Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
13 August 2016
18 July 2015
The Sound of Trees/ ο ήχος των δέντρων
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| ©m.cassapidis, 2015 |
...
My
feet tug at the floor
And
my head sways to my shoulder
Sometimes
when I watch trees sway,
From
the window or the door.
I
shall set forth for somewhere,
I
shall make the reckless choice
Some
day when they are in voice
And
tossing so as to scare
The
white clouds over them on.
...
from 'The Sound of Trees' by Robert Frost
4 July 2015
summer afternoon/απόγευμα καλοκαιριού
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| ©m.cassapidis |
The Gifts
Miltos Sachtouris
Today I wore a
warm red blood
Today people loved me
A woman smiled at me
A girl gave me a sea shell
A boy gave me a hammer
Today I kneel on the sidewalk
and nail the naked white feet of the passerby
to the pavement tiles
they are all in tears
but no one is frightened
all remain in the places to which I had come in time
they are all in tears
but they gaze at the celestial advertisements
at a beggar who sells hot cross buns
in the sky
Two men whisper
what is he doing is he nailing our hearts?
Yes he is nailing our hearts
Well then he is a poet
Translated by Kimon Friar
17 April 2015
is the image the object?
What Voice Is That?
Suddenly
we hear a voice.
Far away, up above.
It is a space stiff, arrogant hands
will never be able to touch.
A radiance
snow and white nights can never get near to.
In the gloomy soul
it has been planted, dazzling.
It is a shining metal thread
someone plucks from the heart.
Only a god
could open its lips on this
dismal night.
Only a god
could make people stuck fast in sickness
feel moved.
Light:
those who have lost their legs
will all pursue it, gliding away
while those who cannot see the lamplight
reach out their hands
joining with it to become a sparkling ray.
What voice is it
what is the name of this god of song
who gently stirs the pain.
Wang Xiaoni
the light- bringers...:Celan
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| m.cassapidis,2015 |
The bright stones
The bright
stones ride through the air, bright
white, the light-
bringers.
They want to
not sink, not fall,
not collide. They rise
up,
like slender
dog roses they break open,
they float
toward you, my gentle one,
you, my true one—
Celan
Look around: see how things all come alive—Celan
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| m.cassapidis, 2015 |
Speak You Too
Speak you too,
speak as the last,
say out your say.
Speak—
But don’t split off No from Yes.
Give your say this meaning too:
give it the shadow.
Give it shadow enough,
give it as much
as you see spread round you from
midnight to midday and midnight.
Look around:
see how things all come alive—
By death! Alive!
Speaks true who speaks shadows
Celan
2 January 2015
falling wave
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| ©m.cassapidis, 2014 |
The falling wave,
arch of identity, shattering feathers,
is only spume when it clears,
and returns to its source, unconsumed.
From: Pablo Neruda, ‘Canto General’
26 December 2014
Night on the Great River: Meng Hao-jan [three translations]
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| ©m.cassapidis,2014 |
Night on the Great River
Moored in island mist,
as the sun sets, a traveler's grief arises.
Beyond the great plain, the sky closes on trees.
On this gentle river, the moon arrives.
[translated by Sam Hamil]
via
Steering my little boat towards a misty islet,
I watch the sun descend while my sorrows grow:
In the vast night the sky hangs lower than the treetops,
But in the blue lake the moon is coming close.
[translated by William Carlos Williams]
We anchor the boat alongside a hazy island.
As the sun sets I am overwhelmed with nostalgia.
The plain stretches away without limit.
The sky is just above the tree tops.
The river flows quietly by.
The moon comes down amongst men.
[translated by Kenneth Rexroth]
via
20 September 2014
In what sense I am I
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| ©m.cassapidis,2014 |
As in Giorgione
the suspense
is eternal.
Carl Rakosi, "In What Sense I Am I" from The Collected Poems, published by the National Poetry Foundation.
31 March 2014
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| ©m.cassapidis, 2014 |
Silence II
Silence is not a lack of words.
Silence is not a lack of music.
Silence is not a lack of curses.
Silence is not a lack of screams.
Silence is not a lack of colors
or voices or bodies or whistling wind.
Silence is not a lack of anything.
Silence is resting, nestling
in every leaf of every tree,
in every root and branch.
Silence is the flower sprouting
upon the branch.
Silence is the mother singing
to her newborn babe.
Silence is the mother crying
for her stillborn babe.
Silence is the life of all
these babes, whose breath
is a breath of God.
Silence is seeing and singing praises.
Silence is the roar of ocean waves.
Silence is the sandpiper dancing
on the shore.
Silence is the vastness of a whale.
Silence is a blade of grass.
Silence is sound
And silence is silence.
Silence is love, even
the love that hides in hate.
Silence is the pompous queen
and the harlot and the pimp
hugging his purse on a crowded street.
Silence is the healer dreaming
the plant, the drummer drumming
the dream. It is the lover’s
exhausted fall into sleep.
It is the call of morning birds.
Silence is God’s beat tapping all hearts.
Silence is the star kissing a flower.
Silence is a word, a hope, a candle
lighting the window of home.
Silence is everything –the renewing sleep
of Earth, the purifying dream of Water,
the purifying rage of Fire, the soaring
and spiraling flight of Air. It is all
things dissolved into no-thing–Silence
is with you always…..the Presence
of I AM
- Elaine Maria Upton
6 January 2014
Jove in the clouds...
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| ©fourteenth |
III
Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.
Wallace Stevens
from Sunday Morning
29 December 2013
tree evening
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| ©fourteenth |
Against a tall tree
I find that I am much taller,
For I reach right up to the sun
With my eye;
And I reach to the shore of the sea
With my ear.
Nevertheless, I dislike
The way the ants crawl
In and out of my shadow.
- Wallace Stevens
27 October 2013
7 October 2013
19 September 2013
standing
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| standing ©fourteenth |
I Am Not I
I am not I.
I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
who remains calm and silent while I talk,
and forgives, gently, when I hate,
who walks where I am not,
who will remain standing when I die.
Juan Ramón Jiménez, “‘I Am Not I’” from Lorca and Jiménez: Selected Poems. Translation copyright © 1973 by Robert Bly. Reprinted with the permission of Beacon Press.
Source: Lorca and Jimenez: Selected Poems (Beacon Press, 1973)
7 August 2013
Remember your deepest name: Naomi Shihab Nye
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| ©fourteenth |
1.
Japanese teacher says:
At first light, rise.
Don’t hover between
sleep and waking,
this makes you heavy,
puts a stone inside your heart.
The minute you drift back to shore,
anchor. Breathe.
Remember your deepest name.
Naomi Shihab Nye
from Breaking the Fast
27 July 2013
24 June 2013
Deep in the gold of summer: Odysseus Elytis
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| vermillion ©fourteenth |
Deep in the gold of summer
And the perfume of hyacinths -
And the perfume of hyacinths -
Βαθιά μεσ' το χρυσάφι του καλοκαιριού
Και τ' άρωμα των γυακίνθων -
Οδυσσέας Ελύτης
Η Μαρίνα των Βράχων
21 June 2013
The summer night glowed: Louise Glück
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| ©fourteenth |
The summer night glowed; in the field, fireflies were glinting.
And for those who understood such things, the stars were sending messages
from Midsummer
3 June 2013
talking to trees
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world
-Mary Oliver The Journey
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world
-Mary Oliver The Journey
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