Aimé Césaire: “Oiseaux / Birds”

OISEAUX
l’exil s’en va ainsi dans la mangeoire des astres
potant de malhabiles grains aux oiseaux nés du temps
qui jamais ne s’endorment jamais
aux espaces fertiles des enfances remuées
—Aimé Césaire

BIRDS
exile thus goes into the feeder made of stars
bearing clumsy grains to the birds born of time
which never never fall asleep
in the fertile spaces of stirred up childhoods

Translation by Clayton Eshleman and Annette Smith

Photo credit: Morning star / Estrella de la mañana by victor nuno

Constantin Cavafy: “Waiting for the Barbarians”

Περιμένοντας τους βαρβάρους, Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης (1904)

Constantin Cavafy (b. 29 April 1863)

English translation read by Hari Politopoulos. Video kudos: Palamas12

Emily Dickinson: “A little madness in the Spring”

A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown—
Who ponders this tremendous scene—
This whole Experiment of Green—
As if it were his own!

—Emily Dickinson

Photo credit: Waimoku falls trail by angela7dreams

Ted Berrigan: Sonnet 34

SONNET 34

Time flies by like a great whale
And I find my hand grows stale at the throttle
Of my many faceted and fake appearance
Who bucks and spouts by detour under the sheets
Hollow portals of solid appearance
Movies are poems, a holy bible, the great mother to us
People go by in the fragrant day
Accelerate softly my blood
But blood is still blood and tall as a mountain blood
Behind me green rubber grows, feet walk
In wet water, and dusty heads grow wide
Padré, Father, or fat old man, as you will,
I am afraid to succeed, afraid to fail,
Tell me now, again, who I am

–Ted Berrigan

Photo credit:  perspective by mistress f

May Swenson: “The Tall Figures of Giacometti”

THE TALL FIGURES OF GIACOMETTI

We move by means of our mud bumps.
We bubble as do the dead but more slowly.

The products of excruciating purges
we are squeezed out thin hard and dry.

If we exude a stench it is petrified sainthood.
Our feet are large crude fused together

solid like anvils. Ugly as truth is ugly
we are meant to stand upright a long time

and shudder without motion
under the scintillating pins of light

that dart between our bodies
of pimpled mud and your eyes.

–May Swenson

Photo credit: Piazza (Alberto Giacometti) via Guggenheim Museum