March 21 - World Poetry Day (designated by UNESCO)
Thread poster: Aurora Humarán (X)
Aurora Humarán (X)
Aurora Humarán (X)  Identity Verified
Argentina
Local time: 13:02
English to Spanish
+ ...
Mar 21, 2005



It seems that the Poetry Day was born sometime in the 1930s. In 1999, UNESCO decided to designate March 21 as World Poetry Day and the day is celebrated in hundreds of countries.

Two of my favourite poets for a humble tribute.


The suicide

Not a single star
... See more


It seems that the Poetry Day was born sometime in the 1930s. In 1999, UNESCO decided to designate March 21 as World Poetry Day and the day is celebrated in hundreds of countries.

Two of my favourite poets for a humble tribute.


The suicide

Not a single star will be left in the night.
The night will not be left.
I will die and, with me, the weight of the intolerable universe.
I shall erase the pyramids, the medallions, the continents and faces.
I shall erase the accumulated past.
I shall make dust of history, dust of dust.

Now I am looking on the final sunset.
I am hearing the last bird.
I bequeath nothingness to no one.

Jorge Luis Borges
Translated by Borges and Norman Di Giovanni


Afraid? Of whom am I afraid?

Afraid? Of whom am I afraid?
Not death; for who is he?
The porter of my father’s lodge
As much abasheth me.

Of life? ‘T were odd I fear a thing
That comprehendeth me
In one or more existences
At Deity’s decree.

Of resurrection? Is the east
Afraid to trust the morn
With her fastidious forehead?
As soon impeach my crown!

Emily Dickinson

[Edited at 2005-03-21 02:35]
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Maria Luisa Duarte
Maria Luisa Duarte
Spain
Local time: 17:02
English to Portuguese
+ ...
English poems by Fernando Pessoa Mar 21, 2005

I am the escaped one

I am the escaped one,
After I was born
They locked me up inside me
But I left.
My soul seeks me,
Through hills and valley,
I hope my soul
Never finds me.


Alentejo Seen From The Train

Nothing with nothing around it
And a few trees in between
None of wich very clearly green,
Where no river or flower pays a visit.
If there be a hell, I've found it,
For if ain't
... See more
I am the escaped one

I am the escaped one,
After I was born
They locked me up inside me
But I left.
My soul seeks me,
Through hills and valley,
I hope my soul
Never finds me.


Alentejo Seen From The Train

Nothing with nothing around it
And a few trees in between
None of wich very clearly green,
Where no river or flower pays a visit.
If there be a hell, I've found it,
For if ain't here, where the Devil it is?


Meantime

Far away, far away,
Far away from here...
There is no worry after joy
Or away from fear
Far away from here.

Her lips were not very red,
Not her hair quite gold.
Her hands played with rings.
She did not let me hold
Her hands playing with gold.

She is something past,
Far away from pain.
Joy can touch her not, nor hope
Enter her domain,
Neither love in vain.

Perhaps at some day beyond
Shadows and light
She will think of me and make
All me a delight
All away from sight.


The poems written in English by Fernando Pessoa.


http://pintopc.home.cern.ch/pintopc/www/FPessoa/FPessoa.html




[Edited at 2005-03-21 08:08]

[Edited at 2005-03-21 08:09]
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tr. (X)
tr. (X)
Local time: 17:02
English to Italian
my favourites for the day Mar 21, 2005

two short poems by Paul Muldoon:

The Boundary Commission

You remember that village where the border ran
Down the middle of the street,
With the butcher and baker in different states?

Today he remarked how a shower of rain

Had stopped so cleanly across Golightly's lane
It might have been a wall of glass
That had toppled over
... See more
two short poems by Paul Muldoon:

The Boundary Commission

You remember that village where the border ran
Down the middle of the street,
With the butcher and baker in different states?

Today he remarked how a shower of rain

Had stopped so cleanly across Golightly's lane
It might have been a wall of glass
That had toppled over. He stood there, for ages,
To wonder which side, if any, he should be on.


Why Brownlee Left

Why Brownlee left, and where he went,
Is a mystery even now.
For if a man should have been content
It was him; two acres of barley,
One of potatoes, four bullocks,
A milker, a slated farmhouse.
He was last seen going out to plough
On a March morning, bright and early.

By noon Brownlee was famous;
They had found all abandoned, with
The last rig unbroken, his pair of black
Horses, like man and wife,
Shifting their weight from foot to
Foot, and gazing into the future.
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Seadeta Osmani
Seadeta Osmani  Identity Verified
Croatia
Local time: 17:02
English to Croatian
+ ...
Have a poetic March 21 Mar 21, 2005

Dear poetry lovers,

Enjoy.

Seadeta


My Father's Garden
by Ioana Teodorescu

Unbeknownst to the garden,
he is packing. The roses don't know
he's taken all the pressed flowers
from books and thrown them away.
Nobody told the geraniums
this time he won't be coming back
with new seeds for the spring.

After my father left, I blossomed
but the garden started dying.
His beloved d
... See more
Dear poetry lovers,

Enjoy.

Seadeta


My Father's Garden
by Ioana Teodorescu

Unbeknownst to the garden,
he is packing. The roses don't know
he's taken all the pressed flowers
from books and thrown them away.
Nobody told the geraniums
this time he won't be coming back
with new seeds for the spring.

After my father left, I blossomed
but the garden started dying.
His beloved daturas resigned.
No one to tell them stories,
to pray for blooms. I guess
one doesn't miss what one
was never given but sometimes

I'd feel the soft rain and wished
his flowers were alive, their light
was all that kept him home. It
disappeared when mornings
without sun he didn't water anything.
I'll never know the subtle difference
between one rose and another.
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Aurora Humarán (X)
Aurora Humarán (X)  Identity Verified
Argentina
Local time: 13:02
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Revisiting W.H.Davies Mar 21, 2005

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time
... See more
Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
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Aurora Humarán (X)
Aurora Humarán (X)  Identity Verified
Argentina
Local time: 13:02
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Poetry Day Mar 21, 2005

Thank you for the poems, María Luisa, Traweb and Seadeta.
au

Anothe pearl, this time Sir Thomas Wyatt's:


Throughout the World

Throughout the world if it were sought,
Fair words enough a man shall find;
They be good cheap, they cost right nought,
Their substance is but only wind.
But well to say and so to mean,
That sweet acc
... See more
Thank you for the poems, María Luisa, Traweb and Seadeta.
au

Anothe pearl, this time Sir Thomas Wyatt's:


Throughout the World

Throughout the world if it were sought,
Fair words enough a man shall find;
They be good cheap, they cost right nought,
Their substance is but only wind.
But well to say and so to mean,
That sweet accord is seldom seen.
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tr. (X)
tr. (X)
Local time: 17:02
English to Italian
WH Davies Mar 21, 2005

Aurora Humarán wrote:

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

(...)



Aurora, that's funny, when I read that I knew I'd come across it very recently, read by a female voice, possibly on tv (!), but couldn't remember where, and indeed, after a quick search:

The poem was used in a TV ad for Center Parcs recently.


The poem Leisure by W.H. Davies, which most people - myself included - first heard broadcast on an advert for the bizarre holiday complex Center Parcs, is in the top ten of booksellers’ most awkward enquiries. The poem, out of print for years, now appears, along with a selection of Davies’ other poems, in Barbara Hooper's forthcoming biography Time to Stand and Stare (Peter Owen).


I can't remember reading it before, but hearing it read out made it stick in my head, it has a very song-like cadence.


Why not keep this thread going all year?


 
RHELLER
RHELLER
United States
Local time: 10:02
French to English
+ ...
three of Leonard Cohen's poems Mar 23, 2005

Thanks to everyone - I enjoyed reading the poems you have posted for this special day

http://members.tripod.com/~Raincloud771/poetry/cohen/variouspos.htm
-----------------

Dance Me to the End of Love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me
... See more
Thanks to everyone - I enjoyed reading the poems you have posted for this special day

http://members.tripod.com/~Raincloud771/poetry/cohen/variouspos.htm
-----------------

Dance Me to the End of Love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love


----------------------------------------------------------------

Coming Back to You

Maybe I'm still hurting
I can't turn the other cheek
But you know that I still love you
It's just that I can't speak
I looked for you in everyone
And they called me on that too
I lived alone but I was only
Coming back to you

Ah they're shutting down the factory now
Just when all the bills are due
And the fields they're under lock and key
Tho' the rain and the sun come through
And springtime starts but then it stops
In the name of something new
And all the senses rise against this
Coming back to you

And they're handing down my sentence now
And I know what I must do
Another mile of silence while I'm
Coming back to you

There are many in your life
And many still to be
Since you are a shining light
There's many that you'll see
But I have to deal with envy
When you choose the precious few
Who've left their pride on the other side of
Coming back to you

Even in your arms I know
I'll never get it right
Even when you bend to give me
Comfort in the night
I've got to have your word on this
Or none of it is true
And all I've said was just instead of
Coming back to you
------------------------

Heart With No Companion

I greet you from the other side
Of sorrow and despair
With a love so vast and shattered
It will reach you everywhere

And I sing this for the captain
Whose ship has not been built
For the mother in confusion
Her cradle still unfilled

For the heart with no companion
For the soul without a king
For the prima ballerina
Who cannot dance to anything

Through the days of shame that are coming
Through the nights of wild distress
Tho' your promise count for nothing
You must keep it nonetheless

You must keep it for the captain
Whose ship has not been built
For the mother in confusion
Her cradle still unfilled

For the heart with no companion ...

I greet you from the other side ...
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March 21 - World Poetry Day (designated by UNESCO)







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