Judith Viorst: Some Advice from a Mother to Her Married Son

The answer to do you love me isn't, I married you, didn't I?
Or, Can't we discuss this after the ballgame is through?
It isn't, Well that all depends on what you mean by 'love'.
Or even, Come to bed and I'll prove that I do.
The answer isn't, How can I talk about love when
the bacon is burned and the house is an absolute mess and
the children are screaming their heads off and
I'm going to miss my bus?
The answer is yes.
The answer is yes.
The answer is yes.

Andrea Gibson: Maybe I Need You

The winter I told you I think icicles are magic
you stole an enormous icicle from a neighbors shingle
and gave it to me as a gift
I kept it in my freezer for seven months
until the day I hurt my foot
I needed something to reduce the swelling
love isn't always magic
sometimes its just melting
or its black and blue
where it hurts the most
last night I saw your ghost
pedaling a bicycle with a basket
towards a moon as full as my heavy head
and i wanted nothing more than to be sitting in that basket
like ET with my glowing heart glowing right through my chest
and my glowing finger pointing in the direction of our home
two years ago I said I never want to write our break up poem
you built me a time capsule full of big league chew
and promised to never burst my bubble
I loved you from our first date at the batting cages
when I missed 23 balls in a row
and you looked at me
like I was a home run in the ninth inning of the world series
now every time I hear the word love I think going going
the first week you were gone
I kept seeing your hand wave goodbye
like a windshield wiper in a flooding car
and the last real moment I believed the hurricane would let me out alive
yesterday i carved your name into the surface of an ice cube
then held it against my heart til it melted into my aching pores
today i cried so hard the neighbors knocked on my door
and asked if I wanted to borrow some sugar
I told them I left my sweet tooth in your belly button
love isn't always magic
but if I offered my life to the magician
if I told her to cut me in half
so tonight I could come to you whole
and ask for you back
would you listen
for this dark alley love song
for the winter we heated our home from the steam off our own bodies
I wrote too many poems in a language I did not yet know how to speak
But I know now it doesn't matter how well I say grace
if I am sitting at a table where I am offering no bread to eat
So this is my wheat field
you can have every acre love
this is my garden song
this is my fist fight
with that bitter frost
tonight I begged another stage light to become that back alley street lamp that we danced beneath
the night your warm mouth fell on my timid cheek
as i sang maybe i need you
off key
but in tune
maybe i need you the way that big moon needs that open sea
maybe i didn't even know i was here til i saw you holding me
give me one room to come home to
give me the palm of your hand
every strand of my hair is a kite string
and I have been blue in the face with your sky
crying a flood over iowa so you mother will wake to venice
lover I smashed my glass slipper to build a stained glass window for every wall inside my chest
now my heart is a pressed flower and a tattered bible
it is the one verse you can trust
so I'm putting all of my words in the collection plate
I am setting the table with bread and grace
my knees are bent
like the corner of a page
I am saving your place

Mario Benedetti: Drought

It hasn't rained
hasn't rained for months now
the meadows and forests blaze
when the sun's matchstick scrapes against them

our hearts are parched as well
it's been so long since it last rained dreams
but our hearts don't catch fire
when the sun's matchstick scrapes against them

(translated by Louise B. Popkin)

Mario Benedetti: Sequía

No llueve
hace ya meses que no llueve
los pastizales y los bosques arden
cuando los roza el fósforo del sol

también los corazones están secos
hace ya mucho que no llueven sueños
pero los corazones no se incendian
cuando los roza el fósforo del sol

Brian Patten: Sometimes It Happens

And sometimes it happens that you are friends and then
You are not friends,
And friendship has passed.
And whole days are lost and among them
A fountain empties itself.

And sometimes it happens that you are loved and then
You are not loved,
And love is past.
And whole days are lost and among them
A fountain empties itself into the grass.

And sometimes you want to speak to her and then
You do not want to speak,
Then the opportunity has passed.
Your dreams flare up, they suddenly vanish.

And also it happens that there is nowhere to go and then
There is somewhere to go,
Then you have bypassed.
And the years flare up and are gone,
Quicker than a minute.

So you have nothing.
You wonder if these things matter and then
As soon you begin to wonder if these things matter
They cease to matter,
And caring is past.
And a fountain empties itself into the grass. 

Carl Sandburg: One Parting

Why did he write to her,
"I can't live without you"?
And why did she write to him,
"I can't live without you"?
For he went west, she went east,
And they both lived. 

Lucian Blaga: Mi öregszik meg bennünk?

Mi öregszik meg bennünk,
hogy váratlanul arra ébredünk
egy reggel: el szeretnénk
rejteni arcunk és nevünk?

Mi öregszik meg bennünk,
ha napnyugta és élet-alkonyat
rádöbbent: régi, ködös árny vagyunk,
ki a maiak közé szakadt?

Nem öregszik bennünk a szív, amíg dobog,
sem a szenvedély, sem a vér árama,
sem a fülben a visszhang, sem a lélek,
csak a könny maga.

Öreg könnyekkel sírnak,
ha sírnak, a vének.

Hal Sirowitz: Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

"We don't have anything in common,"
I said. "We're two completely different people.
It doesn't make sense to stay together."
But then she started to rub my penis
through my pants, & I suddenly remembered
that we both did like Indian food.

Linda Rodriguez: Meditation on the Word Need

The problem with words of emotion
is how easily meaning drains
from their fiddle-sweet sounds
and they become empty instruments.
I can say love
and mean desire to give—
open-handed, open-hearted—
or I am drawn to the light
shining from your soul—
or my life is empty without you—
or I want to run my hands
and mouth down the length of you—
or all of these at once.
Need, now, is a plain word.
I need a nail to hang this picture.
I need money to pay my bills.
I need air and light,
water and food,
shelter from storm and sun and cold.
To be healthy,
to be sane,
to survive,
I need you.

Nicanor Parra: Preguntas a la hora del té

Este señor desvaído parece
Una figura de un museo de cera;
Mira a través de los visillos rotos:
Qué vale más, ¿el oro o la belleza?,
¿Vale más el arroyo que se mueve
O la chépica fija a la ribera?
A lo lejos se oye una campana
Que abre una herida más, o que la cierra:
¿Es más real el agua de la fuente
O la muchacha que se mira en ella?
No se sabe, la gente se lo pasa
Construyendo castillos en la arena.
¿Es superior el vaso transparente
A la mano del hombre que lo crea?
Se respira una atmósfera cansada
De ceniza, de humo, de tristeza:
Lo que se vio una vez ya no se vuelve
A ver igual, dicen las hojas secas.
Hora del té, tostadas, margarina.
Todo envuelto en una especie de niebla.

Charles Bukowski: Nobody but you

nobody can save you but
yourself.
you will be put again and again
into nearly impossible
situations.
they will attempt again and again
through subterfuge, guise and
force
to make you submit, quit and/or die quietly
inside.

nobody can save you but
yourself
and it will be easy enough to fail
so very easily
but don’t, don’t, don’t.
just watch them.
listen to them.
do you want to be like that?
a faceless, mindless, heartless
being?
do you want to experience
death before death?

nobody can save you but
yourself
and you’re worth saving.
it’s a war not easily won
but if anything is worth winning then
this is it.

think about it.
think about saving your self.

Nikki Giovanni: Poem (for EMA)

though i do wonder
why you intrigue me
i recognize that an exceptional moth
is always drawn
to an exceptional flame

you’re not at all what you appear
to be
though not so very different

i've not learned
the acceptable way of saying
you fascinate me
i’ve not even learned
how to say i like you
without frightening people
away

sometimes i see things
that aren’t really there
like warmth and kindness
when people are mean
but sometimes i see things
like fear and want to sooth it
or fatigue and want to share it
or love and want to receive it

is that weird
you think everyone is weird
though you’re not really hypocritical
you just practice not being
what you want to be
and fail to understand
how others would dare
to be otherwise
that’s weird to me

flames don’t flicker
forever
and moths are born to be burned

it’s an unusual way
to start a friendship
but nothing lasts forever

Charles Bukowski: Blue bird

hay un pájaro azul en mi corazón que
quiere salir
pero soy duro con él,
le digo quédate ahí dentro, no voy
a permitir que nadie
te vea.

hay un pájaro azul en mi corazón que
quiere salir
pero yo le echo whisky encima y me trago
el humo de los cigarrillos,
y las putas y los camareros
y los dependientes de ultramarinos
nunca se dan cuenta
de que esté ahí dentro.

hay un pájaro azul en mi corazón que
quiere salir
pero soy duro con él,
le digo quédate ahí abajo, ¿es que quieres
hacerme un lío?
¿es que quieres
mis obras?
¿es que quieres que se hundan las ventas de mis libros
en Europa?

hay un pájaro azul en mi corazón
que quiere salir
pero soy demasiado listo, sólo le dejo salir
a veces por la noche
cuando todo el mundo duerme.
le digo ya sé que estás ahí,
no te pongas
triste.

luego lo vuelvo a introducir,
y él canta un poquito
ahí dentro, no le he dejado
morir del todo
y dormimos juntos
así
con nuestro
pacto secreto
y es tan tierno como
para hacer llorar
a un hombre, pero yo no
lloro,
¿lloras tú?

Denise Levertov: Jogok

Szeretnék neked adni
valamit amit én csináltam

néhány szót egy lapon - mintha csak
azt mondanám: "Néhány kék gyöngy"

vagy: "Itt egy fényes rőt levél úgy találtam
a járdán" (mert

találni annyi mint választani, és a választás
is tett). De olyan nehéz:

eddig még semmit se találtam
csak a vágyat, hogy adjak valamit. Vagy

régi szavak utánzatát? Az olcsó
és kegyetlen, és ostoba is. Vedd

helyette hát talán ezt - ezt a fél-
ígéretet: Ha

valaha is írok
egyik kicsit jókedvű verset

(spontánat, gyengédet, tétovát,
búsat & pajzánt)

azt neked adom.

(Somlyó György fordítása)

Tao Lin: Some Of My Happiest Moments In Life Occur On AOL Instant Messenger

i will create a new category

on my instant messenger buddy list

i will call it

'people i like who don't like me back'

and i will move your screen name into that group

and i will invite you to my house and show you

and you will say, 'if i didn't like you why did i come over'

and you will look at my face

and i will have an honest answer for your question

i will tell you that you came over to be polite

and after a while you will go home

and you won't call

and i won't either

and after awhile i won't like you anymore

and after awhile we'll forget each other

and after awhile you will be beautiful and alone inside of your coffin

and i'll be cold and alone inside of my coffin

Deborah Garrison: Please Fire Me

 Here comes another alpha male,

 and all the other alphas

 are snorting and pawing,

 kicking up puffs of acrid dust

 while the silly little hens

 clatter back and forth

 on quivering claws and raise

 a titter about the fuss.

 Here comes another alpha male--

 a man's man, a dealmaker,

 holds tanks of liquor,

 charms them pantsless at lunch:

 I've never been sicker.

 Do I have to stare into his eyes

 and sympathize? If I want my job

 I do. Well I think I'm through

 with the working world,

 through with warming eggs

 and being Zenlike in my detachment

 from all things Ego.

 I'd like to go

 somewhere else entirely,

 and I don't mean

 Europe.

Gioconda Belli : Cómo Pesa el Amor

Noche cerrada
ciega en el tiempo
verde como luna
apenas clara entre las luciérnagas.

Sigo la huella de mis pasos,
el doloroso retorno a la sonrisa,
me invento en la cumbre adivinada
entre árboles retorcidos.

Sé que algún día
se alzarán de nuevo
las yemas recién nacidas
de mi rojo corazón,
entonces, quizás,
oirás mi voz enceguecedora
como el canto de las sirenas;
te darás cuenta
de la soledad;
juntarás mi arcilla,
el lodo que te ofrecí,
entonces tal vez sabrás
cómo pesa el amor
endurecido.

Dios dijo
Dios dijo:
Ama a tu prójimo como a ti mismo.
En mi país
el que ama a su prójimo
se juega la vida.

Les Murray: The Visitor

He knocks at the door

 and listens to his heart approaching.

W. H. Auden: Epitaph on a tyrant

 Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after

 And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;

 He knew human folly like the back of his hand,

 And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;

 When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,

 And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

Ladányi Mihály: Mese

Legelőször a manók bújtak el
az est füvébe, a manók legelőbb.

aztán tündér-húgaim hagytak el
éjfél után, de még hajnal előtt.

A boszorkány felsöpörgette a
sárkány barlangját, s ő is elveszett.

Az álmok zavaros vadvizein most
nappalaim lidércfénye remeg.

Michael Ondaatje: Bearhug

Griffin calls to come and kiss him goodnight
I yell ok. Finish something I'm doing,
then something else, walk slowly round
the corner to my son's room.
He is standing arms outstretched
waiting for a bearhug. Grinning.

Why do I give my emotion an animal's name,
give it that dark squeeze of death?
This is the hug which collects
all his small bones and his warm neck against me.
The thin tough body under the pyjamas
locks to me like a magnet of blood.

How long was he standing there
like that, before I came? 

Shel Silverstein: The Little Boy and the Old Man

Said the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my spoon."

Said the old man, "I do that, too."

The little boy whispered, "I wet my pants."

"I do that too," laughed the little old man.

Said the little boy, "I often cry."

The old man nodded, "So do I."

"But worst of all," said the boy, "it seems

Grown-ups don't pay attention to me."

And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.

"I know what you mean," said the little old man. 

William Butler Yeats: On Being Asked for a War Poem

I think it better that in times like these

 A poet keep his mouth shut, for in truth

 We have no gift to set a statesman right;

 He has had enough of meddling who can please

 A young girl in the indolence of her youth,

 Or an old man upon a winter's night.

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer : Rima XIII

Szemed kék, és mikor nevetni kezdesz,
lágy derűjében virágjai nyílnak
a hajnalfénynek, amelyet magába
nyel a tenger, a tikkadt.

Szemed kék, és mikor könnyeid hullnak,
minden áttetsző könnycsepp olyan, mintha
harmatcsöppektől hajolna szelíden
az ibolya lágy szirma.

Szemed kék, és mikor mélyéből énrám
ragyog egy fényes, eszmélkedő szikra,
mintha a délutáni égre szállna
egy odatévedt csillag.

(Simor András fordítása)

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer: Rima XIII

Tu pupila es azul y, cuando ríes, 
su claridad süave me recuerda 
el trémulo fulgor de la mañana 
que en el mar se refleja. 

Tu pupila es azul y, cuando lloras, 
las transparentes lágrimas en ella 
se me figuran gotas de rocío 
sobre una vïoleta. 

Tu pupila es azul, y si en su fondo 
como un punto de luz radia una idea, 
me parece en el cielo de la tarde 
una perdida estrella.

Roger McGough: A Good Poem

 I like a good poem

 one with lots of fighting

 in it. Blood, and the

 clanging of armour. Poems

 against Scotland are good,

 and poems that defeat

 the French with crossbows.

 I don't like poems that

 aren't about anything.

 Sonnets are wet and

 a waste of time.

 Also poems that don't

 know how to rhyme.

 If I was a poem

 I'd play football and

 get picked for England.

Issa: Untitled

  What good luck!

  Bitten by

  This year's mosquitoes too.

Sharon Olds: The Planned Child

I hated the fact that they had planned me, she had taken
a cardboard out of his shirt from the laundry
as if sliding the backbone up out of his body,
and made a chart of the month and put
her temperature on it, rising and falling,
to know the day to make me - I would have
liked to have been conceived in heat,
in haste, by mistake, in love, in sex,
not on cardboard, the little x on the
rising line that did not fall again.

But when a friend was pouring wine
and said that I seem to have been a child who had been wanted,
I took the wine against my lips
as if my mouth were moving along
that valved wall in my mother's body, she was
bearing down, and then breathing from the mask, and then
bearing down, pressing me out into
the world that was not enough for her without me in it,
not the moon, the sun, Orion
cartwheeling across the dark, not
the earth, the sea - none of it
was enough, for her, without me.  

Kányádi Sándor: Mondóka

semleges vizek mélyén
embertelenül
atomhajtású tengeralattjárón
embertelenül
elektronikus-agyak számítják ki
embertelenül
a pontos és igaz jövendőt
embertelenül
hogy milyen lesz majd a föld
embertelenül

James Fenton: Twisting the Knife

Some people are like that.
They split up and then they think:
Hey, maybe we haven't hurt each other to the uttermost.
Let's meet up and have a drink.

Let's go over it all again
Let's rake over the dirt.
Let me pick that scab of yours.
Does it hurt?

Let's go over what went wrong -
How and why and when.
Let's go over what went wrong
Again and again.

We hurt each other badly once.
We said a lot of nasty stuff.
But lately I've been thinking how
I didn't hurt you half enough.

Maybe there's more where that came from,
Something more malign.
Let me damage you again.
For the sake of old lang syne.

Yes, let me see you bleed again
For the sake of old lang syne.

Gwendolyn Brooks: Speech to the Young, Speech to the Progress-Toward

Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night."
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.

Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.

Elisabeth Alexander: Stray

On the beach, close to sunset, a dog runs
toward us fast, agitated, perhaps feral,
scrounging for anything he can eat.
We pull the children close and let him pass.

Is there such a thing as a stray child? Simon asks.
Like if a mother had a child from her body
but then decided she wanted to be a different child’s mother,
what would happen to that first child?

The dog finds a satisfying scrap and calms.
The boys break free and leap from rock to rock.
I was a stray man before I met your mother,
you say, but they have run on and cannot hear you.

How fast they run on, past the dark pool
your voice makes, our arms which hold them back.
I was a stray man before I met you,
you say. This time you are speaking to me.

Wendell Berry: The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Pilinszky János: Itt és most

A gyepet nézem, talán a gyepet.
Mozdul a fű. Szél vagy zápor talán,
vagy egyszerűen az, hogy létezel,
mozdítja meg itt és most a világot.

William Butler Yeats: Aedh Laments the Loss of Love (or The Lover Mourns for the Loss of Love)

Pale brows, still hands and dim hair,

I had a beautiful friend

And dreamed that the old despair

Would end in love in the end:

She looked in my heart one day

And saw your image was there;

She has gone weeping away.

Edna St Vincent Millay: Three Songs of Shattering - I

 The first rose on my rose-tree

   Budded, bloomed, and shattered,

 During sad days when to me

           Nothing mattered.

 Grief of grief has drained me clean;

   Still it seems a pity

 No one saw, -- it must have been

           Very pretty.

Nicanor Parra: Autorretrato

Considerad, muchachos,

Este gabán de fraile mendicante:

Soy profesor en un liceo obscuro,

He perdido la voz haciendo clases.

(Después de todo o nada

Hago cuarenta horas semanales).

¿Qué les dice mi cara abofeteada?

¡Verdad que inspira lástima mirarme!

Y qué les sugieren estos zapatos de cura

Que envejecieron sin arte ni parte.

En materia de ojos, a tres metros

No reconozco ni a mi propia madre.

¿Qué me sucede? -¡Nada!

Me los he arruinado haciendo clases:

La mala luz, el sol,

La venenosa luna miserable.

Y todo ¡para qué!

Para ganar un pan imperdonable

Duro como la cara del burgués

Y con olor y con sabor a sangre.

¡Para qué hemos nacido como hombres

Si nos dan una muerte de animales!

Por el exceso de trabajo, a veces

Veo formas extrañas en el aire,

Oigo carreras locas,

Risas, conversaciones criminales.

Observad estas manos

Y estas mejillas blancas de cadáver,

Estos escasos pelos que me quedan.

¡Estas negras arrugas infernales!

Sin embargo yo fui tal como ustedes,

Joven, lleno de bellos ideales

Soñé fundiendo el cobre

Y limando las caras del diamante:

Aquí me tienen hoy

Detrás de este mesón inconfortable

Embrutecido por el sonsonete

De las quinientas horas semanales.