Sita by Jason Schneiderman

Do you remember Sita? How when Hanuman came to rescue her

she refused, how she insisted that Rama come openly,

defeat her captor Ravana openly? She had no desire for stealth,

no desire for intrigue, and though Ravana could not touch her

for the curse on his flesh, she remained captive until Rama came.

Do you remember that she was tortured? That Hunaman asked her

for permission to kill the women who had tortured her? Do you

remember how she walked through fire to prove her purity,

even though everyone knew of the curse on Ravana? How the people

said the fire didn’t matter because Fire was the brother of her mother,

Earth? How Rama was as weak in the face of his people as he

had been strong in the face of Ravana? Can you imagine the eyes

of Sita when she refused another test? When she looked at Rama,

a man she loved enough to die for, a man who was a god, and knew

it was over? Can you imagine her eyes in that moment, as she asked

her mother to take her back, to swallow her back into the earth? I think

my eyes are like that now, leaving you.

Soul by David Ferry

What am I doing inside this old man’s body?

I feel like I’m the insides of a lobster,

All thought, and all digestion, and pornographic

Inquiry, and getting about, and bewilderment,

And fear, avoidance of trouble, belief in what,

God knows, vague memories of friends, and what

They said last night, and seeing, outside of myself,

From here inside myself, my waving claws

Inconsequential, wavering, and my feelers

Preternatural, trembling, with their amazing

Troubling sensitivity to threat;

And I’m aware of and embarrassed by my ways

Of getting around, and my protective shell.

Where is it that she I loved has gone to, as

This cold sea water’s washing over my back?

Here by Gagan Gill

Here:
in her bones
she hides herself
fleeing from her flesh

Here:
she collapses
with grief
escaping from herself

Here:
doubt
claws out
body and soul

Clutching at straws
she searches through
poetry —

this is the very stone
they will touch:

she the fish
and she the non-fish

Both will sink
here:
in this very place

Note: Translation into English by Lucy Rosenstein and the Poetry Translation Workshop at http://www.poetrytranslation.org/ Following is the original in Hindi.

Untitled by Rumi

And still, 

after all this time, 

the Sun has never said to the Earth,

“You owe me.”

Look what happens with love like that. 

It lights up the sky.

 

 

Note: If you have the original in Persian or know who the translator is, please comment.

Of Seeming and Being by Alan Gullette

In seeing
The seeming
So being
You are illusion.
In being
The seeming
So seeming
You are lost.

See yourself
Being seeming:
Be not see what seems:
You being the seeming of what,
Then what is left.
Seeming is not being

And you are lost.

I’d rather be than see One.

Strange fruit by Abel Meeropol (published under the name “Lewis Allan”)

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

9. by e. e. cummings

there are so many tictoc

clocks everywhere telling people

what toctic time it is for

tictic instance five toc minutes toc

past six tic

Spring is not regulated and does

not get out of order nor do

its hands a little jerking move

over numbers slowly

we do not

wind it up it has no weights

springs wheels inside of

its slender self no indeed dear

nothing of the kind.

(So,when kiss Spring comes

we’ll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss

lips because tic clocks toc don’t make

a toctic difference

to kisskiss you and to

kiss me)

You do by Aimee Mann

You stay the night at his house

with no ride to work

and I’m the one who tells you

he’s another jerk

but you’re the one who can succeed

you’ve only got to prove your need–

and you do

you really do

The sex you’re trading up for

what you hope is love

is just another thing that

he’ll be careless of

but though there are caveats galore

you’ve only got to love him more–

and you do

you really do

even when it’s all too clear

You write a little note that

you leave on the bed

and spend some time dissecting

every word he said

and if he seemed a little strange

well, baby–anyone can change

and you do

you do

you really do

You, Darkness by Rainer Maria Rilke

You darkness, that I come from,

I love you more than all the fires

that fence in the world,

for the fire makes

a circle of light for everyone,

and then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything;

shapes and fires, animals and myself,

how easily it

gathers them!—

powers and people—

and it is possible a great energy

is moving near me.

I have faith in nights.

A Note (Notatka) by Wislawa Szymborska

Life is the only way

to get covered in leaves,

catch your breath on the sand,

rise on wings;

to be a dog,

or stroke its warm fur;

to tell pain

from everything it’s not;

to squeeze inside events,

dawdle in views,

to seek the least of all possible mistakes.

An extraordinary chance

to remember for a moment

a conversation held

with the lamp switched off;

and if only once

to stumble upon a stone,

end up soaked in one downpour or another,

mislay your keys in the grass;

and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;

and to keep on not knowing

something important.

Note: Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. If you have the original, please comment.

Speaking Truth By Jesa MacBeth

It is possible to speak truth in anger.
When so done, people tend to hear the anger and not the truth.

It is possible to speak truth in arrogance.
When so done, people tend to hear the arrogance
and not the truth.

It is possible to speak truth in deceitful ways.
When so done, people tend to sense the deceit
and take the truth for more deceit.

It is possible to speak truth in loving kindness.
When so done, people tend to hear the love and the truth.

Or so it seems in my experience.

Agnes’ song by Lee Chang-dong

How is it over there?
How lonely is it?
Is it still glowing red at sunset?
Are the birds still singing on the way to the forest?
Can you receive the letter I dared not send?
Can I convey…
the confession I dared not make?
Will time pass and roses fade?
Now it’s time to say goodbye
Like the wind that lingers and then goes,
just like shadows
To promises that never came,
to the love sealed till the end.

To the grass kissing my weary ankles
And to the tiny footsteps following me
It’s time to say goodbye
Now as darkness falls
Will a candle be lit again?
Here I pray…
nobody shall cry…
and for you to know…
how deeply I loved you
The long wait in the middle of a hot summer day
An old path resembling my father’s face
Even the lonesome wild flower shyly turning away
How deeply I loved
How my heart fluttered at hearing faint song
I bless you
Before crossing the black river
With my soul’s last breath
I am beginning to dream…
a bright sunny morning…
again I awake blinded by the light…
and meet you…
standing by me.

Note: This poem is originally in Korean. If you have the original version, please leave a comment. Also, I’m not sure if Lee Chang-dong wrote the poem, if you can confirm, please let me know.

maggie and milly and molly and may by E. E. Cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

Must Escape by Farzaneh Khojandi

At last the word for scream bursts into my notebook.
Damn this sick society
where shadows boast about their own size.
No one understands the absence of the sun.
No one knows that this brightness
is just pretending to be dawn.
No one understands the absence of meaning
in the guises of the chameleon.
These hollow ghosts
with their gorgeous clothes
and dazzling pendants on long chains,
and breadth perfumed with the scent of Europe -
from the pulpit of time, with fancy words
they talk deceit as if it were truth.
I am offended by them, offended
by the pretentiousness of the very small.
I am offended by myself, too:
I just don’t understand enough
about the weakness of form and the courage of meaning.
Why do I make conversation with nothing
and stitch my words into the hems of the mediocre
like margin prayers or footnotes.
Must escape
must run away to simplicity,
must elevate the best,
must become another example of the sun.
O darling, what can I say, for even you,
choose a dim light-bulb over daylight,
even you with your perceptive glance,
no longer see the absence of the sun.

Note: Above English translation from the original by Jo Shapcott. Following is the original.

After Midnight (तीसरा पहर) by Mohan Rana

I saw the stars far off -
as far as I from them:
in this moment I saw them -
in moments of the twinkling past.
In the boundless depths of darkness,
these hours
hunt the morning through the night.

And I can’t make up my mind:
am I living this life for the first time?
Or repeating it, forgetting as I live
the first moment of breath every time?

Does the fish too drink water?
Does the sun feel the heat?
Does the light see the dark?
Does the rain too get wet?
Do dreams ask questions about sleep as I do?

I walked a long, long way
and when I saw, I saw the stars close by.
Today it rained all day long and the words were washed away
from your face.

Note: Translated from the Hindi by Bernard O’Donoghue. Following is the original.

मैंने तारों को देखा बहुत दूर
जितना मैं उनसे
वे दिखे इस पल में
टिमटिमाते अतीत के पल
अँधेरे की असीमता में,
सुबह का पीछा करती रात में
यह तीसरा पहर

और मैं तय नहीं कर पाता
क्या मैं जी रहा हूँ जीवन पहली बार,
या इसे भूलकर जीते हुए दोहराए जा रहा हूँ
सांस के पहले ही पल को हमेशा !

क्या मछली भी पानी पीती होगी
या सूरज को भी लगती होगी गरमी
क्या रोशनी को भी कभी दिखता होगा अँधकार
क्या बारिश भी हमेशा भीग जाती होगी,
मेरी तरह क्या सपने भी करते होंगे सवाल नींद के बारे में

दूर दूर बहुत दूर चला आया मैं
जब मैंने देखा तारों को – देखा बहुत पास,
आज बारिश होती रही दिनभर
और शब्द धुलते रहे तुम्हारे चेहरे से

Kept Apart by Saleem Saim

Here I think, and think of her,
All time as a mad,
There my, wife moans,
Tossing lone, and sad,

O exchange of rings!
Then two halves kept apart,
Now wait and wait,
For distant date, O restless heart!

Livelong nights, sleepless bed,
Visions and dreams haunt,
Her changing faces, nuptial fuss,
And unfulfilled want,

Life hastens days,
But thoughts make them go slow,
Flowers bloom, I care not,
Evenings come and go,

Here I think, and think of her,
All time as a mad,
There my, wife moans,
Tossing lone, and sad,

Tossing lone, and sad,
Tossing lone, and sad
Lone and sad, lone and sad,
Sad, sad, sad, sad…….

Sea Breeze, Bombay by Adil Jussawalla

Partition’s people stitched
Shrouds from a flag, gentlemen scissored Sind.
An opened people, fraying across the cut
country reknotted themselves on this island.

Surrogate city of banks,
Brokering and bays, refugees’ harbour and port,
Gatherer of ends whose brick beginnings work
Loose like a skin, spotting the coast,

Restore us to fire. New refugees,
Wearing blood-red wool in the worst heat,
come from Tibet, scanning the sea from the north,
Dazed, holes in their cracked feet.

Restore us to fire. Still,
Communities tear and re-form; and still, a breeze,
Cooling our garrulous evenings, investigates nothing,
Ruffles no tempers, uncovers no root,

And settles no one adrift of the mainland’s histories.

The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Untitled by Rumi

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.

 

 

Note: Above translation by Coleman Barks. Please comment if you have the original.

Mascara/Impermanence by Hal W. Lanse

Ecstasy of sadness
Bold yellow
Drooping daisies
Edges curling

There is bright color still
Only touches of brown
On the daisy-eyes
Mascara
Impermanence
Around the edges

A moment has passed
Fresh life
Young life

Old life
Tenuous beauty
Remains
Until all is mascara—