Written by
Nazim Hikmet |
I was born in 1902
I never once went back to my birthplace
I don't like to turn back
at three I served as a pasha's grandson in Aleppo
at nineteen as a student at Moscow Communist University
at forty-nine I was back in Moscow as the Tcheka Party's guest
and I've been a poet since I was fourteen
some people know all about plants some about fish
I know separation
some people know the names of the stars by heart
I recite absences
I've slept in prisons and in grand hotels
I've known hunger even a hunger strike and there's almost no food
I haven't tasted
at thirty they wanted to hang me
at forty-eight to give me the Peace Prize
which they did
at thirty-six I covered four square meters of concrete in half a year
at fifty-nine I flew from Prague to Havana in eighteen hours
I never saw Lenin I stood watch at his coffin in '24
in '61 the tomb I visit is his books
they tried to tear me away from my party
it didn't work
nor was I crushed under the falling idols
in '51 I sailed with a young friend into the teeth of death
in '52 I spent four months flat on my back with a broken heart
waiting to die
I was jealous of the women I loved
I didn't envy Charlie Chaplin one bit
I deceived my women
I never talked my friends' backs
I drank but not every day
I earned my bread money honestly what happiness
out of embarrassment for others I lied
I lied so as not to hurt someone else
but I also lied for no reason at all
I've ridden in trains planes and cars
most people don't get the chance
I went to opera
most people haven't even heard of the opera
and since '21 I haven't gone to the places most people visit
mosques churches temples synagogues sorcerers
but I've had my coffee grounds read
my writings are published in thirty or forty languages
in my Turkey in my Turkish they're banned
cancer hasn't caught up with me yet
and nothing says it will
I'll never be a prime minister or anything like that
and I wouldn't want such a life
nor did I go to war
or burrow in bomb shelters in the bottom of the night
and I never had to take to the road under diving planes
but I fell in love at almost sixty
in short comrades
even if today in Berlin I'm croaking of grief
I can say I've lived like a human being
and who knows
how much longer I'll live
what else will happen to me
This autobiography was written
in east Berlin on 11 September 1961
|
Written by
Robinson Jeffers |
Seventy years ago my mother labored to bear me,
A twelve-pound baby with a big head,
Her first, it was plain torture.
Finally they used the forceps
And dragged me out, with one prong
In my right eye, and slapped and banged me until I breathed.
I am not particularly grateful for it.
As to the eye: it remained invalid and now has a cataract.
It can see gods and spirits in its cloud,
And the weird end of the world: the left one's for common daylight.
As to my mother:
A rather beautiful young woman married to a grim clergyman
Twenty-two years older than she:
She had her little innocent diversions, her little travels in Europe—
And once for scandal kissed the Pope's ring—
Perhaps her life was no emptier than other lives.
Both parents
Swim in my blood and distort my thought but the old man's welcome.
|
Written by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
THESE are the most singular of all the Poems
of Goethe, and to many will appear so wild and fantastic, as to
leave anything but a pleasing impression.
Those at the beginning,
addressed to his friend Behrisch, were written at the age of eighteen,
and most of the remainder were composed while he was still quite
young.
Despite, however, the extravagance of some of them, such
as the Winter Journey over the Hartz Mountains, and the Wanderer's
Storm-Song, nothing can be finer than the noble one entitled Mahomet's
Song, and others, such as the Spirit Song' over the Waters, The
God-like, and, above all, the magnificent sketch of Prometheus,
which forms part of an unfinished piece bearing the same name, and
called by Goethe a 'Dramatic Fragment.
'
TO MY FRIEND.
[These three Odes are addressed to a certain
Behrisch, who was tutor to Count Lindenau, and of whom Goethe gives
an odd account at the end of the Seventh Book of his Autobiography.
]
FIRST ODE.
TRANSPLANT the beauteous tree!
Gardener, it gives me pain;
A happier resting-place
Its trunk deserved.
Yet the strength of its nature
To Earth's exhausting avarice,
To Air's destructive inroads,
An antidote opposed.
See how it in springtime
Coins its pale green leaves!
Their orange-fragrance
Poisons each flyblow straight.
The caterpillar's tooth
Is blunted by them;
With silv'ry hues they gleam
In the bright sunshine,
Its twigs the maiden
Fain would twine in
Her bridal-garland;
Youths its fruit are seeking.
See, the autumn cometh!
The caterpillar
Sighs to the crafty spider,--
Sighs that the tree will not fade.
Hov'ring thither
From out her yew-tree dwelling,
The gaudy foe advances
Against the kindly tree,
And cannot hurt it,
But the more artful one
Defiles with nauseous venom
Its silver leaves;
And sees with triumph
How the maiden shudders,
The youth, how mourns he,
On passing by.
Transplant the beauteous tree!
Gardener, it gives me pain;
Tree, thank the gardener
Who moves thee hence!
1767.
SECOND ODE.
THOU go'st! I murmur--
Go! let me murmur.
Oh, worthy man,
Fly from this land!
Deadly marshes,
Steaming mists of October
Here interweave their currents,
Blending for ever.
Noisome insects
Here are engender'd;
Fatal darkness
Veils their malice.
The fiery-tongued serpent,
Hard by the sedgy bank,
Stretches his pamper'd body,
Caress'd by the sun's bright beams.
Tempt no gentle night-rambles
Under the moon's cold twilight!
Loathsome toads hold their meetings
Yonder at every crossway.
Injuring not,
Fear will they cause thee.
Oh, worthy man,
Fly from this land!
1767.
THIRD ODE.
BE void of feeling!
A heart that soon is stirr'd,
Is a possession sad
Upon this changing earth.
Behrisch, let spring's sweet smile
Never gladden thy brow!
Then winter's gloomy tempests
Never will shadow it o'er.
Lean thyself ne'er on a maiden's
Sorrow-engendering breast.
Ne'er on the arm,
Misery-fraught, of a friend.
Already envy
From out his rocky ambush
Upon thee turns
The force of his lynx-like eyes,
Stretches his talons,
On thee falls,
In thy shoulders
Cunningly plants them.
Strong are his skinny arms,
As panther-claws;
He shaketh thee,
And rends thy frame.
Death 'tis to part,
'Tis threefold death
To part, not hoping
Ever to meet again.
Thou wouldst rejoice to leave
This hated land behind,
Wert thou not chain'd to me
With friendships flowery chains.
Burst them! I'll not repine.
No noble friend
Would stay his fellow-captive,
If means of flight appear.
The remembrance
Of his dear friend's freedom
Gives him freedom
In his dungeon.
Thou go'st,--I'm left.
But e'en already
The last year's winged spokes
Whirl round the smoking axle.
I number the turns
Of the thundering wheel;
The last one I bless.
--
Each bar then is broken, I'm free then as thou!
1767.
|
Written by
Alice Walker |
When Golda Meir
Was in Africa
She shook out her hair
And combed it
Everywhere she went.
According to her autobiography
Africans loved this.
In Russia, Minneapolis, London, Washington, D.
C.
,
Germany, Palestine, Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem
She never combed at all.
There was no point.
In those
Places people said, "She looks like
Any other aging grandmother.
She looks
Like a troll.
Let's sell her cookery
And guns.
"
"Kreplach your cookery," said Golda.
Only in Africa could she finally
Settle down and comb her hair.
The children crept up and stroked it,
And she felt beautiful.
Such wonderful people, Africans
Childish, arrogant, self-indulgent, pompous,
Cowardly and treacherous-a great disappointment
To Israel, of course, and really rather
Ridiculous in international affairs
But, withal, opined Golda, a people of charm
And good taste.
|
Written by
Nazim Hikmet |
Oh, both my shoes are shiny new,
And pristine is my hat;
My dress is 1922.
.
.
.
My life is all like that.
|
Written by
Richard Brautigan |
I am standing in the cemetery at Byrds, Texas.
What did Judy say? "God-forsaken is beautiful, too.
"
A very old man who has cancer on his face and takes
care of the cemetery, is raking a grave in such a
manner as to almost (polish it like a piece of silver.
An old dog stands beside him.
It's a hot day: 105.
What am I doing out here in west Texas, standing in
a cemetery? The old man wonders about that, too.
My presence has become a part of his raking.
I know
that he is also polishing me.
|
Written by
Philip Larkin |
Delay, well, travellers must expect
Delay.
For how long? No one seems to know.
With all the luggage weighed, the tickets checked,
It can't be long.
.
.
We amble too and fro,
Sit in steel chairs, buy cigarettes and sweets
And tea, unfold the papers.
Ought we to smile,
Perhaps make friends? No: in the race for seats
You're best alone.
Friendship is not worth while.
Six hours pass: if I'd gone by boat last night
I'd be there now.
Well, it's too late for that.
The kiosk girl is yawning.
I fell stale,
Stupified, by inaction - and, as light
Begins to ebb outside, by fear, I set
So much on this Assumption.
Now it's failed.
|
Written by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
[Goethe quotes the beginning of this song in
his Autobiography, as expressing the manner in which his poetical
effusions used to pour out from him.
]
THROUGH field and wood to stray,
And pipe my tuneful lay,--
'Tis thus my days are pass'd;
And all keep tune with me,
And move in harmony,
And so on, to the last.
To wait I scarce have power
The garden's earliest flower,
The tree's first bloom in Spring;
They hail my joyous strain,--
When Winter comes again,
Of that sweet dream I sing.
My song sounds far and near,
O'er ice it echoes clear,
Then Winter blossoms bright;
And when his blossoms fly,
Fresh raptures meet mine eye,
Upon the well-till'd height.
When 'neath the linden tree,
Young folks I chance to see,
I set them moving soon;
His nose the dull lad curls,
The formal maiden whirls,
Obedient to my tune.
Wings to the feet ye lend,
O'er hill and vale ye send
The lover far from home;
When shall I, on your breast,.
Ye kindly muses, rest,
And cease at length to roam?
1800.
*
|
Written by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
[This song was also written for Lily.
Goethe
mentions, at the end of his Autobiography, that he overheard her
singing it one evening after he had taken his last farewell of her.
]
WHEREFORE drag me to yon glittering eddy,
With resistless might?
Was I, then, not truly blest already
In the silent night?
In my secret chamber refuge taking,
'Neath the moon's soft ray,
And her awful light around me breaking,
Musing there I lay.
And I dream'd of hours with joy o'erflowing,
Golden, truly blest,
While thine image so beloved was glowing
Deep within my breast.
Now to the card-table hast thou bound me,
'Midst the torches glare?
Whilst unhappy faces are around me,
Dost thou hold me there?
Spring-flow'rs are to me more rapture-giving,
Now conceal'd from view;
Where thou, angel, art, is Nature living,
Love and kindness too.
1775.
|
Written by
Meena Alexander |
I come from the nether regions
They serve me pomegranate seeds with morsels of flying fish
From time to time I wear a crown of blood streaked grass.
Mama beat me when I was a child for stealing honey from a honey pot
It swung from the rafters of the kitchen.
Why I stuffed my mouth with golden stuff, no one could tell.
King Midas wore a skin that killed him.
My nails are patterned ebony, Doxil will do that
They made a port under my collar bone with a plastic tube that runs into a blood vessel.
I set out with mama from Bombay harbor.
Our steamer was SS Jehangir, in honor of the World Conqueror —
They say he knelt on the battle field to stroke the Beloved’s shadow.
The waves were dark in Bombay harbor, Gandhi wrote in his Autobiography
Writing too is an experiment with truth.
No one knows my name in Arabic means port.
On board white people would not come near us
Were they scared our brown skin would sully them?
Mama tried to teach me English in a sing song voice.
So you can swim into your life she said.
Wee child, my language tutor muttered ruler in hand, ready to strike,
Just pronounce the words right:
Pluck, pluck Suck, suck
Duck, duck
Stuck, stuck.
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