pleasefindthis: The time it takes to fall

So if all we have is that glance in the window. If all we have is
till this train stops. If all we have is till the sun comes up, till
your lift picks you up. And if all we have is till the day I die.

I’m ok with what we have.

Christopher Poindexter: [There is nothing worse...]

"There is nothing worse
than feeling empty,"
she said, staring at the
small bottle of jack
in her hands.
"Wrong," I replied,
as she looked at me
like I was about to
reveal a secret she had
been waiting her whole
life to hear,
"there is nothing worse
than feeling something
inside you and not knowing
what to do with it or having
anyone to understand it."

Jónás Tamás: Hallgatás helyett

Én nem sokat tudok rólad, de te
se tudhatsz rólam sokat. Nemde?
De. Vagy kértem én, hogy olvasóm legyél?
Hagyd abba most, jobb még az elején.

Ma verset írtam. Hallgatás helyett.
Így pár mondatnak küldetése lett.
De nem érdeklődik, nem is üzen.
Ha majd akar, rögtön befejezem.

Ki verset ír, ölhetne is akár.
Ki tudja, melyikkel nagyobb a kár.

Hogy rossz ez így neked? Na, ja. Tudom.
És unod. Nem nagy ügy. Én is unom.
És nem is tudsz vele mit kezdeni.
Ki kezdje, én vagy te, szégyenleni?

A felnőtt ember egyet megtanul:
mindene régi, csak a sorsa új.
A sorsa, amin osztoznia kell,
nem ő rendezte, s nem ő hiszi el.

Paul Hostovsky: How to Touch a Woman

Technically, and with a love of
technicalities mixed with childlike
wonder, and also a little shame
at the long history of the ignorance
of men. Touch her the way
you would touch whatever’s behind
glass and a Do Not Touch sign
if the glass were suddenly removed
and the sign were given you
to fold it into a beautiful paper crane
to give to her. Touch her that way
every time as though it were
the first time. And when you consider
your cells and her cells are dying
and being born all the time, technically, it is.

Rumi: A fogadó ház

Az emberi lény mint egy fogadóház
Minden reggel más vendéget vár
Az öröm a szomorúság és a
hitványság
Gyakori vendégek
De nagy ritkán a tudatosság is betéved
Fogadd be őket szívesen
Még ha a fájdalom is durván bedörget
Adj neki helyet
Hisz ő is a te vendéged
Fogadd be őket szívesen
Mert új örömöket hoznak neked
A szégyenkezés a rosszindulat
Borús gondolatok
Szívéllyel fogadd őket úgy szintén
Légy hálás mindegyiknek
Mert mindnyájan Istentől jönnek

(Simon Imre fordítása)

Rumi: The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Helen Conkling: I Knew an Eccentric

I once knew an eccentric electrician.
We had a lot in common.
He wrote poetry and I did.
We both liked pasta.
His poems were complex.
Reading them was like riding a funnel-shaped wind inward.
Finally, I said, “Don’t show me any more of them
and don’t keep talking about unknown galaxies
and how small we are.
I already know that,” I said.
“And fragile,” he added.

Octavio Paz: Here

My steps along this street
resound
            in another street
in which
            I hear my steps
passing along this street
in which

Only the mist is real

(translated by Charles Tomlinson)

Octavio Paz: Aquí

Mis pasos en esta calle
Resuenan
                        en otra calle
donde
                oigo mis pasos
pasar en esta calle
donde

Sólo es real la niebla.

Frank O’Hara: My Heart

I’m not going to cry all the time
nor shall I laugh all the time,
I don’t prefer one “strain” to another.
I’d have the immediacy of a bad movie,
not just a sleeper, but also the big,
overproduced first-run kind. I want to be
at least as alive as the vulgar. And if
some aficionado of my mess says “That’s
not like Frank!”, all to the good! I
don’t wear brown and grey suits all the time,
do I? No. I wear workshirts to the opera,
often. I want my feet to be bare,
I want my face to be shaven, and my heart—
you can’t plan on the heart, but
the better part of it, my poetry, is open.

Mairead Byrne: In My Culture

In my culture it is the custom that if someone offers you something you say no, even if you want it. The person knows—if they are in your culture too—that you may well want the thing you just refused and so they offer it again.  If you are at ease with that person you refuse again and of course they offer again.  If you know the person really well or are related by blood or marriage or if they are a neighbor or the neighbor of a neighbor, then you refuse again and of course if they stand in any of those relationships to you they offer again.  And so it goes with each offer and refusal incrementally more vehement until finally at the moment of highest tension the sun bursts from behind the cloud and you say Yes!  And the tea is poured or the wad of money pressed into the palm or you get into the car.  It would be devastating if, after the third or fourth exchange, one or other person said Oh okay.  It would be like a death or as if the top of a mountain were removed or as if there were no air.  In my new culture no-one offers me anything and if they did I would of course refuse and of course they would accept that and of course I would not get anything ho-hum because they would not offer again.  No-one knows how to get to the place of agreement and how many times to go round before meeting there.  I feel as if I am alone in the center of a maze, high boxwood hedge all round and in the air barely apprehensible snatches of the voices of a family in the distance having a picnic on the level ground at the bottom of the rolling lawn at the back of their majestic house.

Jónás Tamás: Csak véletlenül

Ha gond vagyok, magamban vagyok.
Ha gomb vagyok, leszakadtam.
Magamnak, gondnak, legnagyobb.
Elgurult gondom visszakaptam:
ma leírhatatlan gondolat vagyok.
Elveszni akartam, s megmaradtam.
Főhet a fejem, égnek a csillagok.
Túlforrósodott lelkemet nem hűti testem.
Alig tudok magamról. De itt vagyok.
Utca, házszám, emelet Budapesten.
S te varázsló, akire várok, mindennél nagyobb:
ott vagy itt és itt vagy ott, kettesben
soha nem lel minket szem vagy álom.
Suttoghatnál is, ne kelljen keresnem
ilyen vakon téged, s csak véletlenül megtalálnom.

Árvai Ágnes: Amikor nem vagy itt

Amikor nem vagy itt: fázom,
és belebújok a köpenyedbe,
magambaszívom a dohány
és borotvahab szagát,
kinyitom az aktatáskádat,
kezembe veszem a tollat,
és a jegyzetfüzetet,
aztán lefekszem az ágyba,
és testednek helyet szorítok,
leoltom a villanyt,
végiggondolom milyen is volt a
veled előtti korszak:
várakozás valami
biztos bizonytalanra,
arra, hogy jössz,
és hogyha elmégy,
én fázni fogok,
és belebújok a köpenyedbe,
magambaszívom a dohány
és borotvahab szagát,
kinyitom az aktatáskádat,…
Tehát a tárgyak?
Vagy a tárgyakban rekedt mozdulatok?
Kesztyűdben ujjad hív,
sáladon a kockák felnevetnek.
Amikor nem vagy itt,
olyan töményen vagy velem,
hogy átforrósodom.

Mairead Byrne: Programmable Thermostat

I'm hot.
I turn the heat down.
Now I'm cold.
I turn the heat up.
We're going out.
I turn the heat down.
We're back.
I turn the heat up.
We're off to bed.
I turn the heat off.
It's 6am.
I turn the heat on so it's warm
when Clio gets up.

Wendy Cope: Giving Up Smoking

There’s not a Shakespeare sonnet
Or a Beethoven quartet
That’s easier to like than you
Or harder to forget.
You think that sounds extravagant?
I haven’t finished yet –
I like you more than I would like
To have a cigarette.

Pleasefindthis: The song across wires

I'm a picture without a frame.
A poem without a rhyme.
A car with three wheels.
A sun without a fire.
I am a gun without bullets.
I am the truth without someone to hear it.
I am a feeling without someone to feel it.
This is who I am. A mess without you.
Something beautiful with you.

Carlos Marzal: Sangre joven

Quiero tu sangre joven, que es querer
todo lo que la vida aún no ha podido hacerte.
De lo que me alimento
es de esa inútil sangre esperanzada,
de cuanto sé que ignoras hasta hoy,
y que más nos valdría que no supieses nunca.
De esa manera, por obra de tu sangre,
creo en lo que no creo, y olvido lo que sé
que te ha de suceder. Quiero esa risa
que aún no ha tenido tiempo de hacerse prudente,
de pensarse dos veces si reír
es celebrar el mundo o lamentar su estado.
Envidio el que no hayas vendido
ninguna alma al diablo, y que bailes con él
a la luz de la luna, a veces, sin conciencia.
Juego contigo, porque no sabes las reglas,
ni siquiera las de tu propio juego,
y mientras las aprendes
soy el que ya no soy desde ya no sé cuándo.
Quiero la impunidad con que te entregas
a la tarea de vivir la vida,
sin paz, sin horizonte, sin infierno,
que son el argumento de las vidas ajenas.
Viéndote hacerlo, se diría
que desconozco todo lo que conozco.

Así es tu sangre,
Ya sabes lo que busco.
Qué tristeza que el tiempo, o yo, o tú misma
tengamos que matar, en ti, toda tu sangre.

Anna Swir: The Greatest Love

She is sixty. She lives
the greatest love of her life.
She walks arm-in-arm with her dear one,
her hair streams in the wind.
Her dear one says:
“You have hair like pearls.”
Her children say:
“Old fool.”

(Translation by Czeslaw Milosz)

Shel Silverstein: Rain

I opened my eyes
And looked up at the rain,
And it dripped in my head
And flowed into my brain,
And all that I hear as I lie in my bed
Is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head.

I step very softly,
I walk very slow,
I can't do a handstand--
I might overflow,
So pardon the wild crazy thing I just said--
I'm just not the same since there's rain in my head.

Nemes Nagy Ágnes: Tanulni kell

Tanulni kell. A téli fákat.
Ahogyan talpig zuzmarásak.

Tanulni kell. A nyári felhőt.
A lobbanásnyi égi-erdőt.

Tanulni kell mézet, diót,
jegenyefát és űrhajót,

a hétfőt, keddet, pénteket,
a szavakat, mert édesek,

tanulni kell magyarul és világul,
tanulni kell mindazt, ami kitárul,

ami világít, ami jel:
tanulni kell, szeretni kell.

Christopher Poindexter: [Do you believe, too, like I do...]

Do you believe, too, like I do,
that all of our bodies are connected,
even if in the tiniest way? How beautiful
could that be, my love? That we carry
pieces of each other inside us?

Matsuo Bashō: A cold rain starting…

A cold rain starting
And no hat –
So?

Edna St. Vincent Millay: Grown Up

Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?

Mario Benedetti: That Battle

How to reconcile
the devastating
notion of death
with this invincible
lust for life?

how can our horror
of the void that awaits us
contend with the overpowering joy
of mortal but true
love?

How to defuse gravestones
with furrowed fields?
a scythe
with a carnation?

for all we know man is just that
that battle...

(Translated by Louise B. Popkin)

Mario Benedetti: Esa Batalla

¿Cómo compaginar
la aniquiladora
idea de la muerte
con ese incontenible
afán de vida?

¿cómo acoplar el horror
ante la nada que vendrá
con la invasora alegría
del amor provisional
y verdadero?

¿cómo desactivar la lápida con el sembradío?

¿la guadaña
con el clavel?

¿será que el hombre es eso?
¿esa batalla?

Derek Walcott: Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

David Wagoner: Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

Kukorelly Endre: Tizenkilenct

Bús hatker Szondy negyven düledéke.
Megállott
Csendben két emelet közben az éjjel a lift.
Szél kele, k*rva hideg, s a lépcsőháznak
elontott
Oszlopi közt lebegő házmester inte felém.
És mond: Te! mi a f*szt vársz itt, mér
csöngetel itten?
Nem látol, apukám, hogy bekrepált ez a sz*r?
Messze a harmadikig, komolyan húzzál te
gyalog fel!
A lift hast gyarapít, de lelapítja, ha rossz!

Pleasefindthis: The rules of engagement

All persons entering a heart do so at their own risk. Management can and will be held responsible for any loss, theft, ambition or personal injury. Please take care of your belongings. Please take care of the way you look at me. No roller skating, kissing, smoking, fingers through hair, 3 am phone calls, stained letters, littering, unfeeling feelings, a smell left on a pillow, doors slammed, lyrics whispered, or loitering. Thank you.

Anna Wickham: Paradox

My brain burns with hate of you.
I am like a green field swept by scorching wind,
Everything withers.
There is nothing left of promise
But black death. Yet in my heart is our eternal love,
Hard and pure as a moonstone,
And like an opal,
Subtle with change.

Nina Cassian: Morning Exercises

I wake up and say: I’m through.
It’s my first thought at dawn.
What a nice way to start the day
with such a murderous thought.
God, take pity on me
—is the second thought, and then
I get out of bed
and live as if
nothing had been said.

(translated from the Romanian by Andrea Deletant and Brenda Walker)

Nicanor Parra: En Qué Quedamos Entonces

En que las opiniones están divididas
Alabado sea el Santísimo:
Para los profesores soy poeta
& para los poetas... profesor
Una manera elegante que tienen
Los 17 Sabios de Alejandría
De decirme que no soy ni chicha ni limoná
La verdad es que soy las 2 cosas
Algunas veces tengo que ser chicha
Pero otras veces
El hombre está obligado a ser limoná
Díganme que nó
Dalai Lama que comete el desaguisado
De abanderizarse con uno de los opuestos
Pierde su naturaleza de Budha
Mejor que se reintegre al Tibet
Es cuestión de principios
No de personas!

Stephen Dunn: A Secret Life

Why you need to have one
is not much more mysterious than
why you don’t say what you think
at the birth of an ugly baby.
Or, you’ve just made love
and feel you’d rather have been
in a dark booth where your partner
was nodding, whispering yes, yes,
you’re brilliant. The secret life
begins early, is kept alive
by all that’s unpopular
in you, all that you know
a Baptist, say, or some other
accountant would object to.
It becomes what you’d most protect
if the government said you can protect
one thing, all else is ours.
When you write late at night
it’s like a small fire
in a clearing, it’s what
radiates and what can hurt
if you get too close to it.
It’s why your silence is a kind of truth.
Even when you speak to your best friend,
the one who’ll never betray you,
you always leave out one thing;
a secret life is that important.

e. e. cummings: love is thicker than forget

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

Kányádi Sándor: Isten háta mögött

üres az istálló s a jászol
idén se lesz nálunk karácsony
hiába vártok
nem jönnek a három királyok

sok dolga van a teremtőnek
mindenkivel ő sem törődhet
messzi a csillag
... mindenüvé nem világíthat

megértjük persze mit tehetnénk
de olyan sötétek az esték
s a szeretetnek
hiánya nagyon dideregtet

előrelátó vagy de mégis
nézz Uram a hátad mögé is
ott is lakoznak
s örülnének a mosolyodnak