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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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 #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 #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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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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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 #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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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 #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 #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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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 #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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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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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

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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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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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Running Free
Just sixteen a pick up truck
Out of money out of luck
Ive got no place to call my own
Hit the gas and here I go
Im running free yeah, Im running free
Im running free yeah, Im running free
Spend the night in an l.a. jail
Listen to the sirens wail
But they aint got a thing on me
Im running wild Im running free
Im running free yeah, Im running free
Im running free yeah, Im running free
Pulled her at the bottle top
Whiskey dancing disco hop
And all the boys are after me
And thats the way its gonna be
Im running free yeah, Im running free
Im running free yeah, Im running free
song performed by by Iron Maiden

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Anonymous Ghurl
Anonymous Ghurl Anonymous Ghurl
Said one day to her mother
'I'll be me and no one else
I'll never be another'
Anonymous Ghurl Anonymous Ghurl
Said one day to her dad
'The things that you have done to me
They make me feel so sad'
Anonymous Ghurl Anonymous Ghurl
Said one day to God
'How can I belive in you
You are such a fraud'
Anonymous Ghurl Anonymous Ghurl
Said one day to her friend
'I don't want to go on any more
I want it all to end'
Anonymous Ghurl Anonymous Ghurl
Said one day to no one
'I can't go on anymore
As she pulled the trigger of the gun'
Anonymous Ghurl Anonymous Ghurl
Said one day to me
'Leave your body far behind
And you too can be free'
poem by Anonymous Ghurl

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I Walk These Streets Alone
I walk these streets alone why U ask, because that's all i know and the reason i'm so ignorant is because him always on the go
I walk these streets alone meeting customer after customer getting in and out of random cars
I walk these streets alone as if the streets are empty as i go on my devilish duty.
I walk these streets alone clueless to the danger surrounding me, as if him invisible to any danger.
I walk the streets alone as if every person i meet sees me as a stranger.
I walk these streets alone, as sad as it may seem i prefer my own company but at times i still get lonely.
I walk these streets alone but don't feel sorry for me, for i know what i'm getting myself into. and i know the consequences if i get caught
I walk these streets alone regardless of what I've been taught...
poem by Leon Scott

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A Forgetful Number
Once upon a time there was a number
Pure and round like the sun
But alone very much alone
It began to reckon with itself
It divided multiplied itself
It subtracted added itself
And remained always alone
It stopped reckoning with itself
And shut itself up in its round
And sunny purity
Outside were left the fiery
Traces of its reckoning
They began to chase each other through the dark
To divide when they should have multiplied themselves
To subtract when they should have added themselves
That's what happens in the dark
And there was no one to ask it
To stop the traces
And to rub them out.
Trans. Anne Pennington
poem by Vasko Popa

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Anne Pennington
Until her last breath she enlarges
Her Oxford house
Built in Slavonic
Vowels and consonants
She polishes the corner-stones
Until their Anglo-Saxon shine
Begins to sing
Her death is like a short breath-stop
Under the distant limetrees of her friends
Trans. by Peter Jay, Anthony Rudolf, and Daniel Weissbort
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poem by Vasko Popa

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