Far Within Us #2
Look here's that uninvited
Alien presence look it's here
A shudder on the ocean of tea in the cup
Rust taking hold
On the edges of our laughter
A snake coiled in the depths of the mirror
Will I be able to hide you
From your face in mine
Look it's the third shadow
On our imagined walk
Unexpected abyss
Between our words
Hoofs clattering
Below the vaults of our palates
Will I be able
On this unrest-field
To raise you a tent of my hands
Trans. by Anne Pennington
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poem by Vasko Popa
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Far Within Us #3
Unquiet you walk
Along the rims of my eyes
On the invisible grating
Before your lips
My naked words shiver
We steal moments
From the unheeding iron saws
Your hands sadly
Flow into mine
The air is impassable
Trans. by Anne Pennington
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poem by Vasko Popa
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Far Within Us #7
Toothed eyes fly
Over still waters
Around us purple lips
Flutter from branches
Screams hit the blue
And fall onto pillows
Our homes hide
Behind narrow backs
Hands clutch at
Flimsy clouds
Our veins roll turbid
Bed and tables
Of shattered bones
Noon has fallen into our hands
And turned all gloomy
An open grave on the face of the earth
On your face on my face
Trans. by Anne Pennington
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poem by Vasko Popa
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Give Me Back My Rags #11
I've wiped your face off my face
Ripped your shadow off my shadow
Leveled the hills in you
Turned your plains into hills
Set your seasons quarreling
Turned all the ends of the world from you
Wrapped the path of my life around you
My impenetrable my impossible path
Just try to meet me now
Trans. by Anne Pennington
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poem by Vasko Popa
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Give Me Back My Rags #4
Get out of my walled infinity
Of the star circle round my heart
Of my mouthful of sun
Get out of the comic sea of my blood
Of my flow of my ebb
Get out of my stranded silence
Get out I said get out
Get out of my living abyss
Of the bare father-tree within me
Get out how long must I cry get out
Get out of my bursting head
Get out just get out
Trans. by Anne Pennington
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poem by Vasko Popa
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Far Within Us #6
From the wrinkle between my brows
You watch till day breaks
On my face
The waxen night
Is beginning to singe
The fingers of dawn
Black bricks
Have already tiled
The whole dome of the sky
Trans. by Anne Pennington
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poem by Vasko Popa
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Far Within Us #5
The nights are running out of darkness
Steel branches grasp
The arms of passers-by
Only anonymour chimneys
Are free to walk the streets
Which slice across our sleeplessness
In the gutters our stars decay
Trans. by Anne Pennington
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poem by Vasko Popa
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Give Me Back My Rags
Just come to my mind
My thoughts will scratch out your face
Just come into my sight
My eyes will start snarling at you
Just open your mouth
My silence will smash your jaws
Just remind me of you
My remembering will paw up the ground under your feet
That's what it's come to between us
Trans. by Anne Pennington
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poem by Vasko Popa
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Far Within Us #4
Green gloves rustle
On the avenue's branches
The evening carries us under its arm
By a path which leaves no trace
The rain falls on its knees
Before the fugitive windows
The yards come out of their gates
And stand looking after us
Trans. by Anne Pennington
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poem by Vasko Popa
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Far Within Us #1
We raise our arms
The street climbs into the sky
We lower our eyes
The roofs go down into the earth
From every pain
We do not mention
Grows a chestnut tree
That stays mysterious behind us
From every hope
We cherish
Sprouts a star
That moves unreachable before us
Can you hear a bullet
Flying about our heads
Can you hear a bullet
Waiting to ambush our kiss
Trans. by Anne Pennington
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poem by Vasko Popa
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Give Me Back My Rags #1
Give me back my rags
My rags of pure dreaming
Of silk smiling of striped foreboding
Of my cloth of lace
My rags of spotted hope
Of burnished desire of chequered glances
Of skin from my face
Give me back my rags
Give me when I ask you nicely
Trans. by Anne Pennington
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poem by Vasko Popa
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Give Me Back My Rags #12
Enough chattering violets enough sweet trash
I won't hear anything know anything
Enough enough of all
I'll say the last enough
Fill my mouth with earth
Grit my teeth
To break off you skull guzzler
To break off once for all
I'll just be what I am
Without root without branch without crown
I'll lean on myself
On my own bumps and bruises
I'll be the hawthorn stake through you
That's all I can be in you
In you spoilsport in you muddlehead
Get lost
Trans. by Anne Pennington
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poem by Vasko Popa
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A Conceited Mistake
Once upon a time there was a mistake
So silly so small
That no one would even have noticed it
It couldn't bear
To see itself to hear of itself
It invented all manner of things
Just to prove
that it didn't really exist
It invented space
To put its proofs in
And time to keep its proofs
And the world to see its proofs
All it invented
Was not so silly
Nor so small
But was of course mistaken
Could it have been otherwise
Trans. Anne Pennington
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poem by Vasko Popa
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See Me In The Mirror
Do you see me standing here,
locked up inside your mirror?
I watch you every day,
standing here inside your mirror.
Why can’t you look over here
at your mirror and see me floating,
waiting to be heard.
I talk to you for hours but
you never hear.
Your mirror keeps me bound
here, unable to touch, stuck in here.
I see you look around nervously,
as if you can sense my presence in here.
I shout, I stomp, I scream and yell.
You turn, quickly, to your mirror.
Your eyes widen with fear.
No! , I yell as you turn away.
Please don’t leave me alone in here.
It’s cold and lonely, please speak to me.
Your shoulders stiffen and
then relax outside your mirror.
Finally, you look at me and speak.
You ask me why I’m here and stay.
I tell you I don’t know.
I’m just stuck standing in your mirror.
You poor thing, you say, feeling sorry for me.
It’s alright, I say, you’ve kept me company all day.
You come closer and stand nearer to your mirror.
You raise your hand to the glass, and I raise mine.
A vibrant burst of beautiful light emanates from your mirror.
Real. I feel your hand touch mine.
I feel the roughness and the smoothness.
Free at last, I am finally real, to come and go as I feel.
To touch and be touched, and to give and take.
I kiss your cheeks and your mouth.
Thank you, I tell your shocked face.
Your rough hands cup my shocked face.
You return my hesitant kisses with your assured ones.
You are mine, girl in the mirror, you tell me.
I am yours, boy outside the mirror, I tell you.
Finally we are together.
poem by Brooke Harris
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Man Watches And Sees
Man watches you hide behind
your shadow.
Why do you think you need to
to hide?
No man should want to hide
along side or behind his
shadow.
Stand up and show your
face to man.
Your life will still travel on.
And your shadow, will
follow behind.
No shadow can stay still
even at your will.
You are, your shadow of you..
You'll always travel together
It'll be forever.
No man can travel without
his shadow.
As long as there is light
from earth or man made.
Then you will always travel along
with your shadow
poem by Gayle Anne Goff
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The Play
I am the only actor.
It is difficult for one woman
to act out a whole play.
The play is my life,
my solo act.
My running after the hands
and never catching up.
(The hands are out of sight -
that is, offstage.)
All I am doing onstage is running,
running to keep up,
but never making it.
Suddenly I stop running.
(This moves the plot along a bit.)
I give speeches, hundreds,
all prayers, all soliloquies.
I say absurd things like:
egss must not quarrel with stones
or, keep your broken arm inside your sleeve
or, I am standing upright
but my shadow is crooked.
And such and such.
Many boos. Many boos.
Despite that I go on to the last lines:
To be without God is to be a snake
who wants to swallow an elephant.
The curtain falls.
The audience rushes out.
It was a bad performance.
That’s because I’m the only actor
and there are few humans whose lives
will make an interesting play.
Don’t you agree?
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poem by Anne Sexton
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Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
Rendezvous on Champs-Elysees
Leave Paris in the morning on T.E.E.
Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
In Vienna we sit in a late-night cafe
Straight connection, T.E.E.
Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
From station to station
back to Dusseldorf City
Meet Iggy Pop and David Bowie
Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express
song performed by by Kraftwerk
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Noon Walk On The Asylum Lawn
The summer sun ray
shifts through a suspicious tree.
though I walk through the valley of the shadow
It sucks the air
and looks around for me.
The grass speaks.
I hear green chanting all day.
I will fear no evil, fear no evil
The blades extend
and reach my way.
The sky breaks.
It sags and breathes upon my face.
In the presence of mine enemies, mine enemies
The world is full of enemies.
There is no safe place.
poem by Anne Sexton
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Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market
Among the market greens,
a bullet
from the ocean
depths,
a swimming
projectile,
I saw you,
dead.
All around you
were lettuces,
sea foam
of the earth,
carrots,
grapes,
but
of the ocean
truth,
of the unknown,
of the
unfathomable
shadow, the
depths
of the sea,
the abyss,
only you had survived,
a pitch-black, varnished
witness
to deepest night.
Only you, well-aimed
dark bullet
from the abyss,
mangled
at one tip,
but constantly
reborn,
at anchor in the current,
winged fins
windmilling
in the swift
flight
of
the
marine
shadow,
a mourning arrow,
dart of the sea,
olive, oily fish.
I saw you dead,
a deceased king
of my own ocean,
green
assault, silver
submarine fir,
seed
of seaquakes,
now
only dead remains,
yet
in all the market
yours
was the only
purposeful form
amid
the bewildering rout
of nature;
amid the fragile greens
you were
a solitary ship,
armed
among the vegetables
fin and prow black and oiled,
as if you were still
the vessel of the wind,
the one and only
pure
ocean
machine:
unflawed, navigating
the waters of death.
poem by Pablo Neruda
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The Sea And The Man
You will not tame this sea
either by humility or rapture.
But you can laugh
in its face.
Laughter
was invented by those
who live briefly
as a burst of laughter.
The eternal sea
will never learn to laugh.
Translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan
Anonymous Submission
poem by Anna Swirszczynska
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Trans Europa Express
Trans Europa Express
Trans Europa Express
Trans Europa Express
Trans Europa Express
Rendez-vous auf den Champs Elysees
Verlass Paris am Morgen mit dem TEE
Trans Europa Express
Trans Europa Express
Trans Europa Express
Trans Europa Express
In Wien sitzen wir im Nachtcafe
Direkt Verbindung TEE
Trans Europa Express
Trans Europa Express
Trans Europa Express
Trans Europa Express
Wir laufen 'rein in Duesseldorf City
Und treffen Iggy Pop und David Bowie
song performed by by Kraftwerk
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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