sorries

like wheeling birds
and the trees look seasick in the wind.

Oh life! Can you blame me
for making a scene?

You were that yellow caboose, the moon
disappearing over a ridge of cloud.

I was the dog, chained in some fool’s backyard;
barking and barking:

trying to convince everything else
to take it personal too.

That's serious fucking quality that

 

[Dillinger4]

That's serious fucking quality that

init

 

[Dillinger4]

Morning by Maitreyabandhu

Every day I do nothing now -
light candles, drink tea, sit
in the old chair and watch
the usual slow-drift clouds.

Ash branches move together
in up-and-down beckoning
and the corner of a school
redbrick, pale brick, slate -

hums with children's voices.
Everyday I say to myself
Wait now, Gentle now... but
the carpet is a desert-place

of camels and palm trees
and someone comes in
with a message and a drink.
I should be doing nothing now -

undoing myself, waiting for
the pigeon flock of thought
to circle round the roof and
settle in the rafters of the house.

 

[Greebo]

Late Fragment

And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Raymond Carver

 

[Greebo]

If You Forget Me

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Pablo Neruda

 

[butchersapron]

Happy birthday Ret Marut/B Traven/many other names:

When I die
let the black rag fly
raven falling
from the sky.

Let the black flag lie
on bones and skin
that long last night
as I enter in.

For out of black
soul's night have stirred
dawn's cold gleam,
morning's singing bird.

Let black day die,
let black flag fall,
let raven call,
let new day dawn
of black reborn.

George Woodcock (Sir).

 

[Ceej]

Happy birthday Ret Marut/B Traven/many other names:
George Woodcock (Sir).

One of my favourite favourites ever. First heard this spoken in a Welsh pub, looking at the black sky, the dark mountains and a spectacular moon.

 

[Dillinger4]

‘Their Lonely Betters’ by W.H. Auden

As I listened from a beach-chair in the shade
To all the noises that my garden made,
It seemed to me only proper that words
Should be withheld from vegetables and birds.

A robin with no Christian name ran through
The Robin-Anthem which was all it knew,
And rustling flowers for some third party waited
To say which pairs, if any, should get mated.

Not one of them was capable of lying,
There was not one which knew that it was dying
Or could have with a rhythm or a rhyme
Assumed responsibility for time.

Let them leave language to their lonely betters
Who count some days and long for certain letters;
We, too, make noises when we laugh or weep:
Words are for those with promises to keep.

 

[Dillinger4]

diwrnod yn hapus dewi sant

‘The Bright Field’ by R. S. Thomas

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

 

[Greebo]

No, Nothing Happened There

No, nothing happened there between us two.
Confessions none, no secrets to reveal.
No obligations had we to pursue,
But for the springtide fancies so unreal;

But for the fragrances and colors bright
That floated freely in the mirthful air,
But for the singing groves by day or night,
And all the green and fragrant meadows there;

But for the brooks and waterfalls up high
That cheerfully sprinkled every gorge and dell,
But for the clouds and rainbows in the sky,
But for the nature’s of all sweetest spell.

But for the lucid fountains we did share,
Wherefrom our hearts would drink delights so true,
But for the primroses and bindweeds there,
No, nothing happened there between us two.

Adam Asnyk (trans. by Jarek Zawadzki)