Anda di halaman 1dari 6

THE WORLD OF DEW

Kobayashi Issa (Japan, 1763-1827)


The world of dew
Is a world of dew, and yet
And yet
POEM
e. e. cummings (US, 1894-1962)
1(a
1e
af
fa
11
s)
one
1
iness
AUTUMN
Rainer Maria Rilke (Bohemia-Austria, 1825-1926)
(trans. Ernest Kroll)
The leaves are falling, falling down the air
As though the gardens of the heavens withered;
Falling all with gestures of despair.
And in the night the heavy earth is falling
Past all the stars, down, down to loneliness.
We are all falling. This hand falls through
The loneliness with other things, now falling too.
Yet there is one who holds this falling
Gently in his hands, with endless gentleness.
TO THE MAN I MARRIED
Angela Manalang Gloria (1907-1995)
You are my earth and all the earth implies:
The gravity that ballasts me in space,
The air I breathe, the land that stills my cries
For food and shelter against devouring days.
You are the earth whose orbit marks my way
And sets my north and south, my east and west,
You are the final, elemented clay
The driven heart must turn to for its rest.
If in your arms that hold me now so near
I lift my keening thoughts to Helicon

As trees long rooted to the earth uprear


Their quickening leaves and flowers to the sun,
You who are earth, O never doubt that I
Need you no less because I need the sky!
TREE WITHOUT LEAVES
Lina Sagaral Reyes (Philippines, 1961- )
How your leaving unleafed me.
Wide wide lakes of leaves,
The crackle of breaking
Underfoot.
Memory became a bare crown
Of boughs as taut as the dark-eyed
Nipples of women
Facing the honest mirror of fears.
You have strength I cant name,
Once you told me.
Now you must
Know: as winds churn
The leaf-lakes below,
I stand
Rooting with the power
You knew
and named Nameless.
On the rough nodes of my evening
Fireflies nestle,
Blooming.

I CAN WRITE THE SADDEST LINES TONIGHT


Pablo Neruda (Chile, 1904-1973)
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
Write for example: The night is fractured
and they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance
The night wind turns in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
I loved her, sometimes she loved me too.
On nights like these I held her in my arms.
I kissed her greatly under the infinite sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could I not have loved her huge, still eyes.
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
To think I dont have her, to feel I have lost her.
Hear the vast night, vaster without her.
Lines fall on the soul like dew on the grass.

What does it matter that I couldnt keep her.


The night is fractured and she is not with me.
That is all. Someone sings far off. Far off,
my soul is not content to have lost her.
As though to reach her, my sight looks for her.
My heart looks for her: she is not with me
The same night whitens, in the same branches.
We, from that time, we are not the same.
I dont love her, thats certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the breeze to reach her.
Anothers kisses on her, like my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body, infinite eyes.
I dont love her, thats certain, but perhaps I love her.
Love is brief: forgetting lasts so long.
Since, on these nights, I held her in my arms,
my soul is not content to have lost her.
Though this is the last pain she will make me suffer,
and these are the last lines I will write for her.
YOU WHO NEVER ARRIVED
Rainer Maria Rilke (Bohemia-Austria, 1875-1926)
You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of
the next moment. All the immense
images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt
landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and
unsuspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods-all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.
You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house-- , and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,-you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and,
startled, gave back my too-sudden image.
Who knows? Perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening...

SOUTHBOUND ON THE FREEWAY


May Swenson (US, 1913-1989)
A tourist came in from Orbitville,
parked in the air, and said:
The creatures of this star
are made of metal and glass.
Through the transparent parts
you can see their guts.
Their feet are round and roll
on diagramsor long
measuring tapesdark
with white lines.
They have four eyes.
The two in the back are red.
Sometimes you can see a 5-eyed
one, his red eye turning
on the top of his head.
he must be special
the others respect him,
and go slow,
when he passes, winding
among them from behind.
They all hiss as they glide,
like inches, down the marked
tapes. Those soft shapes,
shadowy inside
the hard bodiesare they
their guts or their brains?
TONIGHT AT NOON
Adrian Henri (UK, 1932-2000)
Tonight at noon
Supermarkets will advertise 3p extra on everything
Tonight at noon
Children from happy families will be sent to live in a home
Elephants will tell each other human jokes
America will declare peace on Russia
World War I generals will sell poppies on the street on November 11th
The first daffodils of autumn will appear
When the leaves fall upwards to the trees
Tonight at noon
Pigeons will hunt cats through city backyards
Hitler will tell us to fight on the beaches and on the landing fields

A tunnel full of water will be built under Liverpool


Pigs will be sighted flying in formation over Woolton
And Nelson will not only get his eye back but his arm as well
White Americans will demonstrate for equal rights
In front of the Black House
And the monster has just created Dr. Frankenstein
Girls in bikinis are moonbathing
Folksongs are being sung by real folk
Art galleries are closed to people over 21
Poets get their poems in the Top 20
Theres jobs for everybody and nobody wants them
In back alleys everywhere teenage lovers are kissing in broad daylight
In forgotten graveyards everywhere the dead will quietly bury the living
and
You will tell me you love me
Tonight at noon
VARIABLES OF GREEN
Robert Graves (UK, 1895-1985)
Grass-green and aspen green,
Laurel-green and sea-green,
Fine-emerald-green,
And many another hue:
As green commands the variables of green
So love my loves of you.
WE REAL COOL
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)
The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
From ROMEO AND JULIET
William Shakespeare (England, 1564-1616)
ROMEO
[To JULIET] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;

For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,


And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
ROMEO
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
ROMEO
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.

Anda mungkin juga menyukai