Autobiography
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
Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)
poem by Nazim Hikmet
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Things I Didn't Know I Loved
it's 1962 March 28th
I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
night is falling
I never knew I liked
night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain
I don't like
comparing nightfall to a tired bird
I didn't know I loved the earth
can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it
I've never worked the earth
it must be my only Platonic love
and here I've loved rivers all this time
whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills
European hills crowned with chateaus
or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see
I know you can't wash in the same river even once
I know the river will bring new lights you'll never see
I know we live slightly longer than a horse but not nearly as long as a crow
I know this has troubled people before
and will trouble those after me
I know all this has been said a thousand times before
and will be said after me
I didn't know I loved the sky
cloudy or clear
the blue vault Andrei studied on his back at Borodino
in prison I translated both volumes of War and Peace into Turkish
I hear voices
not from the blue vault but from the yard
the guards are beating someone again
I didn't know I loved trees
bare beeches near Moscow in Peredelkino
they come upon me in winter noble and modest
beeches are Russian the way poplars are Turkish
"the poplars of Izmir
losing their leaves. . .
they call me The Knife. . .
lover like a young tree. . .
I blow stately mansions sky-high"
in the Ilgaz woods in 1920 I tied an embroidered linen handkerchief
to a pine bough for luck
I never knew I loved roads
even the asphalt kind
Vera's behind the wheel we're driving from Moscow to the Crimea
Koktebele
formerly "Goktepé ili" in Turkish
the two of us inside a closed box
the world flows past on both sides distant and mute
I was never so close to anyone in my life
bandits stopped me on the red road between Bolu and Geredé
when I was eighteen
apart from my life I didn't have anything in the wagon they could take
and at eighteen our lives are what we value least
I've written this somewhere before
wading through a dark muddy street I'm going to the shadow play
Ramazan night
a paper lantern leading the way
maybe nothing like this ever happened
maybe I read it somewhere an eight-year-old boy
going to the shadow play
Ramazan night in Istanbul holding his grandfather's hand
his grandfather has on a fez and is wearing the fur coat
with a sable collar over his robe
and there's a lantern in the servant's hand
and I can't contain myself for joy
flowers come to mind for some reason
poppies cactuses jonquils
in the jonquil garden in Kadikoy Istanbul I kissed Marika
fresh almonds on her breath
I was seventeen
my heart on a swing touched the sky
I didn't know I loved flowers
friends sent me three red carnations in prison
I just remembered the stars
I love them too
whether I'm floored watching them from below
or whether I'm flying at their side
I have some questions for the cosmonauts
were the stars much bigger
did they look like huge jewels on black velvet
or apricots on orange
did you feel proud to get closer to the stars
I saw color photos of the cosmos in Ogonek magazine now don't
be upset comrades but nonfigurative shall we say or abstract
well some of them looked just like such paintings which is to
say they were terribly figurative and concrete
my heart was in my mouth looking at them
they are our endless desire to grasp things
seeing them I could even think of death and not feel at all sad
I never knew I loved the cosmos
snow flashes in front of my eyes
both heavy wet steady snow and the dry whirling kind
I didn't know I liked snow
I never knew I loved the sun
even when setting cherry-red as now
in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors
but you aren't about to paint it that way
I didn't know I loved the sea
except the Sea of Azov
or how much
I didn't know I loved clouds
whether I'm under or up above them
whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts
moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit-bourgeois
strikes me
I like it
I didn't know I liked rain
whether it falls like a fine net or splatters against the glass my
heart leaves me tangled up in a net or trapped inside a drop
and takes off for uncharted countries I didn't know I loved
rain but why did I suddenly discover all these passions sitting
by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
is it because I lit my sixth cigarette
one alone could kill me
is it because I'm half dead from thinking about someone back in Moscow
her hair straw-blond eyelashes blue
the train plunges on through the pitch-black night
I never knew I liked the night pitch-black
sparks fly from the engine
I didn't know I loved sparks
I didn't know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty
to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return
19 April 1962
Moscow
Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)
poem by Nazim Hikmet
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Last Will And Testament
Comrades, if I don't live to see the day
-- I mean,if I die before freedom comes --
take me away
and bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia.
The worker Osman whom Hassan Bey ordered shot
can lie on one side of me, and on the other side
the martyr Aysha, who gave birth in the rye
and died inside of forty days.
Tractors and songs can pass below the cemetery --
in the dawn light, new people, the smell of burnt gasoline,
fields held in common, water in canals,
no drought or fear of the police.
Of course, we won't hear those songs:
the dead lie stretched out underground
and rot like black branches,
deaf, dumb, and blind under the earth.
But, I sang those songs
before they were written,
I smelled the burnt gasoline
before the blueprints for the tractors were drawn.
As for my neighbors,
the worker Osman and the martyr Aysha,
they felt the great longing while alive,
maybe without even knowing it.
Comrades, if I die before that day, I mean
-- and it's looking more and more likely --
bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia,
and if there's one handy,
a plane tree could stand at my head,
I wouldn't need a stone or anything.
Moscow, Barviha Hospital
Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)
poem by Nazim Hikmet
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Angina Pectoris
If half my heart is here, doctor,
the other half is in China
with the army flowing
toward the Yellow River.
And, every morning, doctor,
every morning at sunrise my heart
is shot in Greece.
And every night,c doctor,
when the prisoners are asleep and the infirmary is deserted,
my heart stops at a run-down old house
in Istanbul.
And then after ten years
all i have to offer my poor people
is this apple in my hand, doctor,
one read apple:
my heart.
And that, doctor, that is the reason
for this angina pectoris--
not nicotine, prison, or arteriosclerosis.
I look at the night through the bars,
and despite the weight on my chest
my heart still beats with the most distant stars.
Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)
poem by Nazim Hikmet
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On Living
I
Living is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
like a squirrel, for example--
I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
I mean living must be your whole occupation.
Living is no laughing matter:
you must take it seriously,
so much so and to such a degree
that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,
your back to the wall,
or else in a laboratory
in your white coat and safety glasses,
you can die for people--
even for people whose faces you've never seen,
even though you know living
is the most real, the most beautiful thing.
I mean, you must take living so seriously
that even at seventy, for example, you'll plant olive trees--
and not for your children, either,
but because although you fear death you don't believe it,
because living, I mean, weighs heavier.
II
Let's say you're seriously ill, need surgery--
which is to say we might not get
from the white table.
Even though it's impossible not to feel sad
about going a little too soon,
we'll still laugh at the jokes being told,
we'll look out the window to see it's raining,
or still wait anxiously
for the latest newscast ...
Let's say we're at the front--
for something worth fighting for, say.
There, in the first offensive, on that very day,
we might fall on our face, dead.
We'll know this with a curious anger,
but we'll still worry ourselves to death
about the outcome of the war, which could last years.
Let's say we're in prison
and close to fifty,
and we have eighteen more years, say,
before the iron doors will open.
We'll still live with the outside,
with its people and animals, struggle and wind--
I mean with the outside beyond the walls.
I mean, however and wherever we are,
we must live as if we will never die.
III
This earth will grow cold,
a star among stars
and one of the smallest,
a gilded mote on blue velvet--
I mean this, our great earth.
This earth will grow cold one day,
not like a block of ice
or a dead cloud even
but like an empty walnut it will roll along
in pitch-black space ...
You must grieve for this right now
--you have to feel this sorrow now--
for the world must be loved this much
if you're going to say "I lived" ...
Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)
poem by Nazim Hikmet
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Rabiteen
He said that he would stay forever
forever wasn't very long
He said that he would take the high road
He thought that I was always wrong
Cause when he lied it meant he loved me
And when he lied it meant he cared
And when he lied it meant he loved me
Cause when he lied it meant that he was there
He said that he would go his own way
wrapped up my leg and down my spine
He said that he would be the fairest
Drenched in blood and turpentine
Cause when he lied it meant he loved me
And when he lied it meant he cared
And when he lied it meant he loved me
Cause when he lied it meant that he was there
I am never going back I don't care what he said
I wish he could see the hate in my head
I am never going back I don't care what he said
I wish he could see the hate in my head
I am never going back I don't care what he said
I wish he could see the hate in my head
I am never going back I don't care what he said
I wish he could see the hate
He said that he would tell no secrets
He said that he would never lie
He said that he would spring eternal
He said that we would never die
Cause when he lied it meant he loved me
And when he lied it meant he cared
And when he lied it meant he loved me
Cause when he cried it meant he cared
Cause when he lied it meant he loved me
And when he lied it meant he cared
And when he lied it meant he loved me
Cause when he lied it meant that
he was
he was
he was
He was there
song performed by by Jack Off Jill from Clear Hearts Grey Flowers
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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No Smoking
My wife became a smokeless-zone,
October ninety-four;
She said: 'I've had enough of these,
I'm smoking them no more.
They haven't done me any good,
And cost me lots of money;
To work out the exact amount
Would not be very funny.
To smoke like all my mates
I thought a clever thing to do;
We laughed behind the teacher's back
While puffing in the loo.
But in the end, just like they say,
The last laugh was on me:
I'm only thirty-two, and yet
I feel like forty-three!
At last I've realized that
From lung cancer there's no cure;
I'm just so glad I've packed them in,
This time for good, I'm sure.'
(Written Oct 1994)
poem by John Carter Brown
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No One Gets The Prize
(nickolas ashford/valerie simpson)
No one, no one gets the prize
No one, no one
No one gets the prize
We were best of friends
It all began
He came in to town and changed the plan
I knew she felt, the same as me
Which one of us would it be
Just in fun, fight begun
Before long a web of hate was spun
She pretended same as me
Oh, but friends again wed never be
No one, no one gets the prize
She told him lies, and I told him lies
No one, no one gets the prize
She schemed and dreamed and told him dirt
That I was wrong for him
I told him all the boys shed hurt and I would number them
He was the ray of light that made our hearts live
But either one of us knew really how to give
So we scandalized and criticized
And then we learned how to despise
No one, no one gets the prize
She told him lies and I lied, I lied yeah
No one, no one gets the prize
No, no, no
Yeah, yeah
Back off
Tried to steal him, tried to steal him
Tried to steal him
Runnin behind my back
Tried to steal him
Tried to show him where it was at
Watch it now
No, no I wont take second place
No, no tell him to his face
We were friends for so, so, so long
Messed around, now hes gone gone gone gone
No one, no one gets the prize
No, no
No one, no one gets the prize
I wasnt alive, a love thats satisfied
No one, no one gets the prize
It wasnt fair, the love I couldnt share
No one, no one gets the prize
No, no
No one, no one gets the prize
No one, no one gets the prize
She lied, I lied, we lied
No one, no one
song performed by by Diana Ross
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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At A Meeting Of Friends
AUGUST 29, 1859
I REMEMBER--why, yes! God bless me! and was it so long ago?
I fear I'm growing forgetful, as old folks do, you know;
It must have been in 'forty--I would say 'thirty-nine--
We talked this matter over, I and a friend of mine.
He said, 'Well now, old fellow, I'm thinking that you and I,
If we act like other people, shall be older by and by;
What though the bright blue ocean is smooth as a pond can be,
There is always a line of breakers to fringe the broadest sea.
'We're taking it mighty easy, but that is nothing strange,
For up to the age of thirty we spend our years like Change;
But creeping up towards the forties, as fast as the old years fill,
And Time steps in for payment, we seem to change a bill.'
'I know it,' I said, 'old fellow; you speak the solemn truth;
A man can't live to a hundred and likewise keep his youth;
But what if the ten years coming shall silver-streak my hair,
You know I shall then be forty; of course I shall not care.
'At forty a man grows heavy and tired of fun and noise;
Leaves dress to the five-and-twenties and love to the silly boys;
No foppish tricks at forty, no pinching of waists and toes,
But high-low shoes and flannels and good thick worsted hose.'
But one fine August morning I found myself awake
My birthday:--By Jove, I'm forty! Yes, forty, and no mistake!
Why, this is the very milestone, I think I used to hold,
That when a fellow had come to, a fellow would then be old!
But that is the young folks' nonsense; they're full of their
foolish stuff;
A man's in his prime at forty,--I see that plain enough;
At fifty a man is wrinkled, and may be bald or gray;
I call men old at fifty, in spite of all they say.
At last comes another August with mist and rain and shine;
Its mornings are slowly counted and creep to twenty-nine,
And when on the western summits the fading light appears,
It touches with rosy fingers the last of my fifty years.
There have been both men and women whose hearts were firm and bold,
But there never was one of fifty that loved to say 'I'm old';
So any elderly person that strives to shirk his years,
Make him stand up at a table and try him by his peers.
Now here I stand at fifty, my jury gathered round;
Sprinkled with dust of silver, but not yet silver-crowned,
Ready to meet your verdict, waiting to hear it told;
Guilty of fifty summers; speak! Is the verdict _old_.
No! say that his hearing fails him; say that his sight grows dim;
Say that he's getting wrinkled and weak in back and limb,
Losing his wits and temper, but pleading, to make amends,
The youth of his fifty summers he finds in his twenty friends.
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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The Snake Around Your Heart
I was so blind to the snake around your heart.
So child like in the morning light you lay.
I kissed your cheek, hugged you and prayed.
A changeling whispered back love you too.
I placed you on the heart strings of my bow.
Shot you out into the star scattered sky.
Forty-Four days and nights to make the boy a man.
God fought a demon, did it in thirty.
I plucked the string I did my part
I was betrayed by you and the snake around your heart.
You cast unholy, this quest we cannot play.
Childhood dies with all its toys left to fray
In red plastic bins and unwanted shoes.
Dark and dust, there are places a heart cannot go.
Spiderling on your dead Mother's web don't cry
Forty-four days and more, like sand
the days slip through my hands so dirty.
Luna Mother Goddess rip out my human heart.
I was cursed by you and the snake around your heart
I have four letter words I can say.
Pray, hope, and love to lay
on the moss covered altars of Feralas too.
Your snake sleeps in Sodom so low.
She shimmers in gold like a flesh sucking fly.
Forty- four days and more, I make my stand.
Cealuem priest I cry out for healing three times thirty
I was deceived by you and the snake around your heart
Oh fallen warrior in the great Forge I will stay.
Refine me Gods through trial I pray.
You think I have not loved your immoral soul too.
I loved and then let you go.
Your snake will eat your heart and say good-bye
Forty-four days and years the wind has blow in my hair strands
Experience I see knowledge in its purity
The minutes of time will do its part.
poem by Joni Moosman
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Some Advice To Those Who Will Serve Time In Prison
If instead of being hanged by the neck
you're thrown inside
for not giving up hope
in the world, your country, your people,
if you do ten or fifteen years
apart from the time you have left,
you won't say,
"Better I had swung from the end of a rope
like a flag" --
You'll put your foot down and live.
It may not be a pleasure exactly,
but it's your solemn duty
to live one more day
to spite the enemy.
Part of you may live alone inside,
like a tone at the bottom of a well.
But the other part
must be so caught up
in the flurry of the world
that you shiver there inside
when outside, at forty days' distance, a leaf moves.
To wait for letters inside,
to sing sad songs,
or to lie awake all night staring at the ceiling
is sweet but dangerous.
Look at your face from shave to shave,
forget your age,
watch out for lice
and for spring nights,
and always remember
to eat every last piece of bread--
also, don't forget to laugh heartily.
And who knows,
the woman you love may stop loving you.
Don't say it's no big thing:
it's like the snapping of a green branch
to the man inside.
To think of roses and gardens inside is bad,
to think of seas and mountains is good.
Read and write without rest,
and I also advise weaving
and making mirrors.
I mean, it's not that you can't pass
ten or fifteen years inside
and more --
you can,
as long as the jewel
on the left side of your chest doesn't lose it's luster!
May 1949
Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)
poem by Nazim Hikmet
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A Red Palm
You're in this dream of cotton plants.
You raise a hoe, swing, and the first weeds
Fall with a sigh. You take another step,
Chop, and the sigh comes again,
Until you yourself are breathing that way
With each step, a sigh that will follow you into town.
That's hours later. The sun is a red blister
Coming up in your palm. Your back is strong,
Young, not yet the broken chair
In an abandoned school of dry spiders.
Dust settles on your forehead, dirt
Smiles under each fingernail.
You chop, step, and by the end of the first row,
You can buy one splendid fish for wife
And three sons. Another row, another fish,
Until you have enough and move on to milk,
Bread, meat. Ten hours and the cupboards creak.
You can rest in the back yard under a tree.
Your hands twitch on your lap,
Not unlike the fish on a pier or the bottom
Of a boat. You drink iced tea. The minutes jerk
Like flies.
It's dusk, now night,
And the lights in your home are on.
That costs money, yellow light
In the kitchen. That's thirty steps,
You say to your hands,
Now shaped into binoculars.
You could raise them to your eyes:
You were a fool in school, now look at you.
You're a giant among cotton plants.
Now you see your oldest boy, also running.
Papa, he says, it's time to come in.
You pull him into your lap
And ask, What's forty times nine?
He knows as well as you, and you smile.
The wind makes peace with the trees,
The stars strike themselves in the dark.
You get up and walk with the sigh of cotton plants.
You go to sleep with a red sun on your palm,
The sore light you see when you first stir in bed.
People come People go Who stays?
People go
To their synagogues mosques churches temples nightclubs and bars
People go to feel good People go
People go
To pray their prayers sing their songs drink their beers and dance their beat
People go
To be better feel better seek better because they know best
People go
When will people come
To know less experience more and give all
People come People go
Who stays?
poem by Lindsay Maasdorp
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I Am Told
For forty four years now
Each morning I woke up
I go straight to prepare
A cup of coffee for my wife
It's a ritual that I do
For forty four years
Not that she asks for it
But it's what I love to do
Love is what commands me
To lit a kettle to boil a water
For she likes it when its so hot
A coffee she drinks quite early
Suddenly, now that it's our anniversary
I do the thing I 've been doing ever since
We got married for forty four years back
Yet for the first time I am told just so today
That the coffee I served her now tasted bad
poem by Marvin Brato Sr
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(Comparison Poem) As A Child
As a child I was picked on, tortured, and humiliated
A outcast of the worst sort.
A child who had no voice of his own
No say
No reason to celebrate
Yet I did every day
As a child I didn't know the way
As I don't even now
No guidance has ever been just given to me
I had to search for it to be found
Even now I prefer living alone
Over the fairytale home
As a child I failed
I dropped out of school
Only to work in a factory
No It wasn't to be cool
I didn't have choice
For my back was to be broken
And food needed to be put on the table
If not me, who would
Protecting my family as one should
As child I dreamed of the stars
Now I dream of the different
An alternate existence
One unknown
Something to just let me get by for the rest of life
As a child I thought I knew of love
Now I'm still searching for it
Like a dog after his favorite bone
I have my passions
Some would say their nothing more then dressed up fashions
But they are mine
And nobody can take them away from me
As I child I wanted be rich
Now I see fortune and fame as nothing more then a game
People play
People go
And people stay
For one discovers many hidden talents
In desperate times
I rather do something I love
Then love something I have
As a child I had very little friends
And now I have even less
None dependable as they use to be
Most want something from me.
It so hard to say sorry I just don't got any
As a child I was mild
Now I'm even more layed back.
Haven't got into a physical fight years
If it comes to that I'll just disappear
When whom ever is near
Avoidance above confrontation
A coward I'm not
For if it can be defused
I will give it all I got
Those I love are the only ones i'll fight for
It is as I was a child
poem by Ace Of Black Hearts
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Thirty three years
Thirty three years
~
Soon I turn thirty three
And wonder what I have to show
I feel I have achieved very little
And have been going nowhere fast
I fear I am stuck in my ways
And this is my lot for life
I sit alone in writing this morning
With my usual coffee for one
I have loved, had my heart broken
Let opportunities slip away
Now I tend to do nothing
At least I wont feel hurt that way
I have spent time in solitary
And lost touch with the world
Please try and remember that
To excuse my lack of social grace
The pace of each year is picking up
While I am still young in some eyes
Still may yet have a lot to achieve
I look at the past thirty two years
And see myself an old man
Lonely and turning thirty three
poem by Matthew Holloway
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The People Want Peace
Got to land those war planes....,
Bury the guns....,
Hold back the subs...,
All the missles and bombs...,
Raise your voices high...,
And start singin' with me....,
Let's do what's right....,
I know you'll agree....,
The People Want Peace....,
There's no other way...,
The People Want Peace....,
Startin' today....,
From the south to the north....,
West to the east....,
There's no doubt in my mind....,
The People Want Peace....! ! !
We worked and we slaved....,
For so many years....,
Let's share some laughter....,
Forget all the tears....,
I know we can live....,
Without envy and greed....,
With freedom to choose....,
That's why I believe....,
The People Want Peace....,
There's no other way...,
The People Want Peace....,
Startin' today....,
From the south to the north....,
West to the east....,
There's no doubt in my mind....,
The People Want Peace....! ! !
poem by Trade Martin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Contradictions
Why should it be,
Someone like me could make the same mistakes again.
Haven't I learned,
People get hurt,
When they go diving in the deep end
In the deep end,
In the deep end,
In the deep end.
Thought I was smart,
Controlling the art, of turning off my intuition
Haven't I seen, since I was fourteen.
That life is all just repitition
You lose or you win,
You sink or you swim,
When you go diving in the deep end,
In the deep end,
In the deep end,
In the deep end.
Now it's time to realise,
You don't have to agonise
You don't have to compromise
But the one thing you must do
Is open your eyes
Your eyes,
Your eyes.
Why should it be,
Someone like me could make the same mistakes again.
Haven't I learned,
People get hurt,
When they go diving,
Diving, diving (fade).
song performed by by Natalie Imbruglia
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Thirty Frames A Second
Today I saw a film going backwards
Thirty frames a second
Was a man I recognised
Say who you are
I lost my job
Security
Self confidence
Bank account
Identity
The league of youth
Coming backward at me
Thirty frames a second
Say who you are
Go back to father
Father wheres my food?
You food is on the table
That cant be food
Its dirt
Say who you are
Look at my skin
Look at my face
Look at my arms
Getting younger
Going backwards
Thirty frames a second
Say who you are
I crash my car
Collapse in town
Young immigrants
And legionaires
Fighting back back backwards
Thirty frames a second
Say who you are
Some friends of mine
I thought were dead
A coming back
What are you doing coming back
Jack
Say who you are
Feel Im going backwards
Thirty frames a second
Lyrics : j kerr music : simple minds (c) emi publishing ltd reproduced without permission
song performed by by Simple Minds
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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What They Will Say
Some times, I wonder if I write for the future.
That may seem like a strange statement to make.
Forty-three years ago, I wrote a poem
that at the time no one wanted to know.
Now it is my best-loved poem
read by countless people around the world.
Thirty years ago, I wrote two poems
and each one won me an award,
but at the time I wrote them,
no one wanted to know.
All of which makes me wonder
if what I wrote in my yesteryears
that then none wanted to know.
Could they all be popular now?
Today I started collecting and retyping
short stories I wrote twenty years ago.
At the time, publishers and agents
didn’t want to know.
Now twenty year on
I am wondering what they will say.
24 January 2009
poem by David Harris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Rebecca
Past loves you always remember
and Rebecca I’ve never forgot.
It was in May when we first met,
and the days were unusually hot.
We were both sixteen and innocent,
and love’s spark grew into a flame.
Desire and passion overwhelmed us,
and our deepest love was to blame.
Early evenings we spent together
and most of our weekend days.
We made love wherever we could,
and in so many different ways.
At eighteen she wanted to marry,
but I said we were too young.
She of course didn’t agree
and of course I was wrong.
We fell out and didn’t see each other
for maybe a week or more,
and then we both apologised,
and made love like never before.
Our relationship became a volcano
in every sense of the word.
One moment all was calm and beautiful,
and then, eruptions could be heard.
Following another reconciliation
we decided to go our separate ways.
This time there was no going back;
there were no more loving days.
She soon found another lover,
and got married without delay.
Nine months after our separation
a baby had come her way.
Because she made no contact
I assumed the baby wasn’t mine.
I never thought any more about it,
and my life was ticking over fine.
Two years later we met by accident
and I asked if the child was mine.
With a grin she changed the subject,
so the answer I couldn’t find.
After forty years had passed,
Rebecca knocked at my door,
and said the woman by her side
is the daughter I should adore.
“Well! After all this time, ” I said,
“how do I know it’s true? ”
“Just look at her, ” she said,
“she’s the spitting image of you.
I brought her here to see you
because she seemed to know
that her dad wasn’t her father,
and she repeatedly told me so.
She pleaded with me to tell the truth
and since my husband recently died.
I felt that I had to tell her about you,
and apologised for all the years I lied.
It would’ve broken my husband’s heart
if he had found out that I had lied,
and so I had to explain to my daughter
why I thought the lie was justified.”
“What a shock! I don’t know what to say,
or come to that, what to do.
I better begin by saying,
“Hello daughter, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
poem by Orlando Belo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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