Adrienne Rich

Our whole life

a translation

the permissible fibs

and now a knot of lies

eating at itself

to get undone

Words bitten thru words~

~meanings burnt-off like paint

under the blowtorch

All those dead letters

rendered into the oppressor's language

Trying to tell the doctor where it hurts

like the Algerian who waled form his village,

burning his whole body

a could of pain

and there are no words for this

except himself

Wallace Stevens

The Planet On The Table

Ariel was glad he had written his poems.

They were of a remembered time

Or of something seen that he liked.

Other makings of the sun

Were waste and welter

And the ripe shrub writhed.

His self and the sun were one

And his poems, although makings of his self,

Were no less makings of the sun.

It was not important that they survive.

What mattered was that they should bear

Some lineament or character,

Some affluence, if only half-perceived,

In the poverty of their words,

Of the planet of which they were part.

David Whyte

Kukai

A hand moves,

and the fire’s whirling takes different shapes:

All things change when we do.

The first word,”Ah,”

blossoms into all others.

Each of them is true.

MAULANA'S LAST LETTER TO SHAMS-Rumi

Sometimes I wonder, sweetest love, if you

Were a mere dream in along winter night,

A dream of spring-days, and of golden light

Which sheds its rays upon a frozen heart;

A dream of wine that fills the drunken eye.
And so I wonder, sweetest love,

if I Should drink this ruby wine, or rather weep;

Each tear a bezel with your face engraved,

A rosary to memorize your name...
There are so many ways to call you back-

Yes, even if you only were a dream.

Czeslaw Milosz

We wanted to confess our sins but there were no takers.

White clouds refused to accept them, and the wind

was too busy visiting sea after sea.

We did not succeed in interesting the animals.

Dogs, disappointed, expected an order,

A cat, as always immoral, was falling asleep.

A person seemingly very close

Did not care to hear of things long past.

Conversations with friends over vodka or coffee

Ought not to be prolonged beyond the first sign of boredom.

It would be humiliating to pay by the hour

A man with a diploma, just for listening.

Churches. Perhaps churches. But to confess there what?

That we used to see ourselves as handsome and noble

Yet later in our place an ugly toad

Half-opens its thick eyelid

And one sees clearly: “That’s me.”

Philip Larkin

This is the first thingI have understood:

Time is the echo of an axe

Within a wood.