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 #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
Anonymous submission.
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
Anonymous submission.
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
Anonymous submission.
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
Anonymous submission.
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
Anonymous submission.
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
Anonymous submission.
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
Anonymous submission.
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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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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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
Anonymous submission.
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
Anonymous submission.
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
Anonymous submission.
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

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Outlaw Torn
You know I wait my whole lifetime for you
I ride the dirt I ride the tide for you
I search the outside search inside for you
To take back what you left me
I know I'll always burn to be
No one seeks so I may find
And now I wait my whole lifetime
My whole lifetime
So on I wait my whole lifetime for you
So on I wait my whole lifetime for you
The more I search the more my need for you
The more I blast the more I bleed for you
You make me smash the clock and feel
I'd rather die behind the wheel
Time was never on my side
So on I wait my whole lifetime
My whole lifetime
And I'm torn
And if I close my mind in fear
Please pry it open
And if my face becomes sincere
Beware
And when I start to come undone
Stitch me together
And when you see me stretched remind me of what left this outlaw torn
And if I close my mind in fear
Please pry it open
And if my face becomes sincere
Beware
And when I start to come undone
Stitch me together
And when you see me stretched remind me of what left this outlaw torn
song performed by by Metallica

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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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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Morning Prayer
may my feet
follow my heart,
may the door to my heart
open both ways.
may my hands
always be open,
may my mouth
support my ears
by silence.
may my eyes
remain naked,
may my soul be connected.
may my thoughts,
words, and actions,
be the breath of compassion.
poem by Eric Cockrell

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Aztec Mask
I wanted a man’s face looking into the jaws and throat of life
With something proud on his face, so proud no smash of the jaws,
No gulp of the throat leaves the face in the end
With anything else than the old proud look:
Even to the finish, dumped in the dust,
Lost among the used-up cinders,
This face, men would say, is a flash,
Is laid on bones taken from the ribs of the earth,
Ready for the hammers of changing, changing years,
Ready for the sleeping, sleeping years of silence.
Ready for the dust and fire and wind.
I wanted this face and I saw it today in an Aztec mask.
A cry out of storm and dark, a red yell and a purple prayer,
A beaten shape of ashes
waiting the sunrise or night,
something or nothing,
proud-mouthed,
proud-eyed gambler.
poem by Carl Sandburg

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Rachab
Open your mouth and begin to eat,
Move your legs and begin to walk,
Open your mind and start to learn,
Move your hands and start to work,
Because you need ice-cold water on this love like taxi-drivers and food sellers!
For the begining was from the blink of your eyes,
But beauty is your name so sweet oh Rachab my lover;
So open your eyes on this love and let us live together.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis

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Divorce
Woke up suddenly thinking I heard crying.
Rushed through the dark house.
Stopped, remembering. Stood looking
out at bright moonlight on concrete.
Anonymous submission.
poem by Jack Gilbert

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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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